The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell

by John Schofield

  By the ‘adverse party’ Pate must have meant the party of hitherto acceptable reformers like Cromwell, Cranmer and their friends – those who were Lutheran or near enough. Pate was not referring to the sacramentaries, because they were arraigned and condemned under Henry, not dealt with ‘patiently’. Like many, Pate interpreted Cromwell’s fall as a sign that Henry’s Lutheran experiment was over.

  On the day after Cromwell’s arrest (11 June), a full house gathered in Parliament hoping for more news, but there was none. Marillac then heard that a search of Cromwell’s house had discovered several letters he had written to, and received from, the Lutheran lords of Germany. Marillac did not know the contents, but Henry was now ‘so exasperated against him [Cromwell] that he would no longer hear him spoken of, but rather desired to abolish all memory of him, as the greatest wretch ever born in England’. Here is the first sign that an official disinformation campaign was getting underway: for it would be strange indeed if Cromwell, an astute man in a power struggle with his rivals, had been careless enough to leave incriminating letters lying around in his house.7

  On 12 June Henry received two letters, one from Cranmer, the other from Cromwell. Cranmer, who might have been in some danger himself, admitted that Cromwell was his friend, whom he admired for his wisdom and diligence. If, however, it was true that Cromwell was a traitor, Cranmer was sorry he ever thought well of him, and prayed God devoutly to send Henry a counsellor he could trust. Because Cranmer was just as Lutheran as Cromwell – and everyone including the king knew it – this was a brave letter, though the spirit that composed it was a submissive one, always prepared, no matter how painful it would be, to defer to the king.8

  Cromwell’s letter was similar in tone, but markedly different in substance. He was made of sterner stuff. The charge of treason charge he rejected as utterly untrue. Never had he said, never would he have said, ‘that thing which of itself is so high and abominable offence, as God knoweth, who I doubt not shall reveal the truth to your Highness’ – this would be the claim that he was ready to ‘fight in the field’ against the king. ‘Mine accusers your grace knoweth; God forgive them’. Calling God to witness, he protested his loyalty and service to Henry. Were it in his power, he would have made Henry ‘so rich as ye might enrich all men … so puissant that all the world should be compelled to obey you’. He thanked Henry for his past goodness, and denied saying those words to Rich and Throgmorton, thereby revealing the names of the chief witnesses against him. Cromwell continued:

  Your grace knoweth what manner of man Throgmorton hath ever been towards your grace … and what Master Chancellor (Rich) hath been towards me, God and he best knoweth … I would to Christ I had obeyed your often most gracious grave counsel and advertisements, then it had not been with me as it now is.

  It is not completely clear from his involved prose whether he means that he wished he had heeded Henry’s warnings about Rich and Throgmorton, or whether he regretted not being a more obedient servant to Henry. The context suggests the first, because he went on to repeat his denial of the charges against him, though he trusted in God and the king’s mercy. He had never willingly offended Henry, and if he had offended unwillingly, he begged the king’s pardon. He denied breaking a trust on a ‘matter of great secrecy’ – this would refer to Henry’s feelings for Anne, which Henry had confided to Cromwell. He had, he admitted, sinned against God and the king, and had not always behaved as well as he should; but this was a very general confession, ‘like forgive us our trespasses’ and nothing specific. His offences towards Henry, ‘God knoweth were never malicious or wilful’. He ended with a prayer for God’s blessing on Henry and Edward. The letter was deferential in tone, full of appeals to the king’s grace and mercy, all in the standard flowery, verbose Tudor style. But the spirit of its sender was defiant and unbowed.9

  It is time now to consider the accusations against Cromwell more closely. The alleged crime was an unusual one, effectively religious treason. It was worse than heresy or holding heretical beliefs. Cromwell had been conspiring by all sorts of means, including the threat of insurrection, to defy Henry by bringing the Lutheran religion into the country against the king’s wishes. He had been pursuing a religious agenda of his own, and because Henry was Defender of the Faith and God’s anointed in England, this could be construed as treason, though there was no specific law against it.

