AUDLEY, THOMAS, Baron Audley of Walden (1488–1544), lord chancellor, was an Essex man, whose family, though unknown to good genealogists, is surmised by some to have had a distant connection with that of the Lords Audley of an earlier date. He is believed to have studied at Magdalen College, Cambridge, to which he was afterwards a benefactor. He then came to London, and gave himself to the law in the Inner Temple, where he was autumn reader in 1526. Meanwhile he had been admitted a burgess of Colchester in 1516, and was appointed town clerk there. His name occurs on the commission of the peace for Essex as early as 1521 (Brewer, Calendar of Henry VIII, iii. 1081, 12 Nov.), and in commissions for levying the subsidy at Colchester in 1523 and 1524 (ib. pp. 1367, 1458, and iv, 236). It is said that he was steward to the Duke of Suffolk, and that the way he discharged the duties of that office first recommended him to the king's notice. In 1523 he was returned to parliament; and in 1525 he had become a man of so much weight that, when it was thought necessary to make a private search for suspicious characters in London, and the work was committed to men like the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, Lord Edmund Howard, and the principal residents in the different suburbs, we find Audley's name suggested with some others to assist in examining the district from Temple Bar to Charing Cross (ib. iv. 1082). The same year he was appointed a member of the Princess Mary's council, then newly established in the marches of Wales (Madden, Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, introd. xxx). A little later he was appointed attorney of the duchy of Lancaster, and was candidate for the office of common Serjeant of the city of London (Calendar of Henry VIII, iv. 2639). In 1527 he was groom of the chamber, and an annuity of 20l. was granted to him on 10 July out of the subsidy and ulnage of cloth in Bristol and Gloucester (ib. p. 3324). Soon afterwards he was a member of Cardinal Wolsey's household (ib. p. 1331). On the fall of his master in 1529, some changes took place in which he attained further advancement. Sir Thomas More was made lord chancellor in the room of the cardinal, and Audley was made chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in the room of Sir Thomas More. Another office which More had filled a few years before was that of speaker of the House of Commons, and in this too he was succeeded by Audley when parliament met in November. On being elected and sent up to the House of Lords, in which the king that day was present, he made an eloquent oration in which he 'disabled himself with conventional modesty for the high office imposed upon him, and besought the king to cause the commons to return to their house and choose another speaker. This sort of excuse was a time-honoured form, and its refusal was equally a matter of course. 'The king,' says Hall, 'by the mouth of the lord chancellor, answered that were he disabled himself in wit and learning, his own ornate oration there made testified the contrary; and as touching his discretion and other qualities, the king himself had well known him and his doings, sith he was in his service, to be both wise and discreet; and so for an able man he accepted him, and for the speaker he him admitted.'
It must be observed that this was the parliament by whose aid Henry VIII ultimately separated himself and his kingdom from all allegiance to the see of Rome. Its sittings continued, with several prorogations, over a period of six years and a half; and it is clear that from the first the Commons were encouraged to attack the clergy and urge complaints against them. In the House of Lords, Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, took notice of the character of their proceedings. 'My lords,' he said, 'you see daily what bills come hither from the Common house, and all is to the destruction of the church. For God's sake, see what a realm the kingdom of Bohemia was, and when the church went down, then fell the glory of the kingdom. Now with the Commons is nothing but "Down with the church!" And all this, meseemeth, is for lack of faith only.' But the words only furnished the Lower House with another grievance, and a deputation of the Commons, with Audley as speaker at their head, waited on the king in his palace at Westminster, complaining that they who had been elected as the wisest men in their several constituencies should be reproached as little better than Turks or infidels. The king (at whose secret prompting, beyond a doubt, this remonstrance was really made) assumed a tone of moderation in his reply, saying he would send for the bishop and report to them how he explained his words; after which he summoned Fisher to his presence, along with the Archbishop of Canterbury and six other bishops, to give an account of his language in the House of Peers. The bishop really had nothing to retract, as his brother prelates bore witness along with him that he had imputed lack of faith not to the
