The Tanners and the Tudors

Tanner, Robert Glass reflects on life in the 16th Century…

Some of the guilds of the Newcastle Freemen were founded as far back as the twelfth century. The various guilds could form by Royal Charter and these included Fishmongers, Merchant Mariners, Coopers, Blacksmiths, Saddlers and Scriveners. However, the purpose of this article is to cast the spotlight onto the early days of the Tanners guild. The first Tanners meeting is recorded to have taken place an astounding 488 years ago in 1532, which was during the reign of the infamous King Henry VIII. During this period, Henry was desperately trying to divorce his first wife, the Spanish Queen - Catherine of Aragon, after he realized that she was unable to bear him a son and heir. Despite many relationships with the ladies of his court, including Bessie Blount, who gave birth to the king’s illegitimate son (Henry Fitzroy), Henry VIII needed a legitimate son to secure his Tudor dynasty, and soon had set his sights on Anne Boleyn. Many people believe that Henry’s relationship with Anne Boleyn was a brief affair, but this is not the case, it took several years of Henry trying and eventually failing to persuade the Pope for an annulment from his first marriage. Eventually, the headstrong King decided to go it alone and divorce himself from Catherine and married Anne Boleyn in 1533 - only one year after the formation of the Tanners guild. It is unlikely that any of our brethren were invited to the wedding and coronation, such invites where reserved only for those with nobility of bloodline, which separated the aristocracy from the poorer middle classes. However, an anomaly of this general rule of thumb was in fact Henry’s lawyer, Thomas Cromwell who was of very low bloodline. His father Walter, was a Blacksmith and so by hereditary right Thomas could, had he chosen to take this career path, have been a Blacksmith and therefore a Freeman of the City of London. But ambitious Thomas was determined to rise through the ranks and after gaining an education became very influential in the King’s Privy Council. Sadly, like so many others in the Kings close circle, Thomas ended up losing his head on the block at Tower Hill when he fell foul of the Kings favour. In hindsight, perhaps he should have proudly accepted his hereditary right and settled for a hammer and anvil, admittedly not so well paid, but a good honest living serving the community alongside the many other guilds at the time - and at least he would have kept his head! After the dissolution of the monasteries, The Freemen of Newcastle took centre stage when King Henry allowed land near the city to be included in the already vast Town Moor – this land was Nuns Moor. Initially this seemed like a benevolent act from the King, but the Freeman of the City quickly realised it was not a gift but had to be paid for, payment which is likely to have come from the city coffers. In the years that followed, a succession of Kings and Queens came and went, but despite this, the difficult lives of ordinary people had one constant thing they could rely on, the support of a very important steadfast section of society...The Freemen; with their diligence and skills spanning all trades, communities were able to not only prosper but long outlive the doomed Tutor dynasty.