45. State Papers, I, p. 555. L & P, XII, ii, no. 289.
46. C. Lloyd, Formularies of the Faith put forth by Authority during the reign of Henry VIII p. 26 et seq.
47. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 406.
48. The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man (1543), RSTC 5168.
49. For a full discussion of the Becket situation, see Elton, Policy and Police, p. 257, n. 1. J. F. Davis, ‘Lollards, Reformers and St.Thomas of Canterbury’, University of Birmingham Historical Journal, 9, 1963, pp. 1–15.
50 . L & P, XIII, i, no. 231. S. Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy (1969), p. 273. B. W. Beckinsale, Thomas Cromwell, Tudor Minister (1978), p. 126.
51. David Daniell, William Tyndale: a Biography (1994), pp. 174–81.
52. Frere and Kennedy, Visitation Articles, p. 1.
53. D. Daniell, The Bible in English: Its History and Influence (2003), pp. 193–7.
54. Schofield, Thomas Cromwell, p. 227. For a comparison of the Mathew, Tyndale and Coverdale editions, see Daniell, William Tyndale, pp. 335–57.
55. Clauses 2 and 3 of the Royal Injunctions. Frere and Kennedy, Visitation Articles, pp. 35–6.
56. Schofield, Thomas Cromwell, p. 227.
57. Hughes and Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, I, pp. 284–7, RSTC 2068. Daniell, The Bible in English, pp. 204–9.
58. John Foxe, Acts and Monuments (1583) pp. 1102–24.
59. Ibid., p. 1122. John Lambert to Cromwell, 16 November 1538. L & P, XIII, ii, no. 849.
60. Ibid., p. 1123
61. Cromwell to Sir Thomas Wyatt, 28 November 1538. BL Harley MS 282, f. 217. L & P, XIII, ii, no. 924. Merriman, Life and Letters, II, pp. 161–3. Foxe, Acts and Monuments, p. 1124.
62. Cromwell to Lord Lisle, 14 May 1538. L & P, XIII, i, no. 396.
63. H. Ellis, Original Letters Illustrative of English History (1846), II, pp. 233–4.
64. T. Wright (ed.), Three Chapters of Letters Relating to the Dissolution of the Monasteries (Camden Society, 26, 1843), p. 227.
65. Ibid., pp. 238–9. L & P, XIII, ii, nos 593, 677, 866. Ibid., XIV, i, no. 1191, no. 787.
66. L & P, XIV, i, nos 441–3, 955, 981.
67. Schofield, Thomas Cromwell, p. 351.
68. MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer, pp. 266–8.
69. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 367. In fact they lingered on until August.
70. Statute 31 Henry VIII, c. 14. Statutes of the Realm, III, pp. 739–43.
71. MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer, pp. 249–51.
72. Statute 31 Henry VIII, c. 14. Elton, Tudor Constitution, p. 400.
73. A proclamation appointing Thomas Cromwell to approve a new translation of the Bible. Hughes and Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, I, no. 192.
74. M. Deansley, The Lollard Bible (1920), p. 295.
75. Elton, Policy and Police, p. 41. Alex Ryrie, The Gospel and Henry VIII, pp. 281–5.
76. Elton, Thomas Cromwell, pp. 20–22.
7 The Fall of Thomas Cromwell, 1539–1540
1. Daniell, Tyndale, pp. 189–95. This was in response to a proclamation against heretical books, dated by Hughes and Larkin ‘before 6 March 1529’ but in fact issued early in 1530. Elton, Policy and Police, p. 218, n. 5.
2. Daniell, The Bible in English, p. 199.
3. Richard Taverner, The Confession of the Faith of the Germans (1536), RSTC 909. Prefatory letter.
4. Philips was allegedly employed by someone in London who may have been Stephen Gardiner. For his subsequent career, see the correspondence of various English agents on the Continent. Daniell, Tyndale, pp. 361–73.
5. Treasonable words, spoken 17 January 1538, L & P, XIII, i, no. 35. Schofield, Thomas Cromwell. The fragility of his position is demonstrated in a proclamation issued on 16 November 1538, which Cromwell drafted and the king corrected. All the king’s additions are in the direction of severity. J. Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, Appendix, document VIII, where the king’s corrections are shown.
