INTERNAL POLICY
From the close of the year 1532 until his fall, the entire domestic
administration of England was in Cromwell’s hands. From the moment that
he entered the King’s service he had definitely committed himself to the
policy which he was to follow till the end of his days. His own theories
of internal government, the traditions of the Tudor monarchy, and the
situation of the realm at the time of his accession to power, combined
to convince him that the maintenance of an all-powerful kingship was
indispensable to England’s safety; the nature of the proposal by which
he first won Henry’s confidence was tantamount to an irrevocable
declaration of that principle, and a promise that it should be the
guiding thought of his entire administration. The revolt from Rome was
an incident rather than an aim of his policy. He had suggested it at
first as offering the only possible solution of the immediate
difficulties of the Crown, and as affording golden opportunities for the
increase of the power of the monarchy; but as soon as the decisive step
had been taken, he saw that the security of his own position had become
conditional upon the permanence of the new ecclesiastical system, which
in turn could only be ensured if the King, for whose sake it had been
created, was rendered supreme in Church and State. Cromwell’s very
existence had thus become dependent on the success of his endeavours to
maintain and carry further the policy initiated by Henry VII., and to
elevate the Crown to sovereign power above every other institution in
the realm. Perhaps no minister has ever had more varied problems to
confront him, than those which Cromwell had to deal with during these
eight years; and yet his action in every case is a logical, intelligent
application of the theory of internal government, which he believed was
the only sure road to national greatness. With this great principle
firmly borne in mind, the history of Cromwell’s domestic administration
becomes comparatively simple.
A further assertion of the Supremacy of the Crown in ecclesiastical
affairs was necessary, before Cromwell could attempt to strengthen its
already predominant position in the State. The chief object of the more
important measures of the years 1533 and 1534 was to utilize the
consequences of the breach with Rome for the benefit of the monarchy,
and to provide that none of the power of which the Pope had been
deprived should be permitted to escape the King. During the year 1532
Henry had deluded himself with hopes that his first attack on the
liberties of the English clergy might frighten Clement into acquiescence
in the divorce, but at last his patience came to an end, and he
surrendered himself entirely to the guidance of Cromwell, who had been
persuaded from the first that nothing further was to be obtained from
the Pope. In January, 1533, the King was secretly married to Anne
Boleyn; on the 10th of May Cranmer, who had lately been raised to the
see of Canterbury, opened his archiepiscopal court at Dunstable[222].
With a promptitude which must have been highly satisfactory to Henry
after the delays of the previous proceedings at Rome, the sentence of
divorce was pronounced. There can be little doubt that Cromwell gave
efficient aid in hastening the verdict[223]; but what is far more
important, he took effective measures, even before it was rendered, to
prevent its revocation. Parliament had been in session during the three
months previous to the assembling of the court at Dunstable: in
anticipation of the coming sentence, it had been induced to pass an
Act[224] to deprive Katherine of the only hope that remained to her by
forbidding appeals to Rome, and by ordaining that the decision of an
archiepiscopal court should be final, except in cases where the King was
concerned, when appeal might be made to the Upper House of Convocation.
A notable effort was made to conceal the obvious and immediate purpose
of this statute under a shroud of pious and patriotic verbiage. The life
of the Act, however, was but short. Though it had dealt the death blow
to the jurisdiction of the Pope in England, it had not made adequate
provision for the maintenance of the Supremacy of the Crown; so in 1534
the statute of the previous year was superseded by a new one[225], which
enacted that an appeal might always be made from an archbishop’s court
to the King’s Court of Chancery, the decision of which was to be final.
The abolition of the Annates (which will be considered in another place)
occurred at the same time. The effect of these two measures was to
complete the work begun in 1530, and to sever the last links of the
chain which bound the Church of England to Rome.
In the meantime the famous Act of Succession[226], bastardizing the
Princess Mary and establishing the offspring of Anne Boleyn as lawful
heirs to the throne of England, had also been passed in Parliament, and
before the year had closed a new statute[227] had formally recognized
the King’s ecclesiastical supremacy for the third time; for Henry was
not satisfied with the acknowledgements he had wrung from the clergy in
1531 and 1532, nor with the express assertion that the King was on earth
Supreme Head of the Church of England, contained in the oath to the new
succession, which Cromwell’s commissioners began to administer
throughout the realm in the summer of 1534. The last vestige of the
independence of the English bishops was also removed in the course of
this memorable year, by certain provisions of the final Act for the
restraint of Annates[228]. It had not been necessary, however, to
introduce any very radical innovation here. The bishops were already
virtually in the King’s hands, for the elections by chapters had long
been a mere farce, and the royal nominee had been almost invariably
chosen. So the Act had aimed at a legalization of the _status
quo_--merely adding a few new provisions to strengthen the King’s hold
on the Church. All relations with the Pope were of course to cease; the
bishops were to be consecrated by virtue of a royal commission; and if
the chapter failed to elect within twelve days, the King was empowered
to fill the vacancy by letters patent. But even this does not seem to
have been enough to satisfy Cromwell. A letter of Chapuys in the early
part of 1535 informs us that the King’s Secretary called some of the
bishops before the Council to ask them if the King could not make and
unmake them at pleasure: ‘they were obliged to say yes, else they should
have been deprived of their dignities: as the said Cromwell told a
person, who reported it to me, and said that the Council had been
summoned only to entrap the bishops[229].’ Cromwell followed this up,
later in the year, by causing a Prohibitory Letter to be sent out in the
King’s name, forbidding the bishops to visit any monastery or to
exercise any right of jurisdiction during the visitation of the
religious houses then in progress[230]. It appears that even Cromwell,
with all his audacity, was at a loss to devise a means to silence the
objections which were raised against this high-handed measure. He was
not ashamed to take a hint from the fertile brains of his two
blood-hounds, Legh and Ap-Rice, who suggested an ingenious argument to
crush all opposition, the gist of which is contained in the following
quotation from a letter which they wrote to Cromwell, Sept. 24,
1535[231]:--
‘Yf they (the bishops) had any Jurisdiction, they muste ned_es_ haue
receued ‹it› either by the lawe of god or by the busshop of Romes
Authoritie or els by the King_es_ grace permission. Which is no
sufficient discharge ageinst the statute.
‘Yf they saye by the Lawe of god, Lett theym bring foorth sc_ri_ptur but
I thinke theym not so impudent as to saye so.
‘Yf they saye by the busshop of Romes Authoritie. Lett theym exercise it
still, yf they thinke it mete.
‘Yf they saye by the Kinges permission why be they more discontent that
the king shuld call agein nowe to his hand_es_ that which came from hym
to theym, than they wolde haue ben_e_ yf he had never graunted it theym.
