‘Some convenyent punishment’
Far from being cowed by the widespread vitriol against him and his reforms that had found expression in the Pilgrimage of Grace, Cromwell was spurred on to even more radical measures. Shortly after the rebellion had been put down, he began to act against the liberties of the northern counties. Although he could not abolish all the local privileges that had, for many years, made the people of that region virtually immune to royal authority and justice, he did ensure that local jurisdictional anomalies were significantly curtailed. He did so by Act of parliament and by the suppression of the monasteries. The latter had traditionally held many liberties – none more so than the palatinate of Durham, which in the wake of Cromwell’s reforms was left with little more than nominal jurisdiction.
Alongside his official measures, Cromwell also dispatched Ralph Sadler to spy on the local gentry in the north of England. He instructed his secretary to focus particular attention on the powerful Percy family, whom the king believed to be the prime movers in the rebellion, and to amass enough evidence for their arrest. The ever assiduous Sadler soon sent back reports of seditious talk among gentry and commoners alike. He also confirmed the king’s suspicions against the Percys. Thomas Percy, younger brother of the sixth Earl of Northumberland (Anne Boleyn’s former suitor) effectively signed his own death warrant when he became involved in Bigod’s rebellion. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in 1537. His brother the earl died the same year. It was with some relish that Cromwell reported their ‘highe treasons most Ingrately spitefully and haynously committed agenst his benigne and so graciouse mercyfull maieste’, for which there could have been no other punishment. ‘Seing their cankred recidive hert he [Henry] could no lesse doo then to suffer them to have his laws.’1
The death of the Percy brothers provided Cromwell with a further opportunity to assert royal control. The sixth earl had died with no natural heirs, and because he was in dispute with his brothers, he had left most of his estates to the crown. Cromwell made the most of this good fortune, appointing able and loyal men from the local gentry to act as deputy wardens of the east, middle and west marches. He also secured grants of pensions from the king to buy further loyalty in the border region. Sadler, meanwhile, was rewarded for his loyal service with a promotion to the position of protonotary (or chief clerk) of chancery, and took his place on the Privy Council.
Sadler’s mission had no doubt been intended to undermine the authority of the Duke of Norfolk, as much as to root out continuing opposition in the north in the wake of the rebellion. Cromwell was determined that the duke should not be able to capitalise on this position of great responsibility: he had already gained too much ground over his rival as a result of the rebellion. He therefore made a show of directing Norfolk’s actions there, sending him a long and detailed memo in May 1537. Anxious to prove that he was no less ruthless than the duke, despite his absence from the king’s forces, Cromwell instructed him to carry out a particularly cruel and brutal punishment against the rebels’ families and supporters. He ordered that the wives, mothers and sisters of the traitors should desist from cutting down and burying the bodies of their loved ones, which were displayed as a warning to other would-be traitors. He added: ‘Considering, that suche a misbehaviour is not to be passed over without some convenyent punishment, his highnes requireth you . . . to trye and serche out the princypall doers and occasioners of the same, whiche oons done, and they apprehended, punishment shalbe devised for them according to the qualities of their offences.’2
Although on the surface Cromwell was unrelenting in punishing dissenters and driving through his reforms, in private he was suffering from increasing bouts of ill health, perhaps exacerbated by the stress of the recent events. Between February 1537 and July 1538 he received five visits from surgeons, ‘doctors of physic’ and apothecaries, running up considerable expense in the process. Like his royal master, he was also increasingly troubled by pain in one of his legs, no doubt aggravated by his expanding girth, and was observed to walk with a rolling, awkward gait. His accounts attest that he was eventually obliged to invest in two stools ‘to set my lord’s leg on’.3