6. Daniell, The Bible in English, pp. 200–1. Hutchinson, Thomas Cromwell, p. 190.
7. Hughes and Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, I, pp. 286–7.
8. Schofield, Thomas Cromwell, pp. 46–62.
9. L & P, XIV, i, no. 103 (2). Merriman, Life and Letters, II, pp. 174–5.
10. L & P, XIV, i, no. 1137.
11. Ibid., no. 1193. Retha Warnicke, The Marrying of Anne of Cleves (2000), pp. 84–5.
12. R. J. Knecht, Francis I, pp. 295–7.
13. Warnicke, The Marrying of Anne of Cleves, pp. 155–7.
14. Patricia Crawford, Blood, Bodies and Families in Early Modern England (2004), pp. 29–30. J. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials (1822), II, p. 462. Loades, The Tudor Queens of England (2009), p. 110.
15. Warnicke, The Marrying, p. 151.
16. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, pp. 372–3.
17. Schofield, Thomas Cromwell, p. 238. On the circumstances under which William had inherited Gelderland, see Warnicke, The Marrying, p. 238.
18. Elton, ‘Thomas Cromwell’s decline and fall’ in Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government, I (1974), p. 203. L & P, XIV, i, no. 672.
19. TNA SP1/140, f. 197. L & P, XIV, i, nos 634, 645. Chistopher More to Cromwell, March 1539.
20. Alasdair Hawkyard, ‘The Court, the Household and Parliament in the Mid-Tudor Period’, The Court Historian, 16, 2011, pp. 159–75.
21. Cromwell was not taken by surprise by the royal agenda for this parliament. Among his remembrances for early March is a note for ‘a device in the parliament for the unity in religion’. L & P, XIV, i, no. 655. Elton, ‘Decline and fall…’, pp. 205–7.
22. Statute 31 Henry VIII, c. 14. Statutes of the Realm, III, pp. 739–43.
23. Foxe, Acts and Monuments (1583), p. 1192.
24. Lords Journals, I, pp. 128–9, where it is rendered in Latin, although delivered in English. The translation is from Elton, ‘Decline and Fall…’, p. 216.
25. Ibid., pp. 217–8.
26. Lords Journals, I, p. 133.
27. R. S. Schofield, ‘Taxation and the political limits of the Tudor State’ in Law and Government under the Tudors, pp. 257–66. Schofield, ‘Parliamentary Lay Taxation, 1485–1547’ (Cambridge Univerisity PhD, 1963).
28. Elton, ‘Decline and Fall…’, pp. 219–20.
29. Loades, Cardinal Wolsey (2008), pp. 28–32. P. J. Gwyn, The King’s Cardinal, pp. 630–2.
30. Merriman, Life and Letters, I, p. 285. P. Van Dyke, Renascence Portraits (1905), pp. 237 et seq.
31. Sadler did, however, bare Cromwell’s last letters to Henry. F. S. Stoney, Life and Times of the Right Honourable Sir Ralph Sadler (1877), p. 68.
32. More strictly, he was under house arrest. State Papers, 1, pp. 627–8.
33. Elton, ‘Decline and Fall…’, p. 192
34. L & P, XII, no. 27, XIII, no. 143. Elton, ‘Decline and Fall…’, pp. 220–1.
35. Schofield, Thomas Cromwell, pp. 296–9.
36. Ibid., p. 297. For Norfolk’s attitude to Irish affairs, see Ellis, Tudor Ireland, p. 123.
37. L & P, XII, ii, no. 249.
38. TNA SP1/105, f. 245. L & P, XI, no. 233. It is alleged that one of the factors turning Norfolk against Cromwell in 1540 was the dissolution of Thetford Abbey in February, while the duke was in France.
