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III. Thomas Cromwell's Decline and Fall

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

G. R. Elton
G. R. Elton
Affiliation:
Assistant Lecturer in History in the University
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Extract

Even in the uncertain and tempestuous times of Henry VIII, Cromwell's fall from power was unusually sudden and precipitate. On 18 April 1540 he was created earl of Essex and great chamberlain of England, thus confounding his enemies and those onlookers who had seen him tottering for some time; for the next two months he appeared to be enjoying his master's confidence as much as ever; but on 10 June he was suddenly arrested at the council table, hustled to the Tower, condemned without a hearing, and kept alive until a belated execution on. 28 July only because Henry still wanted his testimony against Anne of Cleves. It is alleged that he foresaw his fall some two years earlier, and indeed it is probable that he was always aware of the dangerous insecurity of a position which so entirely depended on the royal favour; nevertheless, when the knife actually fell it seems to have taken him by surprise. How and why it all happened are questions that have often been considered, but may never find a completely satisfactory answer because the principal actors in the drama did not commit themselves on paper. Burnet pointed out long ago that Henry's dissatisfaction with Anne of Cleves cannot have been the sole or even the chief reason, because Cromwell obtained his last and greatest honours after that storm broke; he saw the decisive factors in the accusations of heresy which were brought against Cromwell.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , 1951 , pp. 150 - 185
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1951

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References

1 Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Henry VIII (1672), p. 520.

2 Burnet, Hist[ory] of the Ref[ormation] (ed. Pocock), 1, 439, 442. This work will hereafter be quoted as ‘Burnet’.

3 Merriman, , Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell (Oxford, 1902) 1, 286 ffGoogle Scholar. Quoted hereafter as ‘Merriman’.

4 Cf. P. Van Dyke, Renascence Portraits, pp. 237 ff.

5 L[etters and] P[apers of Henry VIII], xiii, ii, 337; xiv, i, 511, 673.

6 L.P. xv, 804.

7 L.P. xiv, ii, 750.

8 L.P. xv, 737; cf. below, p. 175.

9 L.P. xiv, ii, 750.

10 Narratives of the Reformation (Camden Soc), pp. 258 f.

11 Stoney, F. Sadleir, Life and Times of the Right Honourable Sir Ralph Sadleir (1877), p. 68Google Scholar.

12 For the ‘poem’ cf. Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, vi, 22. For Wriothesley's early career cf. D.N.B. xxi, 1063 a; L.P. iv, 6600 (11); v, 723. He may have become known to Gardiner, at Cambridge, in the early ‘twenties. Cromwell seems to have kept in touch with him even at a time when Wriothesley was Gardiner's servant; in January 1531 he secured him an annuity the gift of which was in his hands since he was administering the vacant see of York (L.P. v, 80 [25]). Throughout Cromwell's ministry Wriothesley was his confidential chief clerk.

13 Also as wives, of course; the two failures went together.

14 L.P. VII, 1141.

15 L.P. VIII, 263 (p. 104).

16 L.P. XII, ii, 1049.

17 L.P. VIII, 532, 673; ix, 308, 398.

18 [Public Records Office] S[tate] P[apers] 1/105, fol. 245 (L.P. xi, 233). Norfolk had been put in charge of the funeral of Henry's illegitimate son who had married the duke's daughter.

19 S.P. 1/105, fol. 247 (L.P. xi, 236).

20 S.P. 1/106, fol. 157 (L.P. xi, 434). Similarly ibid. fol. 173v (ibid. 458), on 16 August, acknowledging Cromwell's letter of the 15th:’ I know no noble man but hath ther desires, and if I shall now dawnse Alone my bak frendes shall reloyse therat.’

21 S.P. 1/106, fol. 183 (L.P. xi, 470).

22 L.P. xi, 576.

23 L.P. xi, 1138; XII, i, 42, 381, 469, 1157.

24 ibid. 216.

25 ibid. 318, 416, 439, 469, 499, 991, 1157, 1173.

26 ibid. 252.

27 ibid. 318, 381.

28 ibid. 777, 809, 810, 863.

29 L.P. xii, ii, 101.

30 ibid. 229.

31 l ibid. 479.

