Back to Early Modern Elmbridge
In which Thomas Stydolf, Justice of the Peace for Walton and Weybridge, seeks advice, and the reasons why his master, Thomas Cromwell, the Commissioner for Peace in Surrey, is otherwise engaged.
PART 1: Walton and Weybridge
A letter to Thomas Cromwell, Master Secretary, from Thomas Stydolf, Justice of the Peace1.
Hamm Court, Weybridge, Tuesday, 2 May 1536
Yesterday, the first of May, a man by the name of Colyn, a bargeman, lying in wait in the evening in the Old Hithe2 adjoining Walton Mead, met with a damsel of twelve or thirteen years old, named Alice Haymond, a servant to John Macyn of Weybridge, also a bargeman, who was riding on horseback with two bushels of corn under her to Molesey Milne3. He plucked her from her horse by force, carried her into a wood called Low Wood, and taking from her, with extreme violence, a knife, he pricked her in the flesh in diverse places constraining her to ravishment. Once he had his pleasure, he took from her purse five pennies and a nutmeg; then, intending to murder her, he gave her many blows with his staff, supposing to have left her there dead, so that a more piteous creature being alive no man could behold. Leaving her in this state he came to Walton; and shortly after, one Thomas West, of Walton, a blacksmith, went to look upon his cow pasturing in a common pasture called Cowey, and hearing a piteous noise he approached and found her in a ditch, and with the help of one Thomas Colyar, took her up, and set her on horseback, and so brought her to Walton. There being in the street more than a hundred young people, and he being one, she pointed her finger at him, saying, “Thou art he who ravished and killed me.”
When he was brought before me, he confessed the whole truth. I have not yet committed him to gaol, till I know your pleasure whether you will have a commission directed here to Mr. Danaster, and such as you shall please, that the party may suffer here where the deed was done, as an example to vagrant and suspected persons in these parts, of whom we have too many.
Signed, Thomas Stydolf.
On Monday, the first of May 1536, taking advantage of a day away from labouring in the fields, the villagers of Walton went out into the forests and meadows gathering flowers and branches to decorate their homes and the church, before congregating on the common, where a maypole, with billowing ribbons for the ‘spirits’ to dance with, had been erected. In the afternoon, a group of travelling actors in costumes and painted faces, performed a Mummer’s play, and the May Queen was chosen from amongst the village girls, whilst the onlookers enjoyed themselves singing, dancing and drinking.
Most of the residents of Walton knew each other by sight, but at the edges of the crowd, there were a few unknown faces. There had been many sightings lately of vagrants arriving in increasing numbers — in ones and twos then small groups — setting up makeshift camps in the woods, and spending the days begging in the streets. Some of them were identified as bargemen whose livelihood ebbed and flowed with the fluctuating commercial prospects, and it was a common sight to see gangs of labourers and horses on the towpath waiting to be hired. It was hard, physical work, and they were exposed to the elements so even the younger ones looked wind beaten. When employed, they spent their time at docks and wharfs, in the company of other rough types, where coarse language and rowdy behaviour were the norm. It was suspected, when illness ran rife through the town, that they brought back disease with them. Whilst there were, no doubt, many honest men amongst their number, there were enough tales of overcharging, or robbery and stealing of goods, to create a certain reputation. Some bargemen would disappear for a few days or weeks, then show up again out of work, and it was during these periods of idleness that the townspeople feared their behaviour would turn unpredictable and possibly dangerous.
It was turning dark when Thomas Stydolf, who lived in the manor house at Hamm Court4 in Weybridge, heard a knock at the door and opened it to find his constable in the courtyard, accompanied by three youths, one of whom was clearly under arrest. He invited them into the hall, and listened as the story was re-told. The victim, a girl, had been taken home by the constable’s wife who had arranged to send the doctor, and he now had to decide how to proceed with her assailant. As a Justice of the Peace — an unpaid role but one that came with some prestige — he reported to the Commissioner for the Peace for Surrey, one of the many titles retained by Thomas Cromwell, and he was in irregular correspondence with him when issues arose that had an impact beyond the parish boundary. The majority of the cases that were brought to him, however, were administrative and could be dealt with immediately, such as being made aware of roads that had become impassable or bridges that were unsafe, or being asked to sign a licence for a new public house. Occasionally, he would be asked to intervene when a theft had occurred, or someone had been caught poaching, or where vagabonds had been seen to gather — which was becoming increasingly commonplace — and he was asked to move them on.