39. TNA SP1/106, f.157. L & P, XI, no. 434.
40. TNA SP1/106, f.183. L & P, XI, no. 470.
41. L & P., XI, no. 576.
42. Elton, ‘Decline and Fall…’, p. 195.
43. The letter was actually drafted by Wriothesley, which makes Cromwell’s role in its contents all the more obvious. L & P, XI, nos 777, 809, 810, 863.
44. L & P, XII, ii, no. 291. Elton, ‘Decline and Fall…’ p. 196 and n. 4
45. L & P, XIV, i, no. 541.
46. Elton, ‘Decline and Fall…’ pp. 196–7.
47. G. Redworth, In Defence of the Church Catholic, pp. 59–61. J. A. Muller, Stephen Gardiner and the Tudor Reaction (1926), pp. 55 et
seq.
48. The nature of Cromwell’s relationship with Gardiner is fairly reflected in the former’s letter of 5 July 1536. BL Add. MS 25114, f. 175. Merriman, Life and Letters, pp. 19–21.
49. L & P, IX, no. 1039. Merriman, Life and Letters, I, pp. 439–40. Ibid., II, p. 20.
50. 12 June 1537. L & P, XII, ii, no. 78.
51. Cromwell to Gardiner, 15 February 1538. BL Add. MS 25,114, f. 286. Merrimen, Life and Letters, II, pp. 115–6.
52. Burnet, History of the Reformation, 1, p. 425.
53. A view held by Chapuys, L & P, X, nos 351, 688, XI, no. 40; and Castillon, Ibid., XIII, i, nos 995,1101–2. 1135. Merriman, Life and Letters, I, pp. 233–4.
54. Elton, ‘Decline and Fall…’, p. 219.
55. Merriman, I, p. 287.
56. L & P, XV, nos 334, 425.
57. Ibid., no. 486.
58. Ibid., no. 429.
59. L & P, XV, no. 437. Elton, ‘Decline and Fall…’, pp. 215–6. Schofield, Thomas Cromwell, pp. 374–5.
60. L & P, XV, nos 540–1. Edward Hall, Chronicle, p. 838. For the idea that this was a deliberate snub to Norfolk, see D. Head, Ebbs and Flows of Fortune; the Life of Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk (1995), p. 170.
61. Marillac to Francis I, 1 June 1540. L & P, XV, no. 736. Sampson was arrested some time between 25 and 28 May.
62. L & P, XV, no. 373
63. L & P, XIV, i, nos 1108, 1152, 1156. M. St Clare Byrne, The Lisle Letters (1983), pp. 476–99.
64. L & P, XV, nos 766–7.
65. The Emperor and the King of France were also members of the Order Schofield, Thomas Cromwell, pp. 392–3. Hutchinson, Thomas Cromwell, pp. 238–9. Although he did not speak for him, Ralph Sadler did at least bear Cromwell’s final plea for mercy to the king. This may have contributed to a loss of favour, because he spent a period in the Tower in 1541. A. J. Slavin, Politics and Profit (1966).
66. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, pp. 372–3. Wamicke, Marrying of Anne of Cleves, pp. 202–3. Wriothesley’s deposition, made after Cromwell’s fall. L & P, XV, no. 850 (II), printed by Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, I, Records, cxiv, no. 9.