Despite the fact that Cromwell must have been in frequent discomfort, none of his physical infirmities caused him to slacken the pace of his work. In 1538 he set about reforming the Council of the North, an administrative body set up by Edward IV as a means of exerting greater authority over that part of the kingdom. Its effectiveness had waned under the Tudors and had been no match for the overmighty northern nobles. But Cromwell realised the potential of the council as a symbol of royal power in the north, and he therefore filled it with men known to be loyal to his master. Thwarting the Duke of Norfolk’s attempts to build up his own powerbase there, he ensured that the majority of the council comprised men of low birth. The king had, apparently, been convinced by Cromwell’s example that he could be as well served by ‘base-born’ councillors as by men at the peak of society who had traditionally composed his government, both local and central. Norfolk was disgusted by the move. ‘More arraunt theves and murderers be not in no Realme,’ he scoffed. ‘The same shall not only cause Light persounes to saye and beleve that the Kinges Highnes is fayne to Hire with Fees the moost malefactors to syt in rest, but also not to Loke uppon theire most detestable offences.’ He concluded: ‘Borders cannot be restrained by such mean men, but that some man of great nobility should have the rule.’4
Undeterred, Cromwell also reconstituted the council as a permanent institution and made sure that he maintained regular contact with each of its members. In so doing, he successfully transformed the body into an effective enforcer of royal justice and religious reform. Norfolk continued to grumble, and a bitter dispute raged between him and Cromwell for months afterwards. In the end, the king brought an end to it. He told Norfolk: ‘We doubt not but you woll both conforme your owne mynde to fynde out the good order whiche we have therin determyned and cause other by your good meane to perceyve the same. For surely we woll not be bounde of a necessitie to be served there with lordes, But we wolbe served with such men what degre soever they be of as we shall appoint the same.’5 Cromwell must have triumphed in receiving such a clear sign of his royal master’s favour – which was all the sweeter because it had been at the expense of his detested rival.
He enjoyed similar success elsewhere in the kingdom. In 1536 he had paved the way for parliament to pass an ‘act for laws and justice to be ministered in Wales in like forms as it is in this realm’. This reinforced the traditional union of England and Wales, which dated back to Edward I’s reign, and decreed that the Welsh should now enjoy the same legal rights as their English neighbours. The old marcher lordships were replaced by five new counties, each with parliamentary representation. At the same time, an exchequer and chancery were to be established at Brecon and Denbigh. However, this new Act proved difficult to implement – not least because the king himself decided to invoke certain powers of veto that had been written into it.6 This was a warning to Cromwell (if he needed it) that his power was very much subject to that of his royal master. But if the Act was not fully realised until several years later, Cromwell had, in the meantime, achieved greater stability and conformity in that part of the kingdom.
Meanwhile, in Ireland Lord Leonard Grey, whose loyalty to the Henrician regime seemed assured, was appointed deputy after the death of Sir William Skeffington on 31 December 1535. Grey played an active part in the Irish Reformation Parliament which, by the time it concluded in December 1537, had enacted all the major English reform legislation. It had also attainted Offaly and his supporters, who suffered traitors’ deaths at Tyburn that year. At the same time, Cromwell dispatched a group of high-ranking officials to assess and correct abuses in all areas of government. He maintained a regular correspondence with them to ensure that his instructions were carried out to the letter. But, as in Wales, achieving lasting control was a considerable challenge. The Irish lords continued to dominate their principalities, and only by a series of military campaigns and negotiations was any form of order maintained.7 This did not deter Cromwell from attempting to extend royal authority to Calais, where in 1536 he had started to introduce a series of measures to make it like any other English borough, complete with parliamentary representation.
