Thomas Smith, born in Saffron Walden on 23 December 1514, rose to hold one of the great offices of state, Secretary of State, first to King Edward VI and then to Queen Elizabeth 1. It was a turbulent world riven by religious disputes as Protestantism arose to challenge the pre-eminence of the Roman Catholic Church.
In the Tudor period religion was inextricably intermeshed with politics. People could not conceive how anybody who held heterodox views on religion could be anything but a subversive, threatening the established order. Thus as Secretary, Smith dealt not only with what we would regard as secular matters of diplomacy and trade but also with religious questions. Throughout 1548 Smith was actively involved with Archbishop Cranmer and others on the production of a new Prayer Book. Smith was a survivor who recognised that staying in public office depended on a keen awareness of current theological trends. For Smith had to learn to live with a country lurching within one generation from Henrician Catholicism, to Edwardian Protestantism, to Marian repression, to Elizabeth’s Anglican settlement. Protestants accused Smith of lukewarmness. Catholics accused him of fanaticism. It was said that Smith attacked the catholic doctrine of the eucharist ‘with a coarseness of expression which was deliberately offensive’. Probably the truth lies between the two extremes. Smith knew when to keep his head down, but there can be no doubt that he subscribed to a reformed view of Christianity. He certainly made it clear that he had no truck with the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation.
In 1549 Smith sat on a commission with the Archbishop of Canterbury and four other senior clergy in the examination of heretics, including Anabaptists and Arians, ‘that began to spring up apace and show themselves more openly’. Later in 1549 Smith together with Bishop Ridley of Rochester, Dean May of St Paul’s, Sir John Cheke and Dr Wendy, the King’s physician, conducted a visitation of the University of Cambridge to abolish such statutes and ordinances as ‘maintained papistry, superstition, blindness and ignorance, and to set forth such as might further God’s Word and good learning’. In the summer of 1549 Smith locked horns with Bishop Bonner of London. Bonner was imprisoned for his opposition to the new ecclesiastical visitation and for his questioning of the new political order. Smith examined Bonner, who claimed that it was outrageous that he as a bishop should be arrested for disregarding the orders of a mere secretary. Bonner, who was known for his temper, declared that Smith was a ‘notorious and manifest enemy’, and a thoroughly ‘incompetent, unmeet and suspect judge’. Smith told Bonner to make an end of these invented ‘oddities and quirks’, and ordered his committal to the Marshalsea.
In January 1551 Smith found himself thrust back into to the maelstrom of national affairs when he was summoned to give evidence in the trial of Bishop Gardiner for a sermon preached three years earlier which was alleged to be subversive. Smith largely shielded Gardiner by evading hostile questions, and his friendship with Gardiner was to bear fruit during Mary’s reign. He also found himself on a commission to punish those who opposed the new Prayer Book. On 20 July 1553 the Council proclaimed Mary as Queen. Smith found himself summoned ‘to make his undelayed repair to the court’. He was greeted by a mocking Bonner, reinstated as Bishop of London. He might well have found himself re-interned in the Tower (where he had previously been imprisoned in October 1549 at the time of Warwick’s coup), but it would appear that Stephen Gardiner spoke up for him, doubtless recalling how Smith had given favourable testimony when Gardiner himself had been in the dock.
Queen Mary was determined to restore England to the Roman Catholic faith and the authority of the Pope. After the death of the Lord Chancellor, Bishop Stephen Gardiner, in November 1555, and Mary’s failure to produce an heir, the pressure of persecution increased. Nearly 300 people were burnt at the stake. Amongst the Protestant martyrs was Robert Smith, a former servant of Sir Thomas Smith. Thomas Smith was vulnerable but kept his head down. He bided his time until the accession of Queen Elizabeth in November 1558 secured the Protestant succession.
In July 1559 Smith was appointed to a commission to look into heresies, seditions and other deviations, which might imperil the new religious settlement. Smith was also convenor of a distinguished group of clergy who met at his house in Canon Row to revise Edward’s Book of Common Prayer. The group included Matthew Parker, soon to become Archbishop of Canterbury and four future bishops. Later that year Smith sat on a commission in the dioceses of Ely and Norwich, overseeing the taking of oaths by the clergy to the new Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity.
After a long absence, Smith found himself recalled to Court in March 1571 as a member of the Privy Council Cecil, now Lord Burghley, needed assistance in the heavy duties of Secretary. Smith was appointed Secretary in July 1572. The Puritans were pressing for a more radical reform of the Church in a Calvinistic direction. Smith was thought to be well suited to act as a moderate intermediary with Parliament. There was much suspicion of internal plots and foreign interference in England’s affairs. Elizabeth had been excommunicated by the Pope in 1570 following the northern rebellions in 1569. A bill was introduced for the compulsory attendance at church to include communion. Parliament urged the reform of canon law ‘to have all things brought to the purity of the primitive church’. Smith, alarmed at these radical proposals, temporised by suggesting that the bill be considered first by the bishops.
The move for a more radical reform of the Church aroused no great enthusiasm in Smith. But he had no love for Catholics, whom he suspected of disloyalty. In 1573 he reported that ‘the commission to seek out conjurors and mass-mongers’ had done very well and uncovered ‘a foul knot of papistical justices of the peace and of massing priests’. But he did not favour more penal laws against Catholics. Instead, they should be sent to Italy and ‘let them live by sucking the Pope’s teats’, as he crudely put it. He disliked Puritan fanatics, and their ‘prophesyings’ seemed ignorant and seditious. When Parliament was prorogued on 30 June 1572, Smith was relieved and felt that he could get on with the business of government without parliamentary interference. But Smith was ageing and becoming more cautious with the years.
On 12 August 1577, at the age of 62 or 63 years, Sir Thomas Smith died at Hill Hall, his classical mansion at Theydon Mount.
This article appeared in the Saffron Walden Historical Journal in Spring 2017 (no 33), and is reproduced with the permission of the author. Jeremy Collingwood is the author of ‘ Sir Thomas Smith Scholar, Statesman and Son of Saffron Walden’ published in 2012.