‘The frailty of human affairs’
The court, which, by now, was home to Thomas Cromwell, was one of the most dazzling in the world. According to one envious foreign visitor, Henry’s court was the most ‘magnificent, excellent and triumphant’ that had ever been seen in England. Its primary function was to house the monarch, but by the early sixteenth century it had become the nation’s political and cultural nucleus, the home of government, a melting pot of scholars, artists and the greatest minds of the age. The epitome of style and sophistication, it dictated fashion in dress, art and architecture for the entire country.
Henry VIII owned more palaces than any other English monarch. Principal among these were the lavish houses situated on the banks of the River Thames: from the rambling Whitehall Palace to the imposing Tower of London and the splendour of Hampton Court, his palaces were the envy of the world. Bedecked with the finest tapestries, richly coloured silks and velvets, gold and silver plate, exquisite sculptures and paintings, they would have presented an awe-inspiring sight for even the most seasoned of courtiers. Furniture was heavily gilded, tapestries were shot through with lavish amounts of gold thread, and everything else was so brightly painted that it might be considered gaudy to modern tastes. Even the floors were painted or tiled in vivid colours. Although most of the interiors have been lost, it is still possible to experience some of the awe and wonder when, for example, standing in the middle of Henry’s vast great hall at Hampton Court and gazing up at the extraordinary craftsmanship of the original hammerbeam roof, complete with ‘eavesdroppers’ – small figureheads looking down on the courtiers below, intended as a reminder that everything was overheard within the confines of the court.
Henry spent most of the year in London, and his palaces there housed by far the greatest number of occupants. Hundreds if not thousands of courtiers would be crowded into the public rooms. The business of feeding and accommodating them all was of necessity run like a military operation. During the summer months, or when there was the threat of plague in the capital, the king and a select number of favoured courtiers would go on ‘progress’ to his houses outside London, or those belonging to distinguished nobles and councillors. They would stay for just long enough to eat the host out of house and home before moving on to the next residence in a vast, unwieldy train of carts, wagons, horses and attendants. It was an itinerant court, with the king and his entourage moving an average of thirty times a year – although this decreased slightly as he became less physically robust in his later years.
The royal palaces were built to a more or less consistent plan, which reflected the shift from the overwhelmingly public life of medieval monarchs to a greater desire for privacy among the Tudors. Thus, there was an increasing division between the public or ‘state’ rooms, such as the great hall, and the king’s private suite of rooms. He and his wife had separate apartments which were organised in a ceremonial or processional route that became ever more private or exclusive as it went on. The outer rooms included a great watching chamber and presence chamber. These were usually followed by the privy chamber – the king’s inner sanctum, where he would take his meals, converse with guests, work on state business or relax. Beyond that lay the privy or ‘secret’ lodgings, which included the king’s formal and second bedchamber, his closet (which could take the form of a private oratory or study) and close stool.
Because only the most favoured courtiers gained access to the privy chamber, it assumed considerable political importance, rivalled only by the Privy Council. The latter typically comprised nineteen or so members and met almost every day to debate and decide upon all matters of government. The staff of the privy chamber increased during Henry’s reign and were, inevitably, in continual service. The friction between the personal or informal authority of the privy chamber staff, who might petition the king and influence his policy during his ‘off duty’ hours, and the formal or ‘official’ powers of the Privy Councillors became increasingly marked as the reign wore on. A clever courtier would try to ensure that he had a foot in both camps.
The jockeying for position between members of the household and council was only part of the story, however. As Henry’s reign progressed, the court became increasingly riven by factions. These groups of influential courtiers and councillors would form at different times and over different issues: from foreign policy to the question of the king’s marriage. Their power struggles came to dominate life in both the formal and informal arenas of Henry’s court. It was with ample justification that Sir Francis Bryan observed there was an ‘overplus’ of ‘malice and displeasures’. Alliances were forged and broken with bewildering speed, and if a particular faction looked set to lose royal favour, its members defected with little recourse to loyalty or principle. A man’s word was by no means his bond, and nobody could be completely trusted – however earnest they might seem. Many criticised this way of life. John Husee, an agent of Lady Lisle, echoed Bryan when he warned: ‘Every man [should] beware the flattering of the court.’ Meanwhile, Henry’s future queen, Jane Seymour, described it as a place that was ‘full of pride, envy, indignation, mocking, scorning and derision’.1
Henry VIII liked to surround himself with like-minded courtiers. Men such as Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, Sir Anthony Browne and William Compton were his constant companions. They not only shared his interests, they physically resembled him: tall, large-framed, imposing. It has been said that the king consciously sought out men who were the mirror image of himself. Judging from the Holbein portrait, Cromwell was not dissimilar – in build at least – to his royal master. By the time Cromwell entered his service, Henry had lost his youthful athleticism and had grown considerably in girth. Cromwell, too, had a frame that could best be described as portly. Unlike his royal master, there is no evidence that he had ever displayed sporting prowess, although he had been fit enough for military service in his youth. Either way, both men had now settled down to the comforts of middle age, with waistlines to match.