Neither did Cromwell’s grip on foreign affairs loosen during this time, no matter how pressing the need to ensure the successful progress of his domestic reforms. As in England, his favoured approach was to appoint his protégés and allies to positions of responsibility. Among them was Thomas Wyatt, who owed his life to Cromwell and had not forgotten it. In March 1537 he was appointed ambassador to the court of the Emperor Charles V – a position he was to retain for the next two and a half years. His brief was to improve relations with the emperor, which had been predictably hostile since Henry’s divorce from Charles’s aunt, Catherine of Aragon. In order to cement the alliance, Wyatt was also to negotiate a marriage between the king’s elder daughter, Mary, and the Infante of Portugal. But the hidden agenda of his embassy – and the one that counted above all others – was to make sure that the emperor did not form a league with the French king. Although this had appeared unlikely in the immediate aftermath of Catherine’s death, when Henry had successfully played each power off against the other, this strategy was wearing thin and there had been worrying signs of a rapprochement between Charles and Francis. Cromwell urged his protégé not to be misled by amicable sentiments and false promises so typical of foreign diplomacy, but to find out Charles’s true intentions – or, as he put it, ‘fishe out the botom of his stomake’. He added that Wyatt ‘must in all these things speak with the Emperor so frankly as to be able to feel the deepness of his heart’.8 When it seemed that Wyatt was not fulfilling his brief with the assiduity expected of him, Cromwell swiftly chastised him: ‘Ye have ben hitherto somwhat slak and negligent to write unto me and aduertise me from tyme to tyme of your occurrences and successes.’9
Although he would soon become embroiled in attempts to protect England’s position in this dangerous new world order, for the time being Cromwell had once more become preoccupied with domestic matters. If he had enjoyed only limited success in the outlying parts of the kingdom, he was determined to drive home further reform in England. In February 1537 Cromwell convened a vicegerential synod of bishops and doctors, which was held in the king’s vacant parliament house in Westminster. In his opening speech (which was made in the king’s name) he called for a calm, considered debate about the current religious controversies. But he had no intention of compromising. During the ensuing debate, he steered the arguments along strictly evangelical lines. After its first few meetings, the synod became more like an informal committee, the aim of which was to carry out Cromwell’s designs. Apparently content that it was moving in the right direction, he left it to Cranmer and Bishop Fox to oversee the meetings and ensure that the reformers remained in the ascendancy.
Together, the three men continued to push forward the evangelical cause during the months following the northern uprising. They were conscious enough of popular opinion to do so subtly much of the time, but this did not lessen the effectiveness of their measures. Although the conservatives had achieved a qualified acceptance of the seven medieval sacraments, Cromwell, Cranmer and Fox had succeeded in emphasising the role of faith, rather than good works (or behaviour), as the principal means of attaining salvation. They had also downplayed the traditional Catholic belief in the ‘real’ presence during the Eucharist. Most significantly, they edited and renumbered the Ten Commandments to conform with Protestant teachings, giving greater emphasis to God’s prohibition of the making and worshipping of ‘graven images’. All this was encapsulated in The Institution of a Christian Man (more commonly known as the Bishops’ Book), which was published in October 1537.
The zeal with which, by now, Cromwell had driven forward religious reforms has often been cited as proof that he harboured genuine evangelical beliefs. But his personal faith is more of a conundrum. It is equally possible that he viewed the evangelical cause as the most effective route to power, as well as a means to defeat his enemies at court, the most dangerous of whom were sworn adherents of the old religion. Moreover, there are fragments of evidence to suggest that Cromwell privately preferred the traditional faith. Among them is the fact that he arranged the marriage of Jane Cromwell to one of the staunchest Catholic families in England at the height of his reforming policies.10 By then one of the most powerful men in the country, Cromwell could have chosen any number of husbands for his (alleged) daughter. If he was as committed a reformer as he claimed, why did he choose a sworn religious conservative?
But this evidence is at best circumstantial, and the records that attest to a growing interest in, and alignment with, reformist beliefs are more compelling. Cromwell may not have been a Lutheran, but he did adhere to some of Luther’s teachings, notably the truth of the scriptures and the need for these to be readily understood by the masses. He was, however, ambivalent on the central Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone. By contrast, he saw much to admire in the teachings of Erasmus and other more moderate evangelical teachers, and his active patronage of the latter suggests a genuine conviction. The zeal with which he approached his religious reforms, notably the spreading of God’s word in English, and the extraordinary care and detail he took over the wording of each of the related Acts, were not the actions of a cynic who was promoting these reforms purely for his own ends.