  We will deal with the charge of insurrection a little later, for it will feature again on the indictment. Meanwhile, regarding the more general charge that Cromwell had Lutheran ambitions contrary to the king’s interest, the problem for his accusers was that he had a very obvious defence. Cromwell had indeed advocated the Lutheran policy – but Henry had willingly accepted it. Henry had been scarcely less eager than Cromwell to see Philip Melanchthon set foot in England; and, as recently as January, Henry was urging the Cleves delegation to carry on the religious dialogue. Moreover, though Henry had not committed himself to the Augsburg Confession, he and everyone else knew that Cromwell – like Cranmer, Latimer, Barnes and others – belonged to the Lutheran party in England. There was nothing treasonable about this until the Barnes–Gardiner clash at Lent, when Henry was brought forcibly face to face with the fact that an uncomfortable gap existed between him and Luther on justification by faith (see here). Had Cromwell been tried in a court, therefore, he would have run rings round the prosecution. His defence was impregnable – yes, he had indeed favoured the Lutheran policy, but he had always acted with the king’s consent, and had broken neither the king’s laws nor any royal proclamation. By definition, anything sanctioned by the king could never be treason.

  So this aspect of the case against Cromwell was weak and badly thought out. It confirms the suspicion that his arrest, or at least the timing of it, was undertaken hurriedly, either as a panic measure in response to his own offensive against the bishops, or because Henry acted in a burst of rage on hearing from Wriothesley of Cromwell’s unwillingness to make preparations for Anne’s divorce. Most likely it was a combination of the two.

  Cromwell’s opponents quickly realized that they had made a hash of it. Anxious to cover up Henry’s blunder over justification, they decided that the Lutheran charge would have to be ditched. They also decided to convict Cromwell by means of parliamentary attainder, not a formal trial. On 17 June a bill of attainder against him was brought into the Lords and read the next day. Two days later it received its second and third readings, and the Lords’ unanimous assent. After this it went to the Commons. On 29 June the Commons returned its own version of the bill with the Lords’ original. The attainder took the form of a petition to the king, an unusual though not unprecedented procedure. It implied that popular demand existed for Cromwell’s removal, which cleverly deflected attention away from the real reason – Henry wanted to be rid of Cromwell so he could get divorced. Why the Commons had to produce a new version is not known because many of the relevant papers have been lost.10

  Nevertheless, the substance of the attainder has survived. After opening with extravagant praise for the king’s most beneficent rule, it deplores the fact that his majesty ‘hath of late found, and tried, by a large number of witnesses, being your faithful subjects, and personages of great honour, worship and discretion’, that Cromwell was the most false and corrupt traitor in the king’s entire reign.11

  In fact, no ‘trial’ had taken place. And one of these ‘faithful’ witnesses was Richard Rich, the man who had testified – by universal consent falsely – against Thomas More. Marillac, no special friend of Cromwell, called Rich the ‘most wretched person in England’.12

  Cromwell, the attainder continued, had released men convicted or suspected of treason: but no names were mentioned. He had misused and expropriated funds, and enriched himself with bribes – but no amounts or details were produced. He had also made appointments without royal approval. Again, names and offices are missing, and neither is there any evidence that someone improperly appointed was removed from office
.

  Now for the main charges. Minor charges like retainers and granting passports without authority can be passed over. No creditable historical writer has ever taken these seriously, and in any case they did not amount to treason.

  First, Cromwell was a ‘detestable heretic’ who had spread heretical books (no titles or authors) especially against the Sacrament, all over the kingdom contrary to articles (unspecified) enacted by parliament. Cromwell had even said that it was ‘lawful for every Christian man to be a minister of the said sacrament as well as a priest’. This sounds like an attempt to make Cromwell guilty by association with radical heretics like sacramentaries and Lollards. Cromwell was also a ‘maintainer and supporter’ of heretics. Again names, facts and evidence are all missing, though admittedly it was hardly a secret that Cromwell was a reformer. However, the attainder had now introduced a radically new crime of Cromwell’s. He was not just a heretic, but the worst kind of heretic in Henry’s view. Though the word ‘sacramentary’ is missing, the meaning is plain enough, and this was how the prisoner understood it.

