Thomas Cromwell: Servant to Henry VIII

by Loades, David

  The critical event seems to have been an altercation between Anne and Sir Henry Norris, which took place on the 29th. Irritated by Norris’s slowness to ‘come on’ to Mary Shelton, whom she had sought out for him, she accused him of waiting for herself to become available, which could only happen in the event of the king’s death.84 Appalled by the implications of this, Norris vehemently denied any such ambition, but the damage had been done. Cromwell’s agents in the Privy Chamber not only made haste to inform him of the queen’s treason, but also conveyed the impression of a long-standing sexual relationship between the two. This was the cue for which he had been waiting, and acting on a similar tip, on the 30th he arrested Mark Smeaton, and accused him too of an adulterous affair with Anne. He knew that Smeaton, who was a court musician, had been mooning over the queen for some time, and had been unwise enough to give voice to his obsession. He charged him accordingly. Perhaps encouraged by a promise of immunity, or perhaps indulging in wish fulfilment, the musician confessed to what was almost certainly an imaginary offence, and Cromwell hastened to inform Henry that he had been cuckolded.85 The king quitted the tournament which he had been attending in a foul mood, and on 2 May Anne was arrested and taken to the Tower, along with Norris, Smeaton and one or two other suspects whom the secretary’s informants had named. These plausible but insubstantial stories appear to have convinced Henry utterly, and from being uncertain he now became the prime agent in Anne’s destruction. Cromwell was given the congenial task of assembling the case against her, and took it upon himself to make sure that their mutual friend Thomas Cranmer had no access to the king while this was under way.86 He interrogated the ladies of her Privy Chamber, and gleaned a number of circumstantial stories which could be made to serve his purpose. Most notably he learned from Jane Rochford of the intimacy which existed between the queen and her brother, Jane’s husband. This may have resulted from strained relations within the Rochfords’ marriage, and the story contained no more than a hint of impropriety, but it was enough to land Lord Rochford in the Tower as well on a charge of incestuous adultery.87 Meanwhile Anne was not helping herself. Since her arrival in the Tower she had chattered inconsequentially about the men in her life, proving nothing but giving substance to the rumours with which she was already surrounded. The trouble was that amid all this fog of innuendo, there was very little solid evidence. As Sir Edward Baynton, one of the interrogators, wrote to Sir William Fitzwilliam,

  Here is much communication that no man will confess anything against her but all-only Mark of any actual thing. Whereof (in my foolish conceit) it should much touch the king’s honour if it should no farther appear. And I cannot believe but that the other two [Rochford and Norris] be as fully culpable as ever he was. And I think assuredly the one keepeth the others counsel … I hear farther that the queen standeth stiffly in her opinion … which I think is in the trust that she [hath of the] other two.88

  This was all very well, but it did not make Cromwell’s task any easier. Norris and Rochford were two stalwarts of the Boleyn faction which he was by now determined to destroy lest it should have, in Eric Ives’s words, any ‘second strike capability’.89 He built his case as best he could, not utilising Jane Rochford’s testimony, nor Henry’s rather wild conviction that he had been the victim of his wife’s talent for witchcraft, but making heavy use of the evidence of Elizabeth, Countess of Worcester. Elizabeth was carrying a child, which the earl was convinced was not his, and she had responded to his accusations by blaming the atmosphere of the Privy Chamber, for which the queen was to blame. The other story which was central to his case was that Anne had been responsible for poisoning Catherine, and had plotted a similar fate for Mary and the king. All these rumours do not amount to much as evidence to put before a court of law, but of course in a case like this the only person who had to be convinced was the king, and he was absolutely persuaded that Anne had been guilty of adultery with a hundred men, never mind the four who were on trial.90 A grand jury was impanelled on 9 May, not without some judicious manipulation on Cromwell’s part, and a True Bill was found. Norris, along with William Brereton and Francis Weston, two other members of the Privy Chamber who had been similarly charged, was tried on the 12th and found guilty, which left Anne nowhere to go. She and Lord Rochford were tried on the 15th in the King’s Hall at the Tower, with great solemnity as became her rank and the gravity of the charges which she faced. The Duke of Norfolk presided, and twenty-six peers formed the court. Anne had recovered her composure by that time, but was well aware that it was her word against her accusers; ‘if any man accuse me, I can but say nay and they can bring no witnesses’. According to one observer ‘she made so wise and discreet answers to all things laid against her, excusing herself with her words so clearly as though she had never been faulty in the same’.91 It was all to no avail. The peers knew their duty well enough, and the conviction of her accomplices decided her fate. Lord Rochford put up an even more impressive performance, and the general opinion of the spectators was that he should have been acquitted. However, that would not have suited either Thomas Cromwell or the king, and the court duly convicted him as well. He was beheaded at the Tower on 17 May, making a good end in that he acknowledged the justice of the sentence against him, without confessing to his alleged crimes. By the time that Anne followed him on the 19th, she was no longer married to Henry VIII because Cranmer’s court, reversing the decision of three years earlier, found the marriage to be null and void, apparently on the grounds of the king’s earlier relationship with her sister, allegedly discovered since the previous verdict had been reached.92 She had of course lost the Marquisate of Pembroke by virtue of her attainder, and thus went to block as plain Anne Boleyn. The Boleyn party had been destroyed, just as Cromwell had wished, and the Earl of Wiltshire, Anne and George’s father, who had not been involved in their misdemeanours, lost his office of Lord Privy Seal and was forced to withdraw from the court. On 1 July he was replaced by Thomas Cromwell. The secretary thus emerged from what must have been a very tense and difficult time completely triumphant. He had gambled on Henry’s gullibility and had been vindicated, earning the king’s gratitude for the efficient way in which he had handled the case. Their relationship was consequently stronger than ever, and he could look forward with confidence to a period of Seymour ascendancy at court. Henry became espoused to Jane on the day of Anne’s execution, and married her on 30 May, with what was generally regarded as indecent haste.93 However, nobody said so, and the king entered into a period of unprecedented domestic harmony.

