Thomas Cromwell: Servant to Henry VIII (26 page)

The substance of the charge was that, while the king wished by all possible means to lead back religion to the ways of truth, Cromwell, as attached to the German Lutherans, had always favoured the doctors who preached such erroneous opinions and hindered those who preached the contrary. Recently, warned by some of his principal servants to reflect that he was working against the intention of the king and the Acts of Parliament, he betrayed himself and said he hoped to suppress the old preachers and have only the new, adding that the affair would soon be brought to such a pass that the king, with all his power, could not prevent it. But rather that his own party would be so strong that he would make the king descend to the new doctrines, even if he had to take arms against him.
⁶⁸

It was in the last part of this statement that the treason lay, and that is the least plausible. These were no doubt reported to the king as Cromwell’s words, but it is very unlikely that he ever uttered them. Why should he give such hostages to fortune, knowing that any words he spoke could be turned against him? He had undoubtedly favoured those who preached reformed opinions, but that did not make him a Lutheran, let alone a sacramentary, a radical heresy of which Henry had a particular abhorrence, and of which Cromwell was also accused. Although other factors may have contributed to influence the king’s mind, it seems that religion lay at the heart of his decisive change of mind, and that Gardiner rather than Norfolk was the critical agent.
⁶⁹

Meanwhile Cromwell’s houses had been seized and his goods inventoried. That same afternoon, royal archers turned up at his home in Austin Friars, listed the contents and took away certain valuables to the king’s treasury.
⁷⁰
This was an ominous sign for the accused man, and indicated that there was unlikely to be a way back. Letters were also alleged to have been discovered, which had passed between Cromwell and the Lutheran princes of Germany, incriminating him still further. Marillac could not learn the contents, but the king was now so exasperated against him that ‘he would no longer hear him spoken of … the greatest wretch that ever was born in England’. If any letters ever existed they were almost certainly plants, because Cromwell was far too careful to leave such documents lying about, which was clearly the implication. However the king was further incensed against him, and that was the object of the exercise. Parliament and the foreign envoys were given the official version of what had happened that same afternoon, and the latter transmitted the news to their respective governments, for the most part with supporting commentary. Edward Hall recorded the reaction in London, when he wrote,

Many lamented but more rejoiced, especially such as had been religious men for, they banqueted and triumphed that night, many wishing that day had been seven years before [but] some fearing lest he should escape … could not be merry. Others who knew nothing but truth by him, both lamented him and heartily prayed for him. Of certain of the clergy he was detestably hated … for he was a man … [who] could not abide the snuffling pride of some prelates…
⁷¹

In the circumstances it is not surprising that hardly anyone wrote in defence of the accused man, or that those who did so should have veiled their opinions in incredulity and obsequious language. Richard Pate, writing from Bruges, was appalled to learn of the treason of one who had been his benefactor and patron. He should, he went on, have eschewed the reformers and followed the king in religious matters; he who had been so patient with those of the ‘adverse party’.
⁷²
Archbishop Cranmer also wrote on the 12th, a letter full of contradictory emotions. He had not been close to Cromwell personally, but was his firmest ally in political terms, and particularly in the reform of the Church. He was also amazed that so good a servant of the king should be found to have committed treason; one who had shown such ‘wisdom, diligence, faithfulness and experience as no prince in this realm ever had’. He had been so vigilant to protect the king from all treasons that he found it incredible that he should have fallen into that way himself. He had, he professed, loved Cromwell as a friend,

but I chiefly loved him for the love which I thought I saw him bear ever towards your grace singularly above all others. But now if he be a traitor, I am sorry that ever I loved him or trusted him, and I am very glad that his treason has been discovered in time. But yet again I am very sorrowful, for whom should your grace trust hereafter…
⁷³

