Thomas Cromwell: Servant to Henry VIII

by Loades, David

  Cromwell’s other vision of the royal power was one of social responsibility. Hitherto the king had accepted this only in respect of law enforcement, and a statute of Richard II had ordered all vagabonds to be gaoled. This was modified in 1495, but only to the extent that such ‘idle rogues’ were to be set in the stocks for three days instead of being sent to prison, and then ordered out of the town where they had been caught begging.61 This punitive attitude was only adjusted in respect of those unable to work, who were to be sent back to their places of origin, where they were to ‘remain and abide’ without begging. Presumably their communities were expected to support them, but that is not stated. In 1531, in the very early days of Cromwell’s influence, this was replaced with what has been described as the first Tudor poor law. Here a clear distinction was recognised between those unable to work and those deemed to be unwilling. The first were to be licensed to beg, under certain restrictions, rather than simply expelled, and the latter were to be punished as before.62 The burden of administering this system, and of issuing the begging licences, was thrown mainly on the Justices of the Peace, but again no provision was made for the support of the impotent other than what they could gain by soliciting alms. It was not until 1536 that any real progress was made in this direction, and in that Act the hand of Thomas Cromwell is plainly discernible. In some respects it merely strengthened the law against vagabonds and beggars, but it was mainly concerned with a new principle, the legal obligation of every parish to care for its own poor. The preamble correctly observed that the previous Act ‘had not provided … how the said poor people and sturdy vagabonds should be ordered at their repair … into their countries’, and went onto order that the officers of every administrative unit from shires down to parishes should ‘succour, find and keep all and every of the same poor people’ by means of voluntary alms collections.63 The funds so collected were not only to provide charity for the impotent, but stocks of material to keep the idle and able-bodied at work ‘in such wise as by their said labours they and every of them may get their own livings with the continual labour of their own hands’. Every parish was to appoint two overseers of the poor to administer and collect the money so contributed, and to ensure that none of the parties relieved then resorted to begging, which was absolutely forbidden. ‘Common and open’ doles were likewise prohibited, all the money contributed for poor relief being channelled through the overseers, who were given the additional onerous task of accounting for what they had received and distributed.64

  It is sometimes said that this Act was made necessary by the Dissolution of the Monasteries, which cast many former monks and nuns, and former monastic servants, onto the street. However, with the exception of some nuns who were returned to their families, the ex-religious were catered for either by transfer to larger houses or, more commonly, by the issuing of capacities to enable them to function as secular priests. The servants were similarly employed by the new owners or lessees of the estates, so the number forced into beggary would have been very small. In any case the statute was passed in the parliamentary session before the Act dissolving even the smaller monasteries, so although some houses had gone down before the Act was passed, care was taken to place all those affected, so there is no demonstrable connection between this Act and the Dissolution. Rather it is a example of the care which Cromwell took to minimise the social disruption which he witnessed; a disruption caused by economic circumstances beyond a government’s control, such as the increase in the population, which was gathering momentum in the 1530s.65

  Thomas Cromwell therefore had a vision of the state as a sovereign nation living under a law which was controlled by Parliament. The king he saw as the head of the executive, whose pleasure and honour had always to be respected, but within the boundaries laid down by the law. Henry was also responsible for the physical and spiritual well-being of his people, which meant not only that his government had to enforce the law, but also protect the vulnerable. He had also to guide his people in the ways of religious truth, and that meant not only ruling the Church in a jurisdictional sense, but issuing articles and injunctions controlling the lives of the clergy and the practices of worship. Cromwell was committed to the English Bible, and saw the evangelicals as the best protectors of the Royal Supremacy, but on that last point he differed from the king, and that eventually led to his ruin. He was also committed to the centralisation of power and to efficiency in administration, creating new institutions to replace the somewhat ramshackle machinery of the household. The court itself he streamlined, bringing it more into line with the French model,66 but on the whole he did not favour things French, seeing England’s international security as lying rather in a working relationship with the Emperor, which he strove to build throughout his period in power. He rescued the king from the dilemma caused by his desire to annul his first marriage, showing him the way in which to use existing institutions and laws for the unprecedented task of repudiating the papal authority. Clear-thinking and uninhibited by any sense of tradition, he was able to cut through the fog of Henry’s uncertainties, and to see what needed to be done to make the king’s will effective. Cromwell was a ways and means man. Whether he ‘invented’ the Royal Supremacy is still uncertain, but he certainly showed the king the way to bring it about, and with Henry’s support was able to realise the necessary legislation.67 Although not an intellectual he was widely and deeply read and was able to promote the propaganda needed to win the hearts and minds of Englishmen in support of the king’s proceedings, a task in which he was only partly successful. Above all he was a man who understood the value of information, which he collected and processed assiduously from both overseas and at home, using for that purpose not only his servants but also the innumerable friends whom he had attached to himself both through patronage and through his general amiability. He was a man who understood the value of friends, and cultivated them wisely.68 Many a correspondent testifies to the uses of his hospitality, and the quantity of game that he received in gifts must have kept his household regularly supplied. He was a man of wit and humour, whose table conversation lingered in the mind, but above all he was a statesman and fundamentally loyal to his master. It was not long before Henry was regretting his precipitate action in getting rid of him. Policy continued to be in the king’s hands, but government would never be the same again.

  9

  HISTORIOGRAPHY

  Unlike many of his contemporaries, Thomas Cromwell left no personal works or memoirs, and the official papers, despite their bulk, do not necessarily reveal much of the inner man…

  John Schofield

  In a sense the historiography of Thomas Cromwell goes back to his own lifetime, in the flattering dedications of the works of such of his disciples as Richard Morison, Thomas Starkey and Sir Thomas Elyot, and to the ribald rhymes against him that circulated among his enemies.1 However most of the comments on his worthiness, or otherwise, were delivered in the form of private correspondence, or in the works of Cavendish and Bandello, which were not published at the time. The earliest biographical references, apart from comments to his friends contained in his own letters, come in a letter by Chapuys to Granvelle dated 21 November 1535.2 The ambassador at that time was concerned to justify his dealings with the king’s chief minister, and set out a description of the latter in order to demonstrate the importance of dealing with him, and the influence which he was thought to have over Henry. It goes without saying that this was not intended for a wider audience, except perhaps for onward transmission to the Emperor. Chapuys’s despatches are littered with references to Cromwell, with whom he seems to have enjoyed a special relationship. He speaks warmly of his hospitality, of his shrewdness and of his wit, but never seems to have been sure of his intentions. Usually he was convinced of his goodwill, especially in his relations with the Lady Mary, but he was sceptical of his policy of maintaining a neutral stand between the Emperor and the King of France, a policy which we now know emanated from Henry. He never knew quite wher
e he stood with Cromwell, but his comments tend to be judicious and well informed.3

  Neither judicious nor well informed, however, was the first comment to appear in print in Reginald Pole’s Apologia ad Carolum Quintum, which was written in about 1539, in the aftermath of the Exeter Conspiracy, which had brought death and ruin to Pole’s family.4 This, as we have seen, was a hostile portrait, in which Pole not only misrepresented Cromwell’s early life, but invented an interview between him and the king in the course of which he is supposed to have praised Machiavelli’s work, and claimed that he would make Henry the richest prince in Christendom. Thereafter he became the king’s evil genius, persuading him to divorce his queen, and to assume the headship of the Church. The Dissolution of the Monasteries thus became his idea also, and he invented the case against the Marquis of Exeter and Lord Montague, which had brought them both to the scaffold. The whole of Henry’s misguided policy after about 1530 was laid at Cromwell’s door. This may have been intended to exonerate the king from every offence except that of taking bad advice, but it did not have that effect, and Henry’s reputation in Catholic Europe remained that of a lascivious tyrant who executed anyone who displeased him. Cromwell was dismissed as a mere toady.5 From 1540 onwards, until the twentieth century, he was viewed primarily as the executive force behind the English Reformation, and accounts of his career were coloured by the religious allegiance of the narrator. Edward Hall, who served in the Reformation Parliament, and must have known him personally, alleged that his fall was welcomed by ‘religious persons’, and all those who tended to the conservative side in the conflicts which were then ongoing. He went on:

  Others who knew nothing but truth by him both lamented him and heartily prayed for him. But this is true that of certain of the clergy he was detestably hated, and especially of such as had born swing, and by his means were put from it; for indeed he was a man that in all his doings seemed not to favour any kind of Popery, nor could not abide the snuffling pride of some prelates, which undoubtedly, whatever else was the cause of his death, did shorten his life and procured the end that he was brought unto…6

  As a description of his role as Viceregent in Spirituals, this is accurate as far as it goes, but there is no hard evidence to suggest that any conspiracy of conservative bishops was behind his fall, welcome as it may have been to them. The king alone was responsible for his execution, but that could hardly be admitted in 1542, when the first edition of Hall’s Chronicle appeared. Hall significantly did not mention the English Bible, because Henry regarded that as a master stroke of his own, and one which remained in place after the Lord Privy Seal’s fall. He would not have wanted to share the credit for that with anyone, least of all with a minister disgraced partly on the grounds of heresy. So Hall’s cautious praise was designed to avoid offending the king, and as it happened corresponded well enough with Henry’s own regrets about his precipitate action.7

  Others were less circumspect, and after Cromwell’s execution a propaganda war of ballads and broadsides broke out in London, reflecting a deep division at the popular level. ‘A Ballad of Thomas Cromwell’ did not mince words:

  Both man and child is glad to tell

  Of that false traitor Thomas Cromwell

  Now that he is set to learn to spell

  Sing troll on a way.

