The Death of Thomas Audley - 30 April 1544
- thedudleywomen
- Apr 30
- 12 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
On 30 April 1544, Thomas Audley, 1st Baron Audley of Walden, Lord High Chancellor of England, and father of Margaret Audley, died at his City of London home, 'Christchurch Place', Aldgate, after a year of deteriorating health.
The position of Lord High Chancellor was previously held by Sir Thomas More, a scholar and lawyer who had known Henry VIII since his youth, and had long championed his causes; however, More had resigned from his position in May 1532, due to matters of religious conscious, no longer being able to support the king's ongoing-pursued legal annulment from Catherine of Aragon, with the ensuing separation from and rejection of Papal authority in Rome, and the subsequent requirement to acknowledge Henry as the new head of the church of England. Thomas Audley, a Cambridge-educated lawyer whose power and influence had been on the rise since the downfall of his previous master, More's predecessor Thomas Wolsey, who along with leading Reformist Thomas Cromwell, had been spearheading new religious policies over the past few years, much to More's distaste, was waiting in the wings. Having previously been appointed as the Speaker of the House of Commons and as Henry VIII's Serjeant General, Audley was to rise even further; four days after More's resignation, Audley was knighted, and appointed as the Keeper of the Great Seal of the Realm. Eight months later, shortly before the opening of Parliament, in January 1533, Audley was formally promoted to the position of Lord High Chancellor of England, Henry's chief advisor (Borman, 2018; History of Parliament Online, 2025).
In contrast to Cromwell's radical Reformist beliefs, Audley's primary motivations appeared to be in pleasing his king, recognising that he would be amply rewarded in doing so; as a man who came from a relatively humble beginnings, Audley recognised the benefit of this, and his apparent lack of political ambition and restraint would benefit him in the long run (History of Parliament, 2025). During his tenure, Audley played a significant role in passing laws through Parliament, including The Act of Supremacy (1534) and The Six Articles Act (1539), which outlined England's break from the Catholic Church in Rome, and instigated policies which would come to be the start of the English Protestant Reformation (Borman, 2018). Audley was also involved in, and oversaw many high-profile treason trials, in which the accused were found guilty and sentenced to a traitor's death; these included the trials of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and his predecessor Sir Thomas More, with his conduct described in both 1535 trials as 'reprobated' (Stephen, 1885). Audley additionally oversaw Acts of Attainders passed through Parliament, which led to convictions of treason and subsequent executions of perceived enemies of an increasingly paranoid and cruel Henry, including his fifth queen Katherine Howard and his old friend and colleague Thomas Cromwell (Weir, 1991; Borman, 2018).
Audley was also actively involved in the downfall of Henry's second queen Anne Boleyn, when she was charged with treason, incest and committing adultery with multiple men in May 1536. Audley was one of the members of the Privy Council, who along with Cromwell and Anne's own uncle, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, attended Greenwich Palace to formally arrest and accompanied the soon-to-be deposed queen the five-mile journey by barge to the Tower of London, on 02 May 1536. As a commoner, Audley was not permitted to pass judgment on royalty; her trial was subsequently led by her 'Uncle Norfolk', who as Lord High Steward represented the monarchy, although Audley remained present at the trial throughout, sitting at the duke's right side, providing him with legal advice. Audley had presided over the trials of her co-accused days earlier, at their trial held at Westminster Hall, reading aloud their sentences of death. Audley was also present, on 19 May 1536, only seventeen days after her initial arrest, when Anne lost her head on the scaffold erected on Tower Green, within the Tower of London (Weir, 2009).
From 1543, Audley's health had started to deteriorate; since his appointment as Lord High Chancellor; according to Borman (2018), throughout his career, he had been one of the most prolific attendees at parliamentary sessions and meetings, with his significant reduction in attendance during 1543 indicating declining and unresolving poor health. Whilst he may have opened the Parliamentary session of 1543, it is unclear whether he was able to repeat the task in January 1544, prior to his attendance ceasing entirely (Stephen, 1885).
With the knowledge that the end of his life was fast approaching, Audley wrote his detailed will on 19 April 1544, acknowledging "that I am naturally born and ordained to die and pass from this unstable world and transitory life". In his will, Audley made bequeathments to his wife Elizabeth, and his daughters Margaret and Mary, for when they came of age, as well as to his own brother, Thomas Audley, whom he acknowledged to be his heir, if his daughters were to die without children of their own. His will demonstrates the breath of his property holdings throughout the country, as Audley gives instructions regarding inheritance of each of these manors; these include Walden Abbey, Christchurch Place and Drayton Bassett. One of the executors of his will was his brother-in-law, Henry Grey, 3rd Marquess of Dorset, whom Audley acknowledges in his will ("the Lord Marquess Dorset"), as well as making bequeathments to him and his wife "my Lady Frances" (Oxford Authorship Site, 2025).
