Thomas Cromwell

by Diarmaid MacCulloch

  Maybe Christ’s had intended Bromehill as a summer or plague retreat as Poughley Priory had been for Cardinal College Oxford (they are in fact respectively about the same distance away), but this was not how it turned out: no less a person than Roland Lee intervened in June 1532, drafting a letter in his own hand for Cromwell to send to the Master, arranging a sixty-year lease of the Priory from the College for Roger Fowler, who was Lee’s brother-in-law.75 This was only one element in a skein of sudden associations between Cromwell, Lee and Christ’s, at the heart of which was the education of little Gregory Cromwell, who transferred from tuition at Pembroke Hall to Christ’s at this time. Prioress Vernon of Little Marlow was still keeping a jealous eye on her old charge, vigilant in her agreement with Cromwell to retain control of Gregory till he was twelve, but by 1532 she was doing so in amicable co-operation with the Master of Christ’s, who wrote from a visit to Marlow to report Gregory as ‘merry’. It must be said that this is the first phase of Gregory’s schooling which did not involve some sort of contention or trouble. Cromwell even offered Henry Lockwood the rich London benefice of St Sepulchre’s Holborn in summer 1532, though in the end it was agreed that Dr Lee would have it instead.76

  At the end of that Michaelmas Term, Roland Lee cheerfully set out for Norfolk from his Essex parsonage of Ashdon with ‘your little man’ Gregory – ‘not only well and cleanly kept, but also profits in his learning’; they were off to spend the vacation over Christmas and New Year into 1533 at Bromehill Priory, with some of Gregory’s young friends from Cambridge, hosted by Master and Mistress Fowler.77 The following August, 1533, Lee and Gregory were back at Bromehill with the Fowlers for another holiday, which Lee certainly needed after an exceedingly stressful though successful six months of royal business. He amused himself on that trip by directing Gregory’s fumbling thirteen-year-old archery practice on the deer in one of the Duke of Norfolk’s nearby parks (with permission, doubtless): ‘the skins were so hard that the flesh would not be hurt,’ he reported back to Austin Friars with affectionate sarcasm.78

  But let us finally return Dr Lee to Bromehill on New Year’s Day 1533, ‘among a husfull of childern, God help’, as he groaned in mock-weariness and vigorous northern orthography to Gregory’s father back in London. Surrounding Lee would be a bustle of Gregory and the Wellifed and Sadler boys, plus any small Fowlers; it was a decade or two before most clergy of the English Church grew accustomed to such an experience.79 So with the Rector of Ashdon and his sister and brother-in-law enjoying family festivities where once Austin canons had meditated, and shouts of over-excited early teenagers echoing round derelict monastic chambers in a Breckland winter, an old order gave place to the new world which Thomas Cromwell was now steering into existence.

  9

  A Royal Marriage: 1532–1533

  By summer 1532, there was no doubt that Anne Boleyn was on her way to marrying the King. The only question was when and how. She was installed in the house at Hanworth lately and briefly Stephen Gardiner’s, very near Hampton Court, and her wardrobe was expanding to suit the role of a queen. Cromwell’s varied royal building portfolio now included a radical refit of the royal apartments in the Tower of London, musty and old-fashioned at this time because their main customary use in late medieval England was as backdrop to the first stage in a coronation ritual, and the last coronation had been in 1509. In December 1532, Cromwell was host to King and prospective consort, accompanied by loyalist courtiers and the French ambassador, at his fiefdom in the Jewel House of the Tower, to show them both the rich display of plate selected for the Queen and how his modifications of the royal lodgings were progressing.1 As the group of advisers round the King accepted with varying degrees of enthusiasm the royal determination to marry Anne and puzzled their way forward, they were dealt one ace: the death of Archbishop Warham in August 1532, forestalling defiance to which he seemed to have been nerving himself that spring.

