The Cromwell Enigma

by Derek Wilson

  . . . it being my intention to write a thing which shall be useful to him who apprehends it, it appears to me more appropriate to follow up the real truth of a matter than the imagination of it; for many have pictured republics and principalities which in fact have never been known or seen, because how one lives is so far distant from how one ought to live, that he who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation; for a man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.

  Hence it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity . . . I know that every one will confess that it would be most praiseworthy in a prince to exhibit all the qualities that are considered good; but because they can neither be entirely possessed nor observed, for human conditions do not permit it, it is necessary for him to be sufficiently prudent that he may know how to avoid the reproach of those vices which would lose him his state; and also to keep himself, if it be possible, from those which would not lose him it; but this not being possible, he may with less hesitation abandon himself to them. And again, he need not make himself uneasy at incurring a reproach for those vices without which the state can only be saved with difficulty, for if everything is considered carefully, it will be found that something which looks like virtue, if followed, would be his ruin; whilst something else, which looks like vice, yet followed brings him security and prosperity.

  (Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince)

  I certainly could not follow Machiavelli along the path of amoral pragmatism, but I was glad for the challenge he ­issued to pietistic hypocrites who twisted holy writ in support of their devious policies. It was scandalous that he – like other radical thinkers – had feared to publish during his lifetime, and only circulated his work in writing to a few friends.

  But had Cromwell been of that number? I turned the page leaves of memory in search of any words of his that might reveal him as party to irreligious or amoral sympathies. I sat again at that hospitable board listening to the jovial host arguing the cause of Christ with a copy of the Vulgate Bible and the latest theological offerings from the presses of ­London, ­Paris, Wittenberg and Basel close at hand. Once more, I heard him ardently arguing that kings and councils, no less than bishops and priests, had a holy calling – to lead their people along the paths of right belief and pious action. Not once could I recall . . .

  I was aware of three pairs of eyes looking at me. ‘My ­apologies, friends. I was lost in thought.’

  Vaughan said, ‘We were just wondering how long you were planning to spend in Antwerp. You would be very welcome to stay in one of our guest rooms.’

  Carteret added sourly, ‘Unless you enjoy being fleeced at the Golden Fleece. ’Tis aptly named – or would be if these Netherlanders understood English.’

  ‘That is kind,’ I replied, ‘but I have already been too long from home. I mean to start back tomorrow. With a stout horse I should reach Nérac in two weeks or so.’

  Rogers shook his head. ‘These are hazardous times for lone travellers. The countryside is swarming with mercenaries on their way to or from King Philip’s war.’

  ‘John is right,’ Vaughan said. ‘I would not recommend anyone to make such an overland journey unless he was part of a large and well-armed group.’

  ‘Thank you for your concern,’ I said, ‘but the alternative . . .’ I shuddered.

  Everyone laughed, and Carteret observed, ‘I have heard some say they would rather endure the sweating sickness than seasickness.’

  ‘Why so?’ Vaughan asked.

  ‘If you have the sweat,’ his colleague replied, ‘you know you will probably die. With the seasickness you just hope you will.’

  Soon afterwards, the party broke up and I rose to take my leave. Vaughan, attentive as ever, called for his cloak and insisted on accompanying me back to the inn. He seemed preoccupied and I gained the impression that there was something he wanted to say but was searching in vain for the right words. If I was right, he had not found them by the time we reached the hostelry and I was certainly too tired to prompt him. The day had given me more than enough to think about and I was glad to set it aside and slip easily into sleep as soon as I reached my bed.

  6

  Antwerp

  I had scarcely broken my fast the next morning when one of the inn servants came to my chamber to announce that a reverend gentleman was awaiting me below. When I entered what the proprietor of the Golden Fleece grandly called the ‘salon’ I discovered John Rogers sitting in a corner of the room.

  ‘My apologies for this early call,’ the chaplain said, as I took a seat opposite. ‘I wanted to be sure not to miss you.’

  ‘You are very welcome,’ I replied. ‘It must be a matter of some urgency that brings you here.’