But this was more serious; whilst assault with intent to rape was a misdemeanour, rape was a capital offence, and his decision would have consequences. His first thought was to send Colyn to the county jail, to await the Assize judges from the Inns of Court who would next arrive on their Home Circuit at the end of the summer. Then he considered the facts: this was obviously an opportunistic and violent attack, caused by ungodly impulses amplified by ale, on a defenceless girl whose injuries provided physical evidence of his aggression and her fighting back. Secondly, he had witnesses – the girl herself who had identified her attacker, and the blacksmith who had found her in her distressed state, and the other youth who had been present when she identified Colyn among the May Day crowds. Furthermore, he had a confession of guilt from the perpetrator. All this added up to a much more straightforward case, that did not necessarily need to wait until the Assize court, but could instead be dealt with at the next Quarter Session in Guildford or Kingston. Or maybe, better still, he knew that on occasion Cromwell had arranged for a special commission to be convened at short notice to resolve such matters. He remembered just such a case in Southwark the year before, a ‘gaol delivery’ to clear the overcrowding, when he had not been able to attend because he had been ill with a cold, and the rivers levels had been so high that the roads were flooded. There could be a further advantage, in that Master Colyn was clearly not from this area, and so a show trial would have the benefit of acting as a warning to other such unsavoury characters, of the swift application of local justice.
He decided that he should write to Thomas Cromwell for advice. Having given the letter to his usual courier, he waited a few days, but unusually no reply was forthcoming, and he wondered what was occupying his master’s attention.
PART 2: Greenwich and the Tower of London
A letter to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor from Eustace Chapuys, Imperial Ambassador to England5.
Austin Friars, Tuesday, 2 May 1536
Your Majesty will remember what I wrote about the beginning of last month, of the conversation I had with Cromwell about the divorce of this King from the Concubine. I have since heard the will of the Princess (Mary), by which, as I wrote, I meant to be guided, and which was that I should promote the matter… accordingly I used several means, both with Cromwell and with others, of which I have not hitherto written, awaiting some certain issue of the affair, which, in my opinion, has come to pass much better than anybody could have believed, to the great disgrace of the Concubine, who by the judgment of God has been brought in full daylight from Greenwich to the Tower of London, conducted by the Duke of Norfolk, the two Chamberlains, of the realm and of the chamber, and only four women have been left to her. The report is that it is for adultery, in which she has long continued, with a player on the spinet of her chamber, who has been this morning lodged in the Tower, and Mr. Norris, the most private and familiar “sommelier de corps” of the King, for not having revealed the matter.
The Concubine’s brother, named Rocheford, has also been lodged in the Tower, but more than six hours after the others, and three or four before his sister; and even if the said crime of adultery had not been discovered, this King, as I have been for some days informed by good authority, had determined to abandon her; for there were witnesses testifying that a marriage passed nine years before had been made and fully consummated between her and the earl of Northumberland, and the King would have declared himself earlier, but that some one of his Council gave him to understand that he could not separate from the Concubine without tacitly confirming, not only the first marriage, but also, what he most fears, the authority of the Pope. These news are indeed new, but it is still more wonderful to think of the sudden change from yesterday to today…but I forbear particulars, not to delay the bearer, by whom you will be amply informed.
Signed, Chapuys, Eve of the Invention of Holy Cross, 1536.
Thomas Cromwell, Principal Secretary and Chief Minister of Henry VIII, had spent the days leading up to the May Day celebrations at Greenwich interviewing the ladies-in-waiting of The Queen’s household. In bits and pieces, they revealed to him stories of ‘incontinent living so rank and common’ that they were scarcely believable, involving several of the male courtiers who were personal friends of the king, and therefore frequently in the presence of a flirtatious Anne Boleyn. He was also told of conversations overheard whereby ‘there broke out a certain conspiracy of the king’s death, which extended so far that all we that had the examination of it quaked at the danger his Grace was in, and on our knees gave God laud and praise that he had preserved him so long from it.6’ The various strands had now coalesced into a timeline of adultery; all that was needed was proof of guilt from one of the accused and he would finally have the answer to the question Henry had set him: how to annul the marriage? Except that now he had the means to annihilate it.