That so many people should clamour to spend their lives in such a dangerously volatile place as the royal court would be perplexing had the rewards not been at least as great as the risks – and in some cases considerably greater. Even though Henry’s grip on the reins of court and government was by no means as tight as his father’s had been, he was still the principal source of power and preferment. Close and regular access to the king was therefore an essential prerequisite for any aspiring courtier – a fact that Cromwell knew only too well. He once confided to Chapuys: ‘It was only now that he had known the frailty of human affairs, especially of those of the Court, of which he had before his eyes several examples that might be called domestic, and he always laid his account that if fate fell upon him as upon his predecessors he would arm himself with patience, and leave the rest to God; and that it was quite true, as I said, that he must rely upon God’s help not to fall into mischief.’2 To adopt such a philosophical attitude was entirely sensible, but the years ahead would test Cromwell’s sanguinity to its limits.
By early 1530, Cromwell was clearly a rising star at court. But the preceding few months had not just been about feathering his own nest: he had worked consistently to rehabilitate Wolsey with the king so that he might avoid being attainted for treason. The disgraced cardinal had been effusive in his thanks, and variously referred to his former protégé as ‘myn only comfort’, ‘my only help’, ‘mine own good Thomas’ and ‘my onely refugy and aide’.3 For all his gratitude, though, the cardinal had unrealistic expectations of what his protégé could achieve. Refusing to accept that his glory days were over, he constantly sought a return to royal favour and claimed that Cromwell was the only means by which he could achieve this. ‘At the reverens of God leve me not nowe, for yf ye do I shal nat longe lyve in thys wrechyd world,’ he pleaded in one dispatch. ‘Ye woll nat beleve how I am alteryd, for that I have herd nothing from yow of your procedyngs and expeditions in my maters.’4
For all these fine words, Wolsey had been the most demanding of all the supplicants for Cromwell’s favour. Although he claimed to care nothing for ‘the good and muck of thys [wo]rld’, and desired ‘only to make a convenient portion for the entertainment of his house, and to do good to his poor servants and kinsfolk’, he was clearly unable to adjust to his straitened circumstances. He insisted that the minimum he could live on was £4,000 a year – a staggering sum for the time and equivalent to £1.3 million today. He even asked Cromwell to send him some quails for his supper. A rather exasperated Cromwell refused on the basis that there was nobody who was prepared to deliver them to the cardinal. An inventory of Wolsey’s goods taken around this time reveals the extraordinary luxury in which he had lived for the previous decade. It included rich tapestries and velvet hangings, twenty-seven feather beds, 157 woollen mattresses, eighty-eight pillows stuffed with down feathers, embroidered silk sheets, ‘cloth of gold’ cushion covers, Venetian carpets, crystal and gold glasses, gilt cups and plates, and innumerable other riches and adornments.
It is easy to imagine Cromwell’s exasperation as he read the increasingly insistent and unrealistic messages from his former master. Wolsey had placed him in a position that would have been intolerable for a less able or persuasive man. But Cromwell had learned the art of diplomacy from his years on the Continent, as well as his service to Wolsey, and he was already an excellent judge of the king’s character and moods. This was proved on 12 February 1530, when he secured Henry’s pardon for Wolsey.5 Shortly afterwards, his former master was restored to the archbishopric of York, with all its possessions except York Place. This was an extraordinary achievement. In a little over four months, Cromwell had transformed Wolsey’s position from disgraced minister on the verge of a conviction for treason, to one of the foremost prelates in the land once more. He had done so from a standing start, with no position and precious few contacts in a court filled with the cardinal’s enemies. Now, not only Wolsey but also Cromwell himself enjoyed the king’s good graces.