67. Hutchinson, Thomas Cromwell, pp. 222–3. Loades, Catherine Howard (2012), pp. 96–7.
68. L & P, XV, n. 766. Henry VIII to Marillac. Schofield, Thomas Cromwell, pp. 391–2.
69. Elton, ‘Decline and Fall…’, pp. 225–6.
70. Schofield, Thomas Cromwell, p. 392.
71. Hall, Chronicle, p. 838.
72. State Papers, VIII, pp. 364–5.
73. L & P, XV, no. 364. T. B. and T. J. Howell, Complete Collection of State Trials (1828), I, p. 455.
74. L & P, XV, no. 785. State Papers, VIII, p. 264.
75. BL Cotton MS Titus B 1, f. 273. Merriman, Life and Letters, II, pp. 264–7.
76. Schofield, Thomas Cromwell, p. 403.
77. L & P, XV, no. 823. Merriman, Life and Letters, pp. 268–73.
78. Elton, ‘Decline and Fall…’, p. 221.
79. The Act is printed in full by Burnet, History of the Reformation, IV, p. 415
80. Ibid., clause 3.
81. Ibid., clause 10.
82. Elton, ‘Decline and Fall…’, p. 225.
83. L & P, XV, no. 804.
84. Richard Hilles to Bullinger, L & P, XVI, p. 270
85. Burnet, History of the Reformation, I, i, bk iii, p. 206.
86. R. A. Rebholtz, The Complete Poems of Thomas Wyatt (1978), p. 86.
87. L & P, XV, no. 498. S. E. Lehmberg, The Later Parliaments of Henry VIII, 1536–1547 (1977), p. 111.
88. Schofield, Thomas Cromwell, p. 408.
89. Ibid., p. 415.
8 Cromwell and the State
1. Reginald Pole, ‘Apologia ad Carolum Quint Caesarem’, Epistolarum… Pars Prima, ed. Qurini (1744), p. 133. G. R. Elton, ‘The Political Creed of Thomas Cromwell’, Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government (1974), II, pp. 216–8.
2. Pole, ‘Apologia’, p. 133.
3. England in the Reign of King Henry the Eighth, ed. S. J. Herrtage and J. M. Cooper (EETS, 1878), p. xv.
4. In the Reformation statutes he was always careful to emphasise that the law so created was consistent with the law of God – although not, of course, with the canon law, which was merely of human invention.
5. Elton, ‘The Political Creed…’, pp. 228–9.
6. Ibid., p. 230. Henry, Lord Morley, wrote to Cromwell in February 1539, sending him a copy of the History of Florence (in Italian), and commending The Prince to his attention, in case he was unfamiliar with it. L & P, XIV, i, no. 285.
7. Schofield, Thomas Cromwell, pp. 110–24.
8. Cromwell to the Council of Calais, 27 May 1539. Merriman, Life and Letters, II, pp. 222–4. See also, ibid., p. 112. Lords Journals, I, p. 128.
9. Alexander Alesius, Of the authoritie of the word of god against the bishop of London (?1540), RSTC 292. Letters and Papers, XII, i, no. 790.
10. Lords Journals, I, p. 128. For a full consideration of the punishments which he inspired, see G. R. Elton, Policy and Police, pp. 327–83.
11. Cromwell to Fisher, February 1534. Merriman, Life and Letters, I, p. 376.
12. Cromwell’s use of attainder was attacked by no less a Common Lawyer than Sir Edward Coke, who certainly did not regard it as a gesture of respect! G. R. Elton, The Tudor Constitution, p. 172.
13. While it is true that the common law did not recognise slander as an offence, there was nevertheless a form of action devised called ‘trespass on the case’, whereby the offender was deemed to have trespassed upon the plaintiff’s reputation. Marjorie Blatcher, The Court of King’s Bench 1450–1550 (1978), p. 25.
14. Elton, Tudor Constitution, p. 340.
15. Letters and Papers, XIII, i, no. 120. F. Schultz, ‘Bracton on Kingship’, English Historical Review, 60, 1945.
16. All that is known of this story comes from the depositions collected by the commissioners. TNA SP1/131, ff. 23–31. L & P, XIII, i, no. 686.
17. Ibid.
18. Elton, Policy and Police, p. 93.
19. The discontented monk informed Lord Stourton, who passed the matter on to Cromwell. TNA SP1/76, f. 84. L & P, VI, no. 510.
20. Henry Ellis, Original Letters relating to the English Reformation (1846), 11, ii, p. 130. A letter from his brother Alan.
21. L & P, Addenda, nos 1056–7, 1063, 1075.
22. Elton, Policy and Police, p. 109.
23. L & P, VI, no. 433. TNA SP6/1, no. 19.
24. L & P, VI, no. 412. TNA SP1/75, f.229.
25. Elton, Policy and Police, p. 116,
26. Ibid., pp. 116–7. L & P, VI, no. 799 (2).
27. L & P, VI, no 932.The old book of prophecies appears to have been the ‘Book of Merlin’, attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth. Rupert Taylor, Political Prophecy in England (1911), pp. 48 et seq.