This letter came within a touch of suggesting that Henry was mistaken, and that he had been bamboozled by the conservative faction, but it did not actually say so and concluded with a plea for mercy on the grounds of Cromwell’s record. Nevertheless it was a brave letter to have written, and gives a good indication as to why Crammer was kept away from Henry by his traditionalist ‘minders’ during the days immediately after the arrest. The reactions from abroad were predictable. Francis rejoiced, and wrote to congratulate his friend Henry on his narrow escape; the Emperor fell on his knees and thanked God; only the Lutheran princes mourned the passing of a friend, and they made little of their sympathy for fear of upsetting the king, with whom they still hoped for some kind of an understanding.
⁷⁴

It did not take Henry long to realise that the best testimony to his lack of consent to his marriage with Anne would come from his imprisoned minister, to whom he had confided each step in his mounting frustration. He therefore suggested, via Sir William Paulet, that a letter of confession would be acceptable, or as Cromwell put it in his response dated 12 June, ‘that I should write to your most excellent highness such things as I thought meet to be written concerning my most miserable state and condition’. In that letter he confessed many things; on one occasion, prompted thereto by the king, he had spoken privily to her Lord Chamberlain ‘and others of the queen’s council, being with me in my Chamber at Westminster’ to suggest that they quietly advise her to be more agreeable to her husband. He had done this without naming the king as the source of his concern, for which he humbly sought pardon. He concluded,

For my offences to your grace which God knoweth were neither malicious nor wilful, and that I never thought treason to your highness, your realm or posterity, so God help me … I appeal to your highness for mercy, grace and pardon…
⁷⁵

Henry received this missive without recorded comment, but he was not satisfied, and he sent Norfolk, Audley and Southampton to examine Cromwell at the Tower, and to urge him ‘upon the extreme danger and damnation of [his] soul to say what [he] knew in the marriage and concerning the marriage between your highness and the queen’.
⁷⁶
This provoked a second and more explicit response from the prisoner on 30 June, in which he went into all the details which Henry had confided to him about his relationship with Anne, including feeling her breasts and being sure that she was no maid, and that ‘your heart could never consent to meddle with her carnally’.
⁷⁷
Realising perhaps that he had no more to say, and that his usefulness to Henry was coming to an end, he finished this epistle with the words, ‘Most gracious prince, I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy…’ Cromwell knew perfectly well that any attempt at self-justification would be counter-productive, implying as it would that the king was mistaken in his judgement. Henry did not make mistakes, and if mistakes were made in his name, there was always someone to blame. On the other hand a confession of guilt and an abject plea for pardon might just possibly touch a responsive chord in his egotistical heart.

It was worth a try, but it did not work because others were on hand to make sure that it did not, and a Bill of Attainder was introduced into the Lords on 17 June, proceeding to the Commons on the 19th. There it seems to have stuck, not out of any sympathy for Cromwell but because a proviso was added to safeguard the property of the Deanery of Wells, which he also held and which would have been forfeit to the Crown along with the rest of his property.
⁷⁸
Ten days later the amended Bill was returned to the Lords and passed through all its stages in one day – clearly it was not controversial. Why his enemies decided to proceed against him by Act of Attainder instead of by trial before the Lord High Steward is not clear. Perhaps they did not care to face the defence which he could certainly have mounted against the charges which they had prepared against him. Perhaps it was considered to be an appropriate way to deal with a man who had used that method so often himself. Perhaps they did not want to acknowledge his new-found nobility, or perhaps it was simply because the king would have it so. The Act lamented the fact that one whom the king had raised from ‘very base and low degree’ to be one of his most trusty councillors ‘as well concerning your grace’s supreme jurisdiction ecclesiastical as your most high secret affairs temporal’ should have turned out to be a false and corrupt traitor.
⁷⁹
It then listed the charges against him. He had, it was alleged, on his own authority, released those who had been convicted of misprision of treason, and had issued licences for his own profit for the export of coin and various other prohibited commodities. ‘Elated and full of pride’, he had constituted commissions without the king’s knowledge or consent, and had claimed great power over Henry, ‘a thing which no subject should say of his prince’. Also on his own authority, and without the king’s consent, he had granted passports ‘to pass without search’, presumably a form of licensed smuggling. So far these charges had been of abuse of office rather than treason, but the Bill then proceeded to more serious accusations. ‘Being a damnable heretic’ he had caused heretical writings to be translated into English and spread abroad ‘to sow sedition and variance among your true and loving subjects’, and had abused his office as Viceregent in Spirituals to license other heretics to teach and preach.
⁸⁰
In the same way, falsely pretending the king’s consent, he had released imprisoned heretics and refused to listen to charges against them. The Bill then proceeded from the general to the specific, and Cromwell was accused of saying ‘on 31 March in the parish of St Peter Le Poor in the City of London’ that the teaching of Robert Barnes was good, and that if the king should turn against reform, yet he would not turn and would if necessary fight in the field against him.
⁸¹
This was undoubtedly treason by the Act of 1534, and was the core of the charges against him, but might be difficult to prove. The remaining charge was one of
scandalum magnatum
rather than treason in that it related to his abusive reaction to those who reminded him of his humble origins.