Still Wolsey was not satisfied. A less ambitious man might have been content to secure nothing more than a pardon so that he could spend the rest of his life in peace, if not prosperity. But the cardinal was too used to riches and luxury, and he sent a series of peevish letters to Cromwell, urging him to protect his assets. He was particularly keen to retain the bishopric of Winchester and the abbey of St Albans – or, if the king saw fit to take them from him, he wanted Cromwell to secure him a pension. ‘For God be my judge, I never thought, and so I was assured at the making of my submission, to depart from any of my promotions; for the rigour of the law, for any offence that can be arrected unto me, deserveth no such punishment; and so, trusting in the King’s goodness, I am come to this point. I hope his Grace will consider the same accordingly. I have had fair words, but little comfortable deeds.’6 Although he paid lip service to penitence, the cardinal was full of self-righteous indignation and urged Cromwell to make Henry see sense. ‘As touching the Articles laid unto me, whereof a great part be untrue, and those which be true are of such sort that by the doing of them no malice nor untruth can be justly arrected unto me, neither to the Prince’s person, nor to the realm.’ The tactics that Wolsey advised Cromwell to employ with the king provide a glimpse into his own relationship with Henry, for he urged him to set aside deference and ‘Take [bo]ldnes unto yow.’7
Such tactics might have worked for Wolsey at the height of his powers, but Cromwell was not yet close enough to the king and therefore opted for a more diplomatic approach. He assured Wolsey: ‘As touching the process against your Grace out of the Exchequer and all other matters and suits brought against you, I have pleaded your pardon, which is allowed in all the King’s courts, and by the same your Grace discharged of all manner causes at the King’s suit.’ Still Wolsey was not content. Although he had been pardoned, his York lands were not immediately returned to him and he urged Cromwell to find out what was happening. His former protégé entreated him to be patient because it would take time for the necessary legalities to be concluded. ‘This will be very displeasant to you, but it is best to suffer it, for, if they should not be found, you could not hold your bishopric quiet, notwithstanding your pardon; for your restitution made by your pardon is clearly void, for that the King did restitute your Grace before he was entitled by matter of record. When these offices shall be found, your pardon shall be good and stand in perfect effect.’8
The Duke of Norfolk was incensed that the cardinal had escaped further reprisals. When Sir John Russell opined that Wolsey would now look to return to court, the duke ‘began to swear very loudly that rather than suffer this he would eat him up alive’. In the event, he contented himself with getting the cardinal well away from court. At the beginning of March, he ordered him – through Cromwell – to depart for York. Reluctant to be so far from court, Wolsey delayed his departure. But by April 1530 he had run out of excuses and was obliged to set out on the long journey north. He made a slow – and, some said, stately – progress up north, stopping at several houses along the way. Although pleading poverty, he travelled in ‘such sumptuous fashion that some men thought he was of as good courage as in times past’. But on reaching York, he told Henry that he was ‘unfurnished, to my extreme heaviness, of everything that I and my poor folks should be entertained with . . . I have neither corn nor cattle, ne any other thing to keep household with, nor know not where to borrow anything in these parts towards the provision of the same.’ As a result, he concluded, he was ‘wrapped in misery and need on every side; not knowing where to be succoured or relieved, but only at your Highness’ most merciful and charitable hands’.9
Cromwell was running out of patience. Wolsey had constantly complained of his failure to visit him at Esher and now he assumed the role of one who had been entirely neglected. Although the cardinal’s responses tended towards the melodramatic, his accusation that Cromwell no longer cared for him had a grain of truth to it. Cromwell was undoubtedly still working on Wolsey’s behalf, but increasingly he advised the cardinal to petition other members of the council for assistance.10 He also began simply to relay what the king and others had said, rather than sweetening his dispatches with assurances of better times to come. In one letter, he even passed on a message from the Duke of Norfolk, who ‘willeth you for the present to be content, and not much to molest the King . . . for, as he supposeth, the time is not meet for it.’ Cromwell also warned the cardinal that Henry had ‘showed me how it is come to his knowledge that your Grace should have certain words of him and other noblemen unto my lord of Norfolk since the time of your adversities, which words should sound to make sedition betwixt him and my lord of Norfolk.’ He added that although Wolsey was still respected in some areas, his enemies ‘deprave all’, and cautioned: ‘Sir, some there be that do allege that your Grace doth keep too great a house and family, and that ye are continually abuilding. For the love of God, therefore, have a respect, and refrain.’11 This would have been enough to frighten most men into keeping a low profile, but Wolsey persisted in his attempts to regain what he saw as his rightful property and riches.
Although Cromwell continued to work on the cardinal’s behalf, their relationship became increasingly fraught with tension. Cromwell’s loyalty to his former master had cost him dearly, not just in reputation but in cash. And he was not a man to overlook a debt. In July 1530 he told the cardinal that furthering his cause ‘hath been very chargeable’ to him, and that he could not sustain it any longer. He claimed: ‘I am 1,000l. worse than I was when your troubles began.’ This prompted Wolsey to send his former protégé some recompense. Cromwell did not acknowledge this in person, but asked his secretary, Ralph Sadler, to do so. It was hardly a gracious acceptance. Sadler informed Wolsey that his master ‘hath accepted his token, which yet was not so great a reward as he expected’.12
By the time Wolsey took up residence at Cawood Castle, a few miles south of York, it was Michaelmas, 29 September. Shortly afterwards, he learned that the king had started to take possession of his college lands, as well as those of St Albans and Winchester. But because the cardinal had been attainted by praemunire, any grants that Henry made from the revenues of the colleges would only be valid while Wolsey was still living. This is when Cromwell spied his advantage – or, as Cavendish put it: ‘perceyved an occasion given him by time to helpe himselfe’. Only a lawyer of his exceptional skill could chart a way through the tortuous processes involved in securing the grants on a longer term basis. The recipients of the grants were therefore obliged to seek Cromwell’s assistance – and pay handsomely for it. ‘There was none other shifte but to obtaine my lord’s confirmation of their patents,’ observed Cavendish. ‘Then began every man both noble and gentleman who had any patents out of Winchester and St Albans to make suite to Mr Cromwell to solicit their cause to my lorde to get therin his confirmation, and for his paines therin bothe worthily to reward him and every man to shewe him such pleasures as should be at all times in their small powers, whereof they assured him.’
