The repudiation of Anne was, as Cromwell said, a far greater matter than at first sight appeared. The plan to draw into one confederation for the objects of England the German Protestants, the King of Denmark, and the Duke of Cleves, whose seizure of Guelderland had brought him in opposition to the Emperor, was the most threatening that had faced Charles for years. His own city of Ghent was in open revolt, and Francis after all was but a fickle ally. If once more the French King turned from him and made friends with the Turk and the Lutherans, then indeed would the imperial power have cause to tremble and Henry to rejoice. Cromwell had striven hard to cement the Protestant combination; but again and again he had been thwarted by his rivals. The passage of the Six Articles against his wish, although the execution of the Act was suspended at Cromwell’s instance, had caused the gravest distrust on the part of Hans Frederick and the Landgrave of Hesse; and if Henry were encouraged to repudiate his German wife, not only would her brother—already in negotiation with the imperial agents for the investiture of Gueldres, and his marriage with the Emperor’s niece, the Duchess of Milan—be at once driven into opposition to England, but Hans Frederick and Hesse would also abandon Henry to the tender mercies of his enemies.
The only way to avoid such a disaster following upon the repudiation of Anne was first to drive a wedge of distrust between Charles and Francis, now in close confederacy. In January the Emperor had surprised the world by his boldness in traversing France to his Flemish dominions. He was feasted splendidly by Francis, and escaped unbetrayed; but during his stay in France desperate attempts were made by Wyatt, Henry’s ambassador with Charles, Bonner, the ambassador in France, and by the Duke of Norfolk, who went in February on a special mission, to sow discord between the allied sovereigns, and not without some degree of success. Charles during his stay in France was badgered by Wyatt into saying some hasty words, which were deliberately twisted by Norfolk into a menace to France and England alike. Francis was reminded with irritating iteration that Charles had plenty of smiles and soft words for his French friends, but avoided keeping his promises about the cession of Milan or anything else. So in France those who were in favour of the imperial alliance, the Montmorencies and the Queen, declined in their hold over Francis, and their opponents, the Birons, the Queen of Navarre, Francis’ sister, and the Duchess of Etampes, his mistress, planned with Henry’s agents for an understanding with England. This, as may be supposed, was not primarily Cromwell’s policy, but that of Norfolk and his friends, because its success would inevitably mean the conciliation of the German princes and Cleves by the Emperor, and the break-up of the Protestant confederacy and England, by which Cromwell must now stand or fall.
As early as April, Marillac, the French ambassador in England, foretold the great change that was coming. The arrest of Barnes, Garrard, and Jerome, for anti-Catholic teaching, and the persecutions everywhere for those who offended ever so slightly in the same way, presaged Cromwell’s fall. “Cranmer and Cromwell,” writes Marillac, “do not know where they are. Within a few days there will be seen in this country a great change in many things, which this King begins to make in his ministers, recalling those he had disgraced, and degrading those he had raised. Cromwell is tottering: for all those now recalled were dismissed at his request, and bear him no little grudge—amongst others, the Bishops of Winchester (i.e. Gardiner), Durham, and Bath, men of great learning and experience, who are now summoned to the Privy Council. It is said that Tunstal (i.e. Durham) will be Vicar-General, and Bath Privy Seal, which are Cromwell’s principal offices.... If he holds his own (i.e. Cromwell), it will only be because of his close assiduity in business, though he is very rude in his demeanour. He does nothing without consulting the King, and is desirous of doing justice, especially to foreigners.”
This was somewhat premature, but it gives a good idea of the process that was going on. There is no doubt that Cromwell believed in his ability to keep his footing politically; for he was anything but rigid in his principles, and if the friendship with France initiated by his rivals had, as it showed signs of doing, developed into an alliance that would enable Henry both to dismiss his fears of the Emperor and throw over the Protestants, he would probably have accepted the situation, and have proposed a means for Henry to get rid of his distasteful wife. But this opportunism did not suit his opponents in Henry’s Council. They wanted to get rid of the man quite as much as they did his policy; for his insolence had stung them to the quick, great nobles as most of them were, and he the son of a blacksmith. Some other means, therefore, than a mere change of policy was necessary to dislodge the strong man who guided the King. Parliament had met on the 12th April, and it was managed with Cromwell’s usual boldness and success.[206] As if to mark that his great ability was still paramount, he was made Earl of Essex and Great Chamberlain of England in the following week.