  5

  THE LORD PRIVY SEAL, 1531–1540

  …whereupon the said Lords and Commons by great deliberation finally be resolved that it is and shall be much more to the pleasure of Almighty God and for the honour of this his realm that the possessions of such spiritual religious houses, now being spent, spoiled and wasted for the increase and maintenance of sin, should be used and converted to better uses…

  Act for the Dissolution of the Minor Monasteries

  Anne Boleyn was executed in May 1536, and Cromwell’s coup against her and her family-based faction had been carried out with the co-operation of Catherine’s friends at court, particularly Carew and the Courtenays, and they expected her fall, and the consequent bastardisation of Elizabeth, to be accompanied by the rehabilitation of Mary. Henry, however, did not see the connection. As far as he was concerned, it was his authority which she was flouting, and he was looking for an unequivocal submission. As he told Chapuys a few days before the crisis broke,

  As to the legitimation of our daughter Mary … if she would submit to our grace, without wrestling against the determination of our laws, we would acknowledge her and use her as our daughter, but we would not be directed or pressed therein…1

  Anne’s death changed nothing, and although there was plenty of popular support for her, and Jane Seymour herself urged Mary’s unconditional restoration, there is no sign that Henry had changed his mind. Logically the deaths of Catherine an
d Anne should have restored the status quo in his relations with the papacy, and Pope Paul looked forward to renewed negotiations. However, Henry had no such intention, because what the conservatives did not understand, and Cromwell did, was just how deeply the king was committed to his title as Supreme Head of the Church. It was a central aspect of his special relationship with God.2 Chapuys also noted this fact in his reports to Charles V, although he attributed it to the king’s ‘obstinacy’. Consequently, until Mary recognised that, there was no hope of a reconciliation. Under a similar misapprehension, several of Mary’s former servants turned up at Hunsdon, expecting to be re-employed. However the status of the household there was indeterminate, because both the king’s daughters were now illegitimate, and Chapuys wisely advised Lady Shelton to take on no one without the king’s express authorisation.3 Meanwhile Mary herself, who seems to have shared the common misapprehension about Anne, waited expectantly for a signal from her father that she was forgiven. None came, and the felicitations of her supporters, which arrived constantly during the latter part of May, began to have a hollow sound.

  A week after the queen’s execution, on 26 May, she did the obvious thing and wrote to Thomas Cromwell, asking for his intercession now that the woman who had alienated her from her father was gone. Well informed of the king’s state of mind, the secretary replied that her obedience was looked for as a condition of reinstatement.4 However Mary, whose sophisticated education seems to have given her a very naive view of the real world, did not read the signal. She wrote again on the 30th, asking to see her father and professing her willingness to be ‘as obedient to the king’s grace as you can reasonably require of me’, not apparently realising that this reservation rendered the whole offer nugatory. The following day she wrote a disarming letter to Henry himself, acknowledging her offences in general terms ‘in as humble and lowly a manner as is possible’, and asking for his forgiveness and blessing.5 She congratulated him upon his recent marriage to Jane Seymour, perhaps recognising her as a friend. Unfortunately she spoiled the effect of this dutiful submissiveness by making it clear that there were limits to her obedience. She would obey her father in all things next to God, ‘beseeching your highness to consider that I am but a woman and your child, who hath committed her soul only to God, and her body to be ordered in this world as it shall stand with your pleasure’. Since her obedience to God embraced both the points at issue, the ecclesiastical supremacy and her mother’s marriage, she was conceding nothing, and Henry did not bother to reply.6 Preoccupied with Jane, he presumably saw her letter, but nevertheless went ahead with drawing up a set of articles to be presented to her which would leave no room for evasion. Chapuys, probably informed by Cromwell, was extremely worried by this development. They were allies at this point, because it did not suit either of their plans to see Mary tried, and possibly executed, for high treason. The secretary showed him the draft of a letter that he had prepared for her to sign, which the ambassador thought very dishonourable, but nevertheless agreed to go along with, realising that Henry was on the warpath. On 6 June he reported that he thought he could see an honourable way out. We do not know what this was, but it presumably did not involve the use of the letter.7 His optimism seems to have communicated itself to Mary, although this can hardly have been by Cromwell’s means, because on the 7th she wrote to the latter, full of optimism, asking for some token from the king before she paid her anticipated visit to the court. It may be that she had received the encouraging letter from Queen Jane which we know was written at about this time, because on the following day she also wrote to her father expressing her joy at the news that he had ‘withdrawn his displeasure’.8