Cromwell exploited the situation to the full, winning both financial and political gain. ‘Nowe began matters, to worke to brynge Mayster Cromwell into estimacion, in suche sort as was afterward myche to his encrease of dygnyte,’ related Cavendish. All those men who had before sought Wolsey’s intervention ‘made now earnest travell to Mayster Cromwell for these purposes, who refused none to make promyse that he wold do hys best in that case, and havyng a great occasion of accesse to the kyng for the disposicion of divers londes wherof he had the order and governaunce; by means wherof and by his witty demeanor, he grewe contynually in to the kinges favour.’ According to Cavendish, Cromwell could not have taken more advantage of the situation than he did: by solving a thorny legal conundrum to everyone’s benefit (except, perhaps, his former master’s) he had catapulted himself to a place of great esteem and influence at court. ‘Thus rase hys name and frendly acceptaunce with all men. The fame of his honestie and wisdome sounded so in the kynges eares that . . . he perceived to be in hyme no lesse wysdome than fame had made of hyme report . . . and the conference that he had with the kyng therin, enforced the kyng to repute hyme a very wyse man, and a meate instrument to serve his grace, as it after came to passe.’13
Wolsey was greatly aggrieved upon hearing of the seizure of his beloved lands. Cromwell himself reported that ‘the Cardinal takes the suppressing and dismembering of his colleges very heavily.’ At first, Wolsey was meek in his sorrow, recommending his ‘poore estat and Collegys to your and other goode friendes helpe and releff ’. But as he witnessed his life’s work being dismantled, the cardinal’s accustomed sangfroid gave way to distress, and he entreated the king ‘humbly and on my knees with weeping eyes’ to spare Oxford College at least. He sent a similar message to Cromwell, lamenting that he ‘cannot write for weeping and sorrow’. He added thanks for ‘all the pains’ his protégé had taken, promising to ‘requite him’ when he could.14 When no answer came, however, Wolsey’s distress turned to resentment – much of which was levelled at Cromwell. Rumours had apparently reached Wolsey that his former protégé had betrayed him by profiting from the dispersal of his lands. The cardinal had complained of this to others, which provoked Cromwell to write a furious letter, demanding to know if he still enjoyed the cardinal’s confidence.
I am informed your Grace hath me in some diffidence, as if I did dissemble with you, or procure anything contrary to your profit and honour. I much muse that your Grace should so think, or report it secretly, considering the pains I have taken . . . Wherefore I beseech you to speak without feigning, if you have such conceit, that I may clear myself. I reckoned that your Grace would have written plainly unto me of such thing, rather than secretly to have misreported me . . . But I shall bear your Grace no less good will . . . Let God judge between us. Truly your Grace in some things overshooteth yourself; there is reg[ard] to be given what things ye utter, and to whom.15
Cromwell had shrewdly judged that attack was the best form of defence. Chastened, Wolsey meekly assured him that he had realised how ill-founded the rumours were after friends had informed him of Cromwell’s loyalty in all his dealings. ‘The Cardinal strives to clear himself to Cromwell,’ it was reported, ‘protesting that he suspects him not, and that may appear by his deeds, for that he useth no man’s help nor counsel but his ... he hath asked of their common friends how Cromwell hath behaved himself towards him, and, to his great comfort, hath found him faithful.’ Wolsey ended with an impassioned plea, beseeching Cromwell ‘with weeping tears to continue stedfast, and give no credit to the false suggestions of such as would sow variance between us, and so leave me destitute of all help’. More letters were to follow, all grovelling in tone. ‘Myne owne lovyng Mr. Crumwell’, he began one in August 1530, and went on to praise his protégé’s ‘gentle heart’.16
Cromwell replied with a letter of consolation that was so lacking in conviction that it bordered on insulting. He must have known that the assurances he made were entirely without foundation, but he was no doubt eager to cover up the profit he had made from the whole sorry affair. ‘It may please your grace to quiet yourself and to take the fynding of these offices pacientlie and uppon the retourne of the same there shalbe such orders taken that your grace shall not be interrupted in the receyving of your revenues ne otherwise be molested in any maner case for any new sute.’ In another missive, he concluded: ‘I entreat your Grace to be content, and let your Prince execute his pleasure.’17 By implying that this was all the king’s work, rather than his own, Cromwell cleverly deflected any lingering resentment that Wolsey may have had towards him.
As well as revealing the cracks in the relationship between Wolsey and Cromwell, the episode had demonstrated just how susceptible the two men were to court intrigue. Even though Wolsey was well away from the court and with apparently little chance of regaining any influence there, his alliance with Cromwell was still viewed as a threat by their enemies, who were intent upon destroying it altogether. Even as far from court as Ipswich, one of Cromwell’s correspondents reported: ‘You would be astonished at the lies told of you and me in these parts.’18 The same was apparently true of Cawood, where there was no shortage of informants willing to blacken Cromwell’s character to his former master.
