VIKING
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Copyright © 2018 by Diarmaid MacCulloch
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Illustration credits appear on these pages.
9780670025572 (hardcover)
9780525560296 (ebook)
Cover design: Elizabeth Yaffe
Cover art: Portrait of Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (oil on canvas), Holbein the Younger, Hans (1497/8-1543) (follower of) / Private Collection / Photo © Philip Mould Ltd, London / Bridgeman Images
Version_2
In Memoriam G. R. Elton
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Maps
Acknowledgements
Epigraph
Introduction
PART ONE
Journeys
1. Ruffian
2. The Return of the Native
3. In the Cardinal’s Service: 1524–1528
4. Managing Failure: 1528–1529
5. Serving two Masters: 1530
PART TWO
New Wine
6. Council and Parliament: 1531
7. New Year’s Gifts: 1532
8. Making a Difference: 1532
9. A Royal Marriage: 1532–1533
PART THREE
Touching Pitch
10. Treason in Prospect: 1533–1534
11. Spirituals: 1534–1535
12. Deaths for Religion: 1535
13. Progresses and Scrutinies: 1535–1536
14. Surrenders and the Scaffold: 1536
PART FOUR
Power and its Reward
15. Summer Opportunities: 1536
16. Grace for the Commonwealth: 1536
17. The Reckoning: 1537
18. The King’s Uncle? 1537–1538
19. Cutting Down Trees: 1538
PART FIVE
Nemesis
20. Shifting Dynasties: 1538–1539
21. Stumbling Blocks: 1539
22. Downfall: 1539–1540
23. Futures
Illustrations
Abbreviations and Conventions Used in Bibliography and Notes
Bibliography
Notes
Index
About the Author
List of Illustrations
TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Henry VIII’s Deposition on his Marriage with Anne of Cleves. British Library, London, MS Otho, C/X f. 246 LP 15 no. 822[3]. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images
2. Confessional letter printed by Richard Pynson for the guild of St Mary, Boston. Derbyshire Record Office, D258/45/36/1
3. Reconstruction of the ground-plan of Austin Friars at Cromwell’s fall. © Nick Holder
4. Reconstruction of the street facade of Austin Friars. © Nick Holder
5. Detail from the “Copperplate” map of London, 1550s, showing Cromwell’s Throgmorton Street house. Alamy
6. Thomas Cromwell, letter to John Creke, 17 August 1523. The National Archives, Kew, SP 1/28 f.154
7. Benedetto da Ravezzano, Candle-bearing angels for the tomb of Cardinal Wolsey, later that of Henry VIII, c. 1524-29. © Victoria & Albert Museum, London
8. Phillip Lindley’s Reconstructions of Wolsey’s tomb, side and end elevations. Reproduced by courtesy of Phillip Lindley
9. Thomas Cromwell, letter to William Cleybroke, late July 1529. © The National Archives, Kew, SP 1/55 f. 19v
10. Cardinal Wolsey, letter to Thomas Cromwell, 17 December 1529. British Library, London, MS Cotton Vespasian F/XIII f. 147. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images
11. Thomas Cromwell, letter to Cardinal Wolsey, 18 August 1530. © The National Archives, Kew, SP 1/57 ff. 270r-73r
12. Draft Act in Restraint of Appeals, with text insertions by Henry VIII. British Library, London, MS Cleopatra, E. VI f.185. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images
13. Penultimate draft of the Act in Restraint of Appeals, with amendments by Thomas Cromwell. © The National Archives, Kew, SP 2/n f. 60r
14. Draft regulations for monasteries, with insertions in Cromwell’s hand. © The National Archives, Kew, SP 6/6. 7v
15. Cromwell’s memorandum against Lord Darcy. © The National Archives, Kew, SP 1/118 f. 43 r
16 (left). Detail from the title-page of The Byble in Englyshe (The Great Bible), 1541. Lambeth Palace Library, Main Collection SR2 E165 (1541)
17 (right). Detail from the title-page of Henry VIII’s illuminated presentation copy of The Byble in Englyshe (The Great Bible). British Library, London, C.18.d.10. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images
18. Elizabeth Cromwell, letter to Henry VIII, [autumn 1540]. British Library, London, MS Cotton Vespasian F/XIII f. 262. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images
PLATES
1. View of the approach to Putney Church, watercolour by an anonymous artist, 1820. Private collection
2. Sir Henry Wyatt, portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Bridgeman Images
3. Thomas Cromwell, portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1532–3. © Copyright The Frick Collection
4. Thomas Cromwell, portrait by English school, late 1530s. Private collection. Christie’s / Bridgeman Images
5. Coat of arms of Thomas Cromwell, 1st Baron Cromwell, KG/6. Chevron Tango/Wikimedia Commons
6. Coat of arms of Thomas Wolsey (also the arms of Christ Church College Oxford) Chevron Tango/Wikimedia Commons
7. Silver-gilt medallion of Cromwell, 1538. © The Trustees of the British Museum, M.6792
8. The arms of Cromwell as augmented in 1537. College of Arms, MS Num Sch 6/40. Reproduced by permission of the Kings, Heralds and Pursuivants of Arms
9. The arms of Edward Seymour, augmented in 1536. College of Arms, M. 7 f. 40v. Reproduced by permission of the Kings, Heralds and Pursuivants of Arms
10. Wolsey’s Gate, Ipswich, Suffolk, 1812, engraving by J. Tyrrell after J. Conder. Reproduced by kind permission of Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich branch, PT242/92
11. Cardinal Wolsey, portrait by Italian school, c. 1515–20. Private collection. Philip Mould Ltd./Bridgeman Images
12. Wolsey in procession, from George Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, 1578. © Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS. Douce 363, fol. 52v
13. Anne Boleyn, portrait by English school, c. 1533–6. National Portrait Gallery, London. De Agostini/Bridgeman Images
14. Portrait of Stephen Gardiner, sixteenth-century English school. Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk. National Trust Photographic Library/Bridgeman Images
15. Thomas Howard, portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1539. Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2018 / Bridgeman Images
16. Thomas Cranmer, portrait by Gerlach Flicke, 1545–6. © National Portrait Gallery, London
17. Sketch-plan for Anne Boleyn’s Coronation feast in W