  Unfortunately her enthusiasm was premature, and again there was no response. Anxious at this silence, Mary wrote again on 10 June, asking for his blessing, and this time copying her letter to Cromwell, asking not to be pressed further in her submission than her conscience would bear. It may be that she thought that her friends in the council would succeed in changing the king’s mind, but we can imagine Cromwell’s reaction on receiving this evidence of continued obstinacy. Henry’s response was critical. On about the 15th he sent the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Sussex and Richard Sampson, the newly consecrated Bishop of Chichester, down to Hunsdon bearing his commission and two questions to which he demanded a straight answer. Would she accept her father’s ecclesiastical supremacy, repudiating the Bishop of Rome? And would she accept the nullity of her mother’s marriage?9 In a stormy and emotional confrontation, she rejected both demands, and the crisis which Cromwell and Chapuys had both dreaded had broken. The judges confirmed that she could now be proceeded against for high treason, and the council went into emergency session. Ominously her known supporters, Exeter and Fitzwilliam, were excluded from these meetings; and two of her friends in the Privy Chamber, Sir Anthony Browne and Sir Francis Bryan, were arrested and interrogated ‘concerning talk had of the estate of the Lady Mary’, presumably of her hoped-for restoration.10 Their testimonies make interesting reading, because what emerged was not so much treasonable words as evidence of how delicate the situation had become. Some, even in the inner circle of the court, had expressed the view that Mary would make a very satisfactory heir, if only she would submit to her father. The idea that she had been conceived in good faith by parents who believed themselves to be married (bona fide parentum) had also been canvassed, while others had expressed doubts about her actual submission, the latter being the acceptable majority.11 The actual chronology of events at this time is confused, because on the 13th Mary wrote to Cromwell, saying that she could think of nothing better to do than to copy out the letter of submission which he had sent her. Either she did not do so, or Cromwell retained it, because on the 14th she was still wondering why she had received no token of forgiveness. When he received the news of her interview with the Duke of Norfolk, he exploded with exasperation, drafting a fierce letter of rebuke, in which he lamented his own foolishness for ever having attempted to help her. It is highly unlikely that he ever sent this letter, because he knew the king well enough to know that this game was by no means over, and that Henry would be very reluctant to proceed to extremes against his daughter.12 In spite of her words to Norfolk, submission was still a possibility, because potentially she was a stabilising element in the domestic situation, and the key to improved relations with the Empire. He could not afford to give up just yet, however unpromising things looked. Consequently during the week which followed the commissioners’ visit to Hunsdon and while the council was in session, Cromwell was also using all his ingenuity to find a constructive solution to the deadlock.

  When it came to the point, he seems to have achieved his objective by indirect means. He convinced Chapuys that Mary faced the alternatives of surrender or death, gambling on the hope that she did not share her mother’s taste for martyrdom. Chapuys in turn convinced Mary, because without Imperial support her conscience could gain no leverage, and he seems to have argued that to give way to such extreme pressure could carry no stigma of guilt, even to the most scrupulous. The pressure was indeed cruel. Apart from the troubles afflicting Browne and Bryan, her old friend Lady Hussey, the wife of her former chamberlain, had been sent to the Tower merely for speaking sympathetically of her. It gave her insomnia, toothache and neuralgia.13 Finally, on 22 June, she gave way, signing a set of articles which had been sent by her father without reading them, according to Chapuys. However she also wrote a covering letter of unconditional surrender, remitting her whole life to his discretion, which was almost certainly a copy of the model which Cromwell had sent to her for just such a purpose.14 It may well be that Jane had also privately urged her to follow such a course, which would explain her expressions of gratitude to her as well as to Cromwell over the days that followed. Within a few days gracious messages arrived from both the king and the queen, and the relaxation of tension was palpable. Henry was probably as relieved as anyone that the hard choice which seemed to be facing him had gone away. Mary�
��s state of mind at this juncture is hard to assess. On the one hand her correspondence with the secretary is friendly almost to the point of warmth, and she quickly became absorbed in plans for the re-establishment of her household, which suggests that she soon began to appreciate the benefits of restored favour. On 6 July the king and queen visited Hunsdon and stayed for several days, and on the 20th she wrote to Cromwell thanking him for the gift of a riding horse and saddle. It would do her health much good, she observed, to be riding again.15 On the other hand, Chapuys represents her as overcome with grief and remorse at having betrayed her principles, and begging him to obtain a special dispensation for her from Rome to ease her conscience. He did in fact make an unsuccessful bid of that sort, but whether it was really at her request we do not know. He had his own conscience to salve for having been a party to her surrender, and he also had her reputation to defend in the courts of Catholic Europe.16