THOMAS CROMWELL1

1490-15402

THE death of Wolsey removed a powerful constraining force from Henry VIII's life. For twenty years the Cardinal had been his trusted friend. He heaped honours and emoluments upon Wolsey in England, demanded his appointment as Cardinal and importunately urged his election to the Papacy. When Henry came to the throne at the age of eighteen, Wolsey, who was twenty years older, gained as immediate ascendency over the youthful king and maintained it, with many

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1 Cromwell is a place-name from the parish of Cromwell in Nottinghamshire. It was generally pronounced Crumwell, and appears in older records as Crumwell, Crommevile, Crumbville and Croumbville. These terminations exhibit "well as a suffix equivalent to "ville or town. "Well" is also used in English place-names as a prefix, meaning the place where water flows, . g. Welland, which is a tidal stream. Crom's well, then, is the town or dwelling-place of some one whose name became Crum, Crumb or Croumb. The family of Oliver Cromwell were of Welsh descent, and bore the name of Williams. Though of ancient descent, they abandoned that surname at the instigation of Henry VIII, and Sir Richard Williams, the Protector's lineal ancestor, being sister's son to Thomas Cromwell, the noted VicarGeneral, adopted the uncle's family name (Pat. Brit., by M. A. Lower, 1860). Oliver was born more than a hundred years later, in 1599..

2 It is interesting to compare the ages of certain leading persons in the sixteenth century with others in the nineteenth :In the sixteenth century: Henry VII, 52; Henry VIII, 56; Wolsey, 59 (at the most); Pole, 58; Warham, 82 (who is an exception); Fox of Winchester, 62; Colet, 53.

In the nineteenth: Queen Victoria, 81; Gladstone, 89; Russell, 86; Archbishop Temple, 81; Palmerston, 81; Beaconsfield, 77; Newman, 89; Melbourne, 69.

marks of personal regard and almost affection, until the storm burst in 1529 and he was cruelly driven from the Court. In the last sad year of Wolsey's life Henry's threats to call him back again, coupled with the reports of the Cardinal's popularity in his diocese, led to the successful plot for his arrest for high treason. No man succeeded to the position of influence, and henceforth Henry grew more unreasonable. He bended the aged Warham to his will, executed More and Fisher under the Act of Supremacy, and used the pliable Gardiner, whom he nominated to the Bishopric of Winchester. Pole was invited to take the vacant see of York, but the King's illustrious kinsman knew too well the price he would pay for the position and refused it.

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In Thomas Cromwell, one of Wolsey's household, Henry found the man he wanted as chief administrator, and for the next ten years the Church of England was humiliated through the agency of this most despised and justly abhorred servant of the Crown. Whatever view English Churchmen may take of the policy of suppressing the monasteries, or of the necessity of repudiating Papal supremacy, they are at one in the detestation of this oppressor's character and methods.

Let me sketch his career.2 He was born in London in 1490 of most humble parentage. Brought up to the profession of the law, he very early became an adventurer, and after being tossed about the world, in which he learnt arts of craftiness and habits of moneymaking, he entered Wolsey's service, where for six years he was employed in the legal business connected with the two Colleges. He became wool-stapler, lawyer and money-lender combined, and many of the young nobility in Henry's Court were soon deeply in debt to him. His reputation for "an itching palm" was known before Wolsey's death, but by this time his gifts and powers

1 Pole was thirty at the death of Wolsey, and therefore had just reached the canonical age for the episcopate. As a boy of seventeen the King nominated him as Prebendary of Salisbury, and soon afterwards Dean of Wimborne Minster.

2 Brewer, Henry VIII, vol. ii., p. 392.

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were known to the King, who employed him in several pieces of business. He became Member of Parliament, Master of the Rolls, Baron, Knight of S. George, Earl of Essex, Vicar-General, with authority superior to that of the archbishops and bishops, Lord Privy Seal, Chancellor of Cambridge University, Dean of Wells, and, though a layman, the holder of other ecclesiastical benefices, and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Thus did Henry VIII delight to accumulate offices in the hands of one man.2 Without mentioning now the evidence of his oppressions and dishonesty, let us take the story of his fall from power. This came with all the sudden retribution in which Henry VIII delighted. His attainder contains, amongst other charges, "(He) hath acquired and obtained into his possession by oppression, bribery, extorted power and false promises immense sums of money and treasures. He was sent to the Tower, June 10, 1540. The following day the King sent a herald through the streets of London to proclaim that Cromwell had been stripped of every title or dignity he had, and was to be known as "Thomas Cromwell, Cloth Carder." London broke forth into transports of joy, and on July 28 "The Cloth Carder" met his fate on Tower Hill.3

The Suppression of the Monasteries.

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Thomas Cromwell's was the guiding hand in carrying out the Acts of Parliament for the Suppression of the

1 Record Office, Chapter House Books, 30 Hen. VIII. "Item, Mr. Gostwyke for the firstfruits of my Lord's divers benefices." Item, the tenths for Deanery of Wells."

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2 Campbell's Lives of the English Chancellors. "(Cromwell's career) more resembled that of a slave at once constituted grand vizier in an Eastern despotism than of a minister of state promoted in a constitutional government where law, usage and public opinion check the capricious humours of the sovereign."

3 As some set-off against these severe, yet justly deserved, words, we record two things of value which the English Church owes to Cromwell as its Vicar-General :

a. The institution of Parish Registers in 1538. b. The Great Bible of 1539.