Stephen Gardiner
Bishop of Winchester
(27 July 1483 – )
The story so far…
Week 1: Across the Narrow Sea / Paternity
Thomas Cromwell’s rival in the household of Cardinal Wolsey. Obsessed with Cromwell’s low birth. He claims to have royal blood but was brought up by wool-trade people in Bury St Edmunds.
Week 2: At Austin Friars / Visitation
In 1529, as Wolsey is in disgrace, we learn that Gardiner has moved out of the cardinal’s service and become the king’s private secretary. Cromwell notes that this “hungry and lean” dog may now be the closest man to the king. And Gardiner hates Cromwell.
Week 4: An Occult History of Britain (Part 2)
In 1527, Gardiner is in Rome, working the king’s case. Gardiner is moving up in the world as his master, Wolsey, is floundering at home.
When he returns home empty-handed, he tells Cromwell, “Your master will be finished” if the legatine court cannot give the king what he wants. Gardiner won’t be sorry to see Wolsey fall.
Week 5: Make or Mar / Three-Card Trick
In 1530, Richard Williams becomes Richard Cromwell. “It matters what name we choose, what name we make.” Richard’s grandmother was a bastard daughter to Jasper Tudor, and her bastard sister was Stephen Gardiner’s mother. We’re all closer to the king than we think. And far too close to Stephen Gardiner for comfort.
Gardiner is waiting in the wings at Cromwell’s first interview with the king. He wants to see the blacksmith’s boy humiliated. He is disappointed. “Can’t we drop this?” Cromwell asks. “No, I don’t see that we can,” says the king’s Secretary. Bad blood.
Week 6: Entirely Beloved Cromwell (Part 1)
Cromwell needs to see the king about Wolsey’s finances, but Master Secretary is in the way:
He watches him ranging to and fro, Stephen the noonday devil. Gardiner is a man with bones loose-joined, his lines flowing with menace; he has great hairy hands, and knuckles which crack when he folds his right first into his left palm.
Cromwell is furious about this obstacle. He chooses to remind Gardiner of how he is related to Richard Williams, but “don’t let it keep you awake, Stephen… you are not related to me.’
At Austin Friars, Thomas Wrisothesley is in and out, and working for Gardiner, so he must be Steophen’s spy.
Master Secretary is at Chelsea when Cromwell arrives for dinner with Lord Chancellor Thomas More. Gardiner can make children cry with a look, “such effortless power over the young.” And when he laughs, is it “like laughter through a crack in the earth.” He is a “blot or stain” on any gathering. He probes Cromwell: is Wriothesley working for me or for you? On the boat to Westminster, they don’t drown each other. Gardiner: “I’m waiting till the water’s colder … And till I can tie weights to you.”
Week 7: Entirely Beloved Cromwell (Part 2)
In August, Norfolk and Gardiner can be seen with their heads together. It can mean nothing good. “The council has the cardinal under observation”, he tells Cromwell.
Week 8: The Dead Complain of Their Burial / Arrange Your Face (Part 1)
“Swoops in, like a crow that’s spied a dead sheep.”
Week 9: Arrange Your Face (Part 2)
Gardiner has Wolsey’s old job, Bishop of Winchester. He’s still Master Secretary, much to the chagrin of Anne. He does not want Anne as queen.
Henry says he needs “robust” servants like Gardiner who are not afraid of controversy. “You and Gardiner, you must learn to pull together.” But Cromwell thinks is would be better for him if they didn’t.
Gardiner scowls at Cromwell’s legislating. Fabricating statutes, he thinks. They are not fake, Cromwell insists. The old laws were never applied. Now we have better councillors and better kings.
“Behind Henry’s back, Gardiner makes a gargoyle face at him. He almost laughs.”
Not long after, he is sent to France to replace Sir Thomas Boleyn.
Week 10: 'Alas, What Shall I Do For Love?' (Part 1)
1532, and Cromwell is moving against the clergy. So Master Secretary Stephen Gardiner “feels obliged to lead” the loyal opposition.
The king is furious with him. He goes in “like a mastiff being led towards a bear.” Afterwards, he looks weak. “Sweat trickles down his face.”
Cromwell advises the king to keep him in his job. “You owe me, Stephen. The bill will come in by and by.”
At Austin Friars, Cromwell tells Thomas Wyatt: “Gardiner has people outside the gate, watching who comes and goes.”
Cromwell calls in a debt: Gardiner is to lose his house at Hanworth to Lady Anne. “Part of him may be relieved, when he thinks about it, that the bill has come in so early, and that he can meet its terms.”