32 Norfolk had to defend himself constantly against accusations of lukewarmness and sympathy with the rebels (L.P. XII, i, 416, 439, 469, 1157, 1162, 1173). Cf. also a letter to him in March 1537 (ibid. 778), in which a Carthusian monk, later to be martyred, asked him to help the king back to the true path and away from the supreme headship. That was dangerous stuff to write to a man anxious to keep his head. On the other hand, Henry had to administer a gentle rebuke because Norfolk had believed ‘light tales’ and fretted without cause (ibid. 1192).

33 L.P. xiii, i, 504, 690, 691, 741, 784; ii, 365, 554.

34 L.P. xiv, i, 541. Of the three letters marked by Merriman as written by Cromwell to Norfolk (nos. 107, 188, 219), the first two are rather formal instructions; the last was almost certainly written to someone else. Norfolk's very personal and rather chatty letters must have elicited some similar replies which are unfortunately lost (Cromwell would not have kept drafts of unimportant personal notes); he would hardly have gone on for years writing in that style if he had got nothing but formality in return.

35 Muller, J. A., Stephen Gardiner and the Tudor Reaction (1926), pp. 55 ffGoogle Scholar.

36 In a letter of 6 July 1534 (J. A. Muller, Letters of Stephen Gardiner, no. 45), Gardiner thanked Cromwell for the ‘frendly handeling’ of his affairs, hoped for a ‘continuaunce of your amitie’, referred to him as his ‘especial frende’, and even included a little joke in the only informal letter extant he wrote to him after Cromwell's arrival to power. The other letters in these years (ibid. nos. 41–2, 47–51) are formal business letters.

37 Muller, Stephen Gardiner, pp. 55, 57 f.

38 L.P. xii, i, 960.

39 Merriman, 11, 19 ff. The other was addressed to Nicholas Shaxton, ibid. 128 ff.

40 In May 1537, Gardiner's nephew Germain, in a letter to his friend Wriothesley, expressed pleasure at hearing that the old strife between their respective masters was laid by (L.P. XII, i, 1209).

41 LP. XII, ii, 78 (12 June 1537).

42 ibid. 586 (27 August 1537).

43 Report of the French ambassador Castillon, 21 January 1538 (L.P. xm, i, 117).

44 Merriman, 11, 115 f.

45 ibid. 136.

46 Muller, Stephen Gardiner, p. 79; L.P. xiv, i, 412.

47 Cf. Merriman, I, 253 ( ‘the Parliament of 1539 was undoubtedly his masterpiece’); Fisher, Political History of England, v, 434. Dr Pickthorn is the exception: he realized that there was nothing scandalous in election or management (Henry VIII, pp. 405 f.). Froude, after concluding that the examples he records show nothing very improper, yet added that ‘more extensive interference was … indisputably practised’ (Hist, of Eng. iii, 191); as he took his example from the 1536 election, the point hangs in mid-air. For a modern appraisal, cf. J. E. Neale, The Elizabethan House of Commons, pp. 284 f.

48 Neale, J. E., The Elizabethan House of Commons (1949)Google Scholar; Namier, L. B., The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (1929)Google Scholar.

49 Even Pollard thought so: Henry VIII, pp. 261; Factors in Modern History, pp. 120 f. The view appears in most of the text-books in one form or other. Cf. Froude, Hist, of Eng. iii, 193.

50 Brit[ish] Mus[eum] Tit.B.i, fol. 257 (L.P. xiv, i, 538): 17 March 1539.

51 That he was certainly employed once in this fashion is known from a draft speech in his hand, corrected by Cromwell, in favour of the subsidy bill of 1539 (L.P. xiv, i, 869).

52 Brit. Mus. Cleop. E. iv, fols. 209–10 (L.P. xiv, i, 520). The last borough appears as Middnest or Midduest in Southampton's very shaky orthography.

53 S.P. 1/144, fols. 257–8 (L.P. xiv, i, 645). The writer, Christopher More, continued: ‘And further, if it be your lordeshippes plesure to haue any moo of your frendes to be appoynted in any other lyke place, I suppose your lordeshipp may spede therein. …’

54 Knyvett, a headstrong man who, according to his uncle Norfolk, was ‘only Rewled by his owne sensuall will and iij or iiij Light naughtie knaves of Walshemen’, applied for the position to Cromwell, was politely turned down, and then started a rumpus at the election which resulted in his being bound to keep the peace and answer in the Star Chamber (S.P. 1/146, fols. 242, 274–5; 150. fols. 155–6, 160–1; L.P. xiv, i, 672, 706, 800, 808).

