Cromwell was certainly shrewd enough to see that he could never hope to marry into a reigning house himself, but he was none the less anxious that his son Gregory should wed such a wife as would enable him to found a noble family. In April, 1533, Gregory had been taken from Cambridge, and sent to live with his father’s friend Dr. Rowland Lee, with whom he appears to have spent a summer in hunting[318]. In 1535 he came out into public life, and in 1539 he was summoned to Parliament as a peer of the realm. Two years earlier he had been able to contract an advantageous marriage with the widow of Sir Anthony Ughtred, sister of Jane Seymour[319]. This fortunate match must be attributed to his father’s influence, for Gregory seems to have been entirely without ambition, and such an idea would never have entered his mind; his father, on the contrary, was precisely the man to think of it. The number of grants either made jointly to Cromwell and his son, or providing for the succession of the latter at his father’s death[320], corroborates the theory that the King’s great minister wished Gregory to be the heir of all his possessions and emoluments as far as might be, and desired to raise his family to a permanent position among the English nobility. Of course Cromwell was obliged in large measure to abandon his private business after he definitely entered the King’s service, but his new position brought him far greater riches than he could possibly have amassed in his old occupations. The various inventories of his goods indicate great wealth and prosperity. He gave costly New Year’s presents at the Court, and owned several houses, all of them magnificently furnished[321]. After October, 1534, when he was made Master of the Rolls, his correspondence shows him to have been constantly in residence at the Rolls House, where he held his Court. Writing in 1535, the Prioress of Little Marlowe complained that so great was the crowd of his visitors there, that it was impossible to gain access to him[322]. CHAPTER VIII IRELAND, WALES, SCOTLAND, CALAIS Though Cromwell was so busily occupied in England itself, he was far from neglecting the adjoining countries. The subjugation of Ireland, the pacification of Scotland, and the reform of Wales and Calais, played a very important part in his political programme. He plainly saw that the English King’s position could not be regarded as secure while these countries remained in the state in which they were at Wolsey’s fall, and he determined as soon as possible to deal with them in such a way that they should cease to be a menace to the English Crown in the future.