  Rogers’ lips compressed into what passed for a smile on his earnest visage. ‘Urgency, no, my friend. Let us say, ­rather, eager entreaty. My colleagues and I are in hope that you might delay your departure for a couple of days.’

  Before I could respond, he went on. ‘It had quite slipped our minds that Miles Coverdale is expected back in ­Antwerp on Friday. His memories of Cromwell reach back some twenty years. We know you would not want to miss the opportunity of meeting him.’

  ‘Coverdale . . . Coverdale? The name is vaguely familiar, but—’

  ‘Above all men he is the one to whom I owe my very soul’s health. When we were both in Cambridge, nigh on ­twenty years ago, it was Miles who made me see that Luther’s cannonade had brought the entire papal citadel tumbling into dusty rubble. But that is not why we thought you would like to meet him. Miles was involved very ­early on with Cromwell in his determination to have the Bible ­Englished. ’Tis a tangled tale and many hands took up the work. We were all, perforce, obliged to labour far from our own land. Some of the translation and printing was done here, in ­Antwerp. Yet it was Cromwell at the royal court who, by secret encouragement, kept us all to our task. Miles can tell you more if you care to stay your departure.’

  I was left no time to consider the proposition. The ­voluble chaplain hurried on. ‘Of course, you will be welcome to stay at the English House.’ He looked around the room in ­obvious disapproval. ‘Not as opulent as here but you will be saved the expense. What they charge travellers here is ­absolutely shameful.’ Rogers walked across to the door. ‘Have your things sent over and we will make arrangements for Friday as soon as Miles arrives from Strasbourg.’

  The decision had obviously been taken.

  My first impression of Miles Coverdale was of a fiftyish, bald, wispy-bearded man who cared little for his appearance. ‘Dishevelled’ would certainly be an understatement to describe him. His overgown was still dusty from travel and its hem was in some need of a seamstress. By careful questioning of Rogers and Vaughan, I had amplified my scant knowledge of this scholar who had devoted many years to the study of Greek and Hebrew texts in order to create a vernacular Bible to equal or better those already being used in German- and French-speaking lands.

  He offered an affable greeting. ‘’Tis a pleasure to meet you, Master Bourbon. I have much enjoyed your poetry. Your ­Nugae has been a frequent companion on my travels. I trust Queen Marguerite keeps good health.’

  ‘She was well when last we met,’ I replied, ‘though much occupied with matters of state in these troubled times.’

  He nodded vigorously. ‘I understand well. ’Tis the same wherever I travel in Europe: rulers who know not how to respond to the challenge of God’s truth. Your queen is one of the few who have the courage to embrace the Gospel.’

  We were sitting in the common room at the English House. It was mid-afternoon and Coverdale was refreshing himself with Dutch beer after his journey. Rogers, who had made the introduction, was sitting with us, and the two Englishmen talke
d animatedly together, reminiscing on old times and discussing shared friendships.

  ‘It is certain, then, that Calvin will return to Geneva from Strasbourg?’ Rogers asked.

  ‘Yes. Church attendance has fallen sharply since the council expelled him. His recipe for a godly commonwealth was too strong for their stomachs but, God be praised, they have seen the error of their ways. Brother John will return, with his position much stronger than when he left. Would to God we could see the same turnaround in our homeland. What news from there?’

  Rogers replied, ‘You must ask our friend here. He is just come from England, where he has been gathering information about our dear friend and patron, Thomas Cromwell. He is preparing a book about that great saint so that the world will know the truth.’

  I opened my mouth to correct that inaccurate description of my mission, but before I could speak Coverdale set down his empty tankard on the table and rose to his feet. ‘That is good news, indeed. But now I must to the printshop. Françoise is preparing my collection of the Psalms.’

  ‘Then let us go together,’ Rogers hastened to respond. ‘I am sure Nicholas would like to see the press on which some of Tyndale’s books were printed. We can talk as we walk.’

