Appendix VII: Members opposed to a bill in 1533

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Members opposed to a bill in 1533

SP 1/99, p.234

A damaged list of some 35 Members compiled by Cromwell survives among papers from his office. The list in its original form derives from a Crown Office list for the Parliament of 1529 no longer extant, which incorporated the results of the by-elections held during 1532-3. One of the first batch of replacements included in the minister’s list, William Bowyer, sat only in the fifth (February-April 1533) and sixth (January-March 1534) sessions of the Parliament before being disqualified as a Member and replaced in the autumn of 1534. The knighthood bestowed on one of the original Members, William Windsor, on 30 May 1533 is not mentioned on the list where Windsor is styled ‘armiger’. Thus the list is probably dateable to the early part of that year. Having made the list, Cromwell went on to amend it, adding place names to many of the Members’ names (but not beside those of the knights of the shire) and transposing two of these. At the same time he identified Robert Fisher as the brother of Bishop Fisher and he added the name ‘Bowkleye’ to the list. His object in noting the whereabouts of the Members was presumably to keep contact with them after the prorogation or to facilitate surveillance of their activities. Several of those listed were outspoken critics of the regime. At least 17 had an interest in wool or cloth, a handful of these overlapping with the predominant conservative element. The bias of the selection is too strong for it to have been a cross-section of opinion in the House, but as its two distinctive elements coincide with the two interests alarmed by the passage of the bill in restraint of appeals to Rome during March and April 1533 and the consequences of the bill’s enactment, the list is thought to be of opponents of the bill. The Member whose name now heads the list, Sir George Throckmorton, ‘reasoned to the bill’ whereupon the King ‘did send for me and spoke with me in divers matters’. Cromwell was present at this interview between King and subject, and either then or later he advised Throckmorton to ‘stay at home and meddle little in politics’. The interpretation that the list is one of opponents of a bill, at least of government origin, if not that in restraint of appeals, is further strengthened by a suggested reconstruction of the endorsement of the list as ‘H[ostile] gentlemen’.

Spelling not modernized

  • Sy1
  • Syr georg Throg2
  • Sr lawrans Taylarde
  • Sr Rychard Shyrley
  • Sr William Essex
  • Thomas bromley3
  • Sr John gyfforde
  • Edward lytillton
  • Sr henrye long
  • John horssey
  • William bowyer— of London
  • John bonde of Coventree
  • John hardgrave of Stamford Moryce Johnson of Stamforde
  • William wynsor armiger
  • — Bowkleye4
  • Robert dormer of Bukkynghamshyre
  • Robert ffyssher the bysshop of Rochesteres brother
  • Edmond page of Rochester
  • William Roper of Chelchythe
  • henrye See of Chelchythe
  • John Latton of Chelchythe
  • William dawnsye5 of Chelchythe
  • Thomas vachell of Reding
  • William Symondes of Wynsore
  • Thomas havarde of hereforde
  • John hilseleye of Woorcester6
  • John brennyng of Woorcester
  • William Webbe of Sarum
  • Thomas chaffyn of Sarum
  • John poyntz Thomas polsted— of gylforde
  • William horwood
  • John Cutt
  • John Mawdelen of bather7
  • William dawntsye 8
  • Thomas bromley9

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: S. T. Bindoff

End Notes

  • 1. Ms torn. Of the Members who were knights preceding Sir George Throckmorton on the Crown Office list for the Parliament of 1529 this man is thought to have been Sir Marmaduke Constable I.
  • 2. Ms torn, but enough of the Member’s name remains to establish it as that of Sir George Throckmorton.
  • 3. Deleted. Name transferred to end of list.
  • 4. Name inserted between those of the two Members for Chipping Wycombe. See BULKELEY, Charles.
  • 5. Name added to ‘Chelsea group’ presumably when deleted at end of list.
  • 6. Although John Braughing (Brennyng) is correctly given as living at Worcester, John Hillesley was a resident of Leominster.
  • 7. John Mawdley II was a Middle Templar from Wells, Cromwell’s mistake as to Mawdley’s domicile almost certainly being a slip arising from the bishopric being that of Bath and Wells.
  • 8. William Dauntesey’s name originally ended the list but was then struck out and inserted 13 lines above.
  • 9. An addition to the original list, presumably made when Thomas Bromley’s name was deleted near the head of the list.