Wolsey’s relationship with Cromwell never fully recovered. The latter’s correspondence reveals his increasing frustration at the cardinal’s inability to accept reality. But his loyalty had not been entirely obliterated by the quest for personal and political gain. Although he could not stop the king from taking possession of the colleges, he knew how close they were to Wolsey’s heart and therefore did what he could to help the residents therein. A grateful John Clerke, Canon of Cardinal’s College, Oxford, sent Cromwell a pair of gloves on 21 December in acknowledgement of his kindness towards Clerke and his brother. Cromwell was also on civil enough terms with Wolsey by 21 October to ask him to employ his kinsman, a Dr Karbott – who ‘though somewhat simple in appearance . . . will do well if put in trust’. He added a recommendation on behalf of one of Wolsey’s young servants, Nicholas Gifford, and provided a typically shrewd appraisal of the man’s character: ‘Though young and somewhat wild, he is disposed to truth, [hone]ste, and hardyness, and will love your Grace with all his heart.’19
In concerning himself with the minutiae of Wolsey’s household, Cromwell might have been fooled into thinking that the cardinal’s own interests were limited to that sphere. But as well as attending to the business of his diocese, it was rumoured that Wolsey had once more started to meddle in politics. According to his adversaries, he entered negotiations with both the emperor and the French king with the intention of securing a papal interdict that Henry should relinquish Anne Boleyn. Whether the cardinal really had acted so recklessly is a matter for debate. Given that he was so desperate to regain the king’s favour, it seems unlikely. Moreover, his name was prominent in a list of ecclesiastical and lay magnates who petitioned the Pope to grant the king’s divorce in July. But when, on 23 October, reports reached Henry of a papal brief prohibiting his remarriage and ordering him to dismiss Anne Boleyn from court, the finger of suspicion was pointed firmly at Wolsey.
The king was quick to act. On 1 November he dispatched William Walsh, a gentleman of the privy chamber, to arrest the cardinal on charges of high treason and convey him with all speed to the Tower of London. The French envoy hinted that the rumours had been started by a member of Wolsey’s own household: ‘The King says he has intrigued against them, both in and out of the kingdom, and has told me where and how, and that one and perhaps more of his servants have discovered it, and accused him.’ Wolsey duly set out for London, but his progress was hampered by a fresh bout of sickness, which drove him to a state of near collapse. Barely able to stay on his mule, on the evening of 26 November he arrived at Leicester Abbey, where he greeted the abbot with the words: ‘Father abbott I ame come hether to leave my bones among you.’ Early the following morning, he made his final confession, uttering the famous lament: ‘I se the matter ayenst me howe it is framed, But if I had served god as dyligently as I have don the kyng he wold not have geven me over in my grey heares.’20 He died shortly afterwards.
Wolsey’s enemies, anxious to ensure that there would be no rehabilitation of the cardinal’s reputation in death, were quick to denounce him. As well as laying the blame for the stalemate over the king’s divorce firmly at his door, they argued that nothing better could be expected of one of such humble origins. The French envoy sneered that: ‘he thought ever that so pompeos and ambysyous a harte, spronge out of so vyle a stocke wold once shewe forthe the basenes of his nature, and most comonlye against Him that hath raysed him from lowe degree to highe dignytye.’ In short, breeding – or lack of it – will out. Chapuys, meanwhile, reported to his Imperial master: ‘The cardinal of York died on St Andrew’s Day about 40 miles from here, at a place where the last king Richard was defeated and killed. Both lie buried in the same church, which the people begin already to call “the Tyrants’ grave”.’21
Cromwell must have received the news of his old patron’s death with mixed emotions. As well as sadness at the passing of the man who had been his master for many years and the means of his rise at court, he might have felt some relief that the invidious position in which he had been placed since Wolsey’s fall was now at an end. Yet there was also the danger that his own standing with the king might be damaged by the cardinal’s final, irredeemable, fall from grace. Such fears were soon ended when, in the closing weeks of 1530, Cromwell was appointed a member of the Privy Council.