  It ends with a patriotic flourish:

  God save King Henry with all his power

  And Prince Edward that goodly flower

  With all his lords of great honour

  Sing troll on a way.8

  There is no indication as to who the author may have been, and the suspicion that it may have been officially inspired is probably unworthy. In any case it was quickly responded to in ‘A Ballad against Malicious Slanderers’, written, interestingly enough, by a humble servant of the court, a sewer by the name of Thomas Smyth. Smyth was extremely careful not to criticise the king, and concentrated his fire upon his anonymous opponent.

  Although Lord Cromwell a traitor was

  Yet dare I say the king of his grace

  Has forgiven him that great trespass.

  To rail on dead men thou art to blame,

  Troll now into the way again for shame.9

  And so on for eighteen verses. These were not the only contributions to this conflict, and many must have been written which do not now survive, but they indicate the lively debate which went on in London over the pints of ale or the washtubs. Thomas Cromwell was a popular figure in certain quarters of the city. Not only did he keep a large household, which provided a livelihood for numerous tradesmen, but he was also extremely generous with doles. As many as 200 poor men and women were fed at his door every day, so he practised what he preached in terms of charity, which was more than could be said for most of the bishops who kept houses in the city.10 Admittedly he was a wealthy man who could well afford such largesse, but that was not the point. When his injunctions sought to ensure that well-endowed clergy kept hospitality and supported scholars at the universities, he could justly point to his own example. When his house was closed down on 10 June 1540, and his goods confiscated to the king’s use, not only were his servants put out of work, but the numerous beneficiaries of his generosity would have been forced to seek their sustenance elsewhere. He had been a reformer who had taken the biblical injunctions seriously, and that was not soon forgotten. Outside of London, and beyond the reach of his generosity, there was less debate, and the evidence suggests that only committed reformers lamented his fall. The gentry of the shires, who had benefited most from the efficiency of his government, tended to remember only his taxes, unless they had been on the receiving end of his distribution of monastic lands, in which case they would have been looking to the legal security of their tenures.11

  After Hall, the next historian to make an issue out of Cromwell’s career was John Foxe. Foxe did not know quite what to make of Henry, and explained his apparent waverings in pursuit of true religion by the proposition that he was easily led.

  Thus while [good] council was about him, and could be heard, he did much good, so again when sinister and wicked councillors under subtle and crafty pretences had gotten ever the foot in, thrusting truth and verity out of the prince’s ears, how much religion and all good things went prosperously forward before, so much on the contrary side all revoked backward again…12

  Foxe was of course a Protestant, and ‘much good’ involved the creation of the Royal Supremacy, the destruction of ‘superstitious’ shrines, the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the authorisation of the English Bible. By ‘revoking backwards’ he meant particularly the Act of Six Articles and Henry’s persistent loyalty to the mass. Cromwell was thus the good councillor and his fall the ultimate expression of the factious spirit and fundamental disloyalty of his enemies. Modern research has indicated that the king was much less suggestible than Foxe believed, but for him Cromwell was the great hero of the English Reformation, and he began his account of his career with the heading, ‘The history concerning the life, acts and death of the famous and worthy councillor Lord Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex.’ No praise was too high for the subject which he had thus invented:

  Thomas Cromwell although born of a simple parentage and house obscure, through the singular excellency of wisdom and dexterity of wit wrought in him by God, coupled with like industry of mind and deserts of life, rose to high preferment and authority, in so much that by steps and stays of office and honour, he ascended at length to that, that not only was he made Earl of Essex, but also most secret and dear counsellor to King Henry, and Viceregent unto his person, which office hath not commonly been supplied, at least not so fruitfully discharged within this realm.13

  Although handicapped by his obscure origins, and lacking a patron in the court, he nevertheless caught the king’s eye by his ‘pregnant wit’ and discreet judgement, ‘in tongue eloquent and in service faithful’ he earned every step of his promotion and in the course of his rise gathered to himself faithful friends who hel
ped him on his way. Foxe then proceeds at some length to give an account of Cromwell’s early life, and particularly of his visits to Rome in company with his friends from Boston, which he probably derived from local witnesses since Boston was his own town of origin, and he must have known the sons and daughters of those involved.14 After giving a brief account of how Cromwell dissolved monasteries for Wolsey, he describes how he entered the royal service, being commended by Sir Christopher Hales to the king as being a man ‘most fit for his purpose, having then to do against the Pope’. Foxe then follows Pole in depicting Cromwell as having a crucial interview with the king, only in this case the main thrust of their conversation was directed to persuading Henry that he should properly be head of the English Church, advice which he was soon in a position to implement. Having negotiated that hurdle, the account then proceeds to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, with considerable exaggeration of the secretary’s hostility to those ‘synagogues of Satan’ and many details about the closing of particular houses, which Foxe no doubt received from the survivors of that process, of whom there were still a fair number around in the early 1560s.15