Perhaps the word that best describes Cromwell’s personal faith was neither reformist nor conservative but rationalist. He preferred arguments based upon evidence and reasoning, rather than tradition or dogma. That is why he himself spent so much time studying and promoting new translations of original texts, appreciating that this was a way of stripping back centuries of false interpretation and reconnecting with the purity of the original ideas. He was a pragmatist, rather than an idealist, and his preference for moderation laid the foundations of the ‘middle way’ so favoured by Henry’s daughter Elizabeth when she became queen.
The fact that his son Gregory harboured strong reformist beliefs when he reached maturity suggests that he had been influenced by his father’s outlook, and that of his carefully appointed tutors. Cromwell’s son seems to have completed his education and training by the beginning of 1537. He had matured into a young man who was widely admired by Cromwell’s allies and enemies alike. Rowland Lee, with whom Gregory had resided for a time, wrote to Cromwell on 19 January 1536 to ask for assistance now that he had to ‘learn a new school, to play with pen and counters, for the King’s grace’s money’. Referring to his reputation as the ‘hanging judge’, he asked Cromwell to ‘please send me my lover Mr Gregory, for though the thieves have hanged me in imagination, I trust to be even with them shortly.’11 On 5 August the Duke of Norfolk wrote from Kenninghall Lodge in Norfolk, where Gregory was staying, to assure Cromwell that his son was in good health, ‘sparing no horseflesh to run after the deer and hounds’. He could not resist taunting his rival by adding: ‘I trust you will not be discontent that I now cause him to forbear his book,’ but admitted: ‘Be sure you shall have in him a wise quick piece.’12 Given their long-standing antipathy, Norfolk – who was always sparing in his praise – would not have complimented Cromwell on his son if Gregory had been slow-witted, as some recent commentators have suggested. This seems to have been based upon a chance remark in a letter written in February 1541 by the merchant Richard Hilles, who claimed that Gregory was ‘almost a fool’.13 There is no evidence to suggest that Gregory was in any way mentally deficient. He may not have been as intellectually gifted as his father, and his inability to master Latin frustrated his tutors, but his letters suggest a bright, articulate and perceptive young man. The fact that he did not measure up to his father’s enormous intellectual abilities is hardly justification for criticism.
By autumn 1537, Cromwell had achieved significant progress in his religious reforms. By contrast, his position at court had suffered a series of worrying setbacks. During the Pilgrimage of Grace, a group of leading magnates had formed a special war council to bring the rebels under control. This had proved so effective that it had been developed, during the spring of 1537, into a permanent new ‘privy council’, dominated by Cromwell’s conservative opponents. Norfolk was principal among them, and this could explain the friendly overtures that Cromwell had lately been making towards him. Not only had he entrusted his son to the duke’s care, but he had also helped Norfolk to obtain some lucrative former monastic property that he had set his sights on.
But any alliance between Cromwell and Norfolk was bound to be tenuous at best. Although Cromwell remained Henry’s chief minister, the fact that he was not part of this powerful new council made him more dependent than ever upon the king’s favour and support. Henry demonstrated his support periodically – such as when, in May that year, he allowed Cromwell to write on his behalf to his sister Margaret, Dowager Queen of Scotland. This was a great honour, and Cromwell knew it. He addressed Margaret with all due deference, assuring her: ‘I shall in all thinges wherin I maye convenyently doo your grace any sted or seruice, as willingly and gladly applie myself therunto.’ He also sent her some cramp rings, which were believed to cure the ‘falling sickness’ (epilepsy). Cromwell could not resist adding a request, though, that Margaret might inform him ‘from tyme to tyme’ of affairs in Scotland.14 He was no doubt keen to maintain such a prestigious correspondence.
