Good Afternoon To You, My Gentle Friends,

On his return, Sir William Fitzwiliam was promptly immersed for war against France, his special responsibility as Vice-Admiral being to prepare the ships at Portsmouth. He was in the force led by the Earl of Surrey which burned towns, villages and castles from Calais to Picardy. When criticized in 1522, for failing to set sail he wrote a sprited lettter to the King saying that he couldnot make ships sail without wind, or cables hold where they would not, "and in case my Lord Admiral can, I would be right glad to learn in that behalf". In July, 1523, he failed to stop the Duke of Albany's passage from France to Scotland. Although Wolsey thought that he had done all that he could, Fitzwilliam wished he had done more; the Scots had killed his two elder brothers at Flodden, and he would have been glad, he said, "to do the Scots some displeasure for their cracks and high words".

In 1522, Sir William Fitzwilliam had been appointe as Joint Master of the Ordinanace at Calais and in 1523, as Captain of Guisnes. In May, 1525, he was sent with Sir Robert Wingfield on a special Embassy to Margaret of Savoy to convey Wolsey's latest notion, the partition of France, and in September, 1525, he went with Dr. John Taylor to Louise of Savoy to receive her Oath of Ratification to the Treaty of the More. When Fitzwilliam again fell ill and was recalled, Taylor explained to Wolsey how deeply his loss would be felt, as "a wise, discreet and sober man" who "hath the language of the French tongue". By October, 1525, Fitzwilliam had become Treasurer of the Household, and by 1526, he was a member of the inner ring of Royal Councillors.

His ascendancy was confirmed by his admission to the Order of the Garter in 1526, and in 1526, the City of London admitted him to the Freedom "in whatever mystery or craft he likes, paying nothing". His next appointment, as Lietenant of Calais Castle, meant that he could be readily sent on Embassies to France; he was there from 1526 to 1527, trying to negotiate a closer alliance and to promot a marriage for Princess Mary, and again in 1529, this time with the Duke of Suffolk, to forestall a peace which would lessen the chance of obtaining the King's divorce.

During Wolsey's last years of power, Fitzwilliam stood close to the Cardinal, acting as his channel of communication with the King. Their relationshi[ was not purelyu official; Fitzwilliam sent Wolsey a gift of his wife's "housewifery", "made him good sport" in Windsor forest and undertook to cover up for the Minister if he failed to attend to the matter of a household appointment. He none the less subscribed to the articles presented by the Lords as did More and others of the Household; Article 12, which charged Wolsey with conducting diplomacy single-handedly, Fitzwilliam igned separately, but as he had been deeply personally incolved, he could hardly deny its truth even if the implication of deceit was unfair. He was present when Wolsey surrendered the great seal. As late as June of the following year, he was among those at court who were stil "asking heartily" after the Cardinal.

Sir William Fitzwilliam's career in the Commons may well have begun in 1523, or even earlier, but the loss of names for these Parliaments leaves this a mtter of speculation. His election in 1529 as Knight of the Shire for Surrey must certainly have had the King's Approval, if indeed it was not the King's doing. Fitzwiliam was probably with him at Windsor when delivery of some of the writs was being arranged, and unlike his fellow-Member, Sir Nicholas Carew, he had as yet no strong affiliation with the country. What little is known of his role in the House suggests that it was chiefly that of sppkesman for the crown, although in 1531, he helped Southamptom to secure an Act ( 22 Hen. VIII 20 ) reducig its fee-farms. When in the course of the first session the House complained to the King of Bishop Fisher's imputation tht Membeeretics, it was Wiliam Fitzwilliam who brought back the King's answser, "which blind excuse pleased the Commons nothing at all." He was one of the knights and doctors in Parliament who signed the Petition of July 04, 1530 to the Pope for the divorce and he was present at Westmnister when the clergy made their submission in May, 1532,. As "Mr. Treasurer", he was included in a list compiled by Cromwell probably in December, 1534, and thought to be of Members connected with the Treasons Bill then passing through Parliament. In 1535, he visited Calais with his former commander Surrey, who was now the Third Duke of Norfolk, and the results fo this and earlier Commissions of the Inquiry were incorporated in a Bill prepared by Fitzwilliam and enacted in the last session of Parliament ( 27 Henry VIII, c.63 ). During the following Parliament, his presence in the Hall was noted when another Calais matter was debated and woards its close John Hussee observed that "Chancellor Audley, Cromwell, and Fitzwilliam had all been too preoccupied with the "weighty matters of the Parliament", to settle a dispute over an office there; his constituency is unknown, but he had almost certainly been re-elected for Surrey in accoprdance with the King's request for the return of the previous Members.

Fitzwilliam's duties in the Household wre not onerous, and he was Appointed in turn to greater and more demanding offices: In 1529, he succeede More as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in 1536, he replaced Henry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond, as Admiral, and in 1540, he followed Cromwell as Lord Privy Seal. If his unbroken progress is proof of his ability to avoid pitfalls, his attitude towards the great issues of the years is, perhaps understandably, less clear. It was as a "very friend" of Cromwell that he was asked by More to intercede with the Minister in 1533, whereas Chapuys took him to be "a good servant of the Princess Mary" and a secret opponent of the divorce. To this piece of wishful thinking, Fitzwilliam's conduct lent little or no colour; in 1530, he was sent with Suffolk to cajole or bully the University of Oxford into support for the divorce. In 1531, he was one of the Councillors who exhorted teh queen not to make her Appeal to Rome and in 1532, he Witnessed the King's Appeal to a Future General Council against his threatened excommunication. Only during the tense summer of 1536 was he momentarily at risk: as one of the Commissioners who had sought vainly to persuade the Princess to submit, he incurred the King's anger and was, for a time, excluded from the Council. He redeemed himself by the vigour with which he acted during the Prilgrimage of Grace, and in 1537, he was ennobled. A certain ruthlessness, allied to cunning, also marked Fitzwilliam's dealings with offenders of higher degree. Henry Norris complained that Fitzwilliam had tricked him into a confession of Anne Boleyn's adultery. In 1538, he interrogated Sir Geoffrey Pole and his mother, the Countess of Salisbury, and eighteen months later, it was Cromwell's turn to face him. His last such investigation was that of 1541, when with Thomas Wriothesley, he inquired into Catherine Howard's upbringing.

