Thomas Cromwell: The Rise And Fall Of Henry VIII's Most Notorious Minister (39 page)

On the day of the wedding at Greenwich Palace, Henry had told Cromwell beforehand in his presence chamber: ‘My lord, if it were not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do that [which] I must do this day for no earthly thing.’ The warnings of trouble to come were now clearly written for Cromwell.

The following morning, a Tuesday, an unwisely prurient Chief Minister had hurried to the King’s privy chamber to enquire how the wedding night had gone.

Finding your grace not so pleasant as I trusted to have done, I was so bold to ask [you] how you liked the queen? … Your grace soberly answered: ‘As you know, I liked her before not well, but now I like her much worse. I have felt her belly and her breasts and thereby, as I can judge, she should be no maid. This struck me so to the heart when I felt them that I had neither will nor courage to proceed any further in other matters. I left her as good a maid as I found her.’

Cromwell thought the King spoke ‘displeasantly which made me very sorry to heart’ and Henry subsequently repeated that his heart ‘could never consent to meddle with her carnally’. In the early days of the marriage, the King haplessly slept with her every night or every second night, but maintained ‘that she was as good a maid, as ever her mother bore her, for anything … [Henry] had ministered to her’. By Lent 1540, Anne, frustrated at the prospects of a successful marriage lying in ashes around her, understandably began to ‘wax stubborn and wilful … and [was] ever verifying that [he] never had any carnal knowledge with her’. After Easter and in Whitsun week, in the privy chamber at Greenwich, Henry ‘exceedingly lamented’ his fate and complained that he would ‘surely never have any more children for the comfort of this realm’ and
assured Cromwell, ‘Before God, [I] thought she was never [my] lawful wife.’

The Minister told the King then that he would do his utmost to ‘comfort and deliver your grace of your afflictions and how sorry I was both to see and hear your grace, God knows’.

Cromwell ended his long letter by beseeching Henry ‘most humbly to pardon this my rude writing and to consider that I, a most woeful prisoner, [am] ready to take the death, when it shall please God and your majesty’.

Up to this point, Cromwell had maintained an image of moral resolve, mingled with contrition. Then abject fear, despair and a wretched hopelessness overwhelmed him: ‘Yet the frail flesh incites me continually to call to your grace for mercy and grace for my offences, and thus Christ save, preserve and keep you … Written at the Tower this Wednesday, the last of June with the heavy heart and trembling hand of your highness’ most heavy and miserable prisoner and poor slave.’ There is a long gap, almost half a page, then a pitiful
cri de cœur
scrawled right at the bottom edge of the document: ‘Most gracious prince, I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy.’
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And it was signed ‘Thomas Cromwell’.

Henry commanded his secretary Ralph Sadler to read the long letter to him three times. He is reported to have been visibly affected by his disgraced Minister’s words and may even have blubbered like a child. But these crocodile tears did not save Cromwell. A bill granting a general pardon by the King was introduced into the Lords on 5 July, but an exception was made for those with ‘heretical opinions touching the sacrament, treason [and] murder’ and some other crimes. Cromwell’s name headed the list of those unfortunates not receiving the pardon.
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He had offered up to his sovereign his last act of loyal service. Henry now felt more confident of his own evidence to the Clerical Convocation investigating the validity of his marriage and cynically used Cromwell’s plight to add weight to his own words. In his deposition, the King declared that he was speaking the absolute truth, without ‘sinister affection, nor yet upon no hatred or displeasure’. Henry ‘from the beginning, ever entreating with the friends of the lady Anne of Cleves … desired that the pre-contract … might first be cleared’, which ‘thing the king’s
highness so looked for that if he had known no such thing to have come with her, she should never had been conducted into England nor accepted into the realm’.
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But after she arrived at Greenwich,

the next day after, I think, and doubt not, but that the lord of Essex well examined can, and will, or has declared what I then said to him in that case.

Not doubting, but since he is a person who knows himself condemned to die by Act of Parliament [and therefore] will not damn his soul but truly declare the truth, not only at that time spoken by me but also continually until the day of marriage – and also many times after, whereby my lack of consent, I doubt not, does or shall well appear and also lack enough of the will and power to consummate the same.

