Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/57

 decree in the Star-chamber (ib. No. 1856). A year later he received Henry VIII's sister Margaret, the widow of James IV, at her entry into Yorkshire on her return to Scotland (Nos. 3336, 3346). In July 1518 he was one of those who met Cardinal Campeggio on his first mission to England two miles out of London (No. 4348). A year later, a privy search having been ordered to be made throughout London and the neighbourhood for suspicious characters, Darcy and Sir John Nevill were appointed to conduct it in Stepney and the eastern suburbs (ib. vol. iii. No. 365, 1, 8). In 1519 he attended the feast of St. George on 28 and 29 May (, Hist. of the Garter, App. 2, 15). In March 1520 he resigned his offices in Sheriffhutton to his friend, Sir Robert Constable, whom he familiarly called his brother, in whose favour a new patent was granted by the king (ib. Nos. 654–5). His name occurs shortly afterwards in various lists of persons to accompany the king to the Field of the Cloth of Gold (ib. pp. 237, 240, 243); but it is more than doubtful whether he went thither, seeing that on 29 June, just after the interview, he and Lord Berners waited on three French gentlemen and conducted them to see the princess at Richmond, though their arrival the day before was only notified a few hours in advance by letters from Wolsey, who was still at Guisnes (Nos. 895–6).

In 1523 he took an active part in the war against Scotland, making various raids on the borders with a retinue of 1,750 men (ib. Nos. 3276, 3410, 3432, &c.). In the same year he obtained a principal share in the wardship of the son and heir of Lord Monteagle, which led to many complaints from one of the executors named Richard Bank (ib. No. 3136, iv. 13, 120, 5105, App. 109). On 12 Feb. 1525 he was again appointed to conduct a privy search at Stepney (ib. iv. No. 1082). The annual revenue of his lands in various counties is given in a contemporary document as 1,834l. 4s., and he was taxed for the first and second payment of the subsidy at no less than 1,050l. (ib. No. 2527 and p. 1331). In 1529 he shamefully prepared the way for his old comrade Wolsey's fall by drawing up a long paper of accusations against him, in which he professed that his motive was ‘only for to discharge my oath and most bounden duty to God and the king, and of no malice’ (ib. No. 5749). In the same year he was one of the many witnesses examined on the king's behalf as to the circumstances of Prince Arthur's marriage with Catherine, though he had really little evidence to give upon the subject, having been at that time in the king's service in the north of England (ib. p. 2580). He was one of the peers who signed the articles prepared against Wolsey in parliament on 1 Dec., partly founded on the charges drawn up by himself five months before (ib. No. 6075); and in the following year he signed the memorial of the lords spiritual and temporal of England to Clement VII, warning him of the danger of not gratifying the desire of Henry VIII in the matter of the divorce (ib. No. 6513). It was not long, however, before he became a rather marked opponent of the court in reference to this very subject. In the parliament which met in January 1532 the Duke of Norfolk made a speech, declaring how ill the king had been used by the pope not remitting the cause to be tried in England, adding that it was maintained by some that matrimonial causes were a matter of temporal jurisdiction, of which the king was the head and not the pope, and finally asking whether they would not employ their persons and goods in defence of the royal prerogative against interference from abroad. To this appeal Darcy was the first to reply. He said his person and goods were at the king's disposal, but as to matrimonial causes he had always understood that they were spiritual and belonged to ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and if the question presented any difficulties it was for the king's council first to say what should be done without involving others in their responsibility (vol. v. No. 805). After this it is not surprising to learn that among other peers who were treated in a similar manner he was informed that his presence in the January session of 1534 would be dispensed with, although he had received a regular summons to attend (ib. vol. vii. Nos. 55, 121). Among matters of minor interest about this period we find him reminding Bishop Tunstall after his promotion to Durham of a promise of the offices of steward and sheriff of his bishopric (ib. vol. v. No. 77). A long-standing dispute with his neighbours at Rothwell in Yorkshire comes to light in a commission obtained in April 1533 to examine certain of the inhabitants who had threatened, in defiance of a decree of the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, to pull down the gates and hedges of Rothwell park (ib. vol. vi. Nos. 355, 537).

In July 1534 he was one of the jury of peers who acquitted Lord Dacre (ib. vol. vii. No. 962 x.), an act which was scarcely calculated to make him more acceptable to the court. Cromwell, however, appears to have been his friend, and obtained for his second son, Sir Arthur Darcy, the office of captain or governor of Jersey in September following, for whose appointment he wrote Cromwell a letter of thanks from Mortlake, regretting