Quite what had prompted this move was a matter for speculation among contemporary commentators. Foxe claims that Cromwell’s sudden promotion was thanks to some well-timed comments he made being overheard by influential members of Henry’s treasury: ‘It happened where as Cromewell was, that there was talke of the kynges substaunce and treasure. Then sayde Cromwell, if the kynge woulde admytte my counsayle, I woulde bryng to passe that he alone shoulde sone become the rychest Prynce of all christian Prynces. These wordes the more they semed to tende to the kynges profyte, the soner as it happened it was brought vnto the kynges eares. From that tyme forwarde Cromewel beganne to be better knowen and dearer vnto the kyng.’22
The Imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, tells a different story. He claims that Sir John Wallop, a diplomat and politician, had levelled various insults and threats at Cromwell upon the death of Wolsey. Cromwell had felt sufficiently embattled to seek the king’s protection. In the private audience that followed, he promised to make Henry the richest king in England’s history. The king was so impressed by this offer that he immediately appointed Cromwell to the council, although he told nobody about it for four months. The Spanish Chronicle concurs that ‘Cromwell was always inventing means whereby the King might be enriched and the crown aggrandized.’23
Although they differ in detail, Foxe and Chapuys agree that Cromwell rose to favour as a result of convincing his royal master that he would make him a rich man. Such a tactic was entirely commensurate with Cromwell’s natural self-confidence with rulers, which bordered on the audacious. He had already demonstrated this during the meeting he had orchestrated with the Pope in 1517. By the end of 1530, he had been around Henry long enough to judge that he would respond well to a similar approach. From now on, he would enjoy increasingly privileged – often exclusive – access to Henry. John Foxe described him as ‘the mooste secret and deare councellour vnto the kyng’.24
Cromwell’s appointment to the council was a significant step forward in his career at court, propelling him into the king’s circle of trusted advisers. Even though he was a lesser member of that body and chiefly employed in legal business, he was not slow in expressing his views on all matters. The Spanish Chronicle claimed that ‘always . . . he was the first to speak’ in council meetings. This was entirely characteristic of Cromwell’s style. Chapuys once noted an unusual occasion when Cromwell ‘remained, contrary to his usual habit, silent and thoughtful for some time’. On another, he had interrupted an august gathering of men by saying: ‘Enough of that, and let us go to business.’25 The advent of such an opinionated, outspoken and – worst of all – low-born upstart was no doubt irksome to the more noble and well-established members, such as Archbishop Warham and Wolsey’s old adversaries, the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk. The ascerbic George Cavendish penned the following verse on Cromwell’s sudden emergence in the council:
With royal egles a kight may not flie;
Allthoughe a jaye may chatter in a golden cage,
Yet will the eagles disdayne his parentage.26
By contrast, Holinshed claimed that Cromwell’s lowly birth made his rapid rise to favour even more impressive: ‘By him it well appeared, that the excellencie of heroicall vertues, which aduance men to fame and honor, resteth not onelie in birth and bloud, as a priuilege appropriate and alonelie annexed vnto noble houses, but remaineth at the disposition of almightie God the giuer & disposer of all gifts, who raiseth the poore manie times from the basest degree, and setteth him vp with princes.’27
Norfolk had wasted no time in seizing power in the wake of Wolsey’s fall. By November 1530, the Venetian ambassador was able to report that the king ‘makes use of him in all negotiations more than any other person . . . and every employment devolves to him’.28 Although he had helped Cromwell to a position in parliament the year before, he was no ally: indeed, he rapidly transferred his enmity from Wolsey to Cromwell. Meanwhile, another of the cardinal’s former protégés, Stephen Gardiner, also became a bitter enemy of Cromwell around this time. He had confidently expected the king to transfer his favour from the late cardinal to himself, and when this fell to Cromwell instead, he developed an implacable and enduring hatred towards the new minister. Although they maintained a veneer of cordiality in their correspondence, as the niceties of court etiquette dictated, the hostility occasionally broke through. In one dispatch, Cromwell upbraided Gardiner for ‘your said lettres not soo freendely conceyved, as I thinke my merities towardes youe haue deserued’. In another, he accused his rival of behaving ‘colerikly’ and ‘melancoulily’ towards him.29
But – for now at least – the presence of two such dangerous and determined adversaries did not prevent Cromwell’s rise in royal favour. Henry was quick to spot Cromwell’s potential, and further promotion soon followed his appointment to the council. Early the following year, he began to act as receiver-general and supervisor of the college lands that had been acquired from the late cardinal. He was officially confirmed in this position a year later, on 9 January 1532.
Having learned from Wolsey’s example, Cromwell set about making himself as indispensable as possible to the king. He managed the sale and receipt of royal land, supervised building works at the Tower of London and Westminster, heard appeals and decided the fate of prisoners and felons who were brought before him, and involved himself in various other matters of law enforcement. It is a sign of his perceived influence with the king that he was soon besieged by a bewildering number of requests for assistance. Some of the highest ranking men at court now swallowed their pride and sought the help of this blacksmith’s son. Among them was Henry’s closest friend and brother-in-law, the Duke of Suffolk, and Henry Bourchier, second Earl of Essex.
Despite the increasing demands of his service at court, Cromwell maintained his private legal practice throughout this time – perhaps mindful that this would sustain him if everything else crumbled to dust. But for the moment there seemed little prospect of that. Both his private and public businesses were booming. Requests for his legal assistance poured in from every quarter: corporate bodies, religious houses and individuals paid him considerable sums for his services. In August 1526 an alderman named George Monoux had assured Cromwell that if his ‘grete matier’ was brought to a successful conclusion, he would pay him twenty marks (equivalent to around £4,500 in modern currency).30
Cromwell also continued his private money-lending business, which was proving extremely lucrative. One of his debtors was a man named Thomas Allen, who borrowed the considerable sum of one hundred pounds. When he failed to repay this, Cromwell wrote to inform him that: ‘For lacke and defaulte whereof ye haue forfaited to the kinges highnes the Somme of one thousande markes which me thinketh ye ought substaunciallye to loke vppon for the king is no person to be deluded nor mocked with all.’31 This letter proves that no matter how many demands there now were on Cromwell’s time thanks to his new appointments in government, he continued to keep a close eye on his private business matters. He also evidently used his two careers to complement each other: if one of his debtors failed to pay, then he would threaten them with the king’s wrath.
