Thomas Cromwell: Servant to Henry VIII (22 page)

As we have seen, the idea of dissolving the greater monasteries was probably the king’s rather than Cromwell’s, and there is some evidence that the two were at cross purposes in 1538 and 1539. The nunnery of Godstowe is a case in point because the king, on Cromwell’s suggestion, had recently appointed a reforming abbess, one Katherine Bulkeley, and Katherine had named Cromwell as her steward with many expressions of gratitude. Then, in November 1538, Dr John London turned up at Godstowe, pressing for the surrender of the house. The abbess promptly appealed to Cromwell, asking him to ‘continue my good lord, as you have ever been’, and asking for ‘the stay of Dr London’. This was apparently achieved because on 26 November she wrote again, thanking him for having sent a ‘contrary commandment’. ‘Be assured,’ she went on,

there is neither pope nor purgatory, image nor pilgrimage, nor praying to dead saints used or regarded among us; but all superstitious ceremonies set apart, the very honour of God and the truth of his holy words … is most tenderly followed and regarded by us…
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So she and her sisters were permitted to continue with their reformed life – for a little while. By the end of the following year the house had gone down, and there was nothing further that Cromwell was able, or willing, to do about it. The prior of Malvern, faced with a similar threat, had also appealed successfully to the Lord Privy Seal, but in his case also it amounted to no more than a stay of execution. Whether Cromwell was genuinely converted to the king’s view of the situation, or realised the impossibility of further resistance, we do not know. After the Act of May 1539, vesting all the property of the dissolved houses in the Crown, his main interventions relate to the securing of generous pensions for those whom he had placed only a short while before in the hope of furthering his evangelical programme. In Katherine Bulkeley’s case this was a generous £50 a year.
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He was apparently more successful in persuading the king to devote some of the proceeds of the Dissolution to good causes than he was in checking the process. Richard Lee’s appeal to convert the Abbey of Coventry into a collegiate church was heard and acted upon, and the Grey Friars church of Carmarthen was converted into a school on the petition of the mayor and aldermen. The Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge was also gratified to learn that the dissolved religious foundations within the university would be transformed into places of learning and true doctrine.
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Six abbeys were converted into secular cathedrals to serve the new dioceses which were created, but this did not happen until after Cromwell’s fall, and whether his influence can be traced there also is hard to determine. Since a plan to that effect was being actively discussed as early as May 1539, it is probable that it can.

By the time that that happened there are distinct signs that the king and the Lord Privy Seal were pursuing different agendas. Earlier in the year Cromwell had persuaded Henry to send Robert Barnes to Copenhagen to discuss Anglo–Danish relations, in particular the prospect of an anti-papal alliance, and Christopher Mont to the Duke of Saxony with a promise of England’s adherence to the League of Schmalkalden. Mont was to ask for a high-level delegation to be sent to England, possibly led by Philip Melanchthon, to discuss the Confession of Augsburg, which had always been the sticking point in earlier negotiations.
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The Germans were understandably cool, feeling that they had been this way before without success, but agreed eventually to send a low-key mission, which did not include Melanchthon, and which arrived on 23 April, to a warm welcome from Cromwell, for whom their presence represented a diplomatic success. Christian III of Denmark was more positive, and suggested a meeting in England involving Danish and Leaguer representatives to suggest a way forward. He also warmly urged Henry to accept the Confession of Augsburg and become a full member of the League.
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Unfortunately, by the time that these tidings reached him in May, Henry was off on a different tack, and not prepared to listen to Lutheran urgings. Worried by the evidence of religious dissent, and the troubles being caused by clashes in the pulpit between old and new believers, he consulted a selection of his bishops, including Gardiner and Cranmer, and caused to be introduced into Parliament a Bill ‘abolishing diversity in opinions’. This Bill, which was moved in the Lords by the Duke of Norfolk on 16 May, was a victory for Catholic orthodoxy and Cromwell was considerably disconcerted. He had, as usual, vetted the returns of members of the Commons, but that was with a view to ensuring that government measures were passed, and he had not bargained for this thumping conservative declaration. It was vigorously debated but there was never a chance that it would be rejected, and Henry, realising how strongly it would offend Cranmer’s conscience, licensed his archbishop to be absent from the discussions in the Lords.
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No similar indulgence was extended to the Lord Privy Seal, and it is not known whether or to what extent he made his opposition clear. It was, however, the last thing that the Lutheran delegation wished to hear, and even before it was passed their talks with the king became bogged down in an unseemly row over clerical celibacy. This was an issue about which Henry felt strongly, but it was not the only reason why the negotiations broke down soon afterwards. That was largely because word was received from Germany that the Lutheran princes had come to terms with the Emperor at the Diet of Frankfort. This made them useless as allies, and the king told the delegation that they might as well go home.
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He had suspected that this might happen, which was one of the reasons why he had been reluctant to receive them in the first place, but this confirmation did nothing to sweeten his temper. Cromwell’s affairs were not going well, but fortunately the Cleves negotiation was still alive, and he began to devote his whole attention to that, which was brought to a successful conclusion in August. In spite of the failure of the Schmalkaldic negotiations, Henry had an ally within the Empire, and by October was committed to a new bride.