On 21 April 1544, Audley formally resigned the Great Seal of the Realm, acknowledging that he was no longer able to complete his duties "through infirmity of body" (Borman, 2018, p.479). The Great Seal was used to make wax impressions and applied to official documents, signalling the monarch's approval and consent, or used in place of a signature. Audley had become custodian of this individual and prized item in May 1532, prior to his appointment as Lord Chancellor. In February 1542, in respect to the Acts of Parliament passed against Queen Katherine Howard and her lady-in-waiting Jane Parker, Lady Rochford, Audley made the decision to use the Great Seal to pass their Acts of Attainders into law, giving the legal permission to proceed with their executions, avoiding any further distress to an already anguished king (Weir, 1991).
Only nine days after his resignation, Audley died 'peacefully' at his London home, 'Christchurch Place' (also contemporarily documented as 'Cree Church Place') in Aldgate, within the City of London. Christchurch Place had been the former Holy Trinity Priory, the first priory in the London that had been dissolved in 1532, prior to the systematic and legal process of Dissolution of the Monasteries, and was subsequently gifted to Audley by Henry VIII after he was made Lord Chancellor. Whilst he bequeathed the ownership of the parsonage of 'St Katherine Christchurch within Aldgate' to "the Master and Fellows of Magdalene College in Cambridge", ownership of his "chief mansion and dwelling-house called Christchurch in London" passed to his daughter Margaret as his sole surviving heir. In 1558, Christchurch came into the ownership of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, on his marriage to Margaret Audley, as the sole heiress, being later being renamed 'Duke's Place'. It was at this Aldgate residence that Norfolk had invited his old schoolmaster John Foxe and his young family to reside in 1559, on their return to England from years of exile on the continent, and where they were still residing when Foxe published his first edition of work known as 'Foxe's Book of Martyrs' in 1563. Christchurch continued to be the primary London residence of the couple and their young family, until the premature death of Margaret in January 1564, when shortly after he purchased The Charterhouse, located just outside the City of London walls (Williams, 1564; Oxford Authorship Site, 2025).
Seven acres of the priory's accompanying land was later granted to Magdalene College, Cambridge, following Audley's patronage and refoundation of the college in 1542; it has been suggested that Audley himself attended there, when it was known as Buckingham College, although left without obtaining a degree, before entering into the Inns of Court. Renaming the college after St Mary Magdalene, likely after the old parish church that stood on the site of the former priory, the college was from the beginning pronounced and even spelt phonetically, as ‘Maudleyn' (History of Parliament, 2025; Magdalene College, Cambridge, 2025; Project Gutenberg, 2025).
John Stow, in his 1598 publication Survey of London (Project Gutenberg, 2025) describes the land that was gifted to the college, which is marked in red on the map above:
"From Aldgate, north-west to Bishopsgate, lieth the ditch of the city called Houndes ditch; for that in old time, when the same lay open, much filth (conveyed forth of the city), especially dead dogs, were there laid or cast; wherefore of latter time a mud wall was made, inclosing the ditch, to keep out the laying of such filth as had been accustomed. Over against this mud wall, on the other side of the street, was a fair field, sometime belonging to the priory of the Trinity, and since by Sir Thomas Audley given to Magdalen college in Cambridge: this field (as all other about the city) was inclosed, reserving open passage thereinto, for such as were disposed. Towards the street were some small cottages, of two stories high, and little garden-plots backward, for poor bed-rid people, for in that street dwelt none other, built by some prior of the Holy Trinity, to whom that ground belonged".
Audley requested in his will, that following his death, he should be buried in the parish church "in which parish it shall happen me to decease", with little pomp or ceremony. As he died at his Aldgate property, the nearest parish church would have been St Katherine's Christchurch (also contemporarily documented as 'St Katherine's Cree'); this church was located within the grounds of the old priory, with Audley himself having ownership of the church's parsonage. However, the burial records for this parish do not survive, and so it remains unconfirmed whether this initial internment took place. Audley then requested that following this initial burial, that his body should be discreetly, "in as secret wise", be moved to the new purposely constructed chapel at St Mary's Church, Saffron Walden, a mile from his primary seat of Walden Abbey (The Oxford Authorship Site, 2025).