And surely they are not able to iustifie thexercise of their
iurisdiction hetherto.’ Fortified by such reasoning as this did the
Royal Supremacy pass into effect.
Having thus obtained the complete submission of the greater lights of
the Church, Cromwell consistently pursued his relentless policy with the
humbler orders of friars and monks. His method of dealing with the
latter did not differ materially from his policy with the former, except
that it was perhaps more sanguinary. Priors Lawrence and Webster, two
Carthusians who denied the validity of the King’s new title, were
examined by Cromwell, and when they stubbornly refused to retract their
assertions, they were promptly sentenced and executed[232]. Three
others, Houghton, Hale, and Reynolds, suffered death a little later, and
the latter dared to tell Cromwell that in spite of the terror he had
caused by his late proceedings, all good men in the kingdom really held
the same opinion, that the Headship of the Church was not the
King’s[233]. But notwithstanding the wide popular dissatisfaction at the
new measures, most malcontents, both lay and spiritual, kept their
thoughts to themselves. Men were beginning to discover how dangerous it
was to criticize the doings of the King and his minister. The elaborate
system of espionage and the commissions to seek out and punish treason,
which Cromwell had so laboriously established all over the country in
1532, had now begun to bear fruit. It was impossible to tell who the
government spies were: impossible to know when or against whom the next
accusation would be made. The words which men spoke in the bosom of
their families or to their most intimate friends and neighbours were as
likely to be laid to their charge as their utterances in public:
harmless, obscure and ignorant country folk were brought before the
magistrates as often as those of higher degree. Edmond Brocke,
husbandman, eighty years of age, of Crowle in Worcestershire, was
walking home in the rain from Worcester market on the Saturday before
St. Thomas’ Day, in company with Margaret Higons. ‘Yt ys long of the
Kyng that this wedre is so troblous or vnstable,’ he said, ‘and I wene
we shall nevir haue bett_er_ wedre whillis the Kinge Reigneth, and
therefore it makith no matt_er_ if he were knocked or patted on the
heed[234].’ These facts were declared on August 12, 1535, before John
Russell Esq., Justice of the Peace, by Richard Fulke, husbandman, and
Joan Danyell of Crowle. Brocke confessed that he had said ‘that it was a
hevy and grevous wether and that there was neuyr good wedring_es_
sithins the King began this busines,’ but what he meant by ‘busines’ he
could not tell: as to the rest of his words, he said, he was mad or
drunk if he spoke them--more than this he would not answer. William
Ferrall, of Eastbourne in Sussex, deposed before Sir John Gage on August
14, 1536, that Sir William Hoo, vicar of Eastbourne, and suffragan of
the diocese of Chichester, walking with him in the churchyard, said that
‘they that rule about the King make him great bankett_es_ and geve him
swete wynes and make him dronke,’ and that then ‘they bring him byllis
and he puttyth his sign to them whereby they doo what they will and no
man may Correcte them[235].’ Margaret Chanseler, of Senklers Bradfeld in
Suffolk, spinster, was forced to confess before Sir Robert Drury in
February, 1535, that, when drunk and under the influence of an evil
spirit, she had said, in presence of Edmond Tyllet and Anthony Harward,
‘that the quenes g_ra_ce had on_e_ child by our sou_er_eigne lorde the
Kynge, which the seid ‹child› was ded borne, & she p_ra_yed god that she
myght neuer haue other; also that the quen_e_s g_ra_ce was a noughtty
hoore & that the Kyng_es_ grace ought not to mary within his realme.’
Tyllet and Harward, when summoned, made the matter somewhat worse. They
declared that the spinster had called the Queen ‘a goggyll yed hoore,’
and that she had added ‘God save queen Katteryn for she was ryghtuous
queen, & that she trusted to see her queen Ageyn & that she should
warrant the same[236].’ All the magistrates before whom these
depositions were laid, received ample instructions from Cromwell how to
deal with every case; if the accusation was very heavy, the offender was
usually sent up to the minister himself, to answer for his misdeeds at
head quarters. The punishments in these cases were very severe: there
are almost no records of the penalties inflicted on those against whom
the depositions were brought, but there is reason to believe that
comparatively slight misdemeanours were not seldom rewarded with death.
But of all the devices ‘For the putting the Kyng_es_ subiect_es_ and
other in more terroure,’ as Cromwell once expressed it[237], the most
ruthless remains to be mentioned. The execution of the Carthusians had
had its effect, but Cromwell was persuaded that more blood would have to
be spilled before his victory could be considered complete. As was usual
with him, he laid the axe at the root of the tree, and chose as his
victims the noblest and foremost in the land. The opinions of Bishop
Fisher and Sir Thomas More were well known to be opposed to the Royal
Supremacy, and as such they carried enormous weight. Cromwell must have
seen that it would be impossible to establish the King in his new
position with any security, until these two men were either converted or
destroyed. So, never once swerving from his purpose, nor letting the
rank and position of these distinguished men change or deter him, he set
about the business of ‘making or marring,’ with his usual directness and
method. If he knew More and Fisher at all well, he must have been
reasonably certain that he could never alter their convictions, so it
became necessary for him to look for some adequate pretext for getting
rid of them. Such a pretext soon presented itself.
In July, 1533, occurs the first mention of serious disturbance due to
the visions and prophecies of Elizabeth Barton, better known as the Nun
of Kent[238]. Her reputation for holiness and for divine inspiration was
so high throughout the land, that her mad follies were everywhere
regarded with almost superstitious reverence. Cromwell, at the King’s
command, caused her to be examined by Cranmer, but apparently did not
succeed in eliciting the information he desired, for the investigation
was continued by other interrogators who were less leniently disposed
than the Archbishop[239]. The Nun was finally obliged to confess that
‘she nev_er_ Hadd Vision in all her Lyff, but all that ever she said was
fayned of her owne ymagynac_i_on, only to satisfie the Myndeis of theym
Whiche Resorted vnto her, and to obtayn worldly prayse[240].’ She and
her accomplices were forced to read their public confessions on a
scaffold erected at Paul’s Cross, while a sermon was preached in
denunciation of the fraud. In the following spring she was condemned to
death in Parliament, and in April she was executed with some of her
accomplices at Tyburn[241].
But the destruction of the Nun was only of secondary importance for
Cromwell’s plans; he was mainly looking for some mesh in which he could
entrap others of whom he was in much more fear than Elizabeth Barton.
Every effort appears to have been made to elicit from her a confession
of communication with the divorced Queen, but without success. More and
Fisher, however, were not destined to escape so easily. Because the
Bishop of Rochester, after several interviews with the unhappy woman,
had not reported to Henry her disloyal prophecies (which the Nun had
already made in presence of the King himself), it was taken as a sign of
treason and neglect of duty to the sovereign. The long letter which
Cromwell wrote to Fisher in February, 1534, gives a detailed account of
the numerous and unfounded charges against him[242]. This letter
impresses the reader as having been written _pro forma_ only. Cromwell
must have realized that he could never hope to overcome two men who were
so much his intellectual superiors as More and Fisher, in an argument.
He therefore carefully avoided having any conversation with them, and
wrote to them only in order to have some slight outward justification
for his arbitrary action. Fisher sent pathetic letters to the King and
the Lords, when Cromwell refused to accept his excuses or listen to his
arguments, but in vain. His name was included in the Act of attainder of
Elizabeth Barton and her accomplices which was passed in March, 1534,
but his life was spared until the King could find a more valid pretext
for actually destroying him[243].
The accusations in the case of Sir Thomas More were even more groundless
than in Fisher’s. The only charges that could be proved against him were
an unimportant interview with the Nun herself, a letter which he
confessed to have written to her, warning her to leave political
subjects entirely alone, and an insignificant conversation about her
with a certain father Resbye, Friar Observant of Canterbury[244]. So
much was made of these slight accusations, however, that More was forced
to write a long letter of excuse to Cromwell. His explanations about the
Nun and about his attitude on the Papal Supremacy appear to have been
satisfactory; when he was examined by Cromwell and Audeley, all the
inventiveness of his accusers seemed to be used to no purpose. ‘As the
King did not find,’ says Chapuys, ‘as it seems he hoped, an occasion for
doing him more harm, he has taken away his salary[245].’ But this
unfortunately was not destined to be the end of the affair; if the King
was not determined on the ex-Chancellor’s destruction, his Privy
Councillor was; but Cromwell was forced to bide his time and wait for a
better opportunity, so that further proceedings were stayed until the
following April.
In the meantime the new Act of Succession had been passed in Parliament,
and the oath of allegiance which it required was promptly tendered to
More and Fisher, who finally consented to swear to the statute itself
but not the preamble[246]. They were unwilling to give their reasons
for rejecting the latter, but Cranmer cannot have been far wrong when
he wrote to Cromwell that the cause of their refusal to accept it lay in
its attacks on the authority of the Pope and the validity of the King’s
first marriage[247]. The Archbishop, ever on the side of humanity, urged
the King’s minister to accept the compromise which More and Fisher
offered, but in vain. The ex-Chancellor and the aged bishop were
committed to the Tower, which they never quitted again. For more than a
year they remained there subjected to every sort of indignity, until on
May 5, 1535, they were summoned by the King, and told that unless they
swore to the Act of Succession and the Royal Supremacy, they would be
treated no better than the Carthusian monks who had lately been
executed[248]. They were allowed six weeks for reflection, but they
replied that they would not change their opinion in six hundred years,
if they lived so long. So strong was the popular feeling however, that
it is doubtful if Henry would have dared to execute Fisher, simply
because he said that ‘the King, our sovereign Lord, is not Supreme Head
of the Church of England’; but when it was announced that the Pope, at a
consistory held May 20, had created him a Cardinal, the King was so
enraged that he threw all caution to the winds. He declared in his fury
that ‘he would give Fisher another hat, and send his head to Rome for
the Cardinal’s hat afterwards,’ and ordered both his prisoners to swear
to his ecclesiastical headship before St. John’s Day, or suffer
punishment as traitors[249]. Cromwell had endeavoured from the beginning
to keep up the appearance of being reluctant to punish the aged bishop
and his noble companion, and there is record that when he heard of the
latter’s first refusal to abandon his beliefs, ‘he sware a great
oath[250].’ But in spite of this there is every reason to think that he
was the true cause of the ex-Chancellor’s death. It is not likely that
Henry would have consented to the execution of a man whom he had
formerly loved and respected as much as More, unless his counsellor had
poisoned his heart against him. Moreover, the mentions of More and
Fisher in Cromwell’s ‘remembrances’ are so frequent and of such a
character, as to leave little doubt that he had determined to ruin them
from the first. They both suffered death by beheading in the summer of
1535[251]. It was a terrible evidence of the ruthlessness of the forward
policy to which Henry had now committed himself by the advice of his new
minister. The most brilliant and cultivated Englishman of the time had
been brought to the block to bear testimony to the King’s relentless
anger; the gentleness and humility of the oldest prelate in the realm
had not shielded him from Henry’s wrath and the swift, passionless blow
of his all-powerful agent. Terror had mastered the country, and men
wondered what the end would be[252].
But though Cromwell’s truculent measures had gained the day in England,
they excited the anger and horror of continental Europe. Sentence of
excommunication had been passed on Henry in the summer of 1534; public
opinion would not have permitted the Pope longer to postpone the final
blow, even if he had wished to do so. It now became more than ever
necessary to defend the position of the King, and Cromwell was busily
occupied in filling the pulpit at Paul’s Cross with preachers who were
willing and able to expound the word of God to Henry’s profit and
advantage[253]. In this he was greatly helped by Bishop Rowland Lee of
Coventry and Lichfield, who later played such an important part in
connexion with the subjugation of Wales. In seeking means to defend the
Royal Supremacy Cromwell’s knowledge of the law stood him in good stead.
In a letter written in the year 1538, Sir Thomas Denys tells how
Cromwell three years earlier had advised him to ‘rede in a boke called
Bratton[254] nott vnwrittyn this cccc yer_es_ where he doth call the
King_es_ Grace _Vicarius Christi_, ... wherfor,’ he continues, ‘I do
rekyn a papiste and a traito_ur_ to be one thing[255].’ But the most
drastic of the measures which Cromwell adopted to strengthen the power
of the Crown was the famous Act about Proclamations, which he was able
to force the Lords and Commons to pass in 1539. By this statute, all
Proclamations made by the King and Council were given the force of Acts
passed in Parliament, save when they touched the subject’s lives, lands,
goods, or liberties, or infringed the established laws; and these
exceptions were expressly declared inapplicable to those who should
disobey proclamations concerning heresy. Cromwell had planned for the
passage of this statute from a period at least as early as 1535. A
letter[256] which he wrote to Norfolk in July of that year affords us
interesting information concerning the origin of the measure. In a
controversy about the best means of preventing the export of coin from
the realm, the Chief Justice had delivered the opinion that ‘For the
avoyding of any suche daungers ... proclamacyons and polyces so deuysyd
by the King & his cownsayll for any such purpose sholde be of as good
effect as Any law made by parlyament or otherwyse[257].’ The Chief
Justice probably came to this decision at a hint from Cromwell; in any
case the latter saw that the good work which had been already begun
could not be considered complete until the opinion expressed had been
given legal form. From this time onward there occur in his
‘remembrances’ frequent mentions of an Act to be passed in Parliament to
this effect, but the measure proposed was so radical, that with all his
energy and unscrupulousness, it was four years before he was able to
carry it through[258].
It is scarcely necessary to state that a legislative body which could be
forced to consent to such a statute as this retained in practice but few
traces of that independence of the Crown which it theoretically
possessed. The passage of the Act about Proclamations marks the
culmination of a process begun long before Cromwell came into power, but
only perfected at the close of his ministry, by which the subserviency
of Parliament to the royal will was secured. But though the system did
not reach its highest development until 1539, the earlier years of
Cromwell’s administration show such an advance over that of his
predecessor in this particular, that we are justified in regarding the
entire period of his ministry as the golden age of Tudor despotism. From
the time that the Commons permitted the King and his counsellor to force
on them the petition against the clergy in 1532, it is scarcely too much
to say that the sole function of Parliament was to register the decrees
which emanated from the royal council chamber.
Of course in order to render Parliament as ‘tractable’ as it was, it
became necessary for Cromwell to regulate the choice of members for the
King’s profit, and the success of his endeavours in this direction is
little short of marvellous. Royal interference in elections was
certainly not unknown before his time, but it had not attained the
proportions which it was destined to assume under Cromwell, and it was
often strongly resented by the people. It was only with ‘much
difficulty,’ that Henry VII., in the year 1506, succeeded in forcing the
citizens of London to abandon the right to elect their own sheriff,
which had been granted them by the charter of Henry I.[259], and to
accept the royal nominee to that office[260]. But thirty years later,
the Crown had carried its encroachment on the popular liberties so far
that it seemed to be usually regarded as a matter of course that a royal
nomination should take the place of a fair election. If any protest was
raised against Henry’s palpable infringement of ancient rights--and this
was very rarely the case--the King and his minister affected to regard
the complaint with a sort of indignant amazement. Let us examine the
details of an election in Canterbury, which took place when Cromwell was
at the height of his power. Writs had been issued for the choice of two
members to Parliament from that city in early May, 1536. Between eight
and nine in the morning of the eleventh of that month, the sheriff, John
Hobbys, caused the commonalty of Canterbury to assemble in the
accustomed place, where John Starky and Christopher Levyns were duly
elected burgesses. After the voters had dispersed, about noon-time, John
Alcok, the mayor of Canterbury, came to Sheriff Hobbys in great
perplexity, with a letter from Cromwell and Audeley, which desired, on
the King’s behalf, that Robert Derknall and John Bryges ‘shulde fulfill
the seid rom_es_.’ On the following morning the sheriff directed a
humble letter to Cromwell[261], stating the facts, and begging that the
election of Starky and Levyns might be allowed to stand, as the King’s
wishes were not known until too late; ‘if your seid l_ette_re had come
to me byfore the seid eleccion,’ he pleaded, ‘I wolde haue done the best
that had been in my powr to ‹have› Accomplished our Souereigne lord the
King_es_ pleasure and yo_ur_s in the p_re_mysses.’ But the King’s
minister gave no heed to the representations of John Hobbys: the fact
that an election had already been held did not trouble him in the least:
the King’s will was to be accomplished at all costs. On May 18 he
addressed a significant letter to the Mayor and Burgesses of Canterbury,
which was quite sufficient to induce the recipients to nullify their
former proceedings. The phraseology of the letter is noteworthy: the
King’s minister did not discuss the fact that his first message had
arrived too late. He simply reminded the burgesses that the King’s
pleasure had been signified to them, and that they ‘the same litle or
nothynge regardynge but rather co_n_temny_n_g’ had elected their own
candidates, according to their ‘owne wylles and myndes co_n_trarie to
the king_es_ plesure and comandeme_n_t in that behalfe.’ This of course
was a thing whereat the King did ‘not a lytell marvell,’ and the
burgesses were admonished ‘notwythstondynge the seyd elecc_i_on’ to
‘p_ro_cede to a new and electe thosse other, accordyng to the tenure of
the former l_ette_res’: they were also desired to notify Cromwell at
once ‘if any p_er_sone wyll obstynatly gaynsay the same,’ so that the
King’s minister might deal with the refractory burgess according to his
master’s pleasure. Two days later Mayor Alcok replied with the following
dutiful letter. ‘In humble Wise certefie you that the xx^{th} Day of
this p_re_sent monyth of Maye at vi of the Clok in the mornyng I John
Alcok mayre of Cauntebury receyved your lette_re_ Dyrected to me the
seid mayre Sheryf and Comynaltie of the seid Citie sygnyfying to vs
therby the kyng_es_ plesure and co_m_maundement is that Robert Darknall
and John Bryges shoulde be burgesses of the P_ar_lyament for thesame
Citie of Cauntebury by Vertue wherof accordyng to our bounde Dutye
immedyatly vppon the syght of your seid l_ette_re and conten_tes_
thereof p_er_ceyved caused the Comynaltye of the seid Citie to Assemble
in the Court Hall ther wher appered the nombre of Fower score and xvii
p_er_sones Citizens and Inhabit_au_nt_es_ of theseid Citie And accordyng
to the Kyng_es_ plesure and Co_m_maundement frely with one voyce and
w_i_t_h_out any contradiccon haue elected and chosen the fore-seid
Robert Darkenall and John Bryges to be burgesses of the p_ar_lyament for
thesame Citie which shalbe duly certefied by Indenture vnder the seales
of the seid Citizens and Inhabytaunt_es_ by the grace of the blyssyd
Trynyte Who p_re_s_er_ue you...[262].’ Such was the calm way in which
parliamentary suffrage rights were made of no effect and the King’s
pleasure enforced. It is important to notice in this connexion how
careful Henry and Cromwell were to cloak their most unwarrantable
proceedings by the preservation of ostensible constitutionalism. Never
was the now farcical form of a fair election abandoned; never did the
King fail outwardly to observe those legal restrictions by which the
Crown was supposedly fettered, and the liberties of the nation
theoretically preserved. The autocracy which Cromwell had done so much
to establish was carried on ‘within and upon the already existing
constitution,’ and the public protest was thus in great measure
disarmed.
It is no wonder that the invaluable services which Cromwell rendered to
the Crown were rewarded by an almost exclusive enjoyment of the royal
confidence, which enabled him soon to do almost what he pleased with his
two great rivals, Norfolk and Gardiner. At first he had cautiously held
himself aloof from these men, but now that he had outstripped them in
the King’s favour, his bearing towards them altered accordingly. It is a
very significant fact that in his ten years of service, he never left
the King for any considerable length of time, but often contrived to get
Norfolk and Gardiner sent away--the one to cope with internal troubles,
the other to act as ambassador to France. Cromwell succeeded in
harassing them both while they were at Court, and in making them abandon
every pretence to consistency. Chapuys, in a letter of December 9, 1533,
tells us that Norfolk, hitherto the most pronounced of Catholics,
uttered ‘a thousand blasphemies’ against the Pope, even more shocking
than those of the King, calling him ‘an unhappy whoreson, a liar, and a
wicked man; and that it should cost him (Norfolk) wife and children ...
and all that he possessed, or that he would be revenged on him. He has a
good deal changed his tune, for it was he ... who favoured most the
authority of the Pope; but he must act in this way not to lose his
remaining influence, which apparently does not extend much further than
Cromwell wishes; for which reason, I understand, he is wonderfully sick
of the Court[263].’ In the spring of 1535 the Duke was forced to
surrender entirely, and retire to his estate at Kenninghall. Gardiner
had to abandon the Secretaryship in 1534 in Cromwell’s favour. The new
minister tantalized him in much the same way as he did Norfolk, and
doubtless increased the enmity of the Bishop of Winchester, which he had
first incurred at the time of Wolsey’s fall, and which five years later
was to be such an important factor in effecting his own destruction.
Cromwell was perhaps the only man at the Court who, in the early days of
his ministry, had the least suspicion that Anne Boleyn might sometime
lose the royal favour. He was able to comprehend the King’s love for her
better than anyone else, and to discern that when the royal passion had
been satisfied, Henry’s affection for his second wife would be a thing
of the past. The King’s chagrin that Anne had not brought him a male
child, and the rage awakened by her subsequent miscarriage could not
have escaped him. From thenceforth he must have become convinced that
her ruin was ultimately certain, and he began to throw out hints that he
no longer wished to be reckoned among her adherents. In April, 1536, it
was notorious that there was a marked coolness between them, and a month
later a very unexpected turn in foreign affairs brought matters to a
head and forced him to take active measures against her, in order to
save his own reputation with the King[264]. There is reason to think
that he was the prime mover in the plot which led to her arrest. He
certainly worked against her at her trial, and was present at her
execution; in fact he took every possible step to forestall all chances
of being included in her fall. His sudden abandonment of one whom a few
years before he had done so much to support, should be enough to confute
those who have seen in his previous devotion to the cause of Anne Boleyn
an evidence that he favoured the Reformed faith. Anne was certainly a
professed Protestant; she possessed the English Bible and read it; but
it was only because her Protestantism was temporarily useful to
Cromwell’s designs, which were to obtain for his master a divorce from
Katherine, that he identified himself with her party during the first
years of his ministry. When the divorce had been secured, and Henry had
been declared Supreme Head of the Church of England; when the love which
Anne had once enjoyed had been transferred to Jane Seymour, and Cromwell
saw that to favour the cause of the unhappy Queen in opposition to the
King might mean ruin and disgrace, he deserted her at once.
Nor can the fact that Cromwell’s name figures prominently in connexion
with the publication of the Ten Articles of 1536 be justly urged as a
reason for ascribing to him any real devotion to the cause of
Protestantism. Now that the severance from Rome was complete, the King
and his minister saw that a definition of the faith of the Church of
England had become necessary, in order that the unity of the new
ecclesiastical system might be preserved. The Ten Articles of 1536 were
adopted to make good this deficiency. Circumstances had rendered them
inevitable, and the fact that Cromwell presented them to Convocation,
and signed them first of all the members proves nothing, except perhaps
the importance of his ecclesiastical office. The Ten Articles declared
the Bible and the three Creeds to be the only Rule of Faith: Penance,
Baptism, and the Eucharist were kept as sacraments: the veneration of
saints, soliciting of their intercession, use of images, and the usual
ceremonies in the service, though still held to be highly profitable,
and as such worthy to be retained, were pronounced in themselves
powerless to justify the soul[265]. But though the main aim of these
Articles was doubtless to preserve the integrity of the Church of
England at home, the time and circumstances under which they were
published seem to indicate that they were also intended to serve a
purpose abroad. We shall hear of them in this connexion in another
chapter.
Cromwell’s zeal for the publication of the Bible in English, and also
his injunctions to the clergy[266], must in the same way be attributed
to political rather than to religious motives. He saw what a powerful
weapon the Bible had become in the hands of the German Reformers, and
soon succeeded in forcing Convocation, on December 19, 1534, to present
a petition to the King for the suppression of treasonable books in the
vulgar tongue, and for a translation of the Scriptures into
English[267]. Less than two years later Cromwell’s efforts were rewarded
by the appearance of an edition of the Scriptures patched together ‘out
of Douche[268] and Latyn’ by his friend Miles Coverdale. There seems to
have been a very general impression current that all passages which
might have been interpreted in favour of Katherine, had purposely been
rendered in the opposite sense[269]. But this version was soon destined
to be superseded. The following year witnessed the appearance of the
edition which is usually known as Matthew’s Bible, and which consisted
of a combination of the translations of Tyndale and Coverdale. It
received the official sanction of Cromwell and Cranmer, but its life was
almost as short as that of its predecessor. In the autumn of 1537
Grafton and Whitchurch, two London printers whose names had been
connected with the previous editions, received a licence from the King
to publish a new version of the Bible at Paris, where the facilities for
carrying on their trade were better than in England[270]. At first the
work seems to have progressed with great success, and in September,
1538, the King’s minister, in anticipation of its speedy completion,
issued injunctions that a copy of it should be placed in every church at
the cost of the parson and the parishioners, and that no one was to be
discouraged from reading it: he advised, however, that ‘the explication
of obscure plac_es_’ be referred ‘to men of higher iugement in
scripture[271].’ But Cromwell was a little premature with his
injunctions. An unforeseen event occurred, which made the immediate
publication of the new edition impossible. The Royal Inquisition had
apparently got wind of the doings of Grafton and Whitchurch at Paris,
and just as the task was approaching completion, they and all their
subordinates, and the French printer at whose house the work was being
carried on, were suddenly cited to appear before the Inquisitor-General
for the realm of France[272]. The Englishmen made haste to escape,
without even waiting to collect the implements of their trade or the
Bibles that had already been printed. Cromwell, on hearing of the
disaster, went with a piteous tale to the French ambassador, telling him
that he himself had contributed 600 marks towards the publication of the
Bible in Paris, and begging him to ask his master to permit the work to
be continued there, or at least to allow the copies already finished to
be sent to England safely, and not to suffer the Inquisition to
confiscate them. But Francis replied that good things might be printed
in England as well as in France, but that bad things should never be
permitted to be printed in Paris, and he further refused to deliver up
the copies already completed. He was unable, however, to prevent the
final accomplishment of the work in London in 1539[273]. The new
version, commonly known as the Great Bible, was the last authorized
translation completed in the reign of Henry VIII., but apparently great
efforts had to be made to prevent the publication of unlicensed
editions. It was not long before a royal commission was issued to
Cromwell, commanding him, in order to avoid diversity of translations,
to see that no man printed any English Bible during the next five years
except persons deputed by himself[274].
Perhaps the strongest point of Cromwell’s domestic administration was
his financial policy. He never forgot the promise he had made on
entering the King’s service to make Henry ‘the richest king that ever
was in England,’ for he was shrewd enough to see that a full treasury
was the first essential to the attainment of the larger aim of his
policy, the establishment of a royal despotism. He skilfully contrived
that many of the measures of the earlier years of his ministry,
primarily intended to cut the bonds which held England to Rome, should
also serve to increase the wealth of the Crown. The most noteworthy and
successful of these measures was the abolition of the Annates. There can
be little doubt that it was through Cromwell’s agency that a
supplication was addressed to the King early in the year 1532[275]
urging him to arrest the payment of First Fruits to the Papacy: ‘bokes
of annates’ and remembrances concerning them are to be found in large
numbers among the minister’s letters and papers[276], and the petition
by which the measure to abolish the First Fruits was initiated was a
method especially characteristic of him, reminding us in many respects
of the way in which the independence of the clergy had been attacked but
a short time before. But the King was very cautious in granting the
request, which had thus been laid before him. He had not yet given up
all hope of a peaceful solution of his difficulty with the Pope, and was
not yet prepared, as Cromwell was, openly to defy the Holy See. So at
first he determined to try the effect of a threat. The immediate result
of Cromwell’s efforts was the passage in Parliament of an Act[277] which
abolished Annates, but preserved to the Holy See certain payments on
bulls obtained for the election of bishops: the ratification of this
statute by the Crown, however, was expressly withheld, and the Act
consequently remained inoperative, while a post was sent to Rome ‘to
frighten the Pope about the Annates[278].’ But this plan failed: Clement
refused to be terrorized into submission; the King became convinced that
a complete break was inevitable, and, in July, 1533, the Act was
ratified and declared in force by letters patent[279]. The following
year saw the passage of another statute, which abolished all the
payments preserved by the exceptions to the Act of 1532[280], and a
little later Parliament completed the work which Cromwell had forced it
to undertake by annexing the Annates to the Crown[281]. Supplementary to
these statutes was the Act concerning Peter’s Pence and
Dispensations[282], by which the Pope was deprived of all contributions
that had not already been arrested by the Acts about Annates. The use to
which the rescued funds were put is aptly described by a significant
‘remembrance’ of Cromwell’s to the effect that ‘thenhabitaunt_es_ and
peple of this realme shall pay yerely vnto the kyng for ever, in lieu
or stede of smoke pence, whiche they were wont to pay to the busshop of
rome, for eu_er_y hed or house a certayne small thyng for and toward_es_
the defense of thys Realme, whiche may be ymployed in makyng of
forteresses throughout the Realme[283].’ Another significant paragraph,
from a letter of Chapuys to Charles V., of Dec. 19, 1534, reads as
follows: ‘The King, besides the 30,000 pounds which he newly obtained
from the clergy, and an ordinary fifteenth from the laity, which was
granted him last year, and which may amount to 28,000 pounds, has just
imposed a tax by authority of Parliament, of the twentieth penny of all
the goods of his subjects, and that foreigners shall pay double, which
will amount to a great sum. These are devices of Cromwell, who boasts
that he will make his master more wealthy than all the other princes of
Christendom: and he does not consider that by this means he alienates
the hearts of the subjects, who are enraged and in despair, but they are
so oppressed and cast down, that without foreign assistance it is no use
their complaining, and it will not be Cromwell’s fault, if they are not
oppressed further[284].’
The King’s minister also appears to have been much occupied with the
coinage. He was constantly present at ‘assayes’ of gold and silver, and
further took active steps to stamp out the counterfeiters, of whom there
appear to have been a great number[285]. He caused a proclamation to be
issued ‘for the false and clipped Coyne going in this Realme with a
greate punyshment to euery person that is founde with any false or
counterfeit moneye.’ The systematic debasement of the currency that
disgraced the reign of Henry VIII. had begun under Wolsey, but appears
to have ceased entirely during Cromwell’s ministry: it began again after
Cromwell’s death, assuming far greater proportions than before, and
continued till the end[286]. That the King did not need to resort to
such costly methods of replenishing his treasury while Cromwell was in
power, bears eloquent testimony to the wisdom and success of his
minister’s finance. The latter’s efforts to prevent the ‘conveying of
coyne out of the realme’ shows that he saw the importance of securing
plenty of good coin for English trade, and that he did not want to
create an artificial cheapness. The statutes of Henry VII. forbidding
the export of precious metals had been renewed by his son in an Act
passed in 1511, but this law had run out in 1523, and from that time
onward there was no legal hindrance to the practice, though the statutes
enacted previous to Tudor times were still considered in force[287]. The
result was that the earlier laws began to be transgressed, and Cromwell,
in devising methods to prevent further infringements of them, hit upon
the expedient of a royal proclamation, as we have already had occasion
to notice.
Another most important measure passed during Cromwell’s ministry, was
the so-called Statute of Uses[288]. It was at the same time a legal and
a financial reform. In order to evade the common law, which prohibited
testamentary disposition of landed property and rendered it strictly
subject to primogeniture, the custom had long been prevalent that the
owner should name before or at his death certain persons to whose ‘use’
his lands should be held. These persons became to all intents and
purposes the true devisees; for though the trustee, or ‘feoffee to
uses,’ alone was recognized by the common law, the beneficiary or
‘cestui que use’ soon began to receive strong support through the
equitable jurisdiction of the Chancellor, and so was often able actually
to enforce claims which originally had rested merely on moral
obligation. This was the usual method of circumventing the laws of the
realm, in order to make provision by will for younger children. In this
particular it was perhaps legitimate, but at the same time it opened the
way to a great number of abuses, which are stated at length in the
preamble to the statute just mentioned. The chief of these were the
extraordinary complication of titles to land, which resulted from the
secret methods of devising it, and the loss to the King and the great
lords of the feudal dues on successions, wardships, and marriages. Two
ineffectual attempts had been made to remedy these evils in the reigns
of Richard III. and Henry VII.[289], and at Cromwell’s accession to
power the subject was brought up again. There is reason to think that
the Statute of Uses was under consideration as early as 1531, and the
main principle of it bears a close resemblance to the measure devised in
the reign of Richard III. A mention of it occurs in Cromwell’s
‘remembrances’ of the year 1535[290], but it was not finally passed
until 1536, probably on account of the popular opposition, which,
according to Chapuys, was very pronounced. The upshot of the statute
was, that all right to the estate was taken from the grantee to uses and
vested in the beneficiary, and the distinction between legal and
beneficial ownership was thus entirely destroyed. The ostensible tenant
was made in every case the legal tenant; those entitled to the use of
land became the actual holders of it. The Act further was intended to
abolish the right to create further uses in the future: the power of
disposing of interests in land by will was thus removed, and the King
was restored to the enjoyment of his ancient feudal dues.
Beyond the casual mention in his ‘remembrances[291]’ there is no precise
record of Cromwell’s connexion with this important measure. It is worthy
of note, however, that the attainments needed to plan and draft such a
statute were precisely those which Cromwell possessed in the very
highest degree--intimate knowledge of the law, and great shrewdness in
finance. The bold and effective way in which the measure struck at the
root of the evil, and caused the extra-legal practice which had grown up
to become its own ruin, is very characteristic of him. Furthermore,
Cromwell was certainly believed to be the originator of the measure by
the rebels in the Pilgrimage of Grace, which was partially caused by
it, and as such his death was demanded. It therefore seems highly
probable that it was he who devised this scheme in order to deal the
death blow to a very annoying practice of evading the law, and to enrich
the royal treasury. The statute, however, was not entirely successful in
attaining the ends at which it aimed, for by a strained interpretation
of the letter of the Act, the courts managed to evade the spirit of it,
so that it failed to do away with the old distinction between beneficial
and legal ownership, which it had been intended to destroy. In addition
to this, the popular outburst of indignation aroused by the Statute of
Uses was so strong that a few months before Cromwell’s death he saw the
actual right of at least partial testamentary disposition of landed
property obtained by the people. The Act concerning the willing of land
by testament[292], passed in the spring of 1540, gave to every tenant in
fee simple the right to bequeath at his pleasure all lands which he held
by socage tenure, and two-thirds of the lands which he held by
knight-service. The force of usage was such that when the King and
Cromwell attempted to abolish a practice, which had rendered the willing
of land possible under another name, the actual right to bequeath landed
property without circumventing the law was wrested from them.
The King was glad to entrust his capable adviser with the preservation
of that advantageous commercial position which had been won for England
through the masterful policy of Henry VII. Cromwell’s varied experience
in foreign markets and his intimate knowledge of all the details of the
wool-trade, which was by far the most important element of English
commerce, had taught him in his earlier years many lessons of which the
whole nation was to reap the benefit. In general his administration
witnessed but few departures from the highly successful commercial
policy inaugurated by the first Tudor. His aim was rather to strengthen
the advantages already gained, and to increase the security of English
commerce and industry against the competition of continental rivals,
than to attempt any radical innovations. The monopoly of the trade in
the Mediterranean which Venice had enjoyed in Lancastrian times, had
been a serious menace to the interests of the English merchants; but the
Italian wars had now almost totally deprived the Republic of that
prominent political position which she had occupied at the beginning of
the century, and with the loss of her national greatness her commercial
supremacy fell. The ancient privileges which had been granted to
Venetian merchants and galleys previous to Tudor times, had been
exchanged for a set of stringent enactments, which dealt a heavy blow to
her trade and shipping during the reign of Henry VII. Cromwell followed
the same policy, and further seized the favourable opportunity afforded
by Venice’s decline to foster the interests of English merchants in
other parts of the Mediterranean[293]. With the towns of the Hanseatic
League the case was slightly different. The extensive privileges the
merchants of the North German cities had enjoyed in earlier times, had
raised them to such a commanding position that the growth of English
commerce in the north was rendered well-nigh impossible. Henry VII.’s
aim had been to overthrow the supremacy of the Hanseatic League, by a
gradual withdrawal of the concessions which it had wrung from his
predecessors. The early part of his son’s reign had witnessed a
continuation of this wise policy, but during Cromwell’s ministry an
alliance which the threatening situation on the Continent had led
England to conclude with Lübeck, necessitated a temporary cessation of
the process of curtailing the privileges of the Hanse merchants[294].
But the loud outcries of the people against the destructive competition
of the Germans were sufficient to prevent Cromwell from making any
permanent stand in their favour. Political necessity alone had induced
him to postpone the complete withdrawal of their privileges: he knew
that the tendency of the times was irresistibly against the Hanseatic
towns, and he was perhaps the more willing to grant them a few temporary
concessions in that he realized that nothing could ever raise them again
to the position of dangerous rivals to English trade. His foresight was
justified by the event; the process which Henry VII. had begun was
completed by the fall of the Steelyard in the reign of Elizabeth. A more
difficult problem was presented by the Netherlands. England and the Low
Countries were commercially indispensable to each other; the English
wool-market in Flanders was the centre of the mercantile interests of
both nations. The merchants of the Netherlands, however, had contrived
to get the better of their English neighbours until the accession of the
house of Tudor; but the concessions which resulted from the temporary
removals of the English wool-mart from Antwerp to Calais by Henry VII.,
and the enormously advantageous commercial treaty which that King was
able to wring from the Archduke Philip when fortune had thrown the
latter into his hands in 1506, had completely altered the situation to
England’s profit[295]. The efforts of Henry VIII. and Wolsey had been
directed towards preserving the provisions of the agreement of 1506, the
validity of which the Netherlanders were of course unwilling to
acknowledge. Cromwell went further than this; his administration
witnessed not only the maintenance and increase of all the advantages
which his predecessor had secured, but also the discussion of a plan for
attaining complete commercial independence of the Low Countries, by
bringing home the English wool-mart to London[296]. This scheme was not
carried through, owing to the unwillingness of the King to offend the
Emperor; but the news of the proposals for it was soon known in the
Netherlands, and was not without its effect there. The merchants of the
Low Countries were greatly alarmed lest they should lose the English
trade, and instead of opposing every move which their rivals made, now
began to grant them all possible concessions. The Emperor’s dread of
alienating Henry also contributed to force them to adopt a more
conciliatory attitude than ever before, and it may be justly said that
at the close of Cromwell’s administration the mercantile relations of
England and the Netherlands were so regulated as to secure every
advantage for the former. Cromwell’s whole commercial policy was
strongly influenced by his desire to increase and improve English
shipping, especially at the last, when an invasion was threatened from
the Continent[297]. His ‘remembrances’ are filled with items for
appropriations for building and rigging vessels of various kinds, and
for making and improving harbours[298]. He did his utmost to clear the
Channel of pirates, and was diligent in writing letters to demand
restitution of goods taken from English merchants at sea[299]. In 1540
he caused an Act to be passed for the ‘maintenance of the navy[300]’:
one of its provisions restricted the privileges conferred on all foreign
merchants by a proclamation in the previous year[301] to those who
transported their wares in English ships.
Throughout Cromwell’s ‘remembrances’ occur countless minor items dealing
with miscellaneous questions of internal reform. Memoranda for the
building and improvement of roads and highways, for bettering the state
of the coast defences, and for the regulation of the rates of wages, are
especially numerous. In 1538 he aided Norfolk in suppressing a sort of
strike among the Wisbech shoemakers, who had agreed to stop work unless
their wages were raised from 15_d._ to 18_d._ per dozen boots
sewed[302]. It is perhaps unnecessary to state that this strike was
regarded as a revolt against authority, and that the masters gained an
easy victory over the men. Among Cromwell’s injunctions to the clergy in
1538 is an order to keep parish registers of births, marriages, and
deaths[303]. Apparently this measure was intensely unpopular, especially
in the south-west of England, where people seem to have got the notion
that ‘some charges more than hath been in time past shall grow to them
by this occasion of registering of these things[304].’ Precisely what
the immediate object of the injunction was it is difficult to say,
though there is little reason to think that the fears it aroused among
the people of Cornwall and Devonshire were realized. It has been
grudgingly applauded by one writer, and characterized as ‘an inadequate
attempt to supply the loss of the registers of various kinds which had
been kept by the monks[305]’; but its inadequacy, however great, might
well pass unmentioned, in the face of the many benefits which later
resulted from it. However unpopular the measure may have been at the
time, its author certainly deserves the thanks of posterity for
preserving a vast amount of valuable information which would otherwise
have been lost.
A few words remain to be added concerning Cromwell’s zeal for the
advancement of learning. As his political schemes had caused him
incidentally to take sides with the Reformation, his object was to
strengthen those who favoured the new religion and opposed Rome.
Education is necessary to reform; and Cromwell did not intend to leave
to ignorant men the task of carrying on the work he had begun. He
therefore took steps to see that the opportunities for learning were
improved. Among the injunctions which he issued to the clergy in
1536[306], is a clause providing for an increased number of exhibitions
at the schools and the Universities, ‘to thintent that lerned men maye
hereafter spring the more.’ His dealings with Oxford and Cambridge do
not seem to have been very important, although in June, 1535, he was
appointed Chancellor of the latter in place of Fisher. He appears to
have been much occupied in suppressing the various quarrels that
constantly took place between the students and the townspeople, and the
letters which he wrote to the Magistrates of Cambridge deal for the most
part with this problem[307]. In October, 1535, the King appointed him
Visitor to the University, and at the same time promulgated nine
injunctions in which he directed the Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of
Cambridge to abandon the ‘frivolous questions and obscure glosses’ of
the schoolmen, to read and teach the Scriptures, and to swear to the
Royal Supremacy and the new Succession[308]. Henry’s minister, as
usual, was the instrument employed to see that the injunctions were
enforced. Of Cromwell’s relations to Oxford still less remains to be
said. There are letters from him concerning the admission of a President
of Magdalen in 1535[309], and the election of a Master of Balliol in
1539. The latter appears to have been a most disreputable character, and
Cromwell’s assertion that he was chosen without ‘any parcyalyte or
corruptyon’ was certainly false[310]. A very interesting but
comparatively well-known report from the pen of Dr. Layton gives us a
vivid picture of the state of the University in 1535, and tells of the
foundation of several new lectures at the various colleges[311].
As a reward for his success in the management of domestic affairs, the
King conferred on him the many dignities and titles which, in 1536,
marked the height of his power. He had been raised to the offices of
Privy Councillor, Master of the Jewels, Clerk of the Hanaper, and Master
of the King’s Wards in 1531 and 1532. The Chancellorship of the
Exchequer had followed in 1533. He became Principal Secretary to the
King in 1534, Master of the Rolls in the same year, Vicar-general and
Visitor-general of the Monasteries in January, 1535, Lord Privy Seal,
Vicegerent of the King in Spirituals[312] in July, 1536. He was also
created Baron Cromwell of Okeham in the same month, and Knight of the
Garter in August, 1537. During the last seven years of his ministry he
was granted no less than nineteen minor offices, through which his
income must have been very greatly increased[313]. Just prior to the
outbreak of the Pilgrimage of Grace, Cromwell’s position was almost that
of a despot. He was supreme in Convocation, Privy Council, and
Parliament; he enjoyed paramount authority in the direction of internal
affairs, and next to the King was by far the most important man in the
realm.
A letter of Chapuys in the summer of 1536[314], soon after Anne Boleyn’s
execution, tells us that it was even rumoured that Cromwell might marry
the Princess Mary, but the Imperial ambassador himself was too shrewd to
be misled by such an improbable report[315]. Had Cromwell seriously
entertained the idea of a union with the daughter of the divorced Queen,
he would scarcely have permitted himself to be made use of by the King
as an instrument for breaking down her resolution: he could scarcely
have written her such a brutal letter as that of June 10, 1536[316]. But
the inequality in rank is certainly in itself sufficient proof of the
absurdity of the proposition. Cromwell was about the last man in the
world to become reckless with success; he never for a moment forgot his
low birth, and the imprisonment of the brother of his rival the Duke of
Norfolk for presuming to wed the King’s niece was a warning of the
danger of such a proceeding, which could not have been lost on him[317].
If such a proposition were put forward at all, and we cannot believe
that it was, it could only have been as a pretext to prevent the
Princess from leaving the realm and joining with her cousin the Emperor
in an attempt to dethrone the King.
Cromwell was certainly shrewd enough to see that he could never hope to
marry into a reigning house himself, but he was none the less anxious
that his son Gregory should wed such a wife as would enable him to found
a noble family. In April, 1533, Gregory had been taken from Cambridge,
and sent to live with his father’s friend Dr. Rowland Lee, with whom he
appears to have spent a summer in hunting[318]. In 1535 he came out into
public life, and in 1539 he was summoned to Parliament as a peer of the
realm. Two years earlier he had been able to contract an advantageous
marriage with the widow of Sir Anthony Ughtred, sister of Jane
Seymour[319]. This fortunate match must be attributed to his father’s
influence, for Gregory seems to have been entirely without ambition, and
such an idea would never have entered his mind; his father, on the
contrary, was precisely the man to think of it. The number of grants
either made jointly to Cromwell and his son, or providing for the
succession of the latter at his father’s death[320], corroborates the
theory that the King’s great minister wished Gregory to be the heir of
all his possessions and emoluments as far as might be, and desired to
raise his family to a permanent position among the English nobility.
Of course Cromwell was obliged in large measure to abandon his private
business after he definitely entered the King’s service, but his new
position brought him far greater riches than he could possibly have
amassed in his old occupations. The various inventories of his goods
indicate great wealth and prosperity. He gave costly New Year’s
presents at the Court, and owned several houses, all of them
magnificently furnished[321]. After October, 1534, when he was made
Master of the Rolls, his correspondence shows him to have been
constantly in residence at the Rolls House, where he held his Court.
Writing in 1535, the Prioress of Little Marlowe complained that so great
was the crowd of his visitors there, that it was impossible to gain
access to him[322].