he made good sport with him,' &c. 7. ' The Way to Heaven,' 1611.
[Gardiner's Works; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), pp. 1281, 1291, 1342; Hone's Year Book.]
GARDINER, STEPHEN (1483?–1555), bishop of Winchester, was the reputed son of John Gardiner, a clothworker of Bury St. Edmunds, where he was born between 1483 and 1490. In Betham's ‘Genealogical Tables’ (tab. dcx.) he appears as the son of one William Gardener and Helen, sister of Henry VII. The story that he was a natural son of Lionel Woodville, bishop of Salisbury, the younger son of Richard Woodville, earl Rivers, first appears in the pages of the ‘Sceletos Cantab.’ of Richard Parker, who wrote in the early part of the seventeenth century. The fact that no reference is made to the story by his personal enemies during his lifetime would seem sufficiently to discredit the assertion, which rests mainly on his being frequently called ‘Mister Stevens’ during the earlier part of his official career. This Parker supposed to be his mother's name, but it is really his christian name (from Stephanus), and secretaries in those days were frequently designated by their christian name only, as ‘Master Peter’ for Peter Vannes.
Gardiner was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and was subsequently elected a fellow of that society. He proceeded doctor of the civil law in 1520, and of the canon law in the following year. In both these branches of the legal profession he attained rapidly to eminence. In 1524 he was appointed one of Sir Robert Rede's lecturers in the university, and about the same year was made tutor to a son of the Duke of Norfolk, to whose family he remained firmly attached throughout his life. Through Norfolk's good offices he was introduced to Wolsey, to whom he became private secretary. In this capacity we find him as early as 1526 taking part in proceedings against heretics. In 1525 he was elected master of Trinity Hall, an office which he continued to hold until his ejectment in 1549. In the months of July and August 1527 he was with Wolsey in France, and the latter in a letter dated from Amiens proposes to King Henry to send Gardiner to him to receive his secret instructions, ‘he being,’ says the writer, ‘the only instrument I have for the purpose.’ Either in this year, or at some earlier time, he was in Paris, and there made the acquaintance of Erasmus, whom we find writing to him on 3 Sept. 1527, and recalling their pleasant meeting and also expressing his gratification at learning that Gardiner stands so high in the favour of their common patron, Wolsey. In the following year he was sent, together with Edward Fox, as ambassador to the pope, with instructions to visit France on their way. In a letter to Sir Gregory Casale, Wolsey says that the two ambassadors will show that the ‘king's cause’ (i.e. the proposed divorce) is founded both ‘on human and divine law.’ Wolsey himself suggested that in their official capacity Fox, as the royal councillor and first named in the king's letters, should have the precedence, and Gardiner ‘the speech and utterance.’ It was, however, agreed between the two that the latter should have the pre-eminence ‘both of place, speech, and utterance … without altercation or varyaunce, as our old amity and fast friendship doth require’ (Pocock, Records of the Reformation, i. 74). Their joint decision was justified by the sequel, for the tact and boldness of Gardiner working upon the fears and hesitating temperament of Clement VII ultimately wrung from the pontiff his consent to a second commission; on their return to England Henry expressed himself as highly pleased with the manner in which Gardiner had discharged his errand.
In July 1528 he appears as one of a commission appointed by Wolsey to revise the statutes which he had given for his colleges at Ipswich and Oxford, and in the following January on a royal commission designed to arrange, in conjunction with Francis I, a peace ‘for the tranquillity of Italy and the defence of the pope's person.’ On 1 March 1528–9 he was admitted archdeacon of Norfolk. In the following April Anne Boleyn writes to thank him for his ‘willing and faithful mind.’ Gardiner was at this time again in Italy, whither he had gone in January on the divorce business; but on 4 May he writes to Henry to say that though they have done their best to obtain from the pope the accomplishment of the royal desires they have not prevailed. A few days after he was recalled, and left Rome on 1 June, arriving in London with Sir Francis Bryan on the evening of the 22nd. On 28 July 1529, writing to Vannes, he says that he is going to court that day to enter upon his duties as secretary for the first time. From this date he is frequently referred to in the official correspondence as ‘Mr. Stevens.’ His influence with the king now began to increase rapidly. In the following year his former patron, Wolsey, was fain again and again to entreat his intercession with the king to procure some alleviation of his own lot. At a later period Gardiner professed to consider that Wolsey merited his fate (Harleian MS. 417), but he appears at this time
