the joint invasion of France by the two monarchs in 1544. As a reward for his efforts Wriothesley was on 1 Jan. of that year created Baron Wriothesley of Titchfield, on 22 April following he was made keeper of the great seal during Audley's illness, and on his death succeeded him as lord chancellor (3 May). He was also on 26 June appointed to treat with Matthew Stewart, earl of Lennox [q. v.], for the delivery of Dumbarton and Bute into English hands, and on 9 July was named one of the advisers of Queen Catherine Parr as regent during Henry VIII's absence in France. On 23 April 1545 he was elected knight of the Garter.
The alliance between England and Spain was, however, only part of a general reactionary policy in which Wriothesley was the king's chief instrument. It extended also to domestic affairs, and the new lord chancellor gained a notoriety by his persecutions which his legal accomplishments would never have won him. Audley's lenience towards reformers was replaced by frequent sentences to the pillory and other punishments pronounced by Wriothesley in the Star-chamber. The best known of his victims was Anne Askew [q. v.], and there seems no adequate ground for disbelieving the story that the lord chancellor and Rich racked the unfortunate woman in the Tower with their own hands when the lieutenant shrank from the task (see Narratives of the Reformation, Camden Soc. pp. 303–8; Bale, Works, Parker Soc. pp. 142 sqq.). Wriothesley was certainly present at Anne Askew's execution. The intrigue against Catherine Parr, in which he is said to have participated, is more doubtful, and it is almost certain that for all his severity Wriothesley had the king's approbation. Probably, too, it was with the king's sanction that Wriothesley, who sat at Baynard Castle in January 1544–5 as chief commissioner for enforcing payment of the benevolence, condemned Alderman Rede to be sent to the wars in Scotland for refusal, a violation of law not less glaring than the torture of Anne Askew (Hallam, Const. Hist. i. 25; Lodge, Illustrations, i. 98; Wriothesley, Chron. i. 151). His last employment in Henry VIII's reign was in the proceedings against Surrey and Norfolk; he personally assisted the king to draw up the accusations against Surrey, had the earl under his custody until he was committed to the Tower, and finally passed sentence upon him (Wriothesley, Chron. i. 176). Similarly he was placed at the head of the commissioners appointed to declare to parliament Henry's assent to the bills of attainder against Surrey and Norfolk. Wriothesley had never been intimately associated with the Howards, but their fall was fatal to his own position in the new reign and to the policy with which he had been identified. He was possibly conscious of this when ‘with tears in his eyes’ he announced to parliament on 31 Jan. 1546–7 the death of Henry VIII.
By his will Henry VIII left Wriothesley 500l., and appointed him one of his executors and of his son's privy councillors. There is no authority for the speech in opposition to Somerset's elevation to the protectorate which Froude attributes to Wriothesley at the meeting of the executors on the afternoon of 31 Jan., but it probably represents with some accuracy the lord chancellor's sentiments. Cranmer alone ranked before him in order of precedence, and Wriothesley conceived that his position and abilities entitled him to an influential if not a preponderating voice in the new government. ‘I was afraid,’ wrote Sir Richard Morison [q. v.], ‘of a tempest all the while that Wriothesley was able to raise any. I knew he was an earnest follower of whatsoever he took in hand, and did very seldom miss where either wit or travail were able to bring his purposes to pass. Most true it is I never was able to persuade myself that Wriothesley would be great, but the king's majesty must be in greatest danger’ (Cal. State Papers, For. 1547–53, No. 491). This distrust more than the chancellor's supposed hostility to the religious views of the majority of the executors precipitated his fall. He had been peculiarly identified with the repressive absolutism of Henry VIII's last years which the Protector had resolved to sweep away, and his removal was no doubt a popular measure. He was appointed first commissioner of claims for the coronation of Edward VI on 5 Feb., was created Earl of Southampton on the 16th in accordance with Henry's intentions as expressed by Paget, and on the 20th bore the sword of state at Edward's coronation. But on the 18th, ambitious of taking a leading part in politics, he had issued a commission under the great seal to four civilians to hear chancery cases in his absence, thus relieving himself of a large part of his legal duties. Thereupon ‘divers students of the common law’ accused the chancellor of ‘amplifying and enlarging the jurisdiction of the said court of chancery’ to the derogation of the common law, and declared the said commission to be ‘made contrary to the common law.’ The commission was in fact only a repetition of one the lord chancellor had taken
