Thomas Cromwell: Servant to Henry VIII

by Loades, David

  In January 1522 a certain William Popely wrote to him in terms which suggest familiar acquaintance, asking him to act as attorney in a suit which he had before the king’s council. The letter was written from Bristol, and indicates that Cromwell was using his commercial contacts to build his legal business, an impression confirmed by the fact that some months later John Creke wrote to him from Bilbao in Spain in the warmest terms, asking to be commended to his wife, and addressing his letter simply to ‘the worshipful Thomas Cromwell, London’.21 Any nobleman was likely to regard a commoner with whom he had regular dealings as being in his service, and the term is very imprecise. For example Cecily, the Dowager Marchioness of Dorset, wrote somewhat peremptorily to him in August 1522, requesting him to forward a ‘trussing bed’ and its equipment to her son Leonard, and endorsing the letter ‘to Cromwell, my son Marquis servant’. Thomas, the then marquis, had been Wolsey’s pupil at Magdalen College, Oxford, in the 1490s, and that may have created a relationship which caused his mother to presume in this fashion.22 There is no other indication that Cromwell ever considered himself to be the marquis’s servant, or that the nobleman saw him in that light. It seems to have been little more than a figure of speech. His legal business was varied, and no doubt profitable. It also took him out of London from time to time. Richard Cawffer wrote to him on 15 August about a dispute between himself and Lord Mountjoy, who was acting as an executor to Henry Kebyll, ‘late of London, Alderman’. The nature of the dispute is not known, but it presumably related to probate, because the failure of one of the arbitrators to turn up meant that the case stood referred to the bishop. Tunstall had ordered each party to name an ‘indifferent person’ to advise him, and Chawffer had chosen Cromwell. He asked the latter to let him know when he was next in London, that he might instruct him, which seems an odd request to make of one whose normal address was at the Austin Friars.23 Perhaps he was in attendance upon the cardinal, who seems to have been at Esher at the time. Another indication of his connection with Wolsey comes over the administration of the Privy Seal loan for which he was primarily responsible in the autumn of 1522. Henry Lacy, acting on the cardinal’s behalf, sent him a draft Privy Seal with a covering letter to a Mr Ellderton, instructing him to take the mayor’s advice and to ‘order it as he thinks fit’. Exactly what he was supposed to do is not clear, because a draft Privy Seal would have had no legal standing; perhaps Lacy was canvassing opinion as to whom in London it would be appropriate to send such demands.24 This would seem to be a good example of the kind of semi-official way in which Cromwell operated, because in the same letter was enclosed a draft of Sir James Turberville’s account, which he was asked to put in due form, a task that would seem to be more appropriate to his private practice. Other letters of the same time give a similar impression. In 1521 he acted for Charles Knyvett, who had resigned the offices which he held under the Duke of Buckingham shortly before that nobleman was executed for high treason on 17 May. Knyvett had a powerful sense of grievance, having been forced to incur over £3,000 worth of debt on his master’s behalf. This debt he now sought to annul, and to recover the receiverships which he had been compelled to resign, on the grounds that all Buckingham’s property was now in the hands of the Crown. This suit might well appear a forlorn hope were it not for the fact that Knyvett had provided useful testimony against the duke at his trial, and was looking for his reward. That he chose Thomas Cromwell to represent him is indicative of the fact that the latter’s favour with the cardinal was well known, and Cromwell would not have taken him on if he had not judged the chances of success to be reasonable.25 In the event their suit failed, but this did not reflect adversely on Cromwell’s reputation, as he seems to have won golden opinions for his efforts on Knyvett’s behalf. Perhaps the suggestion of a trade-off was a little too obvious for the council to stomach.

  William Popely was obviously satisfied with his legal advice, because he wrote again in August with an odd request from a certain ‘poor man’, who may well have been Popely himself. He wanted to know where one Glaskerton had been on Our Lady’s Eve. The reason for this request is not explained, nor why Cromwell should have been expected to know the answer. The suggestion that he was running a private detective agency among his numerous other preoccupations is not supported by any other evidence. The letter continues with the apparently inconsequential news that Popely was to be married on ‘the Sunday after St Bartholomew’ (31 August), and he wanted his brother’s writs sent down ‘by the first’.26 This ragbag of a letter suggests a man who is completely at ease with his solicitor, and that impression is confirmed by another letter, written on 27 September referring to a case which was obviously well known between them, asking Cromwell to ensure that ‘Mr Elliot may answer by his counsel’, and informing him that the ship, which was presumably to bear his letter, waited only for the wind to serve.27 Similarly Richard Chawffer followed up his letter of August with another on 22 September, expressing complete satisfaction with the advice that Cromwell had given him in response to his earlier communication, and requesting a commission (presumably from Wolsey), in the strictest form ‘according to the bill I received from you’. He wants to know what action, if any, he can take against Lord Mountjoy, or whether such a course would damage his cause. His Lordship’s goods in Calais are vulnerable, or he could try a suit in Chancery.28 It is a very routine sort of letter, and one wonders why it has survived when so much of Cromwell’s correspondence from these years has obviously perished. Not every letter was from a satisfied customer, and the indications are that his legal business was taking priority, because a communication from a certain Thomas Twesell in October 1522 about the cloth business ‘takes it unkindly’ that he has not been sent the velvet pouch which had been requested. How long the item had been outstanding is not clear, but it appears that Cromwell was allowing his merchandising to slide rather, perhaps in anticipation of giving it up a couple of years later.29

