Stephen Gardiner (27 July 1483 – 12 November 1555) was an English Catholic bishop and politician during the English Reformation period who served as Lord Chancellor during the reign of Queen Mary I and King Philip.
Early life
Gardiner was born in Bury St Edmunds, but the date of his birth is uncertain. His father could have been a John Gardiner, but also could have been Wyllyam Gardiner, a substantial cloth merchant of the town where he was born, who took care to give him a good education. His mother was said to be Helen Tudor, an illegitimate daughter of Jasper Tudor, 1st Duke of Bedford, but American research from 2011 suggests that this lady was the mother of a different cleric, Thomas Gardiner.
In 1511 Gardiner, aged 28, met Erasmus in Paris. He had probably already begun his studies at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself in the classics, especially in Greek. He then devoted himself to canon and civil law, in which subjects he attained so great a proficiency that no one could dispute his pre-eminence. He received the degree of doctor of civil law in 1520, and of canon law in the following year.
Diplomatic career
Before long his abilities attracted the notice of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who made him his secretary, and in this capacity he is said to have been with him at The More in Hertfordshire, when the conclusion of the celebrated Treaty of the More brought King Henry VIII and the French ambassadors there. This was probably the occasion on which he first came to the king's notice, but he does not appear to have been actively engaged in Henry's service till three years later. He undoubtedly acquired a knowledge of foreign politics in the service of Wolsey.
In 1527 he and Sir Thomas More were named commissioners on the part of England, in arranging a treaty with the French ambassadors for the support of an army in Italy against Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. As a canon lawyer, he was sent to Orvieto in 1527 to secure a decretal commission from Pope Clement VII to allow the king's divorce case to be tried in England. In 1535 he was also appointed ambassador to France, where he remained for three years.
Role in the royal divorce
That year he accompanied Wolsey on his important diplomatic mission to France, the splendour and magnificence of which have been graphically described by George Cavendish in his biography of Wolsey. Among the cardinal's retinue – including several noblemen and privy councillors – Gardiner alone seems to have understood the importance of this embassy. Henry was particularly anxious to cement his alliance with King Francis I of France, and gain support for his plans to divorce Catherine of Aragon. In the course of his progress through France, Wolsey received orders from Henry to send back his secretary, Gardiner, for fresh instructions. Wolsey was obliged to reply that he positively could not spare Gardiner as he was the only instrument he had in advancing the king's "Great Matter". The next year, Wolsey sent Gardiner and Edward Foxe, provost of King's College, Cambridge, to Italy to promote the same business with the pope. His dispatched messages have survived, and illustrate the competence with which Gardiner performed his duties.
Gardiner's familiarity with canon law gave him a great advantage. He was instructed to procure a decretal commission from the pope, which was intended to construct principles of law by which Wolsey might render a decision on the validity of the king's marriage without appeal. Though supported by plausible pretexts, the demand was received as unusual and inadmissible. Pope Clement VII, who had been recently imprisoned in Castel Sant'Angelo by mutinous soldiers of the Holy Roman Empire, had managed to escape to Orvieto. Now fearful of offending Charles V, nephew of Queen Catherine, Clement refused to issue a definitive ruling concerning Henry's annulment. The matter was instead referred to his cardinals, with whom Gardiner held long debates.