The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell

by John Schofield

  Besides the fall of the Exeters, the old order in religion was now about to suffer a further, heavier blow. The establishment of the Court of Augmentations in 1536, to administer the suppression of the smaller monasteries, had sent signals around the country that government action against the remaining, larger religious houses would follow soon. Cromwell was receiving letters from all kinds of people eager to acquire monastic lands or keep a certain house intact. A payment accompanied most letters, but other inducements were tried as well. The abbot of Croyland sent Cromwell a supply of locally caught fish, ‘right meekly beseeching your lordship favourably to accept the same fish, and to be good and favourable lord unto me and my poor house’. Some monasteries that had received a bad report from Cromwell’s commissioners for their ‘misorder and evil life’ were already surrendering, theoretically voluntarily.25

  Nevertheless, concerted government action on a national scale was a little slow in coming, and the period 1536–7 even saw a few refoundations. These, however, were exceptional. Richard Layton had sensed that something was in the air when he wrote to Cromwell back in June 1537. His letter begins with ‘whereas ye intend shortly to visit’. Pointing to his past experience as a visitor, Layton’s letter was effectively an application to be appointed a commissioner in future; he asked that he and his friend, Thomas Legh, might ‘have committed unto us the north’.26

  Layton’s request was not granted immediately, because he was in Cambridge in January 1538, telling Cromwell about widespread fears that Henry intended shortly to suppress all houses. Layton assured the people this was not so; they should not listen to such ‘vain babbling’ that ‘utterly slandered the king’. He warned that such ‘babblers’ from the ranks of commoners would be set in the stocks to teach them a lesson, while gentry babblers would have to answer to Cromwell personally. Actually thirty-five monasteries surrendered during the first few months of 1538, though in March that year Cromwell sent a circular letter to the heads of religious houses, promising that no well-run community need fear any government action against it. Henry, Cromwell assured them, would not accept any surrender ‘unless overtures had been made by the houses that resigned’. Henry intended no suppression of any house ‘except they shall desire of themselves with one whole consent … or else misuse themselves contrary to their allegiance’. Cromwell urged the religious to live in a godly manner and provide for the poor, and they would come to no harm.27

  Scholars who have examined the subject suggest that it was chiefly for financial reasons that the major dissolution of the monasteries began in late summer 1538.28 This, it will be remembered, was when the Lutheran talks failed, or rather stalled, and when Cromwell intensified his assault on medieval religious shrines, especially that of Becket. It could be the case, therefore, that he had also decided that the time was now ripe to proceed more aggressively against the monasteries. A double strike against the shrines and monasteries would provide some compensation for the failure to achieve any real breakthrough with Lutherans.

  If so, the offensive started tentatively. In August the bishop of Dover reported to Cromwell that whereas he had taken some houses ‘into the king’s hands’, he could ‘find no great cause’ for suppressing a house in Shrewsbury of the black friars, and he did ‘not suppress the houses except such as give up’. In September the abbot of Vale Royal received a demand to surrender, but he protested to Cromwell that he had not consented to do so, nor would he unless commanded by Henry; and he appealed to Cromwell to intercede with the king to let his monastery stand. In October, when Dr London arrived at Coventry to suppress two friars’ houses, the mayor and aldermen first tried to dissuade him, and when this failed they too appealed to Cromwell.29

  There is a suspicion here of some Cromwellian gamesmanship in the choice of visitors, who were hardly acting on their own authority. The bishop of Dover and Dr London were men of the old faith. So Cromwell may have been testing the water to see how pliant the religious orders might be, and also – typical of him – sending out religious traditionalists rather than eager evangelicals to do this rather delicate work. Only a few weeks earlier he had stung the bishop of Dover by implying that he had changed his habit but not his ‘friars’ heart’. ‘Good my lord, judge me not so’, the shocked bishop pleaded, for ‘my friars’ heart was gone two years before my habit’. It reads as though Dover was made to feel a bit suspect, and that he may have been ‘volunteered’ by Cromwell to do something to prove his loyalty.30