A further sign of royal favour was given when the king elected Cromwell to the Order of the Garter on 5 August 1537. The oldest and most senior order of chivalry, it was founded by Edward III in 1348 to honour those who had served their king with particular distinction. Highly exclusive, it consisted of the king and twenty-five knights, their spiritual home being St George’s Chapel in Windsor. Each knight was required to display a banner of his arms in the chapel, along with a helmet, crest and sword. It was the highest honour that Cromwell had yet received, and he accepted this with his usual charm and grace. It was even noted in the Register of the Garter, which usually provided only a cursory account of official proceedings, that he gave thanks ‘with all the eloquence he was master of (and certainly he was master of the justest)’.15
Great though this honour was, Cromwell knew that his position at court had become much more vulnerable. He therefore resolved upon an audacious tactic that, if it succeeded, would tie him more closely to the king. Aged seventeen and having completed his education, Gregory Cromwell was not only ripe for a career, but for marriage. And his father had his eye on the perfect candidate. Elizabeth, Lady Ughtred, was the widow of Sir Anthony Ughtred, head of one of the most prominent families in Yorkshire and renowned for their loyal service to the crown. Elizabeth’s importance, though, lay not in being the widow of a distinguished nobleman, but in her own family connections: she was the sister of Queen Jane. The man who became her next husband would therefore be related to the king by marriage – a tantalising prospect, and one that Cromwell could not resist. So great a prize was she, indeed, that Cromwell may even have contemplated marrying her himself. After all, his power and wealth made him one of the most eligible bachelors at court. Although the exact date of Lady Ughtred’s birth is not known, it is commonly assumed to have been between 1500 and 1505, which would have made her Cromwell’s junior by fifteen or twenty years – hardly a significant gap. By contrast, she would have been exactly the same number of years older than Cromwell’s son, Gregory, and it was more unusual for wives to be older than their husbands, considering that most marriages were made to beget heirs. But either Cromwell had no taste for the match or he judged that Gregory would present the more alluring prospect, because it was his son who formed the basis of his negotiations.
Quite when Cromwell conceived the idea of a match with the Seymours is not certain. Perhaps it was prompted by Lady Ughtred herself, who wrote to Cromwell on 18 March 1537 pleading her reduced circumstances and asking for his help in acquiring one of the soon-to-be-dissolved Yorkshire monasteries. ‘I beg your favour that I may be the King’s farmer of one of those abbeys, if they go down, the names of which I enclose herein,’ she wrote. Referring to herself as a ‘poor woman alone’, she pleaded: ‘As my late husband ever bore his heart and service to your Lordship next to the King, I am the bolder to sue herein, and will sue to no other.’ As an extra persuasion, she added: ‘When I was last at Court you promised me your favour.’16 This latter remark suggests that Cromwell had started to cultivate her goodwill some months before: indeed, he had arranged for Lady Ughtred to reside for a time at Leeds Castle. It is probable that he already had the match in mind then.
But Cromwell had lived to see two of the king’s wives dispatched without ceremony, and it is likely that the wily minister would have hedged his bets for a while longer – at least until there was a sign of a new royal heir. Confirmation of this came in late May 1537, when the queen’s pregnancy was formally announced at court and celebrated at a mass. The king was once more transported by hope and joy, convinced that now, at last, he would have a son. ‘The kinges Maieste is in as good helth, and disposition as I saw hys grace of a long season,’ reported Cromwell the following month, ‘and the more bicause the Quenes grace is qwick with childe god by his grace sende her good deliuerance of suche aprince long to lyve according to his Maiestes graciouse desir and the common Joye and welth of all his Realme and good feithfull subiectes.’17 If the king’s new wife succeeded where the others had failed, then alliance with her family would be an excellent move indeed. But it seems that Cromwell was prepared to take a risk by cementing such an alliance before the child was born.