But the struggle in the Council, and around the King, continued unabated. Henry was warned by Cromwell’s enemies of the danger of allowing religious freedom to be carried too far, and of thus giving the Catholic powers an excuse for executing the Pope’s decree of deprivation against him. He was reminded that the Emperor and Francis were still friends, that the latter was suspiciously preparing for war, and that Henry’s brother-in-law the Duke of Cleves’ quarrel with the Emperor might drag England into war for the sake of a beggarly German dukedom of no importance or value to her. On the other hand, Cromwell would point out to Henry the disobedience and insolence of the Catholics who questioned his spiritual supremacy, and cause Churchmen who advocated a reconciliation with Rome to be imprisoned. Clearly such a position could not continue indefinitely, and Norfolk anticipated Cromwell by playing the final trump card—that of arousing Henry’s personal fears. The word treason and a hint that anything could be intended against his person always brought Henry to heel. What the exact accusation against Cromwell was no one knows, though it was whispered at the time that the nobles had told Henry that Cromwell had amassed great stores of money and arms, and maintained a vast number of dependants (1500 men, it was asserted, wore his livery), with a sinister object; some said to marry the Princess Mary and make himself King; and that he had received a great bribe from the Duke of Cleves and the Protestants to bring about the marriage of Anne. Others said that he had boasted that he was to receive a crown abroad from a foreign potentate (i.e., the Emperor), and that he had talked of defending the new doctrines at the sword’s point.[207] No such accusations, however, are on official record; and there is no doubt that the real reason for his arrest was the animosity of the aristocratic and Catholic party against him, acting upon the King’s fears and his desire to get rid of Anne of Cleves.
On the 9th June Parliament was still sitting, discussing the religious question with a view to the settlement of some uniform doctrine. The Lords of the Council left the Chamber to go across to Whitehall to dinner before midday; and as they wended their way across the great courtyard of Westminster a high wind carried away Cromwell’s flat cap from his head. It was the custom when one gentleman was even accidentally uncovered for those who were with him also to doff their bonnets. But, as an attendant ran and recovered Cromwell’s flying headgear on that occasion, the haughty minister looked grimly round and saw all his colleagues, once so humble, holding their own caps upon their heads. “A high wind indeed must this be,” sneered Cromwell, “to blow my cap off, and for you to need hold yours on.” He must have known that ill foreboded; for during dinner no one spoke to him. The meal finished, Cromwell went to the Council Chamber with the rest, and, as was his custom, stood at a window apart to hear appeals and applications to him, and when these were disposed of he turned to the table to take his usual seat with the rest. On this occasion Norfolk stopped him, and told him that it was not meet that traitors should sit amongst loyal gentlemen. “I am no traitor!” shouted Cromwell, dashing his cap upon the ground; but the captain of the guard was at the door, and still protesting the wretched man was hurried to the Water Gate and rowed swiftly to the Tower, surrounded by halberdiers, Norfolk as he left the Council Chamber tearing off the fallen minister’s badge of the Garter as a last stroke of ignominy.
Cromwell knew he was doomed, for by the iniquitous Act that he himself had forged for the ruin of others, he might be attainted and condemned legally without his presence or defence. “Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!” he wrote to the King in his agony; but for him there was as little mercy as he had shown to others. His death was a foregone conclusion, for Henry’s fears had been aroused: but Cromwell had to be kept alive long enough for him to furnish such information as would provide a plausible pretext for the repudiation of Anne. He was ready to do all that was asked of him—to swear to anything the King wished. He testified that he knew the marriage had never been consummated, and never would be; that the King was dissatisfied from the first, and had complained that the evidence of the nullification of the prior contract with the heir of Lorraine was insufficient; that the King had never given full consent to the marriage, but had gone through the ceremony under compulsion of circumstances, and with mental reservation. When all this was sworn to, Cromwell’s hold upon the world was done. Upon evidence now unknown he was condemned for treason and heresy without being heard in his own defence, and on the 28th July 1540 he stood, a sorry figure, upon the scaffold in the Tower. He had been a sinner, he confessed, and had travailed after the things of this world; but he fervently avowed that he was a good Catholic and no heretic, and had harboured no thought of evil towards his sovereign. But protestations availed not; and his head, the cleverest head in England, was pitiably hacked off by a bungling headsman. Before that happened, the repudiation of Anne of Cleves was complete, and a revival of the aristocratic and Catholic influence in England was an accomplished fact.