  On 3 August Cranmer recommended a Master Hutton to Cromwell, suggesting that he might be made ‘an abbot or a prior, and his wife an abbess or prioress’ in one of the houses in Hutton’s county of Warwickshire. Actually Hutton died the following month so the idea was not followed up; but Cranmer’s letter shows that he and Cromwell were still seeking opportunities to put their own men in the monasteries. They had not settled on dissolution – not yet.31

  Infiltration, incidentally, did not always work as planned. In October the prior of Gisburne, with a certain Tristram Teshe, were sent by Cromwell to the monastery of Whitby to supervise the election of a new abbot – ‘him that your lordship commanded us in your letters’ – but the plucky monks refused to accept and planned to appeal. So Cromwell did not always get his own way with clerical appointments; but it is not clear why, as late as October 1538, he was even trying, if a decision had now been made to proceed with a national suppression.32

  These may be exceptional cases, however, because government pressure on the religious was steadily increasing. On 6 November, Cromwell told Legh that it was Henry’s pleasure to dissolve the monasteries at St Osyth and Colchester. Many houses complied with similar ‘voluntary’ – in the army sense – surrenders, though not all. One awkward abbot of St John’s boasted that ‘the king shall never have my house but against my will and against my heart, for I know by my learning that he cannot take it by right and law’. For this he was reported to Cromwell. In December Legh and Dr Peter, another servant of Cromwell’s, were sent to accept the surrender of a house in St Albans. After examining the monks they told Cromwell of ‘just cause of deprivation’ against the abbot for ‘breaking the king’s injunction’ as well as negligent administration, but the abbot still refused to comply. Dr Tregonwell was just as unsuccessful with the abbess and convent of Shafton. When the prior of Henton also proved unyielding, the visitors did not force surrender, though Henry was particularly displeased with this prior, who later wisely conformed.33

  The dissolution would also apply in Ireland, where Archbishop Browne, Chancellor Alen and the Treasurer Brabazon were commissioned to act in Cromwell’s stead as Vicegerent to take the surrender of all religious houses. The Irish had been anticipating something like this, and many of the clergy were already selling their lands to cheat the government. One of the speculative buyers of church lands was, allegedly, the deputy Lord Grey.34

  A full dissolution, however, would run slightly counter to Cromwell’s earlier infiltration policy, which continued to bear fruit (see Chapter 6). Friar William Oliver of the Bristol friars caused a stir among the religious for preaching justification by faith alone, and he startled his fellow monks with the information that ‘nor a whole ship laden with friar’s girdles, nor a dung cart full of monk’s cowls’ would avail for justification. Cromwell himself asked Bishop Latimer, in November 1537, where he could get ‘good monks’ from – this would mean evangelical monks. Latimer recommended two from ‘my brother abbot of Westminster’. Latimer had his own contacts among the religious, and he endorsed the abbot of Evesham as a ‘very civil and honest man’. In October 1538 Latimer urged Cromwell to be favourable towards the prior of the Black Friars in Worcester, who had surrendered his house, and he passed on the abbess of Malling’s thanks to Cromwell for his ‘goodness towards her’.35

  Latimer was the man who, on Cromwell’s instructions, had investigated the ‘blood of Hailes’, a famous relic said to contain the true blood of Christ. The relic turned out to be nothing but ‘unctious gu
m’ coloured red, snorted Latimer contemptuously after pretty quickly wrapping up his examinations. This evangelical triumph was made all the sweeter by the conversion of a local abbot, who thanked Cromwell that God’s truth was now ‘perched in my very heart’ after reading the Scriptures in English. But even Latimer was not yet campaigning for an indiscriminate dissolution. As late as December 1538, he was petitioning Cromwell on behalf of the prior of Great Malvern, now fearful of losing his house. Latimer supported the prior’s appeal to allow ‘for the upstanding’ of his house: ‘not in monkery, he meaneth not so; God forbid! But … to maintain teaching, preaching, study, with praying’. Coming from Latimer, this means evangelical teaching, preaching and study, further proof of Cromwell’s considerable success in introducing the new learning into the monasteries. The prior was well known for his good housekeeping, his hospitality and goodness to the poor, commended Latimer, and he proposed 500 marks for Henry and 200 for Cromwell, which ‘for your goodwill might occasion the promotion of his intent’.36

  It is time now to meet one of Cromwell’s women. She was Katherine Bulkeley, and, thanks to Cromwell’s recommendation to the king, the Lutheran abbess of Godstowe. She gratefully offered Cromwell the stewardship of her house, sent gifts of fresh apples and Banbury cheeses, and promised him her daily prayers for his well being. When Dr London turned up in Godstowe in November 1538 seeking surrenders, the indignant abbess knew where to turn. She wrote straightaway to Cromwell; as she owed her position to him, she would make no surrender except ‘at the king’s gracious commandment or yours’. But Dr London, ‘which as your lordship doth well know, was against my promotion, and hath ever since borne me great malice and grudge, like my mortal enemy’, has turned up as an unwelcome guest and ‘doth threaten me and my sisters’, demanding that she surrender her house. She besought Cromwell ‘to continue my good lord, as you have ever been’, and ‘remove him hence’. She assured him of her loyalty, and wished ‘the grace of almighty Jesus’ may preserve him.37

  Soon the abbess wrote again, on 26 November. She thanked him for the ‘stay of Dr London’, who was ‘ready to suppress this poor house, against my will and all my sisters’ until Cromwell ‘so speedily sent contrary commandment’. This ‘poor maiden’ promised to pray daily for Cromwell, as ‘I have no other riches to recompense you’. ‘Be assured’, she went on, ‘there is neither pope nor purgatory, image nor pilgrimage, nor praying to dead saints, used or regarded among us; but all superstitious ceremonies set apart, the very honour of God and the truth of His holy words … is most tenderly followed and regarded with us’. Abbess Bulkeley was as Lutheran as Luther, especially with her ‘dead saints’ – that very Protestant scorn for the sheer pointlessness of praying to the dead. ‘This garment and fashion of life’, she confessed, ‘doth nothing prevail toward our justifying before God, by whom, for His sweet Son Jesus’ sake, we only trust to be justified and saved, who ever preserve your honour’.38

  Abbess Bulkeley, the prior of Malvern and those like them must be distinguished from others who surrendered willingly enough, but more out of routine obedience than any Lutheran conviction. Take the warden of the Grey Friars in London, for example. He was going to ‘cast off this Papistical slanderous apparel’, not quite because he thought it unscriptural or morally wrong, but because ‘it hath not been rightly used many years’. The warden quoted Hezekiah destroying the brazen serpent that Moses had made by the command of God (2 Kings 18:4), thereby showing that ‘princes may change a thing that God did institute, when it is not used to God’s intent’. He offered his services to Cromwell. Though Cromwell may have made use of arguments like this, it is unlikely that he rushed to take the warden into his service. His letter implies that monasticism was something divinely commanded at one time. There is nothing Lutheran about this; nothing about dead saints either, or justification by faith alone.39

  The existence of these religious evangelicals may partly explain the cautious, hesitant and occasionally contradictory approach of the government and of Cromwell personally around late 1538. Nevertheless, the end was not long in coming. In May 1539 an act of parliament secured all religious houses and lands for the crown, and within two years, monasticism in England had virtually disappeared.40

  Any assessment of Cromwell’s policy, motives and role in the dissolution must begin by recalling that Henry had had his eyes on church property before Cromwell became a councillor, let alone Vicegerent (see Chapter 6). I have suggested, however, that the failure of the Lutheran talks in August 1538 may have been the stimulus that made Cromwell decide to act more forcefully against the monasteries as well as the shrines. Having sought to reform them by planting evangelicals in key places, he may have decided that infiltration, though it had enjoyed some success, had now run its allotted course, and that the time had come to wrest the initiative from the opposition party after the disappointing end of the Lutheran visit. The financial motive cannot be ignored, but on its own it does not explain the timing of the dissolution. The evidence is not conclusive, but from August–September 1538 there was a perceptible increase in activity, beginning with a softening up of the monasteries in preparation for the act of May 1539. But for Abbess Bulkeley and those like her, action may have been swifter and more ruthless. Cromwell certainly showed his loyalty to his own men and women by making sure that they received generous pensions. Few if any of the religious were cast out of their orders with no compensation and pensions were generally adequate, usually four or five pounds a year, but Katherine Bulkeley, due doubtless to Cromwell’s patronage and influence, received a handsome £50 a year.41

  By general consent, the administration of the dissolution was a huge success, and yet another example of Cromwellian efficiency. More interesting, however, is Cromwell’s desire to see dissolved monasteries converted into colleges, universities, schools and hospitals. He listened sympathetically to Richard Lee, who hoped to preserve the cathedral church at Coventry, ‘if by your goodness it might be brought to a college church’. The Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University was glad to hear Cromwell say that monasteries should be transformed into places of learning and true doctrine. The evangelical abbot of Evesham asked Cromwell if his house might be made into a college to preach the Word of God, provide education for the young, and relief for the poor and lame. The mayor and aldermen of Carmarthen petitioned Cromwell regarding the mansion of Grey Friars. Fearing that it would go to ruin after its surrender, they sought a grant to maintain the building as a grammar school.42 Ambassador Marillac told King Francis, in May 1539, that parliament was discussing the possibility of turning suppressed monasteries into bishoprics, schools for children and hospitals for the poor. On 23 May, Cromwell introduced a bill to allow the king to establish new bishoprics. The bill’s preamble recommended putting monasteries to better use, ‘whereby God’s word might be better set forth, children brought up in learning, clerks nourished in the universities, old servants decayed to have livings, almshouses for poor folk to be sustained in, readers of Hebrew, Greek and Latin to have good stipends, and daily alms to be administered’.43 One year later Henry Bullinger in Zürich heard from a contact in England that ‘some of the principal monasteries are turned into schools of studious men’. Nicholas Partridge reported that Henry has ‘desired certain bishops to consult with respect to the selection of twelve monasteries, where boys might be piously and holily brought up in all kinds of useful learning’. An anonymous proposal, possibly dated March 1540, hoped that the priory and convent of Rochester could become a grammar school for poor men’s children.44

  In the event, as others have pointed out, neither education nor public welfare gained appreciably from the dissolution.45 The main reason for this is that little more than a year after the dissolution act, Cromwell was condemned to die. Responsibility for the horrendous mismanagement of monastic revenues does not lie with him. So long as he was alive, expectations were high that benefits would flow to learning and the common good from the passing of monasticism. Some pos
itive measures in that direction had already been taken.

  Running parallel with the dissolution was arguably Cromwell’s major evangelical initiative – to provide every parish in the land with an English Bible.

  By the late 1530s, two Bibles were already available, the Coverdale and the Matthew. Coverdale’s was not entirely a direct translation from the original Hebrew and Greek, for he had made extensive use of the Vulgate, Erasmus, Luther and Tyndale. The Matthew had aroused resentment in some quarters for supposedly being too dependent on Luther and Tyndale. At some point, perhaps to diffuse such criticism, Cromwell decided that a revised version translated directly from the original languages would be desirable, and he entrusted the work to Coverdale. Grafton and Whitchurch were chosen to be the publishers. The Bible would be produced at Paris, where the printing was reputed to be of the finest quality. To ensure that everything would proceed without hindrance, Cromwell persuaded Henry to secure the approval of King Francis.46