  To my surprise I found that, as Rogers had suggested, I was moved to see the machinery on which some of the most revolutionary pages of recent times had been ­printed. The outlines of the story were, of course, well known to me. After the storm of protest caused by his English New ­Testament, William Tyndale had found refuge among his fellow countrymen in the English House. During the course of what were obviously very busy years, this devoted ­scholar had set forth not only a new edition of his notorious Holy Scriptures, but also several Lutheran tracts that circulated uncontrollably in England in defiance of the king and the bishops. At the last he had been lured out of his sanctuary by someone pretending friendship and handed over to the authorities to be tried and burned.

  As we walked and my companions reminisced about the doleful events of 1535–36, I was able to glean more details, particularly of Cromwell’s role in the tragedy. The minister’s loyalty had been stretched between service to his king and commitment to Tyndale, Coverdale and their common cause. Henry, who had conceived a rabid hatred of the translator, expected Cromwell to have his heretical subject taken back to England to face trial. Cromwell had ­dutifully passed on his royal master’s instructions while indicating (via emissaries carrying word-of-mouth messages) how those instructions might be frustrated. Rogers recalled how Cromwell had urged him to persuade Tyndale to go to ­Wittenberg or some other Lutheran town where he would be safer.

  ‘He would not countenance it,’ the lugubrious chaplain explained. ‘He was completely absorbed in his writing and would not be distracted.’

  ‘And so he fell prey to that Judas, Edward Phelips.’ ­Coverdale explained how that young man had come to the English House pretending to be a messenger from ­Cromwell and betrayed Tyndale to the ecclesiastical authorities. ‘Friends in London wrote to tell me how furious Cromwell was. He had been a good friend to the Phelips family and they had benefited much from his patronage. Yet Edward hesitated not a moment to take the thirty pieces of silver he was offered.’ Coverdale insisted that Cromwell had – cautiously yet firmly – brought pressure to bear through diplomatic channels to save Tyndale during the months that he was in prison, but all to no avail.

  Thus it was that we arrived at the printworks in sombre mood. Such establishments all look much the same and there was nothing to distinguish de Keyser’s. In the centre of the long room stood two massive oak presses. Tables were piled with stacks of paper, some awaiting use and others already printed. Two typesetters pored over their frames, squinting closely as they arranged the tiny blocks. In a window embrasure a proofreader was hard at work. Nothing, in fact, out of the ordinary. And yet there was no avoiding the atmosphere in this place where world-changing events had occurred. Triumphs and tragedies.

  I was introduced to Françoise de Keyser, who had run the business since her husband’s death some four years before.

  ‘You are welcome, Monsieur, as is anyone who was a friend to my Lord Cromwell.’ The proprietress, a small, muscular woman wearing a large apron over a plain brown gown, greeted me in her native French tongue.

  ‘’Tis a privilege to meet someone as courageous as yourself, Madame. You run many risks in setting forth God’s truth.’

  She laughed – a deep-throated, almost masculine laugh. ‘Oh, we have many tricks to confound the inquisitors. They will snuff out no heresy here. But, I pray you, Monsieur, excuse me a while. Monsieur Coverdale wishes to look over our new printing of his book of psalms.’

  Mistress de Keyser led Coverdale into an adjoining room and they were gone for more than half an hour. Rogers and I found seats beside one of the windows and engaged in a conversation that was inevitably disjointed. The creak and clatter of the heavy machinery, the thumping of the inked pads down on the plate and the trundling of trollies bearing stacks of paper were a distraction and we soon abandoned the effort to compete with it.

  For my part I was not sorry to be left with my own thoughts. I was becoming irritated by Rogers and his arrogant certainties. It was not that I did not share the earnest chaplain’s core beliefs. I simply disliked his assuming of the ‘thus says the Lord’ mantle of a divine prophet; a certitude that precluded intelligent debate. Over the years I had known other ‘defenders of the Gospel’ who damaged the cause they claimed to uphold. It was not just Anabaptists, taking up the sword in the name of the Prince of Peace, who provoked unnecessary hostility. In the long term – or so I reasoned with myself – what was needed was men like Cromwell: careful, cautious, calculating politicians. Such thoughts only served to stir my irritating frustration. Who was the man I once thought I knew? The more I tried to grasp the real Thomas Cromwell, the more he slipped through my fingers like dry sand.