In January 1531 parliament was reconvened.32 Although there had been few sessions since Cromwell’s first entry to the Commons in 1523, his influence was now predominant. By the end of the session in March 1531 he took home with him no fewer than twenty-nine bills that had reached the statute book – most of which, it seems, had been instigated by him. By the summer, news had reached as far as Derbyshire that ‘one Mr Cromwell penned certain matters in the Parliament house, which no man gainsaid.’33 The king himself was now fully aware of Cromwell’s abilities, and it was probably around this time that he began actively to seek his assistance in the most pressing issue of the day.
The first indication that Cromwell had become involved in the king’s ‘Great Matter’ was when he drafted some legislation concerning it. However, for a time there was nothing to suggest that he was in any way influencing proceedings: he appeared to be simply acting as Henry’s agent and draftsman, working quietly and assiduously to carry out a policy that had been formulated elsewhere. All that was about to change.
Cardinal Pole provides an account of the conversation that passed between Henry and Cromwell when they first discussed the ‘grete matier’. Having begun by excusing himself for daring to offer an opinion on so weighty an issue, and one of which he professed to be entirely ignorant, he claimed that the strength of his loyalty to the king would not allow him to be silent when there was a chance – however small – that he might be of help. Cromwell then laid the entire blame for the failure to secure a divorce on the shoulders of Henry’s advisers. They had given too much credence to the opinions of the ‘common herd’ rather than the ‘wise and learned’, all of whom were in favour of the divorce. Considering that the only real obstacle was the Pope, the answer to the conundrum was simple: to renounce the authority of Rome, as the Lutherans had done in Germany.
For centuries, the Pope and his councils had decided doctrine, held final jurisdiction over Church law, received Church taxes and had the final say in the appointment of bishops. That England was part of the papal fold had, until now, been largely accepted – albeit with increasing dissatisfaction by those who favoured the annulment of the king’s marriage. Now, according to Pole, Cromwell made the king see that a break with Rome was not only desirable, it was eminently achievable. England was like a monster with two heads, he said. If the king made himself head of the Church, then the papal head would be struck off and his subjects (the clergy included) would answer to Henry alone. Pole claimed that the king was so delighted with Cromwell’s scheme that he told him to carry it out immediately.34
However compelling Pole’s account, it is not corroborated by any other source. Most of the leading contemporary commentators at court – notably the Imperial ambassador, Chapuys – saw the events that unfolded between 1530 and 1533 as the king’s own work. Yet it is possible – likely, even – that throughout this time Cromwell had been working quietly behind the scenes. Henry himself would hardly have wished to admit that he had been advised on such a drastic course of action by a political ingénu – and a low-born one at that. It would have seriously undermined his own credibility. Far better that the measures be seen as emanating from himself. Respect for his authority was so great by this time that a policy introduced in his name was assured of much greater success than if it had been fronted by a new member of his council. That Cromwell’s influence had been concealed for the first three years of his career in Henry’s service is also suggested by the fact that he ‘burst into prominence’ so suddenly and with such assured authority that the groundwork must have been prepared for some time. Chapuys was not the only ambassador at court to appreciate this fact.35
Tempting though it is to believe that in one brief meeting with the king Cromwell planted the idea of rejecting papal authority in Henry’s mind, and thus set in train a series of cataclysmic events that would change the political and religious landscape of England for ever, the notion probably took hold gradually, and thanks to other influences than Cromwell alone. Frustrated by the Pope’s refusal to grant his divorce, Henry began to lend an ever more willing ear to a host of different experts drawn from legal and academic circles who argued for his right to complete jurisdiction over the English Church. Nevertheless, Cromwell now argued for it more convincingly and set out a clearer strategy for achieving it than anyone had done before. He gave fresh impetus to what was rapidly becoming a quagmire of endless debate and negotiation.
From 1530, a team of scholars led by Dr Edward Fox worked assiduously to find the justification for the emerging idea of royal supremacy over the Church among a host of ancient texts – including the Bible itself. The sources that they gathered, known as the Collectanea satis copiosa, were used as proof that since Anglo-Saxon times the kings of England had enjoyed absolute spiritual authority, as well as secular. Their interpretation of the texts did not bear close scrutiny, but it was enough to fuel the flames of the king’s reforming zeal. He had started a crusade against papal authority and would stop at nothing until it had achieved his ultimate goal: divorce from Catherine and marriage to Anne.