55 S.P. 1/144, fols. 69–70 (L.P. xiv, i, 598).

56 He hoped for Ludgershall (Wilts.) where he thought Cromwell had ‘a place’ since the ‘resident’ member, Sir Richard Bridges, whose family had usually sat for the borough, was now knight for Berkshire (S.P. 1/146, fols. 237–40; L.P. xiv, i, 662). Details like these make one realise how completely Prof. Neale's picture of the Elizabethan parliament may be projected backwards; even the invasion of the boroughs by the gentry had clearly begun. An important difference is that Cromwell found it much easier than later ministers to manage county elections.

57 S.P. 1/140, fol. 197 (L.P. xiv, i, 634), Kingsmill to Wriothesley, 31 March 1539. For other letters on this election cf. Brit. Mus. Vesp. F. xiii, fol. 230; Otho, E. ix, fols. 77 ff. (L.P. xiv, i, 564, 573).

58 The longest and perhaps best account of the passing of the act is in Burnet, 1, 410 ff. Cf. also Froude, Hist, of Eng. iii, 194 ff.; Merriman (1, 253 f.) spent remarkably little time in discussing one of the critical turning points in his subject's life.

59 L.P. xiv, i, 655. The date of this note is given by the entry ‘for the appointing of Sir Edward Baynton and his wife to my lady Mary and lady Elizabeth, and of the revoking of the lady Kingston’. On 14 March, Cromwell reported to the king that he had seen a very penitent and submissive Lady Kingston (her offence was connected with the Pole troubles), and that Baynton and his wife’ have wyllyngly accepted the charge by your grace appoincted vnto them’ (Merriman, ii, 193).

60 Cf. Froude's convincing argument, Hist, of Eng. iii, 195 f., borne out by t he course of events in parliament.

61 Merriman, i, 279: ‘er siehe vnser maynunge den glauben betreffen aber wie die welt iczt stehet wesz sich sin her der konnig halte desz wolle er sich auch halten vnd solte er darumb sterben.’

62 Printed by Strype, Eccl. Mem. I, Records, cx.

63 L.P. xiv, i, 877, 921, 922.

64 L[ords’] J[ournals], I, 105. The speech was made by Audeley on 5 May, the third meeting of the parliament.

65 For the views and standing of bishops mentioned in this and subsequent sections, cf. D.N.B.

66 L.J. 1, 109.

67 L.P. xiv, ii, 186, 379, 423.

68 L.P. xiv, i, 868 (9); printed by Wilkins, Concilia, in, 848. The draft is so much shorter and less detailed than the act that it was almost certainly at a very early stage.

69 L.J. 1, iii.

70 ibid. 112. The bill, introduced by Cromwell, was read three times and dispatched to the commons where it immediately received its first reading—all in one morning.

71 ibid. 113. It was probably during this recess that a record was made of the bishops’ reaction to the articles (L.P. xiv, i, 1065, 3). On the basis of this information Henry then went ahead to establish orthodoxy.

72 Burnet, vi, 233 (dated about 30 May by L.P. xiv, i, 1040, but probably a little later).

73 Cf. Burnet, I, 427.

74 L.J. I, 113. Cranmer, Goodrich, Barlow and Dr Petre; Lee, Tunstall, Gardiner and Dr Tregonwell.

75 L.J. I, 115.

76 ibid. 116–17.

77 ibid. 118. The proviso was almost certainly the first of the two schedules attached to the act (cf. Stat. Realm, ill, 743, n.): sees, xx–xxi, concerned with the punishment of priests keeping concubines and of the women involved. The Commons showed no reluctance in passing this orthodox and savage act (they seem to have read it once each on three successive days, 11–13 June), thus proving that once more Henry knew how to fit his convictions to the prevailing trend.

78 L.J. I, 122.

79 ibid. 123–5.