  In addition to running an effective legal practice, and a rather less effective clothing business, Cromwell also seems to have been a money lender. In this connection his international contacts were invaluable, because he probably borrowed the money in Antwerp at a standard rate, and then loaned it onto his clients with an enhancement. He was well known, as we have seen, in the house of Frescobaldi, where he would have learned the basics of the banking business in his youth, and was friendly with Antonio Bonvisi of Lucca, also well known in London, who included Wolsey among his clients. In his cosmopolitan experience, there were many features which point towards money lending as an attractive proposition, and his entrée to the Antwerp exchange would have given him a decisive advantage.

  So what manner of man was Thomas Cromwell by 1522? His unusual youth had left its mark upon him, particularly in the skills that he had acquired. He was knowledgeable about banking, and the cloth trade, and had a most unusual command of languages. He had friends in Italy, in the Netherlands, and among the merchants strangers based in London. There is, however, no reason to suppose that he was that reviled creature, an ‘Italianate Englishman’, nor a disciple of Machiavelli, suppositions derived from his time in Florence.30 Nor, in spite of Foxe, was he a closet Lutheran. His trips to Rome had alienated him from the papacy, and he appears to have become sceptical about such standard devotions as the veneration of relics. However his will of 1529 reveals him to have been a man of conventional piety at that stage of his life, and there is no reason to suppose that that had changed over the previous seven years. That he was acquisitive is a reasonable supposition, but the only hint in his correspondence that that was frowned upon comes in a letter of 1532, charging him with not having paid for certain goods of the Duke of Buckingham which he had received eleven years earlier.31 The circumstances of this charge are unknown, and it could have been the result of mere oversight. However, it remains a mystery how and where he acquired the legal knowledge which supported his main business in the 1520s, because it was not until 1524 that he was enrolled at Gray’s Inn, and
by that time he was well established.32 If he learned ‘on the job’ as an apprentice to an established attorney, that has escaped the record, and the only possible conclusion is that he was self-taught. Presumably he started in a small way, on the back of his merchandising, because his experience on the Continent would have taught him nothing about the English common law. Apart from membership of an Inn of Court, there was no recognised qualification for the profession, so he must have started with the occasional low-grade assignment and built up his practice by personal recommendation. There are a few suggestions in the records that this might have been so. In which case his success would have built upon itself, which is a testimony to his personality as well as to his learning ability. Apart from the fact that he was highly intelligent and adaptable in his approach, we have no evidence of that personality in these early years, but he clearly had a great capacity for friendship because he corresponded with men (and a few women) all over Europe, and they nearly all seem to have held him in warm regard. About his family life we know next to nothing. His wife and his daughters are mere names, and most of our knowledge of his son Gregory comes from later years. However the fact that he gave a home to his widowed mother-in-law suggests a congenial nature, which is reflected also in his letters. That he was a hard man of business may be deduced from his growing prosperity, but of the ruthless ideologist of later legend there is not a trace.

  2

  THE CARDINAL’S SERVANT, 1523–1530

  The Cardinal of York, seeing Cromwell’s vigilance and diligence, his ability and promptitude, both in evil and in good, took him into his service, and employed him principally in demolishing five or six good monasteries…

  Eustace Chapuys

  Thomas Cromwell sat in the parliament of 1523, but we do not know his constituency, or the circumstances of his election.1 Because he was in the cardinal’s service by this time, and was known to be so, it is likely that the Archbishop of York placed him in one of the boroughs whose patronage he controlled, but which one is unclear. It is, however, inconceivable that one who was fairly close to Wolsey should have entered Parliament without at least his knowledge and consent. This raises an interesting question about what double game the cardinal may have been playing, because we have the text of a speech, allegedly delivered by Cromwell in one or other of the sessions, which runs directly counter to the cardinal’s declared purpose.2 Ostensibly, Wolsey was arguing for an invasion of France, in accordance with the Anglo-Imperial treaty of the previous year, and a subsidy of 4s in the pound to support it. Cromwell’s speech, however, is opposed to all such schemes. It starts with judicious flattery of the king’s intentions.

