Thomas Cromwell: Servant to Henry VIII

by Loades, David

  The secretary also had custody of the king’s personal seal, the signet. This was no longer used to authenticate his private correspondence – the royal signature or sign manual having taken over that duty – but it was still used in a great many more formal ways. For example, by custom, all grants made by the Crown were supposed to follow a bureaucratic procedure, whereby the prospective grantee put in his petition, which received the king’s approval by way of his signature endorsed on the document itself. This then constituted a warrant to the signet office to make out another warrant to the Privy Seal, and that in turn authorised Chancery to issue the actual grant under the Great Seal. It then had full legal force.33 Petitioners often tried to short-circuit this elaborate system by proceeding straight from the signed Bill to the Great Seal, a process known as the ‘immediate warrant’, but Cromwell discouraged this because it meant a loss of fees to the signet and Privy Seal offices. In 1536 he promoted an Act of Parliament which put the full course of the seals on a statutory basis, and secured these payments even if the clerks had been bypassed. Not surprisingly, the use of the immediate warrant declined sharply, which was no doubt part of the intention.34 The signet was also used to activate Chancery in other ways, for instance in the authentication of original writs, which were used to start actions at the common law, and in the issuing of subpoenas. The court of Star Chamber used the Great Seal for all its work, but in other respects by the sixteenth century Chancery had lost its central place in general administrative work. This was taken over by the Privy Seal office, which collected administrative orders from all the king’s officers, and distributed them to the servants, who were to carry out the actual work. Cromwell seems to have contemplated replacing it in this function with the signet, which would have been a logical step bearing in mind the way in which he was concentrating business in his own hands.35 However, before he could carry out that reform he became Lord Privy Seal himself (1536) and his priorities changed. The Privy Seal also became the Privy Council Seal after 1540, and was used to guarantee the repayment of royal loans. Nevertheless Cromwell’s practice proved stronger than his theory in this respect, and without any deliberate action on his part, the signet gradually took over from the Privy Seal in the validation of administrative orders, thus becoming the main working seal of government.36 It was only later in the sixteenth century that it lost that function in turn to the sign manual, and retreated to its original purpose as a route to the Great Seal; by which time all the seals served primarily a formal and ceremonial purpose.

  The secretary had a busy time in the next session of Parliament, which assembled on 3 November 1534. First he had the difficult job of explaining what the Royal Supremacy meant, without appearing to do anything new. So the statute was entitled ‘An Act concerning the King’s Highness to be Supreme Head of the Church of England, and to have authority to reform and redress all errors, heresies and abuses in the same’. Starting with the bland assumption that ‘the King’s Majesty justly and rightfully is and oweth to be the Supreme Head of the Church of England’, it then went on to enact that he must be so taken and reputed by all his subjects, an enforcement clause that was a proper exercise of parliamentary jurisdiction.37 However, it then went on to state that what this meant was the right to wield ‘any manner spiritual authority or jurisdiction’; in other words it was to be interpreted as conferring the full plenitudo potestatis. It is not very clear from the wording of the statute whether this was deemed to be mere recognition of an existing situation, or the conferring of additional powers. Cromwell knew perfectly well that for the king to try heresy cases would imply a revolution in the courts, but quite possibly Henry saw it merely as an example of his God-given power, in which case the statute conferred enforcement only. That would appear to be the implication behind his decision to try John Lambert personally in 1538.38 It is unlikely that this Act created any new qualms among those already opposed to the Supremacy, who must have anticipated its provisions, but the next Bill upon which Cromwell was engaged was altogether different. Having pleaded the Pope’s financial exactions as one of the reasons for banning appeals to Rome, this Bill transferred all such payments to the king, and went on to impose a 10 per cent tax on ‘all possessions of the church spiritual and temporal’. Such a tax was to be assessed and collected by commissioners appointed under the Great Seal and sent into every diocese.39 The only concession to clerical sensibilities was that the diocesan bishop was to serve as a commissioner ex officio. When it became an Act, this had the effect of transforming the £4,000 or so which had been paid to the Pope into something like £40,000 paid into the royal coffers. Convocation was not asked for an opinion, and the measure attracted hardly a squeak of protest from the bishops in the Lords, who must have been expecting some such demand following the enactment of the Supremacy.40

