Russell, then in much repute at Court, recommended him to the patronage of Wolsey, then in the zenith of his power. The Cardinal took Cromwell into his service and confidence, and made him secretary and chief agent in the great scheme of the dissolution of the religious houses, which was now carrying on, the funds thus raised being ostensibly apportioned to defraying the expenses attendant on the erection of the colleges which Wolsey was now founding—
‘Those twin seats of learning,
Ipswich and Oxford.’
But there were whisperings abroad that much of the money thus obtained overflowed into the pockets of ‘master and man,’ a circumstance which Cromwell emphatically denied in a conversation with Master George Cavendish, one of the Cardinal’s gentlemen, and his eventual biographer. The question of Cromwell’s fidelity to his master, when Wolsey fell on evil days, has been differently treated by different writers; but there is no doubt that when Wolsey left London in disgrace, Cromwell followed him to Esher—or Asher, as it is written by Master Cavendish—who tells us he went into the great chamber, and to his surprise found Master Cromwell standing in the large window, the tears distilling from his eyes, with a primer in his hand, praying earnestly,—‘the which was a strange sight,’ for it did not appear that the said Master Cromwell was by any means given to devotion. Cavendish inquired into the cause of his sorrow, asking anxiously if he considered their master’s case to be so very hopeless, on which Cromwell, with much candour, confessed that it was his own fate he was bewailing, for it seemed most likely that he was on the point of losing everything for which he had been travailing all the days of his life; moreover, that he was in disdain of all men simply for doing his master’s service, through which he had never increased his living, on the contrary, had been a heavy loser. Then he confided to Master Cavendish how, that very afternoon, when the Cardinal had dined, it was his (Cromwell’s) intention to ride with all speed to London, and so to Court, ‘where I will either make or mar ere I come back again.’ Assuredly in the audience which he solicited and obtained did Master Cromwell make, and not mar, as far as he himself was concerned. He had a long and explicit conversation with the King, into whose favour he ingratiated himself by suggesting the very line of conduct on which he well knew Henry’s heart was bent. Acquainted with the Monarch’s infatuation for Anne Boleyn, he now suggested, as if from his own notion of advisability, that the King should throw off all allegiance to the Pope, declare himself supreme head of the Church throughout his own kingdom, and thus facilitate the much desired measure of his divorce from Queen Katherine. Such palatable advice was indeed well calculated to win Henry’s good graces, and from that moment Cromwell’s rapid rise began. The King, knowing what a valuable auxiliary he had proved to his late patron in the matter of the suppression of the religious houses, resolved to secure Cromwell’s services for the same purpose. He therefore confirmed him in the office of Steward of the Dissolved Monasteries, made him a Privy Councillor, a Knight, Secretary of State, Master of the Royal Jewel-house, Clerk of the Hanaper (a lucrative post in the Court of Chancery), and what Cromwell’s enemies termed ‘the Lord knows what.’ In 1535 Visitor-General of the said suppressed monasteries throughout the realm, in which capacity Sir Thomas incurred much censure, and was branded by many as cruel, rapacious, and overbearing. In our judgment of this sentence we must take into consideration the fever heat at which religious animosity now stood; suffice it to say that Cromwell satisfied the views of his royal master, and was not Henry cruel, rapacious, and overbearing? Fabulous sums were extorted from the exchequers of these establishments, and it was almost universally believed that the favourite came in for a considerable share of the booty. It was indeed evident he did not remember the injunction laid upon him by Sir Thomas More, namely, that he should advise the King what he ought to do, not only what he was able to do. In 1536 he was made Privy Seal, and the same year Baron Cromwell of Okeham, County Rutland, and (the authority of the Pope being by this time abolished in England) Henry instituted a new office, to which he appointed his favourite. This was Vicar-General, or in other words, Supreme Head of the Church, as representative of the King, in which capacity he sat in the House of Lords, and also at Convocation above the Archbishop of Canterbury. The office included that of Principal Commissary for the Administration of Justice in all ecclesiastical affairs; of the godly reformation, and the redress of all errors, heresies, and abuses of the English Reformed Church, both in Parliament and Convocation.
