CHAPTER IV
THE FALL OF THE CARDINAL
In October, 1529, Cardinal Wolsey lost the King’s favour, and fell into disgrace. He was forced to give up the Great Seal, sign an indenture acknowledging that he had incurred the guilt of Praemunire, forfeit most of his lands, possessions, and offices, and retire to his seat at Esher[142]. His faithful biographer, Cavendish, gives a very touching account of the Cardinal’s surrender of his goods, his removal from the scene of his labours, and his enforced living in ‘estraunge estate[143].’ Few fallen ministers have ever been in a more pitiful position. To have incurred the ill-will of his master, as he had done, meant certain ruin in those days; and besides this he had turned the people against him by the part he had taken in the divorce. Anne Boleyn, whose influence at the Court was at its height, detested him for his failure to bring it about; the clergy and common people hated him for attempting it. The few friends who retained their fidelity to him in his trouble were prevented from showing it by their consciousness of the royal and popular displeasure.
As Wolsey’s servant, counsellor, and friend, Cromwell naturally felt the keenest anxiety lest he should be involved in his master’s ruin. It has been already shown that his action in suppressing the monasteries had made him very generally hated; and now that the prop that had supported him in his difficult and unpopular task was gone, he had great need to look to himself, if he did not wish to fall with the Cardinal. That he was perfectly well informed of the position in which he was placed is proved by a letter which he received from his friend Stephen Vaughan, written at Antwerp, October 30, 1529, which tells him that he is more hated for his master’s sake than for anything which he has wrongfully done to any man[144]. Another letter from his companion in Wolsey’s service, Sir Thomas Rush, who was employed with him at Ipswich, gave him further warning of the evil reports that were circulated about him[145]. It is no wonder that he was seriously alarmed.
Modern investigation has made it certain that there is but little historical foundation for the touching pictures drawn by Cavendish, Shakespeare, and, at a later day, Froude, which represent Cromwell as the faithful servant of his fallen master, unselfish, and exclusively devoted to his interests[146]. There is no reason to think that Cavendish, whose testimony is most valuable as that of an eye-witness of the scenes he describes, wilfully distorted the facts, but it is certain that his directness and simplicity often prevented him from drawing just conclusions from them, when he had to do with such astute men as Wolsey and Cromwell. By comparing his story with the events which followed, we shall see that while Cromwell kept up the appearance of spending all his time in helping Wolsey in his disgrace, he really was occupied in serving his own ends, and in regaining the favour he had lost as the Cardinal’s agent. Though he carefully abstained from doing or saying anything prejudicial to Wolsey’s cause, for fear of alienating people by laying himself open to the accusation of faithlessness to his master, he really did nothing to the Cardinal’s advantage that did not redound, in an infinitely greater degree, to his own profit and advancement. Let us follow the letters of Cromwell, the narrative of Cavendish, and the records of the Parliament of 1529, for our facts, but let us draw our own conclusions from them.
‘It chanced me upon All-hallowne day,’ says Cavendish, ‘to come into the Great Chamber at Assher in the morning, to give mine attendance, where I found Mr. Cromwell leaning in the great windowe with a Primer in his hand, saying our Lady mattens: which had bine a strange sight in him afore.—Well, what will you have more? He prayed no more earnestly, than he distilled teares as fast from his eyes. Whom I saluted and bad good-morrowe. And with that I perceived his moist chekes, the which he wiped with his napkine. To whom I saide, “Why, Mr. Cromwell, what meaneth this dole? Is my lord in any danger that ye doe lament for him? or is it for any other losse, that ye have sustained by misfortune?” “Nay,” quoth he, “it is for my unhappy adventure. For I am like to lose all that I have laboured for, all the daies of my life, for doing of my master true and diligent service.” “Why Sir,” quoth I, “I trust that you be too wise to do anything by my lord’s commaundement otherwise than ye might doe, whereof you ought to be in doubt or daunger for losse of your goods.” “Well, well,” quoth he, “I cannot tell; but this I see before mine eyes, that everything is as it is taken; and this I knowe well, that I am disdained withal for my master’s sake; and yet I am sure there is no cause, why they should do soe. An evill name once gotten will not lightly be put away. I never had promotion by my lord to the encrease of my living. But this much I will saye to you, that I will this afternoone, when my lord hath dined, ride to London, and to the courte, when I will either make or marre, or ever I come againe. I will put myself in prease, to see what they will be able to lay to my charge.” “Mary,” quoth I, “then in so doing you shall doe wisely, beseeching God to send you good lucke, as I would myselfe[147].”’
Cromwell performed his promise well. He dined with Wolsey on that All-hallowne Day, and later helped him to discharge his servants, causing his chaplains to pay part of the yeomen’s wages, in return for the benefices and livings which they had received from the Cardinal; setting an example himself, with unusual liberality, by a contribution of five pounds to this end. He then desired of Wolsey leave to go to London, which was granted, and he departed immediately with Ralph Sadler, his clerk.
No one knew better than Cromwell that the best place for him to ‘make or marre’ the Cardinal’s fortunes and his own, was in the Parliament which was to meet November 3 (two days later), and, ‘being in London, he devised with himself to be one of the burgesses[148].’ He sat as a member from Taunton, as the records of Parliament attest[149], but there are very contradictory reports about the way in which he obtained his seat. According to Cavendish ‘he chaunced to meete with one Sir Thomas Rush, knighte, a speciall friend of his, whose son was appointed to be a burgess, of whome he obtained his rome, and so put his fete into the parliament house.’ This may possibly be true, but it is not the whole truth, for a letter of November 1, from Sadler to Cromwell, the genuineness of which it is impossible to doubt, hints at a good deal more than is to be found in Cavendish’s account, which must have been made from Cromwell’s own story about his proceedings[150]. This letter reads as follows:—