The Act of Six Articles, which passed the Commons on 2 June, was undoubtedly a setback for Cromwell, but perhaps not as great as has sometimes been assumed. The first article ran,

In the most blessed sacrament of the altar, by the strength and efficacy of Christ’s mighty word, it being spoken by the priest, is present really, under the form of bread and wine, the natural body and blood of our saviour Jesus Christ, conceived of the Virgin Mary, and that after the consecration there remaineth no substance of bread or wine, nor any other substance but the substance of Christ God and Man…
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This was an affirmation of transubstantiation, although the word was not used. It would have offended the Lutherans, who believed that after consecration the substance of bread and wine remained in the elements, along with the spiritual presence of Christ, but there is no reason to suppose that it distressed Cromwell. As far as we know, and in spite of the accusations later levelled against him, his Eucharistic theology was strictly orthodox. More disturbing would have been the second article, in favour of communion under one kind, but this merely stated that it was not necessary
ad salutem
by the law of God for the laity to receive the cup as well as the bread. A full Lutheran would have disagreed, and Cromwell seems to have preferred both kinds, but it was not a major issue to him. Clerical celibacy, which forms the third article, was an issue and he disagreed with it. It did not affect him personally as a layman and a widower; but it was a serious embarrassment to Cranmer, who was secretly married, and who was forced to send his wife back to Germany when the Act came into force.
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The fourth article, on the binding nature of religious vows, was also an issue, although a strictly practical one. Cromwell could see no point in enforcing vows taken in a monastic context when that context had disappeared. It would surely be better to encourage former nuns, for instance, to marry rather than to remain dependent upon their families, because except for the heads of houses, none of them received a living wage as a pension. He did not accept the indelible nature of religious vows, but that was an issue of purely secondary importance. The fifth and
sixth articles were affirmations of good Catholic practice, and ran counter to the reformed teachings that Cromwell is thought, but not known, to have embraced. The fifth affirms the validity of private masses, which Luther had set his face against, maintaining that there should always be a congregation present and receiving, to make the mass a true sacrament; and the sixth affirms that auricular confession (to a priest) is ‘expedient and necessary to be retained’.
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On neither of these matters is Cromwell known to have expressed an opinion, but his general endorsement of evangelical teaching makes it reasonable to suppose that he would have opposed these clauses also, if he had been given the chance.

The Act of Six Articles was a victory for the conservative bishops, and a defeat for Cromwell’s evangelical agenda, but it was also a reflection of the king’s own thinking. Together with the failure of the Schmalkaldic negotiations, it signified Henry’s view of himself as a Christian prince, and his responsibility for the spiritual well-being of his subjects. He saw himself as a Catholic who had taken a stand against the jurisdictional tyranny of the papacy, not in any sense as a Protestant. It was his duty to reform the Church, but only within those Catholic parameters, and his authorisation of
the English Bible, not mentioned in the Act, has to be seen in that context. He was responsible for the teaching of the English Church, and deemed it expedient that his subjects should be able to inform themselves of the contents of the holy scriptures.
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This might be deemed anticlerical, but no more. There was no theological reason why the Bible might not be rendered into the vernacular. The only inhibition was that of Archbishop Arundel’s anti-Lollard constitutions of the early fifteenth century, and they forbade unauthorised versions.
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It was a proactive vision of the Royal Supremacy. Cromwell would have liked Henry to be more evangelical than he actually was, and was continually nudging him in that direction, realising that the more reformed the Church of England was the harder the Royal Supremacy would be to undo. His great success came over the English Bible, and his greatest failure over the Act of Six Articles. However, he accepted it, and Henry took his submission with a good grace. He remained Viceregent in Spirituals, and continued to dissolve religious houses. He was also responsible for the enforcement of the Act, and that showed some surprising features. Bishops Shaxton and Latimer resigned as soon as it came into force, and although Cromwell was undoubtedly sorry to lose the latter, whom he had supported for many years, there is some evidence that the departure of the prickly Shaxton was a relief. Barnes is alleged to have said that the king ‘holds religion and the Gospel in no regard’, but others more in touch with Henry thought that although he disagreed with the reformers in certain matters, he continued to be their friend, and the Act was not rigorously enforced.
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In spite of the fierce penalties prescribed, only about thirty people suffered death in consequence of it. Over 200 were charged in the diocese of London, but only three suffered imprisonment, and of the 500 who were rounded up in the summer of 1539, a mere handful were proceeded against. The rest were released on a general pardon in July 1540. This was admittedly after Cromwell’s fall, but the generally lenient treatment meted out to offenders seems to have been the consequence of his influence, which continued at least until May 1540.
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In short, once the international crisis of 1539 was over, and Henry was apparently locked into the Cleves alliance, the Act of Six Articles became largely a matter for the clergy, and the king was satisfied to hold it in reserve. It was specific on transubstantiation, on private masses and on clerical celibacy, but there were large areas of doctrine and practice which it did not touch, so although it was a conservative measure, it was so to only a limited extent, and should not be seen as the first stage of Cromwell’s decline and fall.

Master Cromwell … you are now entered into the service of a most noble, wise and liberal prince … you shall in your counsel given unto his grace ever tell him what he ought to do, but never what he is able to do … for if a lion knew his strength, hard were it for any man to rule him.

Sir Thomas More

From the beginning of his service to the king, and indeed before, Cromwell had been associated with those wishing to reform the English Church. As early as 1524 he had been acting for Thomas Somer, a citizen and stockfishmonger of London. who was one of the penitents paraded in the city in November 1530 for having imported heretical books.
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In particular Somer had brought in and sold copies of Tyndale’s New Testament,
which he was required to burn as a part of his penance. The unfortunate man was returned to the Tower after his penance, and died there two years later. His friendship with the up-and-coming royal councillor proved of no avail, however sympathetic Cromwell may have been to the cause of his imprisonment. This was dangerous political territory because the Lord Chancellor, Thomas More, was adamantly opposed to the translation of the scriptures, and the king was backing his campaign. It was only after More’s resignation in the summer of 1532 that it began to be possible to exploit Henry’s vision of himself as being responsible for the spiritual well-being of his people, to encourage him in the direction of approving an English Bible. This discreet pressure eventually paid off and by 1535 the king was prepared to authorise the Coverdale version, which as we have seen was printed in Southwark in 1537.
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The reformers hailed Cromwell as God’s special instrument and assured him that if ‘for the zeal which he bore’ to the truth ‘the pure word of God may once go forth’ then ‘the whole realm … shall have … you more in remembrance than the name of Austen that men say brought the faith first into England’. Richard Taverner praised him for his ‘godly circumspection’ in promoting the true faith, and that was fair because he was extremely careful never to go beyond the parameters which Henry laid down.
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The difficulty lay in the king’s own mind, because although he came down on the side of an English Bible, in other respects he remained extremely conservative. He never abandoned his belief in transubstantiation, for example, and although he was prepared to outlaw pilgrimages, he never ceased to believe in prayers for the dead. He steered a delicate course, and the more robust reformers felt that they never quite knew where they stood with him. Tyndale was invited to return to England under safe conduct, and was then repudiated and left to his fate as a heretic in the Low Countries, having been betrayed by one Henry Philips, in whom he had confided.
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Nor was Cromwell left in any doubt that, in encouraging the reformers, he was running many risks. ‘Was not my Lord Cardinal a great man and ruled all the realm as he would,’ his opponents reminded him, ‘and what became of him, is he not gone?’ And Thomas More also. The Lord Privy Seal ‘in like manner ruleth all, and we shall see one day he shall have as great a fall as any of them’. His services to the king might appear to guarantee his safety, but his Achilles’ heel was his sympathy with those whom Henry regarded as heretics, and many felt that it was only a question of time before that little weakness caught up with him.
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