  To recover again by the sword the realm of France, belonging to our most redoubted Sovereign by good and just title, and to change the sums of money which we have in sundry years received from thence into the whole and just revenues that might there from year to year be levied, if we did peaceably enjoy the same, who is here present that would not gladly dispend his goods but also his life … to help to obtain unto our most benign sovereign his most noble succession…3

  However, he then goes on, in equally dulcet tones, to argue against the king taking the field in person, suggesting that it would be a disaster to the kingdom if he should miscarry, bearing in mind his ‘forward courage’. He would leave a daughter as his heir, and she but a child. Without suggesting the difficulties of a female succession, he points out that Mary’s well-being demands her father’s safety, not the kind of risks which he would be taking on campaign. If the king’s warlike energy demands action, let him attack the Scots, who are a perpetual threat to his northern borders, ‘for though it is a common saying that in Scotland is nought to win but strokes, for that I allege another common saying, who that entendeth France to win, with Scotland let him begin’.4

  He therefore discreetly opposes the subsidy that Wolsey had demanded, but ends on the same flattering note on which he had begun: ‘I beseech God send our most dear and most redoubted sovereign prosperous succession and fortunate achieving of all this his noble enterprise.’ This speech has been rightly described as a masterpiece of eloquence and discretion, full of mature wisdom and sharp insights. If it was ever delivered, no doubt it helped to persuade the Commons to reject the grant asked for, and to replace it with a much smaller tax. Instead of £800,000, Wolsey would have to be content with £152,000, spread over three years.5

  The cardinal was apparently deeply chagrined at this rebuff, but one wonders whether his disappointment was as great as he wished to make it appear. He had been very active in the promotion of peace between England and France since at least 1514, and the great Treaty of London of 1518 had been largely his handiwork. Since then he had been exercised to restrain his master’s martial ardour. He was, however, the king’s servant, and bound to follow Henry’s policies when these were clearly articulated. Consequently he had negotiated the treaty of 1522 with the Emperor, which had committed England to war against France, and set out to raise the necessary money by way of forced loans. By this means he raised over £350,000, but this, as he knew well, was nowhere near enough to cover the cost of the Army Royal which Henry proposed to lead. In fact it was £40,000 short of what was actually spent on the Duke of Suffolk’s raid in the autumn of 1523, and on the activities of the Earl of Surrey on the Scottish borders, which fell well short of open warfare.6 Hence his reluctant consent to meet Parliament in April 1523, with the object of raising the enormous sum of almost £1 million. This was based on accurate estimates of what would be required, and was by no means exaggerated. The convocations, which met at the same time as Parliament, made the unprecedented grant of 10 per cent of all clerical incomes, but that was spread over five years, whereas Wolsey’s need was for cash in hand. However, the House of Commons proved to be difficult, with or without Cromwell’s help, and in spite of the cardinal’s state visit, clearly designed to intimidate, would grant only the smaller sum. That was accomplished with much bitching and grinding, and the first instalment of the new tax was not to be paid until the spring of 1524.7 However, in spite of Wolsey’s vigorously expressed disappointment, in fact the rebuff suited his purposes very well. Another forced loan in the autumn of 1523 failed even partly to close the financial gap, and the Army Royal was never launched. In spite of the king’s obvious frustration, with which Wolsey was quick to sympathise, nothing could be done in 1524 or 1525, and the cardinal’s peace policy eventually prevailed at the Treaty of the More in August of the latter year.8 Although he could not admit it for obvious reasons, the House of Commons’ refusal of his subsidy request in April 1523 was not quite the setback that it appeared to be. This raises the intriguing possibility that Thomas Cromwell was acting as Wolsey’s agent in his well-known speech, and the reason why a complete text survives in the handwriting of one of Cromwell’s scribes is because it was carefully crafted in advance with the cardinal’s consent and approval. No one commented upon this at the time because the two were ostensibly so much at odds, and if anyone observed the oddity of one of Wolsey’s servants contradicting his master, their comments have not survived. The speech as recorded was cleverly designed to avoid giving offence to the king, and seems to have impressed with its force and subtlety, because when Cromwell next sought a place in Parliament in 1529, Henry was ‘well contented’ that he should be a burgess, provided that he obeyed the king’s orders, which suggests that his value as an orator was well appreciated.9

  It may therefore have been with a wry sense of satisfaction that Cromwell wrote to his friend John Creke, who was in Bilbao at the time, on 17 August 1523, that he

  … with others have endured a parliament which continued by the space of seventeen whole weeks, where we communed of war, peace, strife, contention, debate, murmur, grudge, riches, poverty, perjury, truth, falsehood, justice, equity, deceit, oppression, magnanimity, activity, force, attemperance, treason, murder, felony, conciliation, and also how a commonwealth might be edified and also continued within our realm. Howbeit
in conclusion we have done as our predecessors have been wont to do, that is to say as well as we might, and left where we began.10