estminster Hall, May 1533. British Library, London, MS Harley 41 f. 12. © The British Library Board, All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images
18. Queen Katherine of Aragon, miniature, possibly by Lukas Horenbout, c. 1525. © National Portrait Gallery, London
19. Queen Jane Seymour, portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1536. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Bridgeman Images
20. Queen Anne of Cleves, portrait by Bartolomaeus Bruyn the Elder, c. 1539. The President and Fellows of St John’s College, Oxford
21. Queen Katherine Howard, miniature by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1540. The Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2018/Bridgeman Images
22. Rycote House, watercolour by J. B. Malchair, 1773. By permission of the President and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Oxford
23. Brooke House, Hackney, 1853. Victoria & Albert Museum, London
24. Gregory Cromwell, miniature by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1537. © Royal Collections, the Netherlands.
25. Thomas Cromwell, miniature by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1537. © National Portrait Gallery, London
26. Gregory Cromwell, miniature by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1540. Pushkin Museum, Moscow, reproduced in G. Habich, ‘Ein Miniature Bildnis von Hans Holbein in Danzig’, Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst (n.s. xxiv, 1913), 194–6, plate 1. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library
27. Portrait of a lady, probably Elizabeth Seymour, by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1535–40. Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio. Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1926.57
28. Monument to Gregory, Lord Cromwell, at Launde Abbey, Leicestershire. By kind courtesy of Launde Abbey
29. Lewes Priory and Castle, coloured engraving by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, 1737. Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove. East Sussex Record Office, H1961.17
30. Leeds Castle, print published by R. Ackermann, 1828. Getty Images
31. Thomas Wyatt the elder, portrait by Hans Holbein the younger, c. 1535–7. Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2018/Bridgeman Images
32. Thomas Wriothesley, portrait by Hans Holbein the younger, c. 1530s. Musée du Louvre, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / image RMN-GP
33. Nicholas Carew, portrait by Hans Holbein the younger, 1527. Kunstmuseum Basel, Kupferstichkabinett, Amerbach-Kabinett, Inv. 1662.34
34. Ralph Sadler, portrait by Hans Holbein the younger, 1535. Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2018/Bridgeman Images
35. King Henry VIII, portrait by Hans Holbein the younger, 1540. Palazzo Barberini, Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini, Rome. Bridgeman Images
36. Title-page for Coverdale’s Bible, 1535. British Library, London, G.12208. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images
37. Title-page of the ‘Matthew’ Bible, 1537. British Library, London, C.18.c.5. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images
38. Title-page to the Apocrypha in Cromwell’s copy of the Great Bible, 1539. St John’s College Cambridge, Bb.8.30. By permission of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge
39. The executions of John Fisher, Thomas More and Margaret Pole, illustration from Richard Verstegan, Theatrum Crudelitatum Haereticorum, 1587. British Library, London. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images
40. The execution of William Tyndale, illustration from John Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’ (Acts and Monuments), 1563. British Library, London. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images
41. The execution of Carthusians, by Juan Sánchez Cotán, 1617. El Monasterio de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, Granada. akg-images/Album/Oronoz
42. Wooden base-block for the statue of Dderfel Gardarn, Llandderfel parish church, Gwynedd. Alamy
43. The martyrdom of John Forest, engraving, 1823. Alamy
44. The ceiling of the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace, c. 1540. Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2018
45. Luther Fighting the Pope, print by Hans Holbein the younger, 1521, English edition printed by John Mayler, 1539. By permission of the Pepys Library, Magdalene College Cambridge, Pepys 1.16-17
Maps
Acknowledgements
Among many professional debts spread over many years (and I have more to say in the Introduction below and passim about one particular debt), I must mention the generosity of the following fellow-scholars: Caroline Adams, Rod Ambler, Colin Armstrong, Giulia Bartrum, Susan Brigden, Alan Brown, James Carley, Paul Cavill, Margaret Condon, John Cooper, Judith Curthoys, Mark Earngey, Teri Fitzgerald, Andrew Foster, Dorian Gerhold, Jeremy Goldsmith, Steven Gunn, John Guy, Jane Ingle, Henry Jefferies, Anik Laferrière, Rory McEntegart, Hilary Mantel, Martin Murphy, Richard Rex, David Skinner, David Starkey, Thomas Steel, Robert Swanson, Spencer Weinreich, Rowan Williams, Robert Yorke. Some, particularly Colin Armstrong, James Carley, John Cooper, Teri Fitzgerald and Steven Gunn, have heroically read some or all of the draft text, to its great advantage. Besides these, I am grateful to scholars who gave me permission to use unpublished dissertations listed at the end of my Bibliography, and to well-informed friends on Facebook who gave me clues on various queries I posted. In this hugely enjoyable if taxing adventure, Teri Fitzgerald and Hilary Mantel have been particularly stimulating and generous intellectual companions, and it was a pleasure to get to know Ben Miles, who lent to his stage portrayal of Thomas Cromwell a wonderful energy worthy of Till Eulenspiegel. Equally instructive, and equally informative about the complex personality of Master Secretary, was the introspection and unknowability presented by the television performance of Mark Rylance. It was a very kind thought of the late Jill, Duchess of Hamilton, to give me a portrait of Thomas Cromwell to preside over my writing in my study.
