Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy de Darcy - Opposition To The King

Opposition To The King

It was not long, however, before Darcy became a rather marked opponent of the court in reference to this very subject. In the parliament which met in January 1532 the Duke of Norfolk made a speech, declaring how ill the king had been used by the pope not remitting the cause to be tried in England, adding that it was maintained by some that matrimonial causes were a matter of temporal jurisdiction, of which the king was the head and not the pope, and finally asking whether they would not employ their persons and goods in defence of the royal prerogative against interference from abroad. To this appeal Darcy was the first to reply. He said his person and goods were at the king's disposal, but as to matrimonial causes he had always understood that they were spiritual and belonged to ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and if the question presented any difficulties it was for the king's council first to say what should be done without involving others in their responsibility. After this it is not surprising to learn that among other peers who were treated in a similar manner he was informed that his presence in the January session of 1534 would be dispensed with, although he had received a regular summons to attend.

Among matters of minor interest about this period we find him reminding Bishop Tunstall after his promotion to Durham of a promise of the offices of steward and sheriff of his bishopric. A long-standing dispute with his neighbours at Rothwell in Yorkshire comes to light in a commission obtained in April 1533 to examine certain of the inhabitants who had threatened, in defiance of a decree of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, to pull down the gates and hedges of Rothwell park.

In July 1534 he was one of the jury of peers who acquitted Lord Dacre, an act which did little to make him more acceptable to the court. Cromwell, however, appears to have been his friend ( although at the end of his life Darcy made clear his deep hatred of Cromwell) and obtained for his second son, Sir Arthur Darcy, the office of captain or governor of Jersey in September following, for whose appointment he wrote Cromwell a letter of thanks from Mortlake, regretting that he was unable to visit him personally, owing to his 'fulsum diseassis.' It appears that he was suffering from a rupture. He at the same time sent Sir Arthur with messages both to Cromwell and to the Duke of Norfolk, among other things complaining that he had not been allowed to go home into Yorkshire since the parliament began. And this must mean since November 1529 when the still existing parliament began, not since the beginning of a session, for it was then vacation time. A significant part of the instructions to Sir Arthur as regards the Duke of Norfolk was to deliver a letter to him 'for no goodness in him but to stop his evil tongue'.