“Gardiner is still Master Secretary, but he, Cromwell, now sees the king almost every day.”
Week 11: 'Alas, What Shall I Do For Love?' (Part 2) / Early Mass
“Are you going to dance?” Cromwell asks Gardiner as he disrobes, following Anne Boleyn’s instalment as Marquess of Pembroke. There are many dancers right now, but Gardiner seems disinclined.
“There is no limit,” Gardiner says, to what the king will do for love. And Cromwell must have an “infinitely flexible” mind to believe that all the king does is good. In the dance, Gardiner is out of step with the current mood.
Week 12: Anna Regina (Part 1)
“Angels defend us,” Gardiner says, “is there anything you don’t file?”
Cromwell asks Gardiner to help John Frith. “He was your pupil at Cambridge. Don’t abandon him.” But Gardiner isn’t in the business of helping heretics.
Later, at Chelsea, Cromwell offers Gardiner’s services to pay for a new coat so Thomas More can come to the coronation.
Week 13: Anna Regina (Part 2)
Gardiner looks uncomfortable at Anne’s coronation. The king is sending him to France to replace Norfolk. Henry is tired of Gardiner’s opposition. Master Wriothesley tells Cromwell: “So devote yourself to keeping Stephen abroad, and in time, he will confirm you in the post.”
Week 15: Supremacy
Gardiner is back. Gardiner is grumpy. The king says he is ungrateful and should spend more time serving for his congregation. Within weeks, it is official: Thomas Cromwell will replace Stephen Gardiner as Master Secretary.
Week 19: Crows (Part 1)
Gardiner is back from his diocese, having written a book defending the king’s supremacy as head of the church. The king asks Gardiner whether he can escape his marriage to Anne. Gardiner says it is possible, but if so, he must return to Katherine. Cromwell suspects Gardiner just wanted to give the king nightmares.
Gardiner is returning to France as an ambassador. The Cromwell council marvels at the idea, but he, Master Secretary, thinks Gardiner is the right man to deal with the French. Still, Cromwell orders his people to watch Stephen while he is out of the country.
Week 20: Crows (Part 2)
Gardiner has been down in Putney looking for dirt on Cromwell. He has discovered that Cromwell ran away from a murder, and that Walter bought off the bereved family. This last detail is new to Cromwell.
Week 44: Corpus Christi (Part 1/2)
1538. ‘October brings Stephen Gardiner: rolling up from Dover with his baggage, aware he returns from France under a cloud.’ The king has told Cromwell: ‘Send him to his diocese … We do not want him near our person.’
It has been good work to keep Gardiner out of England for three years.
Week 45: Corpus Christi (Part 2/2) / Inheritance
Stephen Gardiner sweeps in to question John Lambert at Westminster.
In fantasy, he takes off his coat again. He rolls up his sleeves, and punches Stephen on the nose. It is dismaying to him, that Stephen has been gone three years, and his urge to knock him down is as strong as ever.
Gardiner accuses him of being an Anabaptist. And then of laying up treasure on earth.
He jumps the queue to question Lambert. ‘He just carries on, talking a man to death, tripping him and goading him into the flames, where he will scream and bleed.’
Cromwell suspects Gardiner has been seeing the king behind his back, telling him how disgusted the French are with the reformation. He blames Gardiner for Lambert’s death.
Week 46: Ascension Day (Part 1/2)
Intemperate councillors fail. We have all seen Gardiner flouncing from the royal presence, looking like a plaice, with his mouth turned down and his underlip thrust out.
Cromwell, we learn, is reading Gardiner’s letters.
Week 47: Ascension Day (Part 2/2)
Stephen Gardiner at council, enjoying the discord. ‘Glad to see you merry, Winchester,’ says Cromwell.
The doctors ask Cromwell who he wants as his confesssor. ‘Not Gardiner. If he saw me on my death-bed he would tip me out of it, so I should die on the floor.’
While Cromwell is in his sick bed, Gardiner’s faction get Parliament to agree to the conservative Six Articles. When he goes to see the king, Gardiner is there and won’t go away.
At dinner at Lambeth Palace, Gardiner insinuates that Cromwell killed the late Cardinal Bainbridge in Rome in 1514. The feast ends in fisticuffs. ‘I don’t know when I enjoyed a peace conference as much as I enjoyed this one,’ says Stephen. Afterwards, Cromwell tells Call-Me: ‘I’ll pull Stephen down. Just watch me.’