  Normally the vacancy of such a great and wealthy Church office would provide a year or so’s windfall income for the Crown, but there was now a more important consideration: securing a compliant Primate of All England, who in the right circumstances might move the Great Matter to its conclusion.2 The choice came speedily, and was possibly mooted before Warham’s death, though apparently not to the man concerned. He was one of the leading chaplains of the Boleyn family, Thomas Cranmer, currently Archdeacon of Taunton, and since January far away on a strenuous embassy to the Holy Roman Emperor in Germany and Italy. Given the difficulties of early modern communication, it was the end of October before Archdeacon Cranmer heard of his promotion, apparently no less astonishing to him than to the rest of the political and ecclesiastical world beyond Anne Boleyn’s bedchamber. This was more than just unexpected good fortune for Cranmer, but also a deep embarrassment, because that formerly very conventional cleric had by now travelled away from his quiet Cambridge days in more than one sense. During a prolonged stay that summer in the newly Lutheran city of Nuremberg, he did something almost as surprising as the King choosing him for archbishop, by marrying a local lady who was niece to Nuremberg’s chief evangelical pastor, Andreas Osiander. It was his second marriage; the first, abruptly ended by his wife’s death in his early Cambridge days, had taken place when he was still a layman, but the groom was now an ordained priest.

  In marrying Margarete in Nuremberg, Cranmer defied four or five centuries of legislation in the Western Church extending celibacy from monks to secular priests: it was clearly a principled decision, which showed he had embraced evangelical reformation, for Margarete was not to remain a concubine like so many female companions of late medieval clergy, but became a lawfully wedded wife in the face of the world, alongside godly spouses of such reformers as Martin Luther and Martin Bucer. Yet the Archbishop-elect was not temperamentally inclined to dramatic public gestures (at least not till the last two hours of his earthly life), and he omitted to tell the authorities back in England about his new circumstances. For the time being, maybe for two or three years, Mistress Margarete Cranmer stayed with her relatives in Germany (and, when she did come to England, contrived to remain totally out of the public eye all through the 1530s). Now her new husband made his way with significant lack of speed back to England, to prepare for the throne of St Augustine and much more.

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  Meanwhile Cromwell was busily readying something more momentous than refurbishments at the Tower of London: diplomacy and choreography for the extraordinary international summit between France and England across the Channel in autumn 1532, a jamboree without parallel since his old master Wolsey had been impresario of the meeting of King Henry and King François at the Field of the Cloth of Gold a dozen years before. The principal actors were the same as in 1520. The English aim was to secure explicit French acceptance of the coming marriage in the most direct way possible, by presenting the French King in decorously festive company with Madame Boleyn before the eyes of a whole continent. The choreography was delicate in the extreme, involving the exchange of royal jollities both on the English soil of Calais and in the adjacent French fortress town of Boulogne.

  The French had every interest in binding Henry VIII into the alliance they were patiently constructing against the Habsburgs. He would be a major catch in comparison with the German princes, mostly Lutherans, who had so far been the object of King François’ diplomacy.3 Yet the French were also perfectly well aware how much less they had to gain than the English from any agreement at Calais. Too splendid a reception of Anne would jeopardize French plans for an alliance with the Pope which would itself outflank the Habsburgs. It is likely that King Henry actually proposed holding a wedding ceremony in Calais, but then received emphatic advice from the French that this was a step too far. Out of such considerations, magnificence of display was curtailed, but there was splendour enough, and the event was instantly trumpeted in print for an English audience.4 Amid the elaborate preparations, it would be useful to confu
se suspicious ears in southern Europe until all was safely done: this was achieved by that most effective of counter-intelligence devices, false news. Cromwell’s own spy Dr Augustine reported to his patron from Bologna that he had heard the meeting had been put off or even cancelled – this on 14 October, three days after the King and Anne sailed to Calais.5

