EDUCATION

Much significance has rightly been attached by historians to the role of Edward’s tutors, first Richard Cox (who was later the boy king’s almoner) and then from 1544 John Cheke, because their religious inclinations were, and were known to be, towards the evangelical side in contemporary terms. Some have seen in the choice of these men evidence that Henry intended the Reformation to proceed further under his son than it could under his own control. But this is certainly to overinterpret the case and to ascribe both too broad a mind and too narrow an ambition to the ageing tyrant. Had Henry wished to push through further religious reform, then, as Cranmer later remarked, there was no one who would have dared gainsay him. The king, who was in a state of almost perpetual astonishment at the temerity of those who departed in the slightest degree from his idiosyncratic middle way, would certainly not have expected the hired help to pursue its own religious agenda while educating his only son. Cheke was chosen because he was the brightest star in a constellation of talent emerging at Cambridge University, and associated above all with St John’s College - a college whose academic excellence had been fostered by Bishop John Fisher as a bulwark of Catholic orthodoxy but which after his execution in 1535 was rapidly becoming a bridgehead of the English Reformation. The king’s son had to have the best education that England could offer, and Cheke was the man to provide it, with his fine italic handwriting and his utter mastery of Latin and Greek.

In fact, there was more to the appointment of Cheke than meets the eye, more than the mere selection of a first-class humanist scholar. It was also a slap in the face for the conservative bishop of Winchester, Stephen Gardiner. In his capacity as chancellor of Cambridge University, he had intervened in a scholarly controversy over the pronunciation of Greek. Cheke was the protagonist, and Gardiner had soundly rebuked him for his temerity in challenging traditional practices, enjoining him to refrain from further efforts in that direction. There was little love lost between them. In the matter of finding a schoolmaster for young Edward, the choice did not have to fall upon Cheke - there were other possibilities. Gardiner would doubtless have preferred some of the other humanist talents available from St John’s College: John Seton, the author of Tudor England’s best-selling textbook of logic, or Thomas Watson, author of a Greek tragedy based on the biblical story of Jephtha. Both men were soon to join Gardiner’s household as chaplains.

Their orthodoxy was beyond doubt (Watson went on to become the last Roman Catholic bishop of Lincoln in the reign of Queen Mary), but Gardiner’s political influence was temporarily waning when the crucial decisions about Edward’s education were being taken. His own attempt to bring down Archbishop Cranmer on charges of heresy having failed, a counter-coup against him had resulted in the execution for treason of his nephew, Germain Gardiner, in 1544. It seems likely that Cheke’s merits were thrust upon Henry’s attention by other evangelical sympathisers, such as Sir Anthony Denny and Dr William Butts, who held influential positions in the king’s personal service. Denny was by this stage the head of the king’s Privy

Hugh Latimer preaching before Edward VI from the ‘preaching place’, the new pulpit Henry VIII had built in the palace garden at Whitehall.

Chamber, which attended upon his daily needs and provided him with company and amusement. Butts was one of the most highly regarded of the king’s physicians. Both men were thus intimate with the king in the day-to-day context in which decisions such as that regarding the education of the prince were bound to be taken. Nevertheless, had Gardiner’s star been in the ascendant, he might well have blocked Cheke’s appointment. Gardiner’s failure to gain control over the education of the young prince was to spell disaster for him and his cause in the next reign.