  I watched the young artisan in charge of the nearer press as he pulled the ‘devil’s tail’, the lever that turned the screw, forcing the paper down on to the inked bed. Well might it be called a demonic device by bishops and kings whose power was sustained by the ignorance of the ­people. That ignorance was being banished by the books, pamph­lets, broadsides and woodcut images pouring from such presses as these. But faith? The output from dozens of printshops – as I knew from my English friends – was being bought and read far faster than the bishops could track it down and burn it.

  The press worked with a monotonous rhythm. Over came the sheet in its frame. Down creaked the screw. Up rose the screw, back and up slid the paper. In went ­another sheet . . .

  Truth pressed down on men’s minds. Was it ever enough? People surely needed more. Different pressure. Changes ­enforced – as in Saxony, Geneva, Zurich . . . and Navarre. Men and women slid into the machine, virgin white . . . truth creaked down, down on unresistant parchment – not the devil’s tail, angel’s tail. Slide creak, creak slide, creak . . .

  I was woken by someone gently shaking my shoulder. ‘My apologies for keeping you waiting. I did not think to have been so long.’

  As I blinked my eyes, Miles Coverdale’s face came into focus. I stifled a yawn. ‘Have I been asleep long?’

  ‘Long enough,’ he replied with a smile. ‘’Twill soon be dark. We will return past the cathedral. ’Tis quicker. John has gone on ahead. He did not want to disturb you.’

  ‘You know the city well, I suppose?’ I asked as we headed down a street over which the cathedral’s tall spire loomed.

  ‘Aye, and many others. Too many. I have scarce been in England these ten years. I am too well known to the ­bishops – Gardiner, Stokesley of London and other popish snoopers.’

  ‘But were you not under the protection of Cromwell?’

  ‘Indeed, and it was Cromwell who protected me by paying for me to do my work abroad.’

  We turned into a narrow street toward
s the river and could see the mast tops of docked ships.

  ‘How many years have you been working on Bible translation?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, from the beginning.’

  ‘Beginning? What mean you—’

  ‘Forgive me. It is how I think of my life. I was already in my thirties back in fifteen twenty, yet for me that was when life ­truly started. I was an Augustinian monk at the order’s house in Cambridge.’

  ‘That would be about the time that another Augustinian, Martin Luther, challenged the authority of the Pope.’

  ‘Even so. He was the “wild boar” in Rome’s tidy vineyard. As you know, Leo excommunicated him and Luther defiantly burned the papal bull. The news ran like a river in flood through the whole order. We were instructed not to read the “heretical ravings” coming out of Wittenberg. So, of course, we were determined to lay our hands on all Luther’s books we could get. And there was also an eager market among the university students. That is why Cromwell was so popular there.’

  ‘Do you mean he was smuggling banned books?’

  ‘Oh yes. His business brought him here to Antwerp and other major markets, as you know. So he had excellent opportunities—’

  ‘But I do not know!’ I almost shouted. ‘The more people I talk to about Thomas Cromwell, the more I discover gaps and contradictions in the story.’

  We stepped into a doorway to allow a woman driving six sheep up from the dock to pass by. As they went on their bleating way towards the butchers’ market I explained my inability to form a clear picture in my mind of ­Thomas Cromwell. ‘I know he was born in a village upriver from London, but his family are either unwilling or unable to talk much about his early life. He spent some years in Italy, but what he did there is a mystery. After this, as you say, he lived as a businessman travelling around Europe. He rose rapidly to power, first in the household of Cardinal Wolsey and then as King Henry’s close servant. At some point in all this he became passionately dedicated to the reform of the English church. But there are some who cast doubt even on that and claim that he was obsessed with power and wealth.’