Some materials from a book I worked on some years ago entitled Lisle’s Man. The Lisle in the title is Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle, who was governor of Calais for many years during the reign of Henry VIII. The man is master John Hussee, the Lisle’s ‘agent, estate manager, and matchless confidant’. Husee it was, who as a private citizen represented the Lisles in their absense at court, dealing with the varied intrigues and demands of the Tudor machine. His role is put best by Richard Holmes:

Husee directs us into the heart of the Lisle letters, which is a theme straight out of Shakespeare’s history plays: the exercise of power. influence, and personal affection in a dangerous world where no one is safe.

…Lisle’s salary as governor of Calais was negligible…what kept him going…was the promise of royal reward: land, gifts, …posts he could assign, and thus receive gifts for himself. Such a system explains a dominant characteristic of Tudor political life: that as wealth and prestige increased, personal security and expectations, being dependent on the King’s favour, grew more tenuous – terrifyingly so. Hence the vital importance of a man like John Husee, the go-between, the intelligencer… the gift-presenter, the manipulator, the man who knows more than his master…

Husee’s shrewdness of observation and political tact became Lisle’s most valuable weapon in the struggle for survival. He knows… the absolute necessity if watching the shadows behind Cromwell. Most of all, he understands his own master’s greatest weakness: to be temperamental… too nice, too anxious not to give offence. This made Lisle especially vulnerable to Cromwell, who had perfected the art of pressuring his subordinates by unspoken threats, nuances of displeasure, meaningful silences, or sudden tiny cold splinters or criticism – his notorious ‘sharp’ letters – that slid beneath the skin like glass…

In one celebrated instance Husee actually confronted Cromwell with one of these sharp letters to Lisle, and boldly informed the lord privy seal ‘that if his lordship did not the sooner write some other loving letter unto you [Lisle] that I stood in doubt that your Lordship might take such conceit [imaginary fear] thereon that might perchance put you in hazard of some disease or peril of your life.’ One can almost see Cromwell’s narrow lips – in the famous Holbein portrait – draw back in a disarming, deadly smile: ‘he answered and said that he thought your Lordship was wiser than to take it after any such manner, for whatsoever he wrote he was and would remain your Lordships sincere and very friend.’

from Richard Holmes:
 Lord Lisle and the Tudor Nixon Tapes
First published in Harper’s magazine,
New York, August, 1982

The Lisle letters really are a fantastically inspiring resource. I’d love to revisit some of these ideas with another attempt at the book.