80 Stat. Realm, iii, 743 and note.

81 They had done so by 6 July (L.P. xiv, i, 1219).

82 About September–October 1539 (L.P. xiv, ii, 423).

83 Foxe, Acts and Monuments (ed. Platt ), v, 154 ff.

84 Foxe, who hated both Gardiner and Bonner, alleged that‘so long as Cromwell remained in authority, so long was Bonner at his beck, and friend to his friends, and enemy to his enemies’. He says that Bonner and Gardiner were reconciled immediately after Cromwell's fall and tells a story of Grafton's to prove his case which sounds true (ibid. 413).

85 L.P. xiv, ii, 186, 379.

86 ibid. 423.

87 L.J. 1, 126–7.

88 Cf. Merriman, I, 242 ff., for a painstaking account of a singularly involved episode; a brief summary will be found in Fisher, Pol. Hist, v, 439 f.

89 Merriman, 1, 283 f.

90 L.P. xv, 850 (11). For the cause of his hesitation, cf. below, p. 175.

91 Above, p. 164.

92 L.P. xiv, ii, 223; xv, 154.

93 Burnet, 1, 425.

94 ibid.

95 The view was held by Chapuys (L.P. x, 351, 688; xi, 40), the bishop of Tarbes (ibid. 238), and Castillon (L.P. xiii, i, 995, 1101–2, 1135).

96 L.P. xv, 785.

97 He arrived at the French court on 15 February (L.P. xv, 222) and was back in England by 11 March (ibid. 329).

98 L.P. xv, 812.

99 ibid. 442 (1 April 1540).

100 Froude, Hist, of Eng. iii, 281 ff.; Merriman, 1, 287 f.

101 L.P. xiv, ii, 750 (p. 279). Sampson of Chichester was apparently coupled with Gardiner on that occasion. The date of the event is doubtful—perhaps early 1539, as Froude suggests (iii, 259), perhaps after the close of the 1539 session.

102 L.P. xv, 334, 425.

103 ibid. 485.

104 ibid. 486. If Clerk was a privy councillor, he had succeeded Foxe of Hereford on that bishop's death in 1538.

105 The privy council was organized as a board of government by 1536.

106 L.P. xv, 429. Merriman's supposition that Cromwell was ‘forced to grovel’ before Gardiner (1, 289) depends on the view that Cromwell was actively involved in the Barnes affair; but there is nothing to show that he was.

107 How little Cromwell's control of affairs and standing with the king were as yet affected is clear from an exchange of letters between h im and Sadler on 7 April (L.P. XV, 468–9).

108 L.J. I, 128–9. Cromwell's speech, undoubtedly made in English, is preserved in the stilted humanistic Latin of the clerk of the parliament, Thomas Soulemont, who was also Cromwell's secretary; we may be sure, therefore, that it is an essentially exact rendering.

109 Perhaps the archaism in the translation may be forgiven on the plea that this was a favourite word with Cromwell.

110 L.P. xv, 541.

111 L.J. i, 133, 135.

112 Ibid 137.

113 She received a small gift—the goods of two outlawed felons—on 24 April, and a present from the king's wardrobe on 18 May (L.P. xv, 613 [12], 686).

114 Merriman, 11, 266, where Cromwell recalls his conversation with Henry and permits a certain amount of reading between the lines.

115 These facts emerge from Wriothesley's deposition made after Cromwell's fall (L.P. xv, 850 [11], printed by Strype, Eccl. Mem., 1, Records, cxiv, no. 9).

118 Lisle had been on the ‘wrong’ side in the religious discussions of 1539; cf. his disapproval of one of the Calais burgesses, Thomas Brooke, who had tried to uphold reformist views in the commons (L.P. xiv, i, 1108, 1152, 1166).

117 Marillac to Montmorency, 21 May 1540 (L.P. xv, 697).

118 Marillac to Francis I, 1 June 1540 (ibid. 736). Sampson was in parliament on 25 May but absent from the 28th onwards (L.J. I, 138).

119 All this was reported by Marillac (L.P. xv, 373). Though the French ambassador is not the most reliable of sources, he has to be believed to some extent, and in any case there is little other information.

120 L.P. xv, 758, printed by Strype, Eccl. Mem. 1, Records, xciii.

121 ‘After I declared to the Kinges Majestee how the Bishop of Chichester was committed to warde to the Tower ’

122 State Papers, Henry VIII, 1, 627 f.

123 L.P. xv, 766.

124 He was in London certainly from 11 May onwards (Merriman, 11, nos. 345–7), while the king stayed at Greenwich from Whitsunday, 16 May (L.P. xv, 697).

