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 Milan, and between the Princess Mary and Don Luis of Portugal. He arrived at Calais on 28 Sept., and had audience with the regent at Brussels on 6 Oct. During his residence in the Netherlands he made various efforts to kidnap English refugees, both protestant and Roman catholic, but these were as unsuccessful as the main objects of his mission. It was, however, intended to be nothing more than an attempt to delay the threatened coalition of Francis I and Charles V against Henry. In March 1538–9 war seemed imminent; Chapuys left England, and Wriothesley was in great dread of being detained a prisoner in Flanders. He obtained the regent's leave to depart on the 19th, and reached Calais just in time to escape the messengers she had sent after him to effect his arrest.

On 1 April following, in spite of Gardiner's opposition, Wriothesley was returned to parliament as one of the knights of the shire for the county of Southampton. In December he was sent to Hertford to obtain the consent of the Princess Mary to negotiations for her marriage with Philip of Bavaria, and about the same time he is said to have attempted to dissuade Henry from marrying Anne of Cleves. In April 1540 Wriothesley was appointed joint principal secretary with Sir Ralph Sadleir [q. v.], with the usual provision of lodging within the royal palaces ‘and like bouge of court in all things as is appointed;’ his commission (Stowe MS. 141, f. 78) dispensed with the statute (31 Henry VIII, c. 10) providing that both secretaries should sit on one of the woolsacks in the House of Lords, and directed, in consideration of their usefulness in the House of Commons, that the two secretaries should sit alternate weeks, one in the lower and one in the upper house. On the 18th of the same month Wriothesley was knighted at the same time that Cromwell was created Earl of Essex (Letters and Papers, xv. 437, 541;, Chron. i. 115).

Cromwell's fall two months later made Wriothesley's position perilous, and it was commonly reported that he was about to follow his patron to the Tower. A series of charges, instigated possibly by Gardiner, and accusing him of unjustly retaining some manors near Winchester, were brought against him and repeatedly discussed by the privy council. On 27 June, however, Richard Pate [q. v.] wrote to Wriothesley from Brussels rejoicing ‘to hear the common rumours proved false touching his trouble,’ and on 29 Dec. the privy council pronounced the charges against him slanderous. In reality Wriothesley had proved himself useful by the evidence he gave with respect to Cromwell's case and the repudiation of Anne of Cleves. Apparently, too, he had made his peace with the now powerful Gardiner, with whom he henceforth acted in concert, and had given sureties against any recurrence of his former religious and iconoclastic zeal; at any rate, he now became one of the mainstays of the conservative party. On 26 July he was sufficiently in favour to be granted in fee the ‘great mansion’ within the close of Austin Friars, London. On 13 Nov. he ‘came to Hampton Court to the Quene [Catherine Howard], and called all the ladies and gentlewomen and her servauntes into the Great Chamber, and there openlye afore them declared certeine offences that she had done … wherefore he there discharged all her househould’ (, Chron. i. 130–1;, Reign of Henry VIII, pp. 535–6). This offensive duty was followed by repeated examinations of the Duchess of Norfolk and her household, in which Wriothesley also took the principal part, and on 7 Jan. 1540–1 he was appointed constable of Southampton Castle. In the same month at the time of the arrest of his friends Sir Thomas Wyatt [q. v.] and Sir John Wallop [q. v.], Wriothesley was again thought by Marillac to be in great danger (Correspondence, ed. Kaulek, pp. 261–262), and the rumour has led to erroneous statements that he was at this time sent to the Tower (Cal. State Papers, Spanish, vol. vi. pt. i. index); but there is no sign of this in the state papers or in the register of the privy council, where Wriothesley continued to be an assiduous attendant.

In reality the loss of influence inflicted upon the Howards by the attainder of their relative, Queen Catherine, opened up for Wriothesley the prospect of greater power than he had hitherto enjoyed, and in April 1542 Chapuys reported that Wriothesley and the lord privy seal, William Fitzwilliam, earl of Southampton [q. v.], were the courtiers who possessed most credit with Henry VIII (ib. i. 493). In November of the same year he went further and declared that Wriothesley ‘almost governed everything’ in England (ib. ii. 167). This view of Wriothesley's influence was partly due to the fact that he was working hand in hand with the imperial party and Chapuys to restore a complete alliance between England and Spain. With this object he was in constant communication with the imperial ambassador, and on 25 Oct. 1543 he was commissioned with Gardiner and Thirlby to formulate an offensive and defensive league with Charles V, the outcome of which was