Mark Smeaton, the musician, had been the first to submit, without as much pressure as Cromwell had expected to muster. On the first of May, as Henry watched the jousting competition from the sidelines as he was still recovering from a fall that had rendered him unconscious for two hours and aggravated his leg ulcer, Cromwell’s nephew Richard, sent to break the news, whispered in the royal ear that his wife of three years had committed treason, and that there had been a confession of guilt.
Later the same day, Henry Norris, William Brereton, Francis Weston and George Boleyn were arrested. On the second of May, Anne Boleyn was informed of her crimes and taken by barge from Greenwich to the Tower of London. That night, Henry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond, ‘went to his father to ask his blessing, and the king began to weep, saying that he and his sister, meaning the Princess Mary, were greatly bound to God for having escaped the hands of that accursed whore, who had determined to poison them; from which it is clear that the king knew something about it.7’
Between the arrests and the indictments, only a matter of days, it was Cromwell’s job to ensure that there was no disorder and that due process was followed. This meant converting the incriminating materials into legal language and accounting for the specific treasonous acts, committed at specific locations, on specified dates: ‘following daily her frail and carnal lust, she did falsely and traitorously procure by base conversations and kisses, touchings, gifts, and other infamous incitations, diverse of the king’s daily and familiar servants to be her adulterers and concubines’; and ‘alluring him with her tongue in the said George’s mouth, and the said George’s tongue in hers.’ These records were in flux, as he was receiving daily updates from Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower, who had placed a gentlewoman, Margaret Coffin, in the Queen’s rooms where she slept on a pallet bed and reported back any conversations or outbursts.
Then there were the proceedings, for which there was little precedent, to be organised. On his recommendation, the trials were divided into two: the three courtiers and the musician in one, and the Boleyn siblings in the other. The Comptroller of the Household passed on questions from the Duke of Norfolk, Anne Boleyn’s Uncle, seeking his direction as to the result of the indictments, and ‘whether they could now proceed to the trials, and how many commissioners were required, and if they should be barons or not?’ Cromwell placed himself as one of the special commissioners of Oyer and Terminer to sit in judgement over Smeaton, Brereton, Weston, and Norris. He already knew the outcome: Smeaton to plead guilty of carnal knowledge of the Queen; the others Not Guilty. The verdict — treason against all four, and execution at Tyburn.
After that came the letters. Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, wrote to him to deny any pre-contract with Anne Boleyn. The father of Thomas Wyatt, also in the Tower but as yet uncharged, wrote to ask whether Cromwell knew if and when he would be released.
Fawning requests started to arrive, almost before he had even dared to consider what might happen afterwards, for him to allocate the properties and income of the soon-to-be-dead: ‘I hear that various offenders have been committed to the Tower, among others Master Henry Norris, who has various rooms8 in the parts about me near Windsor, for which I hope you will have me in remembrance. He has the Little Park, the Park of Holy John, Perlam Park, and the room of the Black Rod, in Windsor Castle, which I shall be glad to have, as I have 14 children.’
Given the change of circumstances, Lord Lisle asked for his help to find him a new role so that he could leave the pale of Calais, where he was Lord Deputy, which he could bear no longer bear after many years across the channel. He flattered Cromwell, praising his ‘good mediation and forbearance’. At the same time, Cromwell himself was offered posts soon to become available for the same reasons, such as that of High Steward of Oxford University.
Thomas Cromwell was an important man, he was ‘the king’s ear and mind, to whom he had entrusted the entire government of the kingdom.’ His brain was filled with the chess game of royal politics, and his in-tray overflowed with the documents and letters concerning the recent tragic events, piled on top of the vast correspondence related to his usual business at hand for that same week, which from memory included:
- His Commissioners for Monasteries who reported back from their taking of inventories of the smaller religious houses: the statements of value; the state of repair of the buildings; and a list of benefactors who had left bequests of land in their wills;
- The English Ambassador at the court of France in Lyon9 who wrote to him with news of the infantry and cavalry being enlisted in Northern Italy and Southern German in anticipation of impending war between Francis 1 and Charles V, accompanied by his view on their capabilities: ‘They are all under twenty, and unused to warfare’;
- The Papal Envoy who passed on news of an Englishman, named Philip, who aspired to the Pope’s friendship by means of one of his Cardinals who had commended him as a learned and noble kinsman of Thomas More, but it seemed that it was untrue and that the man was a great scoundrel of humble birth, and that ‘if he makes his way in the Court then all the thieves in England will come too’;
- The Irish parliament who asked him for money for soldiers and sailors to combat the Scots who were landing on their shores and ‘making bands with the Wild Irish.’