The truth, declared Henry boldly, is that ‘I never for love to the woman consented to marry, nor yet if she brought maidenhead with her, took any from her by true carnal copulation.’ He ended: ‘This is my brief, true and perfect declaration’ – and signed it ‘H. R.’ for
Henricus Rex
.
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The royal evidence was inevitably supported by his courtiers, and his chief doctor, William Butts, testified that his master was physically capable of copulating with his bride.
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It came as no surprise that the Clerical Convocation of two archbishops, sixteen bishops and 139 learned academics, meeting in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, ended Henry’s fourth marriage on 9 July, following a ‘lucid’ opening speech by Gardiner, who had his own reasons for wanting to see the marriage ended. Their decision was confirmed by Parliament four days later.
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Henry’s old sparring partner, the Duke of Suffolk, together with Southampton, Sir Richard Riche and Wriothesley, his secretary, travelled to Richmond Palace to officially inform Anne that not only was her marriage now over, but she was also no longer Queen of England. She listened quietly to their polite speeches as her interpreter translated them, sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase, ‘without alteration of countenance’.
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There were some reports that she fainted at the news, but if she did swoon, it may have been through a sudden and wholly rational fear that the terrible fate of Anne Boleyn now awaited her, as
befitted a discarded wife of Henry VIII. She was swiftly reassured that this was not the case.

Anne wrote to Henry on 11 July, in a letter that was probably dictated to her by Wriothesley. She said that although ‘this case must needs be most hard and sorrowful to me, for the great love I bear to your most noble person, yet, having more regard to God and his truth than to any worldly affection’, she fully acknowledged the Convocation’s decision that the

pretended matrimony between us is void and of no effect, whereby I neither can or will repute myself … your grace’s wife.

Considering … your majesty’s clean and pure living with me, yet it will please you to take me for one of your most humbler servants … and that your highness will take me for your sister for the which I most humbly thank you accordingly.
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She signed herself merely as ‘Anne, daughter of Cleves’.

Although the annulment must have been humiliating and crushingly hurtful to her pride and femininity, beneath that impassive, stolid exterior, Anne was certainly no slow-witted fool. She had now been presented with an elegant way to escape Henry’s intermittently noisome attentions and preserve what was left of her dignity. As regards her status, she would remain the premier lady in all England after any new queen taken by Henry and the two princesses, Elizabeth and Mary. She would be allowed to keep all her clothes, jewels and gold plate and a fifteen-strong household of German servants appropriate to her rank and station. She would be given extensive lands and property, some of it ironically confiscated from Cromwell, and a generous annual pension of £500, or £220,000 at 2006’s monetary values, for life. All in all, the King promised she would be looked after as the price of her silence and acquiescence.

Henry was still concerned that she would suddenly change her mind and complain about his cavalier treatment of her to her brother, Duke William of Cleves. ‘All shall remain uncertain upon a woman’s promise,’ he wrote doubtfully to Suffolk on 13 July and ordered him down to Richmond again to see ‘his sister by adoption … and press the Lady
Anne to write to her brother’ with a copy to him in English, so he would know what she said.

His fears were totally unfounded. Five days later she wrote again to the King, promising ever to remain ‘your majesty’s most humble sister and servant’. True to her word, she also wrote the required letter to William, saying that ‘I account God pleased with [what] is done and know myself to have suffered no wrong or injury’. Anne agreed that her body was still ‘preserved in an integrity which I brought into this realm’ and that Henry remained ‘a most kind, loving and friendly father and brother’. The King was treating her ‘as honourably and with as much humanity and liberality as you, I myself, or any of our kin or allies could wish or desire’ and begged him not to cause any difficulties over the settlement.
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She had agreed to stay in England – Henry wanted her to remain firmly under his control – ‘God willing, I purpose to lead my life in this realm.’

Duke William, also anxious to find a diplomatically convenient solution, was ‘glad his sister fared no worse’ and Henry, relieved at the lack of international repercussions, could now happily turn his full, ungainly, amorous attentions on the fragile and fragrant Catherine Howard.

It was all so neat and tidy. After the six bitter and dangerous years he had suffered to rid himself of the unwanted Catherine of Aragon in favour of Anne Boleyn, it had taken him just six days to oust Anne of Cleves from another of his loveless marriages.

Within days, Henry had more good news, this time welcome allegations that Cromwell had been lining his pockets while on legal duties. The French King told him that Cromwell had provided the judgment in a dispute over a French merchant ship seized by vessels belonging to le Sieur de Rochepot, Governor of Picardy, in 1539. The ship had been claimed as a prize and Cromwell was alleged to have financially benefited from the case, through payment of cash from the sale of the ship. On 24 July, in the last letter he ever wrote, this time to the Privy Council, Cromwell firmly denied these claims: ‘That ever I had any part of that prize, or that I was promised any part thereof, my lords, assure yourselves I was not, as God shall and may help me.’
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On 26 July, Wriothesley moved into Cromwell’s house at Austin Friars. He had switched his allegiance from his mentor and patron in May when the Council investigated his involvement in an alleged fraud over some of his properties in the city of Winchester. Can we detect the subtle whiff of another Gardiner conspiracy here: a plot to bring pressure on someone who had detailed knowledge of the Lord Privy Seal’s affairs? Suddenly, in June, the inquiry was dropped and Wriothesley was now back in favour, with substantial rewards coming his way.
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Now Cromwell had only days to live.

There was still speculation amongst his enemies about the precise nature of his death. De Marillac believed (or hoped?) he would be dragged on a hurdle through the streets to Tyburn, and there hanged, drawn and quartered, the prescribed and terrible fate of traitors.

Norfolk, his wishful thinking shining through his words, said Cromwell’s final demise would be the ‘most ignominious in use in the country’. By this, he may have been referring to Henry’s squalid decision to kill Cromwell at the same time as the clearly mad Walter, Lord Hungerford, who had been sentenced to death by attainder for sodomy, raping his daughter, paying magicians to predict the date of Henry’s death and finally employing a chaplain who sympathised with the rebels in the Pilgrimage of Grace.
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His appearance on the same scaffold was a deliberate attempt to publicly humiliate Cromwell even at his last hour.

Soon after dawn on the day of his execution, 28 July, Cromwell calmly called for his breakfast, which he ate quietly enough. He did not have to wait long for the dreaded rap on the door of his room from Sir William Laxton and Martin Bowes, the two Sheriffs of the City of London who had been ordered to take him to the scaffold. He now learnt that by Henry’s abundant mercy and special grace, he would suffer death by simple decapitation on Tower Hill.

As he emerged into the full light of that summer’s day, Cromwell must have blinked, startled at the scale of the security precautions around him. The King and his new advisers clearly feared a rescue attempt by the disgraced Minister’s numerous liveried retainers within the crowd. A
thousand halberdiers
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were mustered on duty that morning, drawn up in ranks, the sun flashing on their morion helmets and the polished axe-heads of their studded and beribboned staff weapons.

On the way to the place of execution, Cromwell met the dejected and clearly deranged Hungerford, who was destined to follow him onto the scaffold that morning. He tried to comfort the hapless baron, urging the gibbering and muttering wretch to be of good heart:

There is no cause for you to fear. If you repent and be heartily sorry for what you have done, there is for you mercy enough [from] the Lord, who for Christ’s sake, will forgive you.

Therefore be not dismayed and though the breakfast which we are going [to] be sharp, yet, trusting in the mercy of the Lord, we shall have a joyful dinner.
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His soothing words probably failed to provide any solace for Hungerford and one wonders now if they were spoken more to reinforce Cromwell’s own resolve and to present a calm and courageous front to the watching bystanders. For Cromwell was determined to die with dignity. Some claimed he had been threatened with the penalty for heresy – burning at the stake – instead of death by the axe if he did not confess his crimes at his execution.
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He had spent many of those powerless, frustrating hours in the Tower drafting and rewriting the last words he would utter in public, if indeed the King allowed him to speak. He sought no opportunity to justify or excuse himself – nor desired any last strike at his noble enemies. With one foot in a traitor’s anonymous grave, Cromwell wanted nothing more than to prevent royal retribution from being heaped on his kith and kin – particularly his son Gregory – and to demonstrate his religious piety for all to see as a means of refuting the charges of heresy against him.