  An essential preliminary step had been to raise Anne’s formal status to a level fitting for one about to enjoy polite conversation with the Most Christian King. Accordingly, on 1 September 1532, she became a peeress in her own right: Marquess (not Marchioness) of Pembroke – an honour modelled on Henry’s elevation of Edward IV’s niece Margaret Pole as Countess of Salisbury in her own right, twenty years before. Irony runs as a constant stream through Henry VIII’s reign: he would eventually dispatch both peeresses he had created to be beheaded in the Tower. But for the time being the Marquess, her title given substance by lands of princely value, had her moment in the October sun with the French King, including a carefully arranged invitation to step through a pair of dances. It was time for Anne finally to bestow her ultimate thanks on her suitor for her extraordinary advancement. At some stage in this adventure, after six years of technical continence, she and Henry at last fully consummated their love. Maybe they did even stage some discreet form of betrothal or marriage in November, having for the time being abandoned the possibility of a public event. Bearing in mind the difficulties that still lay ahead, one peculiarity of the Marquess’s already peculiar title was that it would descend to a son of hers even if born outside wedlock; this putative boy would have similar status to Henry’s existing illegitimate son the Duke of Richmond.6

  All this was a triumph for Cromwell. Among nearly 3,000 English hangers-on accompanying the King across the Channel, from the Duke of Norfolk downwards, he was officially still a low-profile figure, not even possessing a knighthood: the meticulous local chronicler who adored listing notables did not name him in an exhaustive and exhausting catalogue of the company who crowded the town.7 Yet he was the man who worked out the finance, dipping into the King’s ready reserves in his capacity of Master of the Jewels to send 2,000 pounds directly over to the Vice-Treasurer of Calais; there must have been much expenditure besides this to put in place.8 By now his real role in the King’s affairs meant that he accompanied the royal party to Boulogne on the male-only venture to the French Court, while the Marquess of Pembroke was left to amuse herself in Calais. A dissident friar from the Greenwich Observant Franciscans took the opportunity to have a confidential conversation with him in Boulogne.9 Thomas Alvard, left behind at Whitehall and keeping him up to date with London news, observed with friendly envy, ‘I am very glad to hear the good report how the King’s Grace hath you in so great favour, and the French king also . . . and also of your housekeeping, it is showed me there is never an Englishman there, the King’s grace except, that doth keep and feast Englishmen and strangers as ye do.’10 Even allowing for a good friend’s exaggeration, this is quite a compliment, since there was considerable competition for lavish hospitality.

  Given that as yet Cromwell had little income from rolling acres to sustain this sort of expenditure, this was also a calculated financial risk, but, for a Putney yeoman’s son who in the course of those events won the good opinion of a monarch far more powerful than the King of England, it was well worth it. He took with him his own set of musicians, useful to enhance his hospitality.11 He made careful advance provision for himself in lodging and catering, because such an occasion was obviously going to strain the limited resources of Calais to breaking-point. His old friendships there gave him an advantage. John Benolt, genial secretary of the town, was chief among them (John’s brother Thomas was the Clarenceux herald who had granted Cromwell his coat of arms). The Benolt brothers arranged well ahead for the Marshal of Calais, Sir Edward Ringley, to find Cromwell a good lodging, with stabling and that all-important amenity for this festive trip, ‘a cellar for your drink . . . and all in one house’ (not surprisingly, Cromwell made sure that John Benolt was soon handsomely rewarded with further lucrative preferment).12

  Despite the thoroughly satisfactory outcome, the journey to Calais and Boulogne represented a turning-point in Cromwell’s life: for a man who had travelled more than nearly all his countrymen, it was his last venture beyond English shores. Henceforth he was tied to the King’s journeys, which despite occasional more expansive plans were themselves confined during Cromwell’s lifetime to lowland England and usually just the counties round the capital. More frustratingly still, he might be left behind in London when the King went holidaying into deep country. It was symptomatic that at what was to prove an anxious Christmas and New Year 1532/3 he had not been able to join Gregory with Dr Lee and the Fowlers at Bromehill, despite Lee’s hopes. He would never go to Ireland, maybe never again visit northern England nor even Wales, that part of the kingdom with special resonance for him. In Wales, thanks to family and friends, he had ample and effective eyes and ears, but in Ireland and the North, he was much more at a disadvantage, constantly relying at a distance on the perceptions and agendas of others.