As with all religious houses in England, Wales and Ireland in the period between 1536-1540, Walden Abbey, a Benedictine monastery near Saffron Walden in Essex, was forcibly closed, with its lands and properties seized by the Crown, during the revolutionary Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538, enabled by Acts of Parliament, which had been passed by Audley himself. As a reward for his ongoing service to the Crown, Walden Abbey had been granted to Audley five days after its seizure, with Audley being made 'Baron Audley of Walden' later that year. He later converted the abbey into his "chief and capital mansion house", which along with its surrounding manors, was his most valuable property (Williams, 1964; Borman, 2018; English Heritage, 2025).
Audley's request to be "buried in the tomb at my new chapel at Walden" was granted; his tomb, made of Belgian black marble, known as touch, continues to stand in the south chapel of St Mary's Church, Saffron Walden. The imposing headstone, complete with a copy of his coat of arms, bears an inscribed epitaph: The stroke of deaths inevitable dart
Hath now alas of lyfe beraft the hart Of Syr Thomas Audley of the Garter Knight Late Channcellour of England under our prince of might
Henry the eight worthy of high renown
And made by him Lord Audley of this town
However, Audley's tomb did not always stand in the south chapel, and was only moved there, from the middle chancel, during restorations of the church in the 1790s. When the tomb was moved, it was found to be empty - nothing was found enclosed within the tomb, nor any evidence of a grave or vault beneath it. It has been surmised therefore, that in the years prior to the renovation, Audley's body had been moved to the 'Howard Vault', the now-sealed underground vault located under the east east of the church, where descendants of Audley's grandson Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk (builder of Audley End Estate) are interred (Oxford Authorship Site, 2025; Saffron Walden Historical Society, 2025; St Mary's Church Saffron Walden, 2025).
Audley left behind his second wife, Elizabeth Grey, Baroness Audley, an elder sister of Henry Grey, 3rd Marquess of Dorset, whom he married on 22 April 1538, only a month after being granted Walden Abbey. In his will, Audley made generous bequeathments to his wife, as well as granting her the access to multiple properties (and their income) "for the term of her life", after which they would revert to his rightful heirs (and their heirs); Walden Abbey was one of these allocated properties, and the home which Elizabeth appears to have made for herself after her husband's death (Oxford Authorship Site, 2025). The young widow remarried, reportedly in 1549, to Sir George Norton; their marriage is later confirmed in a Court of Chancery hearing (1551-53) regarding the rights to the deeds of Walden Abbey, with the plaintiffs described as "George Norton, knight, and Elizabeth, his wife, late the wife of Thomas Awdeley, lord Audley of Walden" (The National Archives, 2025).
At the time of his death, Audley had two daughters - Margaret (born 1540) and Mary (born 1541), although tragically his youngest did not appear to survive her adolescence. As was custom in Tudor England, ironically cemented by laws passed in Parliament by Audley during his tenure as Lord Chancellor, following the death of their father, Margaret and Mary, as fatherless heiresses, were now subject to wardship. As girls, Margaret and Mary would be subject to wardship until their marriage, their ward or guardian being given the right to make these decisions, as well as financially benefitted from their inherited properties whilst their wards remained in their minorities (Orme, 2023).
As a member of the Privy Council, and a favourite of the king, also having played a significant role in the Dissolution of the Monasteries, which brought Henry great financial benefits, Anthony Denny was rewarded by being granted the wardship of both Margaret and Mary Audley shortly after their father's death. Denny remained a favoured courtier of Henry during his final years; he was knighted in November 1544, and was appointed as a Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber. In December 1546, Denny was one of the trusted sixteen men chosen by a dying Henry to form a 'Regency Council' to govern England during the minority of his son Edward, and along with Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, John Dudley, Viscount Lisle and Sir William Paget, helped finalise the king's will on his deathbed in January 1547. Both Denny and his wife, Joan Champernowne, a lady-in-waiting of Henry's sixth queen Katherine Parr, were followers of the new Reformist religion, with Joan herself implicated in accusations of heresy in 1546, along with her mistress and other ladies of the court by Catholic opponents, led by Audley's successor, Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas Wriothesley. It is possible, therefore, as wards of the Dennys at this time, that Margaret and Mary would have received an education with a humanist and Reformist approach (Stephen, 1888; Borman, 2018).
Comments