Edward Lee (bishop) - Relations With The King

Relations With The King

In 1523 the king sent Lee with Henry Parker, 10th Baron Morley and Sir William Hussey on an embassy to the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria to carry him the Garter, with the diplomatic aims of encouraging his opposition to the Lutherans and Francis I of France. Lee was the orator of the embassy. He was the king's almoner, and in the same year received the archdeaconry of Colchester. In 1525 he was sent with Sir Francis Poyntz to Spain on an embassy to the emperor. During 1529 he was engaged in an embassy to the Emperor Charles V in Spain, and in January 1530 was sent with the Earl of Wiltshire and John Stokesley to Pope Clement VII and the emperor at Bologna, to endeavour to persuade them out of their opposition to the king's divorce from Queen Catherine of Aragon.

He returned to England in the spring. In 1529 he was made chancellor of the church of Salisbury, and in 1530 received a prebend at York, and a prebend of the royal chapel, and was incorporated D.D. at Oxford. Lee made himself useful to the king at home in the matter of the divorce, and on 1 June 1531 was one of a deputation which was sent to the queen to persuade her to forego her rights. He spoke freely to the queen, who told him that what he said was untrue. In September, Henry wrote to the pope requesting authority for Lee's elevation to the archbishopric of York. On 13 October, Lee and others had an interview with Catharine, in which they urged her to withdraw her cause from Rome and submit to the decision of bishops and doctors. Clement granted a bull for Lee's elevation on the 30th; he was consecrated to the see of York on 10 December, and was enthroned by proxy on the 17th.

Money difficulties made it advisable for him to please the king and Thomas Cromwell, which he did in the matter of patronage. In common with Stephen Gardiner, however, he refused in February 1533 to sign the declaration that the marriage with Catharine had been void from the beginning; but shortly afterwards got from the convocation of York an approbation of the grounds of the divorce. After the execution of Elizabeth Barton and her associates, in April 1534, it was falsely rumoured that Lee and other bishops were to be sent to the Tower of London.

In company with Stokesley, Lee visited John Houghton, the prior of the London Charterhouse, in the Tower, and represented to him that the succession was not a matter to die for, and he used a similar expression with reference to the cause in which Bishop John Fisher suffered. On 21 May he and the Bishop of Durham were sent to Catharine at Kimbolton to expound to her the act of succession, and urge her to submission. He forwarded to the king on 1 June the declaration of the York convocation held the previous month, that the Pope had no greater jurisdiction within the realm of England than any other foreign bishop, and on 17 February 1535 wrote to the king professing his willingness to obey his will. Nevertheless, he was suspected of disliking the royal supremacy.

The king sent to him, as to other bishops, his commands that his new style should be published in his cathedral, and that the clergy should be instructed to set it forth in their parishes; and he also received Thomas Cranmer's order for preaching and form forbidding the beads, in which the king's style was inserted, with the king's order that every preacher should declare the just cause for rejecting the papal supremacy, and defend the divorce and marriage with Anne Boleyn. Henry was informed that Lee had neglected these orders and wrote to him reminding him that he had subscribed to the supremacy.

Lee answered on 14 June that he had, according to order, preached solemnly in his cathedral on the injury done to the king by the pope and on the divorce, but he acknowledged that he had made no mention of the royal supremacy. He asked the king not to listen to the accusations of his enemies. Moreover, on 1 July he wrote to Cromwell, sending him two books which he had prepared, one for his clergy to read and "extend" to their congregations, the other a brief declaration to the people of the royal supremacy, adding that the livings in his diocese were so poor that no learned man would take them, that he did not know in it more than twelve secular priests who could preach.

New cause of suspicion arose against him, and a few months later, he was examined by the king's visitor, Richard Layton, concerning words he was alleged to have used to the general confessor of Syon Abbey, and concerning the supremacy. He wrote his defence to the king on 14 January 1536. On 23 April, he interceded with Cromwell for two religious houses in his province: Hexham Abbey, useful as a place of refuge during Scottish invasions, and Nostell Priory, which he claimed as a free chapel belonging to his see. In June, he argued against the condemnation of Catholic customs in convocation and was regarded as the head of the anti-Reformation party.