Thomas Cromwell: The Rise And Fall Of Henry VIII's Most Notorious Minister (8 page)

Back in London that same month, Cromwell had been involved in a quarrel with Sir John Wallop, who threatened and insulted him, possibly over his treatment of Wolsey, and had sought Henry’s protection. Later, the Spanish ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, recounted how Cromwell had ‘asked and obtained an audience from [the] king, whom he addressed in such flattering terms and eloquent language, promising to make him the richest king in the world’.
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With his king’s patronage and protection, it was easy to shrug off an action against him in the Star Chamber, alleging extortion of £20, brought by the litigious Christopher Burgh, parson of Spennethorne and Hawkswell in Yorkshire and executor of his brother William, the former Warden of St Leonard’s Hospital in York.
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After months of advising Henry, Cromwell knew that the way to his monarch’s heart was through his purse. Although the appointment was officially kept secret for four months, in January 1531 he became a junior member of the King’s Council.

CHAPTER THREE

Daily Round, Common Task

Cromwell is constantly rising in power, so much that he has now more influence with his master than [the] Cardinal ever had. Nowadays, everything is done at his bidding
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SPANISH AMBASSADOR EUSTACE CHAPUYS, IN LONDON, TO CHARLES V, 1535
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Thomas Cromwell inevitably became an inveterate conspirator within the magnificent surroundings of Henry’s court. He was well aware that his new master was frustrated and angry over the interminable diplomatic negotiations with Rome regarding his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. What was almost as insufferable was that the King was also badly in need of money. Throughout Henry’s long reign, both problems – being thwarted in obtaining his heart’s desire and a distressingly empty exchequer – would always trigger outbursts of uncontrollable rage or petulance from a monarch accustomed to being denied nothing. Within the House of Commons there was a growing antipathy towards the clergy and the Mother Church that protected and nurtured them, not only loyally reflective of their sovereign’s dissatisfaction, but also born out of mounting concerns about ecclesiastical power, wealth and influence on everyday life. These were factors that Cromwell would eventually harness to his own advantage and profit – but he knew he was swimming in dangerous waters, given both his sovereign’s piety and uncertain temper.

After Wolsey’s destruction, both Norfolk and Suffolk were eager to attack the wealthy clerical estate and reform it, root and branch. But change in the Church’s infrastructure and administration was only one facet of the challenge mounted against it: other influential voices sought to radically transform its beliefs and doctrines. Beloved Anne Boleyn gave Henry her own annotated copy
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of the exiled Lutheran reformer William Tyndale’s
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Obedience of a Christian Man
, a controversial book published in Germany in 1528 that firmly asserted the monarch’s privileges and duties and his inalienable right to the absolute allegiance of his subjects, based on the fourth commandment – ‘Honour thy father and thy mother,’ for, in Lutheran doctrine, paternal authority was the model of all power in society.
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Whoever opposed the king, Tyndale wrote austerely, ‘resists God, for they are in the room of God and they that resist shall receive damnation’. Even if a sovereign was ‘the greatest tyrant in the world … he is to thee a great benefit of God and a thing wherefore you ought to thank God highly’, he told his readers. Moreover, a king ‘may at his lust do right and wrong and shall give account but to God only’.
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Those were beliefs that would strike a glad chord in the heart of any Tudor monarch. Henry devoured the book, cover to cover, and commented approvingly, ‘This book is for me and all kings to read.’
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No author could hope for a more flattering review or generous endorsement.

Anne also probably gave him the polemic pamphlet ‘A Supplication for the Beggars’, also written in 1528 by the Gray’s Inn lawyer Simon Fish. Hidden amongst the invective was his impertinent demand that the clergy should spend money on the needs of the poor rather than becoming fat on the income from others’ open-handed piety. What was more, he claimed, the spirituality had installed its own separate state within Henry’s realm, which now dangerously encroached upon the authority of the crown. Fish urged the King to seize the wealth of these ‘strong, puissant and counterfeit holy … idle beggars and vagabonds which … by the craft and wiliness of Satan, are now increased under your sight, not only into a great number but also into a kingdom’.
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Clearly he was not a lawyer who minced his words.

Cromwell had read both works
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and divined the way the wind was blowing against both Church and priesthood. How much he subscribed
to reformist Protestant beliefs at this stage in his career must remain a matter of conjecture. Adroitly, however, he must have been aware of Anne Boleyn’s religious standpoint and had every reason to ally himself with her rising star at court.

Ironically, Tyndale, fired by his pompous, priggish fervour, was totally opposed to Henry’s divorce and his attitude towards an issue so close to Henry’s heart was to count against him. In 1531, he penned a heated retort to Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More’s eloquent arguments against challenging the authority of the Church and sent a copy to Henry for his approval, via Cromwell’s friend in Antwerp, Stephen Vaughan. But the King was less than happy with the contents. He found Tyndale’s ‘Answer Unto Sir Thomas More’ ‘filled with seditious slanderous lies and fantastical opinions’ and believed the author’s sole objective was ‘only to seduce, deceive and disquiet the people and commonwealth of this realm’. Henry later unsuccessfully sought Tyndale’s extradition from the Low Countries on charges of heresy.

Cromwell was apprehensive that both he and Vaughan might be viewed as supporting Tyndale at a time when More and some of the bishops were enthusiastically persecuting – indeed burning – heretics in England. Was his climb to fame and fortune to be suddenly cut short by this overzealous Lutheran? He cautioned that Henry should quickly be made aware that Vaughan was ‘a true, loving and obedient subject, bearing no manner [of] favour, love or affection to Tyndale, nor to his works in any manner, but utterly to condemn and abhor the same’ – or else he would ‘acquire the indignation of God and displeasure of your sovereign Lord’.

Back in November 1529, in the aftermath of Wolsey’s downfall, the Commons had submitted a petition to Henry requesting that the bishops declare whether by ‘the laws of God and Holy Church’ the clergy should hold secular appointments, trade for profit, lease lands or hold more than one benefice.
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John Fisher, the conservative Bishop of Rochester, complained bitterly that the Commons had been deafened by cries of ‘down with the Church’ from Members of Parliament who, he hinted threateningly, displayed a ‘lack of faith’.
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It is not known whether Cromwell took part in this anti-clerical tirade, but the petition resulted in three
parliamentary Acts, one of which enshrined in law that papal dispensations for pluralism – a priest having more than one parish – could no longer apply. Cromwell may have been a member of the committee who worked on drafts of the legislation.
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The first blow against the Vatican’s authority in England had been landed on the body of the Church. Many of the accusations and ideas discussed during those heated Commons debates were cannily retained by Cromwell for future use as ammunition in the confrontation between Church and state that was surely to come.

The political antagonism against the Church grew ever more vehement. On 29 September 1530 – Michaelmas – the King’s Council indicted fifteen clerics (including eight bishops and three abbots) under the Statute of Praemunire, alleging they had supported the power of the papal legate in the realm.
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Patently, it was nothing more or less than state blackmail, with Henry maliciously and cynically exploiting the dominant anti-clericalism amongst his MPs. There must have been lurking doubts whether the King would have been ruthless enough to press home the charges: they were not formally delivered until the following January and Cromwell assured Wolsey on 21 October: ‘The prelates shall not appear in the praemunire. There is another way devised’
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– a statement strongly suggesting that he had a close hand in the matter.

However, the Council’s indictments sent the bishops and abbots scurrying for cover, and just before they were due to appear in the Court of King’s Bench at Westminster
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to answer the charge, a timely Convocation of Canterbury on 24 January 1531 generously offered Henry the colossal sum of £100,000, or £34 million in 2006 monetary terms, ‘to be their good lord’ and to pardon them of all offences.
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In return, he demanded that the clergy should adopt a new style for his dignity and title. Now, not only was he ‘King of England and Defender of the Faith’, he was also ‘protector and only supreme head of the English Church’.
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The clergy’s humble reply dutifully referred to the King as ‘Supreme Head of the church in England’, but added the weasel-worded caveat ‘as far as the law of God allows’.
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Although they had tried to face down
the King’s demands, they ended up granting him a title that many churchmen would bitterly regret in the future. Unsurprisingly, with the cash now on the table, they promptly received their royal pardon. The King had his badly needed funds in his exchequer and had moved one step closer to a breach with Rome. In addition, some valuable lessons had been drawn from these events within Henry’s government. First, it was realised just how much ready money there was sloshing around in the Church, and second, how quickly the clergy had caved in to a little political pressure. The import of these facts was not lost on many, including Cromwell and the King himself.

The new councillor had by this point penetrated the very sinews of the Tudor government, involving himself mainly in Henry’s complex financial and legal affairs, although, cautiously, he maintained his own legal and commercial businesses at the same time. He was swiftly recognised as a man of influence who could be relied upon to get things done, or to provide funds to those who were temporarily financially embarrassed. Wolsey’s bastard son Thomas Winter wrote a begging letter to Cromwell on 20 October 1532 placing all his hopes in his help: ‘You are now … in that position which I and all your friends have long wished for and you have attained that dignity that you can serve them as you please. If you take care that the next courier brings me a fair sum of money, you will oblige me much. Please send me immediately £100.’
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Powerful people from court circles – Attorney General Sir Christopher Hales, Master of the Horse Sir Nicholas Carew and Cromwell’s old friend Sir John Gage, Vice-Chamberlain of the Royal Household – were amongst those who hesitantly knocked on his door for assistance. Amid a multitude of tasks undertaken in the service of the crown, Cromwell dealt with legal appeals and adjudged the fates of prisoners brought to his notice: life or death, imprisonment or freedom.

He also superintended the royal building works at the new Palace of Westminster, and repairs at the Tower of London and to the fortifications at Calais and in Ireland,
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even paying for ‘the labour and expenses’ for constructing Henry’s putative tomb at Windsor.
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In 1532 he was appointed Receiver General of the lands redirected to ‘King Henry VIII’s College’
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at Oxford, because of his specialised knowledge of Wolsey’s
earlier foundations. It was all part of the daily round, the common task, of a talented and industrious royal bureaucrat.

Cromwell plainly saw his varied duties as sometimes very expedient. In November 1532 he wrote to the abbot of the prosperous Benedictine abbey of Bury St Edmund’s in Suffolk, seeking the lease of one of its properties for himself, as it was conveniently close to the King’s house at Hunsdon, in Hertfordshire: ‘I am very desirous to have some house in Essex … and for as much as your parsonage of Harlowbury shall shortly be in your hands and letting … I desire and instantly pray you to let your said farm of Harlowbury to me for [a] term of sixty years for the same … rent … that has been of old time accustomed [to be] paid for the same.’ Unashamedly, this unsubtle argument was added in support of him being awarded the lease: ‘In doing so, you shall bind me to you and … [provide] your monastery such pleasure as may lie in my little power in time to come. And what shall be [in] your mind herein, I pray you to advertise me in writing by this bearer, my servant.’
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Here, however, Cromwell’s implied bribery was unsuccessful, even though he had agreed terms with Harlowbury’s current leaseholders, known to us only as ‘Malery and his wife’. Another rather more intimidating letter from him protesting at the abbot’s retention of masons and carpenters in Suffolk who were needed at the King’s works at Westminster and the Tower had perhaps offended monkish dignity.
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Henry shrewdly realised that Cromwell’s greatest immediate value to the crown lay in his manipulation of parliamentary affairs. His skills in drafting new laws and browbeating intractable legislators had become vital in achieving a lengthening agenda of controversial business in the Commons, as was his ability to select suitably malleable candidates to fill by-election vacancies. By June 1531, it was widely acknowledged that ‘one master Cromwell penned certain matters in the Parliament house which no man gainsaid’.
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This recognition was fully confirmed in October that year when the King issued ‘instructions unto his trusty councillor Thomas Cromwell to be declared … to his learned counsel and [without delay] to be put in execution this [parliamentary] term of St Michael’.
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