Aware of the hostility that the English clergy had already shown towards the notion of a divorce, Henry decided to bully them into submission. In late January 1531 he issued a writ of praemunire against the entire English clergy and demanded a subsidy of 100,000 pounds (equivalent to more than £32 million today) from the Convocation of Canterbury in return for a general pardon. Some of the leading clerics of the day put up a fierce resistance, but they were no match for the king, who added five new articles, including the demand that they recognise him as supreme head of the Church in England. As the debate raged between Church and king, the chief protagonists soon emerged. Leading the resistance from the former was the most senior churchman in the land: William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, along with the staunch conservative, Bishop John Fisher. The king’s cause was championed by two men: Thomas Audley, speaker of the Commons, and Thomas Cromwell.
That Cromwell was leading the charge for the king is a sign of how far he had risen – and how fast. In little over a year, he had been transformed from the newest member of parliament with relatively minor administrative responsibilities, to one of the key players in the most important, controversial and pressing issue of the day: an issue that had already assumed not just national, but international significance. Realising that Henry’s bullying tactics were achieving little beyond the creation of a stalemate, Cromwell launched a charm offensive on Warham and his supporters, assuring them that the king was not taking on any new powers. Rightly suspicious, they held firm. Cromwell then changed tack and persuaded convocation, a representative assembly of clergy, to accept a watered-down version of the title, whereby the king was recognised as supreme head only as far as the law of Christ allowed. They duly agreed to Henry’s articles and the payment of the subsidy on 8 March 1531. It was a legal nicety, but one of enormous significance. The royal supremacy was now recognised in law, and if the king’s powers over the Church were still somewhat vague, this meant that they had the potential for extension. At a stroke, Cromwell had secured the short-term agreement needed to progress the divorce, while laying the foundations for religious and political change of truly revolutionary proportions. That he was responsible for such a significant moment in England’s history was not lost on contemporaries. A century later, Strype observed: ‘Secretary Crumwell had the great stroke in all this. And all these counsels and methods were struck out of his head. For which, as he received the curses, and drew upon himself the hatred of many, so, many more, well affected to a reformation of superstitions in the Church, extolled him as highly.’36
Although Cromwell was increasingly preoccupied by his burgeoning career at court, he remained closely involved in his son Gregory’s education and was in regular correspondence with the boy’s guardian, Margaret Vernon. Chekyng had been replaced by a tutor named Copland, who was making good progress with the boy. Nicholas Sadler, whose education Cromwell was funding too, had also had a beneficial effect upon Gregory’s studies. Margaret Vernon reported to Cromwell in 1531: ‘Your son and his master are in good health, and now prosper in learning more in one day than before in a week, by reason of Nich. Saddelar, who is of very good conditions. Mr. Copland every morning gives each of them a laten [Latin lesson], the which Nicholas doth bear away, as well Gregory’s lesson as his own, and maketh the same Gregory perfect against his time of rendering. The master takes such comfort that he is with them three times a day.’ In another, she assured Cromwell: ‘Your son is in good health, and is a very good scholar, and can construe his paternoster and creed. When you next come to me I doubt not that you shall like him very well.’37
Margaret was particularly concerned for Gregory’s religious education. Cromwell had evidently promised to send a priest for the purpose, but when he did not arrive Margaret found someone who she believed would be better suited to the task. She urged Cromwell: ‘Let me know your pleasure speedily, for I would that your child should lose no more time. The gentleman you promised would be much to your charge, and not do so well for the child . . . You promised that I should have the governance of the child till he was 12 years old. By that time he shall speak for himself if any wrong be offered him, for as yet he cannot, except by my maintenance; and if he had a master who disdained my meddling it would be great unquietness to me.’38 By the time Margaret wrote this letter in 1531, Gregory, then aged about eleven, seems to have conducted most of his studies at Cambridge. As well as Mr Copland, his tutors included Henry Lockwood, Master of Christ’s College, and John Hunt, a lawyer and graduate of Wolsey’s college at Oxford. The latter’s expertise was no doubt intended to help Gregory follow in his legal footsteps.
Shortly before the beginning of the Michaelmas term on 29 September 1531, the king issued instructions ‘unto his trustie Counsailer Thomas Cromwell, to be declared, on his behalf, to his Lerned Counsaill, and indelayedlie to be put in execucyon, the Terme of Saynt Michael in the 23ti yere of his moct vicotoryous reigne’.39 This was a confirmation of Cromwell’s meteoric rise to power: he had joined the inner ring of the council. Just two months later, the Venetian ambassador included Cromwell as seventh in a list of leading councillors. The only men above him were the likes of Norfolk, Suffolk and others of the highest pedigree. Cromwell was the sole commoner, yet he had been given wider powers than many of his colleagues. They included supervising criminal prosecution, customs duties and payments due to the king, as well as drafting parliamentary legislation on matters as wide-ranging as treason and sewers. At the same time, working closely with Audley, he took control of the king’s legal and parliamentary affairs. By the following spring, he had also begun to gain influence over elections to the Commons.
Cromwell now turned his full attention to the matter that offered even greater rewards and was closest to the king’s heart. If he could secure the divorce from Catherine of Aragon, then his position at court would be unrivalled and – surely – unassailable.