  The second main charge concerned treasonable talk. When in the parish of St Peter le Poer in London, certain preachers, including Robert Barnes, were reported to Cromwell, he had supported them traitorously, saying: ‘If the king would turn from it, yet I would not turn; and if the king did turn, and all his people, I would fight in the field in mine own person, with my sword in my hand against him and all other’. Then he had boasted that ‘if I live one year or two, it shall not lie in the king’s power to resist or let it if he would’. The attainder’s conclusion: Cromwell should be ‘adjudged an abominable and detestable heretic and traitor’, and suffer due punishment at the king’s pleasure.

  The offending words were allegedly spoken in the thirtieth year of Henry’s reign, which would be 1539. However, no reason was offered to explain why such treason was concealed for up to a year and by whom; or why, with witnesses available, it was necessary to proceed by attainder instead of the normal court of law. It is also rather unlikely that Cromwell would have announced any such aggressive intent to hostile witnesses. Though it is almost certainly true that in the spring of 1540 Cromwell had been planning to oust the bishops opposed to him, there is nothing to suggest that he intended using armed force. He had no need to if convincing evidence could be found. He was not a military man, at least not since his youthful adventures. He had no standing army or militia under his own personal control that he could muster for rebellion. Further, the king had turned from the Lutheran way, but Cromwell was not fighting in the field, or preparing to. So the charge is disproved by events. Technically, in law, the fact that he had not carried out his threat might not absolve him entirely from his treasonable words – if the words had actually been spoken. Historians and readers, however, are free to consider not just the legal technicalities, but the true probability of guilt.

  Also relevant is the fact that although the accusation is an expanded version of the claims made in Henry’s message to Marillac, and in the official announcement after Cromwell’s arrest, it has become progressively more sensationalized since then. Originally, to Marillac, the context made it clear that the faith for which Cromwell allegedly vowed to fight was the Lutheran one. By the time of the attainder, on the other hand, Cromwell had been turned into a sacramentary. The implications of this should not be overlooked. The German Lutherans strongly opposed armed rebellion against the civil power, and also offensive wars for the sake of religion. Luther believed in spreading the Gospel through the power of the Word, not the sword. However, it was not quite the same everywhere in Europe. The German radical Thomas Müntzer, a bitter enemy of Luther, had formented rebellion during the so-called Peasants’ War, while Zwingli died fighting on the battlefield at Kappel. Using the same insurrectionist talk in this different context, therefore, had the effect of transforming Cromwell from a hitherto acceptable evangelical councillor into a seditious radical, a man more akin to Zwingli or even Müntzer than to Luther or Melanchthon.13

  Nevertheless, though I know of no reputable historian who believes there is any truth in this charge against Cromwell, the possibility that it was not entirely made up must be reckoned with. What if Cromwell, quoting or adapting St Paul, had said: ‘I will fight the good fight for the Gospel’ – meaning it figuratively, not literally (2 Timothy 4:7)? By altering the wording ever so slightly, a malicious witness could easily have distorted the meaning completely. As for ‘bringing things to such a pass that in a year or so it would not lie in the king’s power to resist’ – we have seen Cromwell strike against Sampson and send his agents after Tunstall and Gardiner. So it is not unthinkable that Cromwell might have said something like this: ‘This time next year, by the grace of God, the Reformation will be so far advanced that none can stop it’. This, however, is all getting a little speculative. It is quite possible, maybe quite likely, that the accusation was wholly fabricated. Cromwell never claimed that something he said had been taken out of context or distorted. He simply denied ever using the words at all.