A reference made by one of Elizabeth’s other suitors, Sir Arthur Darcy, on 15 June suggests that rumours of the match had already begun to circulate. The Yorkshire lord told her: ‘If I do tarry here in the country, I would have been glad to have had you likewise, but sure it is, as I said, that some Southern lord shall make you forget the North.’18 Cromwell negotiated with Elizabeth’s brother Edward, and an agreement was reached by July. The wedding itself took place some time between 17 July and 3 August 1537 at the Seymour family home, Wolf hall.19
It proved to be a successful union for all parties. It certainly strengthened Cromwell’s ties with the Seymour family. On 2 September Edward Seymour wrote to express his wish that Cromwell was with him so that he should have ‘the best sport with bow, hounds, and hawks’. In a postscript, he sent his commendations to his sister and brother-in-law, adding: ‘and I pray God to send me by them shortly a nephew.’20 His prayers were soon answered, for Elizabeth proved a fertile wife to Gregory, giving him a son the year after their wedding and five more children (three sons and two daughters) in the years that followed.
Elizabeth was the very model of deference to her new father-in-law, who had generously given the couple one of his houses in which to establish their new family. In October 1537 she wrote: ‘I cannot render unto your lordship the manifold thanks that I have cause, not only for your great pain taken to devise for my surety and health, but also for your liberal token to me, sent by your servant Worsley [Wriothesley]; and farther, which doth comfort me most in the world, that find your lordship is contented with me, and that you will be my good lord and father the which, I trust, never to deserve other, but rather to give cause for the continuance of the same.’ Cromwell had evidently been generous to his new daughter-in-law, for she went on to thank him for giving her ‘choice of your own houses as others’. She ended by assuring him: ‘My trust is now only in you.’21
No matter how high Cromwell had risen in favour as a result of this marriage, as well as his own endeavours, he remained approachable to all – common people as well as courtiers – just as he had in the early years of his career. This is perhaps something he had learned from Wolsey’s example, for the cardinal had been greatly criticised for the disregard he had shown to ordinary people, as well as to the nobility. By contrast, Cromwell was particularly sympathetic to poor women and widows, and the records attest that he intervened on their behalf in numerous cases during the late 1530s. They included Elizabeth Constable, who was left destitute after being abandoned by her husband and pleaded that she was too ashamed to turn to begging or prostitution. Dame Elizabeth Burgh, meanwhile, had been delivered of a premature son in late 1537. Her father-in-law claimed that his son was not the true father, and because her husband was too weak-willed to defend her, she entreated Cromwell to prevent the boy being disinherited. Another Elizabeth, Dame Whettyl, sought Cromwell’s help because her son was refusing to honour his late father’s will and provide for his mother. Alice Parker, a former member of Cromwell’s household staff, asked for his assistance when two other servants refused to settle their debt to her. Cromwell also came to the rescue of Mawde Carew, the frail and almost blind old widow of the courtier Nicholas’s father Sir Richard, when thieves robbed or defrauded her of her savings. She was effusive in her gratitude, vowing that she felt ‘most bounden’ to him, and begging God to ‘prosper and continue your good lordship, for the comfort of all poor widows’.22
Margaret Vernon had had good cause to seek Cromwell’s help when she had visited him at the Rolls House in July 1536. Little Marlow, where she had been prioress, had been closed on 27 June that year. Although a letter from one of Cromwell’s agents a few days before reported that the prioress had reacted ‘like a wise woman’ to the dissolution, her letter to Cromwell implies that this had been an act. Cromwell did not overlook her pleas. Three months later, Margaret was appointed abbess of the major Kentish house of Malling, upon the unexplained resignation of Abbess Rede. Given that Malling was valued at more than ten times her old priory of Marlow, this constituted a significant uplift in status. It would be only temporary, however: Malling, too, was dissolved in October 1538. But Cromwell negotiated a generous pension for Margaret and her fellow nuns. Her letter to Hugh Latimer, written shortly afterwards, in which she ‘desires him to thank Cromwell for his goodness’, suggests that she was well satisfied.23
Not all the women whom Cromwell assisted were poverty-stricken. Lady Elizabeth Hungerford wrote to him in 1536, bitterly complaining about her miserable marriage. ‘So am I, your most woefullest and poorest beadswoman, left in worse case than ever I was, as a prisoner alone, and continually locked in one of my lord’s towers of his castle in Hungerford, as I have been these three or four years past, without comfort of any creature.’ Hungerford had apparently sought Cromwell’s help in securing a divorce from his wife, claiming that she had dishonoured him – a claim that she furiously denied as a ‘great slander’.24 It seems she had cause. Her husband, who was almost certainly homosexual, had ill-treated all his previous wives and seemed to delight in inflicting cruelty upon them. Lady Hungerford therefore sought Cromwell’s help in fighting the injustice of her husband’s treatment.