  Cromwell used these acts as a means of tightening his grip on the Church. It is unlikely that the king paid much attention to them because they came under the broad heading of administration rather than policy. The same was probably true also of the next Bill to engage his attention, which tackled the perennial problem of lawlessness in Wales. The difficulty here lay less in the principality, which was under effective royal control, than in the Marcher lordships, especially those still in private hands. There a mixture of Welsh and English law was used, and it was regularly complained that the former was too easy on felons, allowing composition, for example in cases of homicide.41 The stewards and other officers of the private lordships were likewise suspected of being slack in both investigating and prosecuting serious offences, while their tenacious defence of their traditional liberties inhibited the power of the Council in the Marches to interfere. It was therefore decreed that whenever a complaint of serious lawbreaking in the Marches should be received, it should be investigated in the nearest English county, and if a true Bill was found, tried within the same jurisdiction. The justices in the same counties were empowered to award process into the Marches, which the officers there were bound to implement – a halfway step to the abolition of the franchises altogether, which occurred two years later.42 The Council in the Marches was at the same time given enhanced powers, and the effective Rowland Lee, the Bishop of Lichfield, was appointed president. Lee was a zealous law enforcement officer and acquired something of a reputation as a hanging judge. The Treasons Bill of 1534 was an altogether different matter, and the evidence suggests that Henry was actively involved in its preparation. Treason was, after all, the crime which concerned him most intimately. The object of this Bill was to plug a perceived gap in the great Treasons Act of 1352 upon which the existing law was based. That measure had decreed that anyone ‘compassing or imagining’ the king’s death, or that of his consort or heir, should be deemed guilty, but had not explained what ‘imagining’ might mean in this context.43 It was therefore subject to judicial interpretation throughout the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Those guilty of the death of Simon of Sudbury in 1381 were indicted for murder, not treason, while one who described Henry VI as a ‘natural fool’ in 1456 was deemed to be guilty of the major offence.44 It is not true to say that treason by words was unknown before 1534, but it was insecurely based upon the statutory law. However, the number of accusations reaching Cromwell’s desk after 1530 indicated clearly enough that judicial discretion was no longer adequate to deal with the problem. Calling King Henry a heretic or a tyrant and Queen Anne a whore was reaching epidemic proportions, and a new treasons law was obviously called for. The Bill as presented to Parliament therefore sought to ‘prohibit … restrain and extinct all manner of shameful slanders, perils or imminent danger’ which might threaten the king, the queen or their heirs.45 It went on to decree that ‘after the first day of February next coming [anyone who may] maliciously wish will or desire by word or writing … any bodily harm to the king’s most royal person, the Queen’s or their heirs apparent, or to deprive them or any of them of the dignity, title or name of their royal estates’, or call the king heretic, sch
ismatic, tyrant, infidel or usurper, was to be deemed guilty of high treason.46 The authors of all such treasons, ‘their aiders, contenters, counsellors and abettors’, being lawfully convicted, were to suffer the full penalty of their crime without benefit of sanctuary. This statute did not break new ground, but it laid down limits and definitions where none had existed before, and anyone calling the king a schismatic (which he was) or a heretic (which he was not) would find themselves in court on a capital charge. It was certainly perceived as introducing a new type of treason, and had a paralysing effect upon legitimate criticism of the regime, which seems to have been its main purpose. Henry did not take kindly to criticism of any kind, and, given his fragile ascendancy in the battle for hearts and minds, one can see why.47

  Cromwell would probably have preferred to proceed by way of positive propaganda rather than the negative repression of dissent, but it was hard to judge the effectiveness of the works which he patronised. These had started with The Glass of the Truth in 1532, a breezy and theologically vague tract which was certainly not written by him, but whose publication bears the marks of his support.48 Next came two works by his servant Jasper Fyllol, which read as though they were designed as part of the campaign against the clergy, and should probably be attributed to 1533. Again there is no evidence to attribute their production to Cromwell, but their content suggests that he read and approved them. The only publication which can be firmly linked to him is the translation of Melanchthon’s Apology, of which Stephen Vaughn has provided the original, and Cromwell paid the translators.49 Then at the end of 1533 came the Articles devised by the whole consent of the King’s most honourable Council, which takes the Supremacy argument a stage beyond the Book of Leviticus, and indulges in an uninhibited attack on the person of the Pope, describing him as ‘neither in life nor learning Christ’s disciple’ being both baseborn and coming to his office by simony.50 This was probably more than Cromwell himself would have wanted to say at that stage, but he was obviously happy enough for someone to say it on his behalf, and it reflected the king’s own attitude, because he had convinced himself that he was dealing with a rogue pontiff. This was followed in 1534 by two tracts, one by the evangelical Edward Foxe and the other by the conservative Richard Sampson, aimed at a clerical audience, and by the delightfully named Little Treatise against the mutterings of some Papists in corners.51 This was intended for a popular audience, and can be firmly associated with Cromwell by a letter in the hand of one of his clerks ascribing it to his initiative. In so far as this dealt with the papacy, it declared the office to be one of human origin, without any warrant in scripture. This question of biblical authority was becoming characteristic of works with which the secretary was involved, and formed a part of his discreet campaign to persuade Henry to authorise a translation, although that would not come to fruition for another two years. His campaign probably had a significant impact on the literate, particularly in London, but it is hard to measure, and criticism of the regime, especially by the clergy, continued to preoccupy his servants and informers over the following years.52 The Treasons Act of 1534 was called upon far more frequently than Thomas Cromwell would have wished.