This workload was at the edge of how much one man could cope with. He had help from his nephew Richard, and Ralph Sadler, his own secretary who had been placed in his household since the age of seven10, and the services of Thomas Wriothesley, but he had taken to writing himself lists, every few days, of things he must remember which he called, as a plain speaker, his ‘Remembrances.’ On Saturday the 13th of May, taking stock of all the tasks yet to be completed at the end of a fortnight that marked the end of one era and the start of another, he began a new one:
Remembrances11
Austin Friars12, Saturday, 13th May 1536.
- Firstly, remember to answer Lord Lisle’s plea to find him a new role on the mainland; then answer the Ambassador with his Grace’s response to the impending war.
- Do not forget to tackle the matters arising from the treasonous acts: the patents held by Master Norris must be researched, as has been done for Master Brereton, whose record of the values of his Holte Castle and its various domains, lands, and positions (park and forest keepers; serjeant of the peace; office of the improver etc.) have been provided; letters from privy councillors to Master Weston and his wife must be found, and bills for his offices and the annuity paid; Margaret Coffin, wife of Anne Boleyn’s master of the horse, must be rewarded for her service in imparting her words to the Constable of the Tower.
- Actions needed to be taken for Parliament: An Act for the attainder of those who are perjured in Yorkshire to be drafted; write to Ireland, for a motion to be made in their Parliament to the king’s great charges.
- Uncover evidence of ownership of the house at Kew, that Lady Seymour has her eye on, as a favour for her husband, Sir Edward Seymour .
- Sundry items: the jury in Devonshire; the jewel; the Charterhouse in London.
- Compile a list of names of those for whom bills and warrants to be signed.
Written mostly in Cromwell’s hand. There was no reminder to answer the letter from Thomas Stydolf.
Timeline
| Date | Event |
| May 1, 1536 | Alice Haymond was viciously attacked in Walton-on-Thames during May Day celebrations; King Henry VIII was informed of his wife’s adultery whilst watching a jousting competition in Greenwich. |
| May 2, 1536 | Thomas Stydolf, Justice of the Peace, wrote to Thomas Cromwell asking for advice about the attack in Walton; Eustace Chapuys wrote to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, with news of Anne Boleyn’s arrest. |
| May 3rd-12th 1536 | Thomas Cromwell organised the indictment and trials of the six accused. |
| May 13th 1536 | Thomas Cromwell wrote his list of ‘Remembrances’ that remained to be completed, but in the chaos of the past days forgot to answer Thomas Stydolf. |
Footnotes
- Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10; May 1536, 1-10; No 788. ↩︎
- Wharf or landing place. ↩︎
- Mill. ↩︎
- Thomas and Jane Stydolf’s son, John, was married to Jane Gyle, whose family had previously owned the house. ↩︎
- Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10; May 1536, 1-10; No. 782 ↩︎
- Cromwell’s own words, from a letter written on the 14th May 1536. ↩︎
- According to Chapuys (letter of 19th May 1536). Henry Fitzroy, son of Henry VIII and his mistress Bessie Blount, would die a few weeks later, aged 17. ↩︎
- ‘Room’ meaning position or title. ↩︎
- This was Antonio Bonvisi, who acquired Crosby Hall from Sir Thomas More in 1523, 12 years after it was sold by Elizabeth Rede, wife of Sir Bartholomew Rede. ↩︎
- At this time, John Rede, heir of William Rede and Sir Bartholomew Rede, would have been in Cromwell’s household as his ward. ↩︎
- Cromwell’s original list has been edited to be more readable, but the content is the same. ↩︎
- Both Chapuys and Cromwell had rooms in the rented tenements on land adjoining the Augustinian Friary in London, known as Austin Friars. ↩︎
Sources
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10.