[6] Before long his abilities attracted the notice of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who made him his secretary,[7] and in this capacity he is said to have been with him at The More in Hertfordshire, when the conclusion of the celebrated Treaty of the More brought King Henry VIII and the French ambassadors there.

In 1527 he and Sir Thomas More were named commissioners on the part of England, in arranging a treaty with the French ambassadors for the support of an army in Italy against Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

As a canon lawyer, he was sent to Orvieto in 1527 to secure a decretal commission from Pope Clement VII to allow the King's divorce case to be tried in England.

Henry was particularly anxious to cement his alliance with King Francis I of France, and gain support for his plans to divorce Catherine of Aragon.

The next year, Wolsey sent Gardiner and Edward Foxe, provost of King's College, Cambridge, to Italy to promote the same business with the Pope.

He was instructed to procure a decretal commission from the Pope, which was intended to construct principles of law by which Wolsey might render a decision on the validity of the King's marriage without appeal.

[citation needed] Pope Clement VII, who had been recently forced to seek refuge in Castel Sant'Angelo by mutinous soldiers of the Holy Roman Empire, had managed to escape to Orvieto.

Though the issue had not been specifically resolved, a general commission was granted, enabling Wolsey, along with Papal Legate, Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio, to try the case in England.

[citation needed] He urged Gardiner to press Clement VII further to deliver the desired decretal, even if it were only to be shown to the King and himself and then destroyed.

A description of his character from George Cavendish declared him "a swarthy complexion, hooked nose, deep-set eyes, a permanent frown, huge hands and a vengeful wit.

In 1530 the King demanded a precedent from Cambridge to procure the decision of the university as to the unlawfulness of marriage with a deceased brother's wife: in accordance with the new plan devised for settling the question without the Pope's intervention.

It was at this interview that Edmund Bonner intimated the appeal of Henry VIII to a general council in case the Pope should venture to proceed to sentence against him.

He was often so abroad, having little influence on the King's councils; but in 1539 he took part in the enactment of the Six Articles, which led to the resignation of Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Shaxton and the persecution of the Protestant party.

A few years later he attempted, in concert with others, to fasten a charge of heresy upon Archbishop Cranmer in connection with the Six Articles and would, but for the personal intervention of the king, probably have succeeded.

Despite having supported royal supremacy, he was a thorough opponent of the Reformation from a doctrinal point of view, and is thought to have been a leader of the Prebendaries' Plot against Cranmer.

In 1546 Gardiner was the significant person involved in a conservative plot to discredit Maud Lane who was Catherine Parr's cousin, gentlewoman and confidante.

Between the time of Henry VIII's death in January 1547 and the end of that year, Gardiner wrote at least 25 indignant letters arguing that the reforms were both theologically wrong and unconstitutional.

[18] Eventually he was given a lengthy appearance before the Privy Council, beginning in December 1550 and, in February 1551 he was deprived of his bishopric and returned to the Tower where he remained for the rest of the reign (a further two years).

He was now also called upon, in old age, to undo not a little of the work in which he had been instrumental in his earlier years – to demonstrate the legitimacy of the Queen's birth and the legality of her mother's marriage, to restore the old religion, and to recant his own words touching the royal supremacy.

It is said that he wrote a formal Palinodia or retraction of his book De vera obedientia; but the reference is probably to his sermon at the start of Advent, 1554, after Cardinal (later Archbishop of Canterbury) Reginald Pole had absolved the kingdom from schism.

As chancellor he had the onerous task of negotiating the Queen's marriage treaty with Philip II of Spain, for which he shared a general repugnance.

In executing it, he took care to make the terms as advantageous for England as possible, with express provision that the Spaniards should in no way be allowed to interfere in the government of the country.

[23] Gardiner is a prominent character in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror & the Light, where he appears as an implacable opponent of Thomas Cromwell.