Another woman whom Cromwell helped was – somewhat surprisingly – Elizabeth, Duchess of Norfolk. Her marriage to Cromwell’s rival had never been a happy one, and it had taken a sharp downturn when Norfolk had moved his mistress, Bess Holland, into the family home and sent Elizabeth to live in Hertfordshire. In her distress, she wrote to Cromwell, begging him to intervene on her behalf. There is no record of his reply, but he must have provided some assistance because the grateful duchess soon wrote again to thank him for his kindness and sent him a pair of quality carving knives as a token of her gratitude. The couple remained estranged, however, and in June 1537 Elizabeth wrote again to Cromwell, lamenting that ‘he [Norfolk] hath put me away four years and a quarter this Midsummer.’25 But there was little that the minister could do to bridge the gap between the duke and countess. Cromwell seems to have flinched from involving himself too closely in Norfolk’s personal affairs, perhaps honouring their newfound alliance, and it is to his credit that he did not use it as a means of creating mischief, such as whipping up a scandal about it at court.
Nevertheless, the following year another member of the Norfolk family sought Cromwell’s aid: the duke’s daughter, Mary. The king had arranged her marriage to his illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, but on the latter’s premature death in July 1536 he refused to grant her the jointure that had been assigned to her. Mary appealed first to her father, but ‘he made me so short an answer, that I am more than half in despair to obtain by his suit’, she confided to Cromwell. ‘Alas! good my lord, you that do many deeds, help me, the poorest widow of the realm.’ Shortly afterwards, she was writing to thank him for ‘how painfully you daily use you in labouring to the king’s majesty for my matter’, which suggests he did all he could for her, whether or not he was able to obtain the jointure.26
Undoubtedly the most distinguished female supplicant for Cromwell’s assistance was Lady Margaret Douglas, the king’s niece. Although born in Scotland to Henry’s elder sister Margaret and Archibald Douglas, sixth Earl of Angus, she had come to England in 1530 and had become a firm favourite with the English king, who called her ‘our dearest niece’.27 Margaret’s subsequent career at court had been marked by extreme highs and lows. A shrewd politician, she had succeeded in winning favour with each of Henry’s queens, whom she had served in turn. But she had been reckless in her personal life. Described by one contemporary as ‘beautiful and highly esteemed’, she had attracted a great deal of attention among Henry’s male courtiers.28
When Lady Margaret had been arrested on the discovery of her secret betrothal to Thomas Howard in 1536, the king had ordered Cromwell to arrange her imprisonment at Sion Abbey. An apparently contrite Lady Margaret had written to the minister from there shortly afterwards. Denying that she had brought too many servants with her, she nevertheless agreed, according to Cromwell’s orders, to dismiss any from Thomas Howard’s household. She also begged him to settle the wages of those servants who had been allowed to stay with her. Conscious that Cromwell was the means by which she could regain her uncle’s favour, she exclaimed: ‘What cause I have to give you thanks, and how much bound am I unto you, that by your means hath gotten me, as I trust, the king’s grace’s favour again!’ Her thanks were premature. A year later, she was declared illegitimate by the king because her father, Archibald Douglas, had divorced her mother after finding evidence of a precontract on her part. He had successfully argued that this rendered their marriage unlawful, and their daughter had been openly reputed a bastard in Scotland.29
These letters, and many others, can be found among Cromwell’s correspondence throughout the 1530s.30 They attest to his reputation for helping women in distress, as well as to the care and attention he gave to every plea for assistance. Although the outcome of some of the cases is not clear, the repeated expressions of thanks for his endeavours suggest that he was at least assiduous, if not always successful, on their behalf.