One magnificent project has made my own work not simply easier but possible: the website State Papers Online, 1509–1714, published by Cengage/Gale in collaboration with the National Archives and the British Library. This digital arrangement of hundreds of thousands of documents from the Tudor and Stuart era has involved many of our leading historians in its construction and maintenance. I remember refereeing it enthusiastically when financial backing was being canvassed for its creation, but I had little idea how accurate my words of praise would turn out to be. It is one of the great scholarly achievements of the modern age, and I salute those academics and technicians who steered it to fruition. I have looked at many other primary sources for this book, but State Papers Online has been indispensable. And it is thanks to the magnificent resources and generosity of the University of Oxford and the Bodleian Library under successive Bodley’s Librarians Sarah Thomas and Richard Ovenden that I have been afforded the luxury of digital access to this, and much more.
Behind that work lies another monument of Victorian and Edwardian scholarship, Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII: a staggering intellectual achievement, whose many editors and researchers I salute with awe and gratitude. Frequently they made mistakes and misdated documents, but they fully acknowledged that this would be the case, and encouraged their readers to do better. It is a pity that subsequent historians have so often ignored their admonition and accepted many suggested dates without the critical eye that they recommended. I would like to couple with my gratitude for their work the products of three modern scholars who single-handed have produced astonishingly useful works of reference with heroism worthy of those great Victorians. I say something of Muriel St Clare Byrne below; Sir John Baker’s The Men of Court and Professor David Smith’s Heads of Religious Houses 1377–1540 are both marvellous gifts to research.
My colleagues in the Faculty of Theology and Religion in the University of Oxford deserve my warm thanks for their constant forbearance in allowing me to get on with this book rather than asking me to assume more administrative burdens. I am especially grateful to
the Hensley Henson Fund of the Faculty for making a generous contribution to the provision of its illustrations, after a version of part of the text became the University’s Hensley Henson Lectures for 2017–18. As always, I must thank for their patience and encouragement my literary agent Felicity Bryan and my editors Stuart Proffitt and Joy de Menil. Additionally in this enterprise I am hugely grateful to Peter James for his masterly copy-editing, Cecilia Mackay for her zestful picture research and Ben Sinyor, Richard Duguid and Stephen Ryan for general efficiency and unflappability. And Sam Patel knows what I owe him.
Diarmaid MacCulloch
Advent 2017
Thomas Cromwell was a freak in English history, and that, perhaps, is why he has been so disliked: an iron-fisted bureaucrat who crammed into his brief reign the kind of process which in England, we like to maintain, is carried out insensibly, over centuries. He overhauled the machinery of government as it had never been overhauled since the reign of Henry II; and he overhauled it so drastically that much of it was not radically altered till the reign of Victoria. In six hundred years of history he stands out as the most radical of modernisers. Modern history, if it begins anywhere, begins, in England, with him.
Hugh Trevor-Roper, Historical Essays, 1957
Introduction
Thomas Cromwell’s name has happily become much more familiar in the last decade, thanks principally to Hilary Mantel’s inspired novel series beginning with Wolf Hall. To call them ‘historical novels’ does them an injustice; they are novels which happen to be set in the sixteenth century, and with a profound knowledge of how that era functioned. Novels they remain, as Mantel herself has frequently (and with mounting weariness) emphasized to would-be critics. This book is different. It invites you, the reader, to find the true Thomas Cromwell of history, by guiding you through the maze of his surviving papers – and a real maze they are, composed of thousands on thousands of individual documents. The journey is worth making, because this Thomas Cromwell shaped a great revolution in his own country’s affairs, which has in turn shaped much of the modern world, not least that still-Protestant power, the United States of America.
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