It was indeed strange that the man who, a very short time before, had professed infidel doctrines (and was so unsettled in his creed that when Cavendish found him at prayers, the primer in his hand should be our lady’s matins) strange to say that this individual should now come forward as the principal pillar of the Reformation. Dr. Hook, in his Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, says, Cromwell ‘was not a real Protestant, and was generally supposed to be a man who supported the party from which he could obtain most, a statesman whose religion depended on politics, and who had no knowledge of theological subjects.’ Yet from the circumstances in which he was now placed all the English Protestants rallied round him, and those of Germany treated with him. In his new capacity Cromwell issued the most stringent and binding regulations for the conduct of the reformed clergy, was indefatigable in propagating the Bible throughout the country, causing it to be read in churches, and placed in convenient parts of the building, where the parishioners themselves could refer to it on their own account. But Cromwell’s life forms part of the history of the reign of Henry the Eighth, and indeed of the Reformation itself. And it is incumbent on us to condense this narrative lest it exceed the prescribed bounds.
He continued to receive marks of favour from the King, but his keen eye detected the gathering clouds in his own future; and he knew if Henry once failed him there would be little hope of stemming the tide of unpopularity which threatened to overpower him. He well knew that he was hated by all classes; the nobility, who grudged all the titles and honours bestowed on ‘the blacksmith’s son’; the Roman Catholics, who had good reason to detest him; while the reformed clergy rebelled against many of the changes and innovations which the Vicar-General had instituted in the services and conduct of the Church; and the poorer classes were indignant with him for depriving them of the bounty which they had so long received from the religious houses. Cromwell had good cause to be uneasy. He began by propitiating ‘the poor and needy,’ who now flocked by invitation to the gate of his house in Throckmorton Street, oftentimes twice a day, where they were regaled with bread and meat and money. He then set on foot negotiations with the Protestant Princes of Germany, more especially the reigning Duke of Cleves, in order to bring about a marriage between that Prince’s sister and Henry the Eighth, who was at this moment in one of his transitory intervals of widowhood. Lord Cromwell imagined that a Protestant queen of his own selection would be an invaluable ally at Court, and help him to retain the favour of the King, who was persuaded into the belief that the Lady Anne of Cleves was not only ‘fair and portly,’ but comely in face and feature, an error in which Henry was confirmed by a very flattering portrait from the pencil of Holbein. So the Princess was sent for to come over to England, and a magnificent cortége was despatched, with the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, to bring her on her way to London; and Henry conceived the romantic idea of riding down to Rochester in disguise to waylay his bride. Alas! for the eager glance which his Grace cast into the travelling coach, where sat a lady tall and portly indeed, but coarse and ugly in face and feature! Henry, we are told, was ‘alarmed and abashed,’ but he also was furious. He felt he had been deceived, and he sent for Cromwell and bade him devise some means for the prevention of the marriage. It was too late; matters had gone too far, and the ceremony was performed.
It would appear that at the time the King did not realise the idea that Cromwell was the principal instigator of the hated union, for it was after the marriage that he was raised to the Earldom of Essex, and made Lord Chamberlain, and his son granted a separate peerage. We know from the pages of history how the King’s horror of ‘the Flanders mare’ increased day by day, and he never rested till he had obtained a divorce, soon followed by the downfall of the newly created Earl of Essex, whose ruin was resolved on.
The Duke of Norfolk was intrusted with the task of arresting his enemy at the Council Board on the opening of Parliament in June 1540, and despatching him to the Tower, nor was he loth to carry out the royal command. Essex claimed a trial by his Peers, but the privilege was denied him. He was condemned, says Dr. Hook, by the iniquitous statute, admitting of attainder without trial, a measure of which he was not the actual founder, as affirmed by some writers, but the reviver of the same, and therefore by many pronounced deserving of his fate.
He was accused of high treason, heresy, embezzlement, and a host of other misdemeanours, but there is little doubt the worst offence in Henry’s eyes was his instrumentality in promoting the hateful marriage with Anne of Cleves.
The only voice that was raised in his behalf was that of Archbishop Cranmer, who wrote a most eloquent letter to the King, entreating him to spare the life of Lord Essex, but it was unavailing. Cromwell’s demeanour in the Tower was very different from that which had characterised Sir Thomas More. He addressed the most abject letters to Henry, and would have accepted life at almost any price. He wrote ‘with a heavy heart and trembling hand,’ and signed himself, ‘Your highness’s most humble and wretched prisoner and poor slave, Thomas Cromwell.’ While underneath the subscription came the words, ‘I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy!’