The English mood grew progressively more belligerent. In September 1530, when Cromwell was only a junior councillor, the Catholic duke of Suffolk and Anne’s father, now earl of Wiltshire, brazenly told the shocked papal nuncio that England cared nothing for popes ‘even if St Peter should come to life again’. The king, they claimed, was ‘emperor and pope within his realm’. In January 1531 the duke of Norfolk, another leading Catholic magnate, gave Chapuys a lecture in church history. By tradition, avowed Norfolk, English kings had no superior in their own country. Relations with the papacy were now going downhill fast, and by March 1531 denying that the pope was Head of the Church no longer counted as heresy in Henry’s judgement.4
It is true that nothing decisive had been actually done yet. Neither had anything significant been put before parliament. Henry may have been waiting to hear the verdicts of European universities on his Great Matter. However, the point remains that the nationalist, independent anti-papal climate pre-dated Cromwell’s rise to power and his Lutheran conversion. According to the available evidence, he was not even involved in the weighty Collectanea, written in 1530 and published from the king’s printer the following year. Its chief authors were Thomas Cranmer and Edward Foxe, and it justified the crown’s spiritual authority over the church in England from various historical sources. It called the king God’s vicar in England, and upheld the right of the English church to settle disputes here rather than petition Rome. It drew on supporting evidence of ecclesiastical independence from the church Councils of Nicea (AD 325), and King Wambar summoning bishops to Toledo (589). It highlighted a statement in the Council of Carthage that not even the bishop of Rome should be termed the ‘universal bishop’. Henry pored over the findings of the Collectanea with unalloyed delight.5
So when Cromwell became one of Henry’s councillors, he joined rather than originated the movement for English independence from Rome. He was able to bring with him his considerable experience as a lawyer and a member of the Commons, which he would soon put to good use in the king’s cause. Two major developments of the parliamentary session beginning in January 1532 were the Annates bill and the Supplication against the Ordinaries. Both were designed to weaken papal control over the English clergy. Annates were payments that new clerical incumbents paid to Rome, and it was almost certainly Cromwell who drew up the bill to have them abolished. The bill’s preamble claimed that the papacy had fleeced England of £160,000 worth of annates since the Tudor dynasty began nearly thirty years ago. The bill emphasized the financial burden to the realm. It declared defiantly that should Rome react with an excommunication or interdiction, then the king and country may ‘without any scruple of conscience … lawfully to the honour of Almighty God … continue to enjoy the sacraments, ceremonies and services of the holy church’. Cromwell was unsure how successful this bill would be, especially when it ran into strong opposition, chiefly from the bishops. Perhaps as a bargaining ploy to put pressure on Rome, Henry offered to delay the effect of the act, but this concession failed to mollify either clerical resistance at home or in the papacy. At length, with support from the lords temporal, the bill was passed by the House of Lords on 19 March, only to run into further opposition in the Commons. After much heated debate Henry intervened in person. He ordered the bill’s supporters and opponents – implicitly his supporters and opponents – to gather on opposite sides of the house. Thus by royal intervention, the necessary majority was secured.6
Henry was now openly contemptuous of Rome. He rejected the right and competence of the pope to be judge of kings. He cared nothing, he boomed, for the pope’s authority any more, not even excommunication. Not surprisingly, a second anti-papal measure quickly got under way. The ‘Supplication against Ordinaries’ was essentially a petition full of complaints against ecclesiastical courts and the conduct of heresy trials, amounting to a general expression of dissatisfaction with clergy. Thomas Audley, an ally of Cromwell, presented the Supplication to Henry on 18 March 1532, three days after Archbishop Warham had made a speech in the Lords, which, according to the Venetian ambassador, provoked the king to cursing. However, Henry stifled his wrath and took no immediate action. Sometime early in April he passed the Supplication on to Warham, and asked for a quick reply. Convocation’s answer to it, based on a draft from Stephen Gardiner, rejected the complaints against the clergy. Henry then passed Convocation’s answer to the Commons. Gardiner, previously a good servant of the king and loyal member of his divorce team, was unwisely prominent in the resistance, a stance which seriously set back his career.7
On 8 May, Convocation appealed to Henry to preserve the liberties of the church. Rather rashly it tried to block Henry’s demands that the church should no longer make canons without royal approval. Three days later Henry summoned Audley, and gave him a stark message to relay to the Commons:
We thought that the clergy of our realm had been our subjects wholly, but now we have well perceived that they be but half our subjects, yea, and scarce our subjects: for all the prelates at their consecration make an oath to the pope, clean contrary to the oath they make to us, so that they seem to be his subjects, not ours.
Convocation then tried to offer a compromise. Not satisfied with this, Henry demanded the clergy’s formal submission. On 15 May the reluctant but browbeaten clergy complied, in a document known as the ‘Submission of the Clergy’. Henry was now effectively Head of the Church in England. The chief casualty of these events was Thomas More, who felt he could no longer continue in Henry’s service. More surrendered the Great Seal on 16 May 1532.8
The precise part Cromwell played in this drama is still difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt. He was certainly involved in the drafting of the Supplication. There is also a draft bill, written by a clerk with corrections in Cromwell’s hand, expressing the general tenor of the Supplication: the realm of England is composed of clergy, commons and nobility, each distinct but all three ‘under royal authority and jurisdiction’, and that the ‘imperial crown of this realm … is not under the obedience … of any worldly or foreign prince’. This draft was probably produced sometime between 11 and 14 May, but may not have been actually presented to parliament following Henry’s demand that the clergy submit to him. Cromwell did, however, save up some of the papers for later, because similar arguments were to reappear in acts of 1533–4.9
Without wishing to minimize Cromwell’s part in these developments unduly, it may be safer to see him using his legal and parliamentary skills in a supporting role, but not as the man driving the process forward or leading from the front. He does not seem to have taken as prominent a part as Audley, who was quickly rewarded for his loyal services. On 5 June the evangelically minded Audley was knighted and made Lord Keeper. Six months later he was confirmed as Lord Chancellor. Cromwell, by contrast, was made Master of the King’s Jewels in April and Clerk of the Hanaper of Chancery in July. Respectable though these offices were, they fell some way short of the impressive advances achieved by Audley. Cranmer also enjoyed greater royal patronage than Cromwell when Henry appointed him Archbishop of Canterbury following Warham’s death in August. On the continent since the beginning of the year, Cranmer left Mantua for England on 19 November to arrive home the following January. By this time, an event had occurred that made the English schism virtually certain – Henry was married again.10
As with the king’s headship of the church, Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn was a subject openly talked about when Cromwell was still Wolsey’s secretary, yet to enter the king’s service and unable to influence the king’s policy. Back in September 1528 the Imperial ambassador, De Mendoza, reported that Henry had resolved to marry her. In March the following year Henry threatened that ‘if the pope will not annul’ his marriage to Catherine, ‘I will annul it myself’. In December that year, according to Chapuys, Mendoza’s successor, Henry tried to humiliate Catherine at dinner by telling her publicly that she was not his lawful wife, and that he would present his case to Rome; but if the pope did
not declare the marriage null and void, then Henry would ‘denounce the pope as a heretic and marry whom he pleased’. The ‘principal cause’ for the divorce was non-existent, countered the queen. A long and heated argument followed, with Catherine getting the better of it. Anne was unimpressed by Henry’s performance, and she later reproached him saying, ‘Did I not tell you that whenever you had disputed with the queen, she was sure to have the upper hand?’ Having been worsted by Catherine, Henry now had to endure the sharp tongue of Anne. ‘I have been waiting long’, she scolded, and cuttingly reminded him that she could have married well and borne children by now.11
By January 1530, the Emperor Charles V heard that Henry as good as looked on Anne as his wife, that he was ‘threatening to marry her’, and no longer cared anything for the pope. After a meeting with Henry in April, Chapuys was asked directly by Norfolk whether Charles would declare war on England if Henry, with the support of the English clergy, made Anne his queen.12
From the evidence of ambassadors’ despatches, marriage talk subsided a little before resurfacing the following summer, when Chapuys told Charles that the duke and duchess of Suffolk would, ‘if they dared, oppose this second marriage’. To Anne’s fury Suffolk and William Fitzwilliam, the king’s Treasurer, had been tying to dissuade Henry. Anne warned Sir Henry Guilford, Controller of the Household, that when she became queen she’d have him sacked. Guilford, a plucky fellow by the sound of it, replied that he’d resign anyway. In July Anne was confident that ‘her marriage to the king will take place in three or four months at the latest’. Chapuys, Catherine and Charles took this prediction seriously, though Rome seemed less disturbed, at least to begin with. Charles heard a report that Henry’s ‘infatuation’ with Anne simply made the pope laugh.13
A year on (July 1532) – having now secured the clergy’s formal submission – Henry declared confidently that the pope had ‘no power over him’. He was ‘determined to accomplish this new marriage with the greatest possible solemnity and pomp’. However, powerful voices had been urging Henry not to take this fateful step. Norfolk later told Chapuys that he was neither the ‘originator nor the promoter’ of the marriage to Anne, but he ‘had always opposed it, and tried to dissuade the king therefrom’. But for him and Anne’s father, Norfolk claimed, the marriage would have taken place a year earlier than it did, and as a result, Anne was ‘exceedingly indignant’ with both of them.14
This slightly lengthy background to the events of 1532 suggests that Henry, despite his bluster and bravado, remained indecisive and in need of a push. According to Chapuys’s letters, even Anne’s persistence, her reproaches, charms and entreaties had all singularly failed to tear the king from Catherine and bind him to her. Something more, or someone else, would be required. Again the obvious candidate is Henry’s first Lutheran councillor, Thomas Cromwell.
But as with Henry’s headship of the church, there are serious difficulties in assuming that it was Cromwell alone who provided the thrust that Henry seemed to lack. Though Cromwell’s influence was growing, he was not yet as high-ranking as Norfolk, Suffolk and Wiltshire, and it would have been reckless to have pressed hard for the Boleyn marriage in the face of opposition or disquiet from more senior councillors. If something went wrong, he would have made himself a very convenient scapegoat, and Cromwell was far too astute a man to stumble into such an obvious trap. What Henry really needed was encouragement from a higher source, such as a fellow prince, and this leads to the subject of Henry’s visit to France in autumn 1532.
Henry was eagerly looking forward to meeting King Francis again. He was also hoping to persuade the French to support him in his Great Matter. Anne, meanwhile, was letting it be known that she would be married soon, possibly in September. Chapuys and Catherine were worried by rumours spreading around the court and beyond that the marriage might take place in France. Anne, however, was determined that she would never agree to this even if Henry wished it. She was insisting on being wed in England, where queens were customarily married and crowned. Increasingly concerned, Chapuys told Charles that Henry was taking with him to Calais ‘a legion of doctors and priests who hold for the divorce’, and that Henry was trying to arrange a conference at Calais with cardinals and councillors of France who might be supportive. The Venetian ambassador noted the widespread expectations of a Calais marriage, news which Charles received with shocked disbelief. Elizabeth Barton, the mystical ‘Holy Maid of Kent’, claimed she had a vision of a Calais marriage, ‘and of the great shame that the queen should have’ as a result.15
It was in this expectant atmosphere that Henry and his entourage – including Norfolk and Cromwell as well as Anne – arrived in Calais on 10 October, 1532. There are some signs, albeit rather slim ones, that Cromwell’s influence with the king and the future queen was steadily increasing. Audley wrote from England to Cromwell concerning various administrative affairs, before asking if Cromwell might care to speak to Anne in the hope that she may make Audley keeper of one of her parks. Cromwell was acquiring international recognition as well, with King Francis reportedly speaking well of him. This apart, records of the Anglo-French summit say nothing significant about him. It was Norfolk, still senior to Cromwell, who was selected to meet the Grand Master of France outside Calais on 16 October. Then on 21 the two kings greeted each other. With Francis was the King of Navarre, the Cardinal of Lorraine and a generous assortment of the French nobility. Henry and Francis returned to Calais on 25 October. Four days of ceremony, festivities and talks followed, though no details were made public. The official communiqué confined itself to fine words about the unity of Christendom and the defence of the faith against the infidel Turk. On the following day (Sunday), after mass in the morning and bear and bull baiting in the afternoon, a sumptuous banquet was held in the evening. The meal over, Anne and her ladies entered, and Anne danced with the French king. She was living like a queen; ‘it is said that the marriage of Madame Anne will be solemnised next Sunday’, reported the Venetian ambassador on 31 October.16
In fact there was no Calais marriage, though the ambassador had caught the mood aright. The day after Henry’s return from Calais, on Saint Erkenwald’s day, 14 November 1532, Henry and Anne were married in England as Anne had wished, though the ceremony was kept a close secret. So the Tudor historian Edward Hall recorded, and after all the excited build up it would have been a hugely strange anti-climax if nothing at all had happened. However, apart from notable exceptions like Diarmaid MacCulloch, few modern writers want to believe Hall. They prefer instead the witness of Cranmer and Chapuys, both of whom date the marriage to 25 January 1533, by which time Anne was pregnant.17
Chapuys and Cranmer would normally make dependable witnesses, but there is good reason to doubt them this time, quite apart from Hall’s account. Cranmer, even though he arrived back in England on or about 10 January, admitted that he was not present at the ‘marriage’ fifteen days later. He did not even know about it until ‘a fortnight after it was done’. Now it is scarcely believable that Henry would wed Anne and not invite Cranmer. He was the man the king would appoint to oversee his divorce; he was also the prelate most beloved of both Henry and Anne, and the natural choice to officiate and pronounce the blessing.18
Chapuys’s testimony also raises uncertainties, and here I must ask the reader to bear with a short but necessary examination of dates to make the point. On 15 February, Chapuys informed Charles that ‘eight days ago’ Anne said that she was sure she would marry ‘very soon’. Her father, Chapuys continued, said the ‘day before yesterday’ (that would be 13 February) that Henry was determined to marry his daughter ‘at once’. These dates do not fit either the November or January marriages. It seems that the Boleyns were sending false signals to Chapuys to mislead him, in the hope of keeping the news from him and Charles for as long as they could, which is what makes his evidence questionable. Not until 23 February, nearly one month after the January ‘marriage’, did Chapuys report it to the emperor. There is no other
letter from Chapuys to Charles between 15 and 23 February.19
This subject will be left for a moment, and we will return to it after considering Cromwell’s role in all of this. He would later tell Chapuys that he was the one who ‘promoted’ the king’s marriage, and seeing Henry ‘much bent’ upon it, had ‘paved the way towards it’. These words were spoken in April 1536, by which time Anne had fallen from the king’s favour and Jane Seymour had stolen his heart. So it was not intended as a boast, and all the evidence suggests it is a thoroughly reliable description of the part Cromwell played.20
The words could mean that Cromwell persuaded Henry to marry in November or January. But this is unlikely, because whenever the marriage took place, there is no evidence that Cromwell had arranged it or that he was even present. It is far more plausible that he was referring to the whole sequence of events beginning in late 1532 and extending into the following year – the marriage to Anne, the formal divorce from Catherine, Anne’s coronation and the new succession laws. He ‘paved the way’ to all of this with the Act of Restraint of Appeals, which he began to draw up about the same time as the November marriage, perhaps before, and almost certainly before Anne’s pregnancy. This act prohibited appeals in all marital cases to Rome. Employing all the historical and other arguments that Cranmer, Foxe and others had collated in the Collectanea, it gave Henry a solid constitutional basis on which to settle his Great Matter in England. Cromwell had now effectively brought all the jurisdiction of the church under the king’s control by means of parliamentary statute. The act was presented to the Commons on 14 March 1533, and after some limited resistance, it passed both houses by 7 April.21
The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell Page 8