  The spectacle of Calais was safely past, but further pieces of the jigsaw remained. Cranmer must be retrieved in safety from his year-long mission, escorted home, installed as Archbishop of Canterbury and set to work to give a public face to what may already have become a royal marriage. Late on Sunday 1 December, Cromwell hastily sent off his old servant Stephen Vaughan for this task, ordering him to ride through the night to Dover and take a boat to Calais on Monday as soon as it was light. The urgency and secrecy of the task are remarkable, and may reflect a sudden decision by Anne that she was pregnant. From Dover, Vaughan had a wretched Channel crossing and a worse journey to Paris, including a bad fall with his horse in frozen weather. To add to his troubles, he had no idea where ‘the man’ (as he cryptically referred to his quarry) might be. It was eight days after his departure, in an inn at Lyon, that the first news came of the elusive envoy, around 30 miles off. Vaughan could at last fulfil his mission to convey a highly confidential oral message to the Archbishop-to-be.13

  Despite Vaughan’s optimism that they might be back by Christmas, Cranmer managed to prolong the journey till the beginning of January 1533. On the 24th or 25th of that month there was a clandestine royal wedding in Westminster, possibly the second between Henry and Anne (after all, in his own eyes, he had been a bachelor, free to marry whom he liked). Roland Lee may have been the presiding priest. Cranmer, meanwhile, took up residence next to Whitehall in lodgings of the canons of St Stephen’s Chapel, handy for consultations on the next legal and theological moves and convenient for his attendance at the imminent meetings of Convocation and Parliament.14 It was worth investing in the considerable sums of money necessary to obtain the papal bulls for his coming consecration as Archbishop, so that all should seem to be done properly and without the possibility of challenge. Since Cranmer had nothing like enough cash, he was loaned a thousand pounds by the King from the Privy Coffers via Cromwell in his capacity as Master of the Jewels. It was processed through one of Cromwell’s Italian friends in London, the Genoese merchant Arrigo Salvago, who would be accustomed to arranging such large international transactions.15

  From now on, Cromwell and Cranmer enjoyed an intimate co-operation which went beyond business. As we have seen, their relationship had evolved over four years or so from administrative transactions at Ipswich, and now a genuine trust and affection overcame the delicacy of their allegiances to two conflicting patrons. Alexander Alesius or Alane, an Anglophile Scotsman who knew the Court of Henry VIII well, later told Queen Elizabeth that when King Henry made Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury he presented him with a ring that had once been Cardinal Wolsey’s, a ring which Alesius now possessed; that would have been a resonant gift.16* Cranmer never became another Wolsey for Cromwell – it was rather the other way round – but the special nature of their relationship is illuminated by an archival paradox worth exploring.<
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  When Richard St George, an early seventeenth-century herald and antiquary, decided to fill blank pages in an old notebook he owned with his own genealogical collections, he saved from destruction a century-old letter-book of Archbishop Cranmer’s, running from the Primate’s entrance into office in spring 1533 through to summer twelve months on, plus a few later items.17 Evidently as Cranmer took up unfamiliar and daunting new responsibilities, he decided to get a grip on them as did many conscientious Tudor gentry: he ordered his secretary to copy outgoing letters into this book, together with a little relevant incoming correspondence to act as templates for future imitation (the most interesting of which is a rare official letter of the King’s elder brother Prince Arthur, from just before his death in 1501 – maybe Cranmer thought it might be useful in the Great Matter).18 The collection is extraordinarily varied, from matters of national importance to trivial business of his domestic establishment, though there is nothing strictly private: this was a document designed for use and consultation. It is probable that, as the Archbishop gained more confidence in his office, he decided he could do without such an aid; certainly in the later months the original intention of keeping the collection thematic began breaking down and clashed with chronological copying.