  The other Act which was called into operation at once was that which granted to the king a 10 per cent tax on all ecclesiastical property, because that necessitated an investigation into the assets of the Church, and in January 1535 Cromwell was specially commissioned to conduct such an investigation. This was a large-scale operation and the secretary, acting in the King’s name as he was specifically empowered to do, set up a network of subordinate commissions to carry out the actual work, using the Privy Seal for that purpose.53 The bishops served on these commissions ex officio, but the other members were drawn mainly from the sympathetic laity, and included a great many of Cromwell’s friends, servants and associates. It was particularly important that these visitors should not connive at any kind of concealment, because the situation was complicated by leases and other arrangements which meant that some properties were worth very little to the Church, while others were more valuable that at first appeared. The commissioners worked fast and efficiently and before the end of the year produced a Valor Ecclesiasticus which showed the overall wealth of the Church at nearly £500,000 a year, a colossal sum which includes everything from the bishopric of Winchester, at £3,000 a year, to the smallest vicarage, worth only a few shillings. It was the largest and most comprehensive survey to be conducted since the Domesday Book in the eleventh century, and was a tribute to the bureaucratic capability of the Tudor state.54 Cromwell drove it forward, and was indefatigable in dealing with the questions which inevitably arose, and which only he possessed the grasp and knowledge to answer. This was all the more remarkable because at the same time he was conducting a second enquiry into the state of the religious houses. This is also usually attributed to the king’s need for money, and the investigations as a mere excuse to proceed to dissolution. However that was probably not the case, at least not at this early stage. There is plenty of evidence, going back to 1530, that both Cromwell and the king had a genuine interest in reforming the monastic establishment. Complaints of misconduct were encouraged, and unsatisfactory priors and abbots warned to mend their ways.55 When vacancies occurred, Cromwell was often careful to ensure that suitable incumbents were put in post; and suitability included not only a willingness to accept the Royal Supremacy, but an exemplary private life and a conscientious attitude towards the rules of their order. The piety of previous generations had left a monastic establishment which was overgrown and more than little flaccid. The case for pruning was overwhelming, as Wolsey had demonstrated, and the initial policy behind the investigation appears to have been positive. The visitors were originally briefed to report on the conduct of the monks and nuns, both moral and professional, and on the existence or otherwise of dissent within the houses, but with a view to rectifying the abuses rather than closing them down. The characters of the visitors themselves has been subject to much unsympathetic scrutiny, and Dr John London in particular has been accused of inventing or exaggerating abuses.56 In general the Compendium Compertorum, the commissioners’ final report, presents a depressing picture of the life of the religious houses, and although this may contain individual exaggerations, on the whole other evidence supports these conclusions. Cromwell is alleged to have considered following the lead of his old master, and closing down gradually houses which were particularly prone to abuse, but the Compertorum was not submitted until the summer of 1536, and by then other priorities had to be taken into account. In January 1535 Cromwell had been granted the new office of Viceregent in Spirituals to enable him to carry out these multifaceted tasks, and this empowered him in effect to exercise the Supremacy on the king’s behalf instead of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who would have been the natural choice for such a position. Henry seems to have been determined to appoint a layman, and since it also carried the right to preside at the convocations, to emphasise the secular superiority to which the Church was now subjected.57 Cranmer is not known to have objected; he was Cromwell’s friend and the two of them shared an ecclesiastical agenda. Time was to show that this differed in various ways from the king’s, but that was not apparent at the beginning of 1535.