As autumn 1537 drew near, Cromwell was keen for his royal master to grant his full assent to the Bishops’ Book. But by the time it appeared, Henry had more pressing concerns. His new wife, Jane, had recently entered her confinement. Jane’s pregnancy had progressed without incident, and in the middle of September she was conveyed to Hampton Court for her lying-in. A little short of a month later, she went into labour. Henry and his courtiers waited anxiously for news as Jane’s labour dragged on for two days and three nights. Finally, at about two o’clock in the morning of 12 October, came the joyous news that the queen had been safely delivered of ‘the most beautiful boy that ever was seen’.31 The king’s long struggle for a male heir was over at last. Surely now, the Tudor dynasty was secure.
Cromwell wrote at once to Sir Thomas Wyatt at the Imperial court: ‘It hath pleased allmyghty god of his goodnes to sende unto the Quenes grace delyvraunce of a goodly prince to the grete confort Reioysse and consolacion of the Kinges Maieste and of all us his most humble loving and obedient subiectes . . . we have veray grete cause to thancke our most benigne and graciouse creatour, who after so long expectacion hath exalced our prayours and desyres.’32 The letter was more than a joyful conveyance of news, however. Cromwell urged Wyatt to let the emperor know straight away so that he, and the other princes of Europe, might share in his ‘grete Joye and confort’ – or, in other words, that he might gloat that the King of England now had a son to secure his dynasty, and was thus in a much stronger bargaining position in foreign affairs.
A lavish christening was held for the young prince three days later. Cromwell’s adversary, Carew, was given a place of honour at the ceremony. Edward’s birth marked the triumph of his patient support for the Seymours, and the king was only too glad to recognise the fact. But the king’s happiness was marred by news that his beloved Jane had fallen gravely ill. Twelve days after giving her husband what he most desired in the world, she was dead. Having never recovered from the birth, it is likely that Jane contracted puerperal fever, a bacterial infection caused by lack of proper hygiene in the delivery room. Such illnesses were not understood at the time, however, and Cromwell was quick to blame others for her death. He told Gardiner and Lord Howard that it was ‘the faulte of them that were about her which suffred her to take greate cold and to eat thinges that her fantazie in syknes called for’.33
‘Divine Providence has mingled my joy with the bitterness of the death of her who brought me to this happiness,’ Henry lamented.34 By contrast, for all his expressed sorrow at Jane’s passing, Cromwell was already planning for her successor. In a letter written just days after her death, he opined:
Forasmoche as thoughe his Maieste is not anything disposed to mary again . . . Yet as sundry of his graces co[un]sail here have thought it mete for us to be most humble suters to his Maieste to consider the state of his realme and to enter eftsones in to an other Matrymonie in place for his highnes satisfaction convenient Soo his tendre zeale to Us his subgiettes hathe already so moche overcome his graces disposition And framed his mynde bothe to be indifferent to the thing and to thelection of any person from any parte that with deliberation shalbe thought mete for him.35
He then went on to note the candidates he had already shortlisted as being most suitable, and spent the next few months instructing Henry’s ambassadors to make overtures to various potential foreign brides. With typical attention to detail, he even penned the speeches that they were to address to the ladies in question in order to flatter them into agreeing.36
For all his brisk, businesslike reaction to Jane’s death, Cromwell also had genuine cause to lament her passing. His son Gregory had been the queen’s brother-in-law for little over two months. He could, though, console himself with the fact that for as long as the young prince survived, the Seymours would remain a powerful force at court. It would prove an empty consolation.