In 1539, Fitzwilliam had been in charge of the mobilization of the country in case of invasion, a tsk which he combined with that of supervising the choise of Members to the Parliament of 1539 in Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex. His reports to Cromwell show that, while aware that Golalming and Petworth were not Parliamentary Boroughs, he believed the Bishop of Winchester's Borough of Farham to be one although it is only known to have made an isolated return in 1460. Fitzwilliam became a regular attender int he House of Lords. As Admiral in 1540, he introduced the measure enacted as the Navigation Act ( 32 Hen. VIII, c.14 ). In 1540, he was one of the Committee which dealt with the Commons over the nullity of the Cleves marriage, and on February 11, 1542, he reported for the Commission from the Lords, which, on Audley's suggestion, visited Catherine Howard before her attainder. In 1539, he had received Anne of Cleves at Calais, whence he wrote to the King in praise of her beauty. Henry VIII's disappointment nearly cost Fitzwilliam his reputation and standing, although he made the excuse that it would not have helped to disabuse the King at so late a stage. It was Fitzwilliam whom the King sent with Suffolk and Wriothesley to tell the queen of his wish for a divorce, and in the subsequent proceedings he was a witness that the King lacked the will and power to consummate the marriage. As Lord Privy Seal, Fitzwilliam signed Anne's letters of consent tot he divrce and afterward, he assisted her to establish her own hoursehold.

Fitzwilliam greatly augmentd the inheritance he had received from his fther and mother. His principal seat, Cowdray, he bought in 1528 for nearly two thousand two hundred pounds although he did not occupy it until 1535. At the Dissolution, he received the entire holdings of Boxgrove Priory, Durford Priory, Easebourne Nunnery, Sgulbrede Abbey, and Waverley Abbey, and had a lease of Chertsey Abbey lands. In 1537, there follows grants of lands in Devon, Northamptonshire, and Somerset, and in 1540, after the attainder of the Countess of Salisbury, of her manmors of Calton and Warblington. His first town house was in Cannon Row, but in 1539, he acquired the Bishop of Bath's house in the Strand, a trnsaction confirmed by the Act of Parliament ( 31 Hen. VIII, c.25 ). The value of his property after the Dissolution has been estimated to be over one thousand pounds a year, to which must be added his income from warships, fees, and offices.

To the North of Laughton there lies the hamlet of Slade Hooton, which appears in the Doomsday Book as a Manor within the Soke of Laughton with three carucates of land. In the Middle Ages it was divided into two Manors. The Ripers family, Lords of Loversall gave their manor to Roche Abbey. At the Dissolution this Manor sas granted to Richard Turke, who sold it to Robert Saunderson, William Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton held the other manor in the early sixteenth century. He gave Soade Hooten and other lands in the area to John Fitzwilliam of Kingsley ( Hants ). This grant was later challenged by the Earl's niece, Margaret, wife of Sir Goedfrey Foljambe and later the case was settled in 1563, in favour of Godfrey Foljambe of Croxdon.

Sir William Fitzwilliam died as he had lived, on active service. Appointed to command against the Scots in 1542, he had to travel to Newcastle in a litter and died on October 15, 1542, three days after his arrival. In the Will which he made on September 10, 1542, he had asked to be buried, if he were to die within one hundred mikles of Midhurst, in a new chapel to be built in the Church there: the Chapel was built, but without a tomb. St. Nicholas Cburch ( which is now the Cathedral, and emptied of its old monuments ), in Newcacstle, has a Resurrection Chapel. This Church in Newcastle is where Sir Anthony Browne took the body of his half-brother by Lucy ( Neville ) Fitzwilliam, after he had been killed there, although it is not known where he was buried.

In his Will, dated September 10, 1542, he lists: Mabel, his wife; Lady Lucy browne, his mother; his cousin, Thomas Harvey; Mabel Browne, the daughter of his half-brther; his half-brother, Sir Anthony Browne; his cousin, Elizabeth Borough; his Cousin, Lady Catherine Heneage, wife of Sir Thomas Hennage; his nephew, John Cuttrs; his nephew, William Lord Herbertp his cousin Margart Foljambe. His heirs were a niece and a great-nephew Godfrey Foljambe. To the King, whom he appointed ashis overseer, he gave his "great ship with all of her tackle and apparel and also my collar of the Garter with my best George and a tabernacle of silver and gilt beset with stones and mother of pearl", and to his friends, relations and household servants, he gave gifts of money and plate.

His lands, which included, besides such further Sussex property as the Manor of Midhurse, some four thousand six hundred acres in Hampsnire, were to pass to his half-brother, Sir Anthony Browne on the death of the widow, Mabel Clifford. Although Sir Anthony Browne died before the Counteess, he had already come into possession of at least one of these estates, Cowdray, which was to become the family seat.