  The evidence for the attainder’s second main charge – that Cromwell was a closet sacramentary – is just as scant. Even William Gray, a balladeer and former servant to Cromwell, who reluctantly accepted that his master had been justly condemned as a traitor, still denied he was a sacramentary. Writing after Cromwell’s death, Gray insisted that Cromwell had always believed the consecrated bread ‘to be the very body of Christ’. Intriguing, too, is the fact that during these few summer days Cromwell’s heresy had changed its colours. When he was arrested he was Lutheran; when attainted, a sacramentary. So either the official version at the time of the arrest was false, or the attainder was false. But the official version, so far it went, is true – Cromwell was Lutheran, and everyone knew it. By simple elimination, therefore, the attainder has to be wrong.14

  Another curiosity is that a complete silence has descended on Cromwell’s alleged treasonous contacts with the Germans, evidenced by those letters found in his house. Marillac was not the only one unable to discover their dreadful secrets. They were never produced in evidence, never quoted against the prisoner, never even referred to afterwards. Not a trace of them remains in the calendared volumes of Cromwell’s papers. These letters, if they existed at all, might have had some propaganda value for Anglo-French relations at the time of the arrest, but there was obviously nothing incriminating in them. Most likely they proved only the well-known fact that Cromwell had corresponded amicably with German leaders – quite acceptable and lawful in the 1530s.

  So the original Lutheran charge had been dropped, and the sacramentary charge put in its place. One source for this accusation may have been Calais (see here) and especially the welcome Cromwell laid on for the alleged Calais sacramentaries when they arrived in England in May). Adam Damplip and his friends were latent liabilities for Cromwell. On his diplomatic mission to France in February, Norfolk had passed through Calais and spent a day or two there. During this brief visit he had the opportunity to hear Lisle’s complaints about sacramentaries, and also Cromwell’s apparent lack of zeal in dealing with them. Norfolk could then have reported all of this to Henry anytime after his return in March or April.

  It would appear, however, that Norfolk did not in fact do this, because the potentially damaging Calais evidence was not part of the original charge against Cromwell. Nothing was said about Cromwell being a sacramentary when he was arrested on 10 June. The sacramentary charge was something dredged up afterwards, in between the arrest and the attainder.

  So did someone, shortly after Cromwell’s arrest, recall the Calais events and realize what valuable ammunition this was for the prosecution? Plausible though this sounds, it also has to be rejected, and for two reasons. First, Calais is not mentioned on the attainder. Second, most of the Calais sacramentaries, though not Botolf and the conspirators, were later discharged at the king’s command under a general pardon issued in July 1540. Chancellor Audley brought the good news to them in prison
. Audley warned them sternly to take great care in future because the pardon was not supposed to cover sacramentaries, ‘and all of you are called sacramentaries’, he admonished. Quite why they were released, when even the Lord Chancellor could not explain it, will have to remain a puzzle. The relevant point is that Barnes, Garrett and Jerome – prominent allies of Cromwell – were specifically exempt from that same general pardon. So Cromwell and the Calais men were not closely linked. Had they been among his well-known circle of evangelical protégées, they would never have been set free.15

  The story of events in Calais, narrated in the Lisle Letters, is a hugely absorbing one, but it may be more peripheral than central in the drama of Cromwell’s fall. Though it had the potential to do him great harm, it did not actually do so, at least not to any significant degree. Neither the arrest of Cromwell on 10 June, nor the attainder a few days later, relied on evidence from Calais. So something else must account for the sacramentary charge.

  It should not be too difficult to guess what it was. The Gardiner party soon realized that the original Lutheran charge was far too feeble. Even they must have recognized that the ‘fight in the field’ story was a bit stretched. They knew, too, that Cromwell was a powerful man with supporters as well as enemies. They may have recalled Wolsey’s attempted comeback after his first fall from power. Hall says that many who rejoiced to hear of Cromwell’s arrest still feared ‘lest he should escape, although he were imprisoned’. To be sure of Cromwell’s speedy destruction, therefore, any potential support for him in the council, parliament or the country would have to be quickly and ruthlessly neutralized. So the sacramentary charge became the essential mortal blow, because under the first of the Six Articles – and this was wholly unique in medieval Christendom – a convicted sacramentary would be condemned to die with no hope of pardon, not even after a recantation. Even to sympathize with such a person would risk death by fire. Just in case this was not enough, a rider was added to the general pardon denying any forgiveness for heresies against the sacrament.16