28. Dobson’s collection of prophecies included bits of Merlin and Thomas of Erceldoune, but this reference to ‘the Crumme’ he would appear to have made up himself. Taylor, Political Prophecy, pp. 48–58, 62–71.
29. L & P, XII, ii, no. 1212; XIII, i, nos 107, 705. TNA SP1/127, ff. 63–7, 128, ff. 124, 131, f. 56.
30. See the careful examinations of Henry’s foreign policy contained in Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, pp. 355–83 and Loades, Henry VIII, pp. 261–98.
31. Loades, Mary Tudor, pp. 99–103.
32. Chapuys was withdrawn in the spring of 1539 and Cromwell does not seem to have established a similar relationship with his successor, Mendoza.
33. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 367.
34. Thomas Cromwell to Christopher Mont and Thomas Paynell, 10 March 1539. Merriman, Life and Letters, II, pp. 186–90.
35. For example, Sir George Lawson to Cromwell, 24 January 1537, L & P, XII, ii, no. 219. Lawson was not the only one to appeal to Cromwell for funds. In January 1538 Sir Brian Tuke, the Treasurer of the Chamber, begged to be allowed £20,000 of the subsidy money, because he was out of funds. L & P, XIII, i, no. 47.
36
. Merriman, I, p. 27.
37. G. Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey, ed. R. S. Sylvester and D. P. Harding (1962), p. 116.
38. Elton, ‘The Political Creed…’, p. 225.
39. G. W. Bernard, The Late Medieval English Church (2012), p. 34.
40. Statutes of the Realm, III and IV.
41. Merriman, Life and Letters, I, p. 409.
42. G. R. Elton, ‘Henry VIII’s Act of Proclamations’, Studies, I, pp. 339–54.
43. I. D. Thornley, ‘The Treason Legislation of Henry VIII’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1917), pp. 87–111.
44. Statute 26 Henry VIII, c. 13. Statutes of the Realm, III, pp. 508–9.
45. Herrtage and Cooper, England in the reign of Henry VIII, p. lxxi.
46. F. L. Baumer, ‘Thomas Starkey and Marsiglio of Padua’, Politica, 2, 1936, p. 188. L & P, VII, nos 422–3.
47. Ewart Lewis, Medieval Political Ideas (1954), p. 543. S. Lockwood, ‘Marsilius of Padua and the case for the royal ecclesiastical supremacy’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, 1, 1991. Elton, ‘The Political Creed…’, p. 229.
48. Ibid., p. 230.
49. The Defence of Peace (1535), RSTC 17817, ff. 27, 28, 45.
50. ‘Free though he was with deferential remarks about the Imperial Crown, it was not in a despotic king that he saw the law-giver…’, Elton, ‘The Political Creed…’, p. 233.
51. Statute 24 Henry VIII, c. 12. Statutes of the Realm, III, p. 427.
52. Lewis, Medieval Political Ideas, pp. 430 et seq.
53. Statute 25 Henry VIII, c. 21. Statutes of the Realm, III, p. 464.
54. For example, L & P, XIII, i, nos 677–9.
55. Goronwy Edwards, ‘The Principality of Wales, 1267–1967’, Transactions of the Caernarfonshire Historical Society, 1969. R. R. Davies, The Age of Conquest: Wales 1063–1415 (1992).
56. Loades, Tudor Government (1997), p. 131. R. Somerville, A History of the Duchy of Lancaster (1953).
57. Statute 27 Henry VIII, c. 24. Statutes of the Realm, III, pp. 555–8.
58. Ibid., para xix.
59. W. S. K. Thomas, Tudor Wales (1983), pp. 49–54. P. R. Roberts, ‘The “Act of Union” in Welsh History’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1972–3), p. 49.
60. Loades, Tudor Government, p. 51.
61. J. R. Tanner, Tudor Constitutional Documents (1951), pp. 473–4. Statute 11 Henry VII, c. 2. Statutes of the Realm, II, p. 569.
Thomas Cromwell: Servant to Henry VIII Page 29