125 Cf. e.g. ibid. 468.

126 L.J. 1, 143; L.P. xv, 765–7.

127 ibid. 804.

128 ibid. 765–6.

129 ibid. 801.

130 Burnet, I, 443 f. Merriman's account of the act (1, 295 f.) is perfunctory and inaccurate in several details: e.g., Cromwell forfeited all his property, of course, and not only that held since March 1538 (in any case the date should be 1539). The only accusation not brought forward in it was that Cromwell had betrayed the king's confidences about Anne of Cleves (partly refuted and partly acknowledged as true by Cromwell in the Tower: Merriman, II, 266); that was not suitable for publication.

131 Cromwell was dean of Wells, and the proviso excepted the deanery from the penalties of the act.

132 L.J. 1, 145b, 146b, 149b.

133 The version printed by Burnet (iv, 415 ff.) from the parliament roll has here been used. The act is not in Stat. Realm.

134 The almost pathological hatred shown in these repeated references to Cromwell's low origin is interesting. It suggests the hand of Norfolk rather than the king's in the drafting of the act.

135 In fact the act only states that Cromwell was to be ‘adjudged an abominable and detestable heretic and traitor’, going on to his goods and chattels (Burnet, IV, 421); the death penalty involved was, however, clear in the law and did not have to be specifically mentioned in the attainder. There may also have been some doubt, as the penalties for heresy and treason were not the same.

136 Merriman, 11, 266. Burnet states that ‘when he fell, no bribery, nor cheating of the king could be fastened on him’ (1, 454), which appears to be true and is both remarkable and significant.

137 Merriman, ii, 267.

138 1, 445.

139 Burnet, 1, 446.

140 Burnet (loc. cit.) points out, however, that the drawing of his dagger, as an overt act of some kind, might be thought to clinch matters. The aptness made him rightly suspicious.

141 L.P. xv, 803. That was—and is—the common view; for a more precise and less sensational estimate of Cromwell and ‘treason by words’ cf. I. D. Thornley, in Trans. Royal Hist. Soc. (1917), pp. 106 ff. One would also like to see a list of cases where words spoken ‘with good intention’ had been twisted into treason by Cromwell.

142 Merriman, ii, 264 f.

143 ibid. 265.

144 Cf. e.g. R. W. Chambers, Thomas More, pp. 337 ff. The fact is used to point another moral against Cromwell. At the same time, it should be noted that Riche's companions who denied having heard More's alleged treasonable statement were Cromwell's servants; it is at least possible that Riche improved the occasion on his own initiative.

145 Merriman, 11, 265. The comparison with the biblical Susannah, which follows, is however more than far-fetched.

146 As h e himself soon realized: L.P. XVI, 590.

147 Merriman, 11, 273.

148 ibid. 1, 297; Fisher, op. cit. 446 (‘slavish and abject in the moment of danger’); Maynard-Smith, Henry VIII and the Reformation, p. 177 (‘hysterical appeals’).

149 L.P. xv, 804.

150 Foxe, Acts and Monuments (ed. Pratt), v, 401 f.

151 L.P. xv, 804.

152 Bumet, IV, 415 ff. passim.

153 E.g. L.P. xv, 996; xvi, 14, 300, 349, 479, etc.

154 L.P. xv, 801; xvi, 19.

156 L.P. xv, 847, 926. Melanchthon also heard that Cromwell was hanged, quartered and burnt (ibid. 982). The rumour certainly got about.

156 Cf. Merriman, 1, 301. There is a version preserved among the papers of Bishop Cox of Ely at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (MS. 168, art. 25), which essentially corresponds with the version known from Foxe (the full version in ed. Platt, v, 402, after the 1563 edition), though it adds a few odd touches whose authenticity it is difficult to be sure of. Thus according to the transcriber Cromwell ended his speech and prayer with the words (turning about): ‘farewell, Wyat, & gentell Wiat, praye for me.’

157 Hall, Chronicle, 839.

158 ibid. 838 f. I have taken the liberty of modernizing the punctuation.