Cromwell’s defence against these accusations was circumstantial and detailed, and there is no doubt that the charges were a tissue of lies and exaggerations. However, that did not matter; Norfolk and Gardiner had succeeded in convincing the king, and he was the only person who needed to be convinced, because Parliament would follow him. Improbable as it may seem, Henry’s conviction was genuine, because he was seeing traitors in all sorts of unlikely places, and heretics behind every bush.
⁸²
He had become more than a little neurotic about Cromwell, being well aware that he had trusted him too far in the days of his favour. Being anxious to avoid the drudgery of paperwork, he had allowed his minister to manage things in his own way, and was now uneasily aware that things had happened of which he would not have approved if he had been concentrating. So he had to exaggerate Cromwell’s duplicity in order to justify himself, and the Bill of Attainder was prepared with that in mind. The tactic worked and the Act received the royal assent on 24 July. It was only then, when the attainder became effective, that Thomas Cromwell ceased to be Earl of Essex. The Bill itself referred to him by that title and in all the correspondence which passed between him and the king and council, he is always so described. It was only in Marillac’s imagination that he became ‘Thomas Cromwell, shearman’ after his arrest.
⁸³
Perhaps the ambassador was hoping to see him executed in the manner appropriate to a treacherous shearman, by hanging, drawing and quartering, but if that was the case then he was disappointed. The former Lord Privy Seal was despatched by the axe on 28 July on Tower Green, as became his proper status. ‘My prayer,’ he had once said, ‘is that God give me no longer life than I shall be glad to use my office in edification and not in destruction’, and he seems to have come to his end with a quiet conscience. As was expected he made an address from the scaffold, although whether it was that recorded by Edward Hall is not known. ‘I am come hither to die,’ he is alleged to have told the crowd, ‘and not to purge myself as some think peradventure that I will do.’
⁸⁴
He acknowledged that he had offended God and the king, and asked forgiveness of both. ‘I die,’ he went on, ‘in the Catholic faith, not doubting any article of my faith … nor in any sacrament of the church.’ He probably used the word ‘Catholic’ in the same sense as Melanchthon had used it, but his statement about the sacraments disposes of any notion that he was a radical, or even a Lutheran, because the Augsburg Confession did not acknowledge four out of the traditional seven. His final prayer, on the other hand, does raise questions about justification by faith alone.

Of sins and evil works I see, alas, a great heap … but through thy mercy I trust to be in the number of them to whom thou wilt not impute their sins, but will take and accept me for righteous and just, and to be the inheritor of everlasting life … Most merciful Saviour … Let thy blood cleanse and wash away the spots and foulness of my sins. Let thy righteousness hide and cover my unrighteousness. Let the merits of thy passion and blood shedding be satisfaction for my sins…
⁸⁵

So Cromwell departed as he had lived, with unanswered questions about his religion, and it is probably wisest to assume that his evangelical sympathies embraced some aspects of Lutheranism, but not others, and that he was certainly not a sacramentary. Edward Hall was one of those who mourned his passing, but the most eloquent epitaph was penned by his friend and protégé Sir Thomas Wyatt: