Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, Vol. 1 of 2 / Life, Letters to 1535

by Roger Bigelow Merriman

The King’s secretary was no less prompt in pointing out to the Imperial ambassador the bearing of the decease of the divorced Queen on England’s relations with Spain. He was not ashamed to remark to one of Chapuys’ men that the Emperor had the greatest cause to be thankful for the death of Katherine, which in his judgement was the very best thing that could have happened for the preservation of the amity between Henry and Charles, as it completely removed the sole cause of jealousy between them[587]. The Emperor was too hard-headed a politician not to see the force of Cromwell’s words. We cannot doubt that he was exceedingly angry at the death of his aunt, which he certainly believed was due to foul play; but his situation was such that revenge was impossible, and with characteristic calmness and self-control he determined to conceal his resentment and conciliate Henry. It was doubtless with his full sanction that Chapuys welcomed all Cromwell’s proposals, which looked towards a more cordial relation between England and Spain. Meantime Francis had not been slow to take the hint which Gardiner, at Cromwell’s command, had given him, and was again using every effort to regain Henry’s favour. The breach between the two continental sovereigns was, to the King’s intense joy, becoming wider every day, with the result that each was making frantic attempts to outbid the other for England’s friendship. Henry’s position was for the moment almost ideal. All he needed to do was to keep the two rivals just evenly balanced. But precisely at this critical juncture, Cromwell for the first time in his ministry made a move without the King’s leave, which, had it not been instantly forestalled, would have completely upset the beautiful equilibrium which Henry had laboured so hard to establish. The King had doubtless ordered him to be cordial to Chapuys, in order to counterbalance the effects of the warmth of Francis; but he had not the least idea of entering into any definite agreement, which might lose him his precious position of neutrality. But Cromwell did not see this. He exceeded his instructions, was voluble in his disparagement of the French in Chapuys’ presence, and finally brought matters to such a point that he went with Chapuys to the King to propose an Imperial alliance[588]. It was the most open avowal he had yet made of a leaning towards Spain, that he had doubtless cherished for a long time. Born among the common people, Cromwell’s early life had been spent in that atmosphere of bitter hatred of France, which for generations had been one of the most predominant characteristics of the lower classes in England. In the first half of the sixteenth century, hatred of France meant friendship with Spain, and from the first years of the reign of Henry VIII. one encounters at every turn evidences of the devotion of the common people to the Imperial cause. Wolsey’s policy of peace with France had won him almost as many enemies among the lower classes as his reputation as originator of oppressive financial measures. Cromwell had determined not to make the same mistake that his predecessor had, but he was foolish enough to err on the opposite side. During the year 1535 he had given hints that he was no friend of France[589]. His rudeness to the French ambassadors on more than one occasion had convinced Chapuys that he favoured the Emperor, but as yet he had not gone far enough to bring himself into collision with the King. But this time he had forgotten his previous caution, and his rashness resulted in his first serious quarrel with his master. Henry may well have been furious that his minister’s recklessness had threatened to destroy the whole fabric of a policy which he had been at such pains to put in operation. The Imperial ambassador gives us an amusing account of a scene which ensued in the Privy Chamber when he came with Cromwell to propose an alliance between England and Spain. After Chapuys had propounded the terms of a possible treaty, Henry called Cromwell and Audeley to him and retired to another part of the room. ‘They talked together,’ writes Chapuys, who kept a vigilant eye upon the gestures of the King and those with him. ‘There seemed to be some dispute and considerable anger, as I thought, between the King and Cromwell; and after a considerable time Cromwell grumbling left the conference in the window where the King was, excusing himself that he was so very thirsty that he was quite exhausted, as he really was with pure vexation, and sat down upon a coffer out of sight of the King, where he sent for something to drink.’ Henry soon came to Chapuys, and after being as rude as possible, reproaching the Emperor with past ingratitude, and asserting that Milan rightfully belonged to the French, waived the point at issue entirely, and was with difficulty persuaded to look over the treaties at a later time. ‘At this slender and provoking answer,’ writes Chapuys, ‘I left the Court, and went to wait on Cromwell,’ whose regret was so great ‘that he was hardly able to speak for sorrow, and had never been more mortified in his life, than with the said reply[590].’

Ample justification was soon afforded for Henry’s strict adherence to the policy of neutrality, for events on the Continent had moved rapidly forward, and Charles and Francis were at last at open war. By restraining Cromwell from making the mistake of cementing an alliance with the Emperor, and by guarding himself against a too close intimacy with Francis, the King had succeeded in placing England in such a position that the two great continental powers were forced to grovel at her feet. From the beginning of 1536 until the autumn of 1537, when the truce between France and Flanders (forerunner of the peace of Nice in the summer of 1538) was concluded, the history of the foreign policy of England is as simple as it is glorious and triumphant. Henry, constantly pretending to be desirous of arbitrating between France and Spain, ‘for the peax and weale of Christendome,’ as he elegantly put it, was in reality solely occupied with the endeavour to embroil them the more. Alternately encouraging and repelling advances from both sovereigns, by judiciously proposing and then retreating from alliances with each of them, he succeeded admirably in keeping Charles and Francis in a constant state of anxiety, as regarded his true position. Cromwell’s letters tell the story of the time very clearly. ‘An answer soo general that it doth neither refuse their alliance, ne moche encorage them, to conceyue that they maye without difficultie obteyn their desire’ was the reply which the English ambassadors were ordered to give at the French and Spanish Courts[591]. So secure did Henry feel himself abroad that he dared to issue a manifesto in contempt of the General Council[592], which the Pope had summoned to meet at Mantua, and to publish the Ten Articles of 1536, which, while primarily intended to serve another purpose, were politically useful as a formal refusal to respect it. It was very fortunate for England that her affairs abroad were so prosperous at this juncture, as the end of 1536 and the beginning of 1537 were full of anxiety at home, owing to the outbreak of the rebellion in the North.

This happy state of affairs however was not destined to endure, for Francis and Charles soon tired of their strife, and in the autumn of 1537 there were signs of a reconciliation. Francis, moreover, had strengthened his position by a league with the Turk, and began to feel powerful enough to make a move without Henry’s leave. The first intimation of this unpleasant fact came to Henry in the shape of a refusal of a matrimonial offer. The death of Queen Jane had left him free to marry again, and so gave him an excellent opportunity once more to mix in continental affairs, which he did not permit to escape him. Cromwell wrote a letter for him to Lord William Howard and Gardiner, artfully instructing them to feel the way for a possible alliance with Mme. de Longueville, who had just been affianced to James of Scotland. It was too much of a favour to ask Francis to put aside the claims of a sovereign who had always been his true friend, to make way for those of the more powerful but perfidious King of England, and Henry’s offers were, after some negotiations, politely but firmly declined, to the latter’s intense chagrin[593]. An almost equally ominous note of warning came from Spain at the same time. Sir John Dudley, ambassador to announce the death of the Queen at the Spanish Court, had expressed to the Emperor the King’s sorrow that his repeated offers of mediation with France had been set aside, whereupon Charles turned on him, and informed him that negotiations with France were already set on foot, though he relieved Henry’s anxiety a little by assuring him that no actual treaty should be made without the King of England’s being included as a ‘premier contrahent,’ a promise which Cromwell was continually harping upon a year later, when the situation had entirely changed[594].

Thