If Cromwell was being less than straight with the cardinal, Wolsey was also not being entirely frank with his servant. We do not know what they discussed at Esher before his departure for the North, but there is no mention in the surviving correspondence of the latter’s attempts to collect Continental support for his reinstatement, let alone of his surreptitious efforts to open negotiations with the papacy.63 Cromwell was his agent for domestic affairs, and broad though his remit was, it did not include this sort of business. There is no trace in Cromwell’s papers of the near fiasco over the Treaty of Cambrai in 1529, which played a large part in the original withdrawal of the king’s confidence, nor of his interest in the papal election of 1523, and there is no mention of these later negotiations either. Wolsey’s agent in these transactions was his Italian physician Augustine Augustino, who proved less than trustworthy when he was arrested at the beginning of November 1530, although whether he was responsible for the original incriminating leak is not clear. Wolsey was arrested on the same day, but whereas Augustino was whisked straight off to the Tower for interrogation, the cardinal was allowed to make his own way south under escort, while the case against him was assembled. Although he had been planning a grand enthronement ceremony in York, in fact he never made it further north than Southwell, being arrested at Cawood on 4 November.64 On his way to London his various ailments, and the general misery of his circumstances, caught up with him and he died (not without a suspicion of self-harm) at Leicester Abbey on 29 November. Just as he had been no party to the negotiations which brought about Wolsey’s final downfall, so Thomas Cromwell was not affected by his passing. He had done his duty as long as it was relevant, but by December 1530 an altogether more appealing prospect was opening up before him.
While all this was going on he continued his private legal practice, taking full advantage of his position at court and in the cardinal’s confidence. On 4 June 1527, for example, Sir John Vere wrote an appreciative letter to Cromwell, saying that ‘your sending to Edward Hardy made him more pliant than either I or Sir Giles Capell could achieve’ with the result that the dispute between Hardy and one Kneewill was settled.65 We do not know the nature of Cromwell’s intervention, or what the dispute was about, but this tribute indicates that he earned his fee. Francis Lovell was involved in a matrimonial tangle in March 1528, and sought his guidance as to how to proceed, and in December of the same year he arbitrated a dispute between Ralph Dodman, alderman of London, and John Creke over certain bonds which had been delivered in Bilbao. His position with the cardinal meant that clergy frequently appealed to him to sort out problems relating to their benefices, and cases could be cited from both Bangor and Norwich, which usually involved the payment of fees.66 His remit was wide, and in December 1529 he arbitrated another dispute, this time jointly with Nicholas Lambert, alderman of London, in a domestic row between two London grocers, and took bonds from them to abide by their decision. Some of his commissions seem to have come from the king, although it would be wrong to suppose that he was actually in the royal service at this time. For example Sir John Russell wrote to him on 1 June 1530, when Wolsey was already in the North, instructing him on Henry’s behalf to make out a patent for a particular office, which was clearly in the cardinal’s gift as archbishop, and may have been the treasurership which had been discussed earlier. He was also to draft a letter for Wolsey’s consent, and to drop a hint that the king had not forgotten his former minister. The archbishop held the seal for this appointment, so his consent was essential, although in view of what was to happen five months later, the hint may have been less than reassuring. Russell also went on to say that Henry was speaking well of Cromwell, which may be taken as an indication that he would be prepared to take him into service when the circumstances permitted.67 However, in spite of the temptation, there is no evidence to suggest that, unlike Stephen Gardiner, he rushed to abandon the fallen chancellor. As long as Wolsey was alive, and irrespective of misunderstandings between them, he continued to regard himself as the cardinal’s man, and Henry seems to have understood this position and accepted it. Once Wolsey was dead, however, the rules of engagement changed. His last service to his former master came at the end of November 1530, when he arranged his obsequies and settled his debts as far as he was able. A list of the cardinal’s personal effects was also drawn up, although in the absence of a will it is difficult to know what happened to them.68 It is reasonable to suppose that once his accounts were settled what was left would have been divided among his remaining servants, and that Cromwell took the lion’s share.
3
THE KING’S SERVANT, 1533–1536
What if [Henry] should shortly after change his mind, and exercise in deed the Supremacy over the church of the realm … or what if the Crown of this realm should in time fall to an infant or a woman. What shall we then do? Whom shall we sue unto? Or where shall we have remedy?
Bishop John Fisher
So when did Cromwell enter the king’s service? There are indications that he may have been involved in drafting the anti-clerical legislation in the autumn of 1529, but the evidence is inconclusive and he may have been functioning simply as a member of a House of Commons committee.1 The best guess is probably January 1530, but at that stage he would have been a comparatively humble member of the administrative staff, and evidently did not consider that to be incompatible with his relationship to Wolsey. Some such step would explain Stephen Vaughn’s remark about his sailing ‘in a safe haven’. The story told much later of a dramatic interview with the king, during which he presented Henry with a blueprint for ending his matrimonial troubles and promised to make him ‘the richest prince in Christendom’, is almost certainly a fabrication.2 Neither Cavendish nor Hall, who were contemporary observers, mention any such event, and indeed Cavendish speaks explicitly of his growing gradually in favour during the year 1530. What does seem to have been the case, however, is that after about a year, Cromwell had become a member of the king’s council. In 1531 this was not the honour which it would have been ten years later, when the formation of the Privy Council had consolidated that inner ring, to which he certainly did not belong. Cromwell was what would have been known at the time as a Councillor at Large, who would be summoned only when his particular expertise was required. That expertise was in the law, and he was what would have been known a few years earlier as a ‘Councillor Learned’.3
As such, he may well have been called upon to give an opinion on the king’s marriage, because during 1530 Henry was groping his way towards a new policy. Having run up against a stone wall of papal and Imperial obstruction, he was looking for a way to declare his independence and circumvent them both by getting a verdict declared within England. Such an idea was not altogether new. As long before as 1515 he had spoken of having no superior on earth, in connection with the Standish affair, but that had not been followed up or particularly noted outside England. More importantly, and much more recently, his specially established ‘think tank’ on the situation had come up with a more considered judgement to the same effect.4 This group, which consisted of Nicholas de Burgo, Edward Foxe and Thomas Cranmer, had been set up in 1529 on the urging of Anne Boleyn to find a solution to the problem. Henry must have been kept in touch with their workings because before its report was produced, in the summer of 1530, Henry was instructing his agents in Rome to urge the privilegium regni, which claims that, by the ancient privileges of his kingdom, no King of England could be cited to appear outside of his realm, and that any issues of ecclesiastical jurisdiction had to be settled domestically. Decisions of the early councils were invoked in support of this, but unsurprisingly his agents could find no reference to it in the Vatican Archives.5 Nor did those scouring the libraries of Europe for evidence to support his case find anything relevant, even when they were allowed to look. The search at home proved to be more fruitful, and it must have been some word of that which the king was using in his urgent quest. His researchers turned up a letter in the so-called Lege
s Edwardi Confessoris, which purported to have been written by the second-century Pope Eleutherius to King Lucius of Britain, declaring that all jurisdiction belonged to him as a Christian king, including that over the Church. That King Lucius was a myth and the letter a forgery was not appreciated by anyone at the time. More substantially, according to Aelred, King Edgar had reproved the morals of the clergy, and claimed that such a judgement belonged to him as king.6 According to Ralph de Diceto, because of the scandal of the rivalry of two Popes, Urban and Clement, England had refused obedience to any Pope after the death of Gregory VII in 1085, but that was manifestly untrue, and altogether the list of authorities was not impressive. Equally questionable was the quotation from Bracton, saying that the king was vicarius dei, and his rule the rule of God, because he had no superior. Bracton was no canonist, and his statement in any case is not clear. The Old Testament was also appealed to, the reforms of Jehosophat being particularly relevant. Jehosophat had established spiritual judges in all the cities of Israel, and appointed priests and others to hear appeals at Jerusalem, which seemed to Henry to constitute a biblical precedent for what he wanted to do.7 While the king had God-ordained sovereignty, he might from time to time delegate a part of that authority to the priesthood, which kings of England had manifestly done for centuries, without forfeiting his rights in that respect. Such powers may never be alienated finally from the king’s divinely granted prerogative. Consequently Henry was speaking of himself as Emperor and Pope in his own realm as early as September 1530. These ideas were familiar in English jurisprudence, so it is not surprising to find the Duke of Norfolk airing them to Chapuys before the end of 1530.8 However, when the king canvassed them in a specially convened meeting of lawyers and divines in October 1530, and asked whether Parliament had the right to enact that the king’s cause be heard by the Archbishop of Canterbury, notwithstanding the Pope’s prohibition, he was met with a flat negative.9 It is not known whether Cromwell was one of the lawyers consulted, but if so then the verdict was a defeat for him as well, because although he was not a member of the king’s ‘think tank’, it is fairly clear that he was exploring the same ground. He may well have been one of the lawyers whom the king was consulting in a general sense. Henry was angry at the rebuff, and postponed the next session of Parliament until January 1531 because there seemed to be little point in convening it if it was unable to help him in his dilemma. Instead he took the dramatic step of indicting the whole clerical estate of praemunire on the grounds that the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction itself constituted a breach of the statute, which was, in a sense, an extension of the indictment to which Wolsey had pleaded guilty the previous year.10
When the convocations met in January 1531, the clergy soon found themselves bargaining with the king over the terms of a settlement. This was undoubtedly Henry’s intention, because to have pressed ahead with the indictment would have created enormous problems, not least how to fund a church whose entire property had been declared forfeit. They eventually settled for fines, or grants as they were called, of £118,000; £100,000 for Canterbury and £18,000 for York. Before this could be accepted, however, there was an exchange of articles with the king, whereby the clergy requested five years to pay, and Henry demanded that convocation recognise his ecclesiastical jurisdiction. After considerable debate, and further exchanges with the Council, in early February an agreement was reached, whereby the king accepted the delayed payment, and the clergy accepted the king’s supremacy over the Church. This last clause proved to be particularly contentious, and was agreed to only with the saving clause ‘in so far as the law of Christ allows’. This form of words, which could mean everything or nothing according to how they were interpreted, was apparently suggested by Cromwell, who, with Thomas Audley, sat in on the convocation debate on the king’s behalf.11 It was not mentioned, except by implication, when Parliament confirmed the royal pardon later in the same session. It was stated instead that the exercising of spiritual jurisdiction
shall be by authority of this present pardon, acquitted, pardoned, released and discharged against His Highness, his heirs, successors and executors, and every of them, of all manner offences, contempts and trespasses committed or done against all and singular statute and statutes of provisors, provisions or praemunire and every of them.12
Henry was at pains to reassure the clergy that he did not mean by this any extension of the powers which he already exercised under the statutes, and that, although he saw himself as ‘Supreme Head and Protector’ of the Church, he did not intend to exercise spiritual functions in his own person. Bishop Fisher was not reassured. In continuing to object to the agreement now reached, he asked the pertinent question,
What if he should shortly after change his mind, and exercise in deed the supremacy over the church of this realm. Or what if he should die and his successor challenge the continuance of the same? Or what if the crown of this realm should in time fall to an infant or a woman that shall still continue and take the same upon them? What shall we then do? Whom shall we sue unto? Or where shall we have remedy?13
All contingencies which were to arise in due course. However, for the time being Henry took his money and professed himself satisfied. This may partly have been because he was finding his relations with the papacy increasingly difficult, and partly because at about the same time he received a courteous letter from the newly formed Schmalkaldic League. This explained and justified the stand that the Lutheran princes had taken at the Diet of Augsburg in the previous year, in terms which might have been designed to appeal to Henry, emphasising as it did the jurisdictional dispute with the papacy, and playing down the doctrinal aspects. This letter was probably the work of Philip Melanchthon, who was at the same time working on his Apology of the Augsburg Confession, which was an irenic response to the Catholic Confutation which had appeared towards the end of 1530.14 For whatever reason, the king was markedly less hostile to the Lutherans in 1531 than he was either before or after, and in May he responded to the League’s letter in non-committal but positive terms.
This attitude may also have been conditioned by the fact that he was pursuing Tyndale with offers of reconciliation. William Tyndale had fled to the Continent in 1525, having failed in his bid to persuade Cuthbert Tunstall, the Bishop of London, to support his plans for a translation of the Bible into English. Since then he had produced an English version of the New Testament, which various agents had smuggled into England. This had provoked savage proclamations in March 1529 and June 1530 against erroneous books, which had named Tyndale, along with Simon Fish and John Frith, as one of those whose works were contrary to the Catholic faith.15 By the end of 1530 this campaign was being orchestrated by Sir Thomas More, and although Henry did not dissent from it, there are signs that his own position had shifted slightly. Tyndale had also written The Obedience of a Christian Man, certain aspects of which appealed to the king, and this had suggested the possibility of recruiting him to the propaganda campaign in favour of the annulment of Henry’s first marriage, which was then beginning to gather momentum.16 It is also possible that he was listening to the advice of Thomas Cromwell, whose Christian Humanism was beginning to edge in an unorthodox direction at the same time. Although certainly not a Lutheran at this (or any other) stage, he was very much the king’s man on his marriage issue, and as such would have suggested the recruitment of Tyndale as a supporter. This would be made more likely if he knew of Henry’s reaction to the Obedience, which he almost certainly did because he was in alliance with Anne Boleyn at this time. It was therefore Stephen Vaughn, Cromwell’s friend and servant, who was chosen to go across to Antwerp to sound him out.17 The choice of Vaughn for this mission is made more significant by the fact that, on a previous visit to Brabant, questions had been raised about his orthodoxy, and More had an unfriendly eye upon him. He wrote to Tyndale as soon as he arrived, which was probably before Christmas 1530, and reported to the king on 26 January. In spite of having some difficulty in locating the re
former, he had eventually got a letter through, offering him a safe conduct for his return. It is not clear whether the condition of defending the king’s position was made at this time or not, and Vaughn described his instructions as contradictory, but Tyndale’s response was in any case a polite refusal. He feared a trap, and although he did not say so, clearly did not trust the king’s word.18 In view of the fierceness of the dispute with Thomas More in which he was engaged, this was a sensible decision, and bearing in mind that he could not in conscience have promoted Henry’s matrimonial cause, the only rational thing to have done. Vaughn, however, also reported to Cromwell at the same time, and said things which he would not have ventured to say to the king. He doubted very much whether Tyndale would ever return to England while More was in office, and, having answered More’s attack on him, would write no further polemic, but would concentrate rather on his translation of the Old Testament. Tyndale was a wiser man than Henry took him for, and he wished to God that he was back in England.19 Obviously he considered it to be safer to commend Tyndale to Cromwell than to the king. This is confirmed by a subsequent letter, written by Vaughn on 25 March, with which he enclosed a copy of Tyndale’s latest answer to More, and an anxious enquiry as to whether it would be safe to let the king see it. His concern was justified because, in the spring of 1531, convocation was still pursuing known evangelicals, including Edward Crome and Hugh Latimer, with charges of heresy, and it was only a rapid climbdown by the latter which protected them from prosecution.20 Cromwell may well have recommended submission, because he was beginning to emerge as a discreet patron of evangelical causes, and was a party to a suit which Richard Tracy and his father’s executors brought against the chancellor of Worcester diocese. William Tracy had left a will in which he had expressed a belief in justification by faith alone, which was classic Lutheran doctrine, and which the Archbishop of Canterbury pronounced heretical. The chancellor had then caused his body to be exhumed and burnt. His executors, with Cromwell’s support, successfully sued the chancellor for exceeding his powers and won damages of £300.21 The money, however, was unimportant by comparison with the principle involved, whereby the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was curtailed. Henry could hardly object to such a decision, which was very much in accordance with the views expressed in his pardon of the clergy, and if Cromwell was testing the waters of Henry’s acquiescence, then he had done so successfully.
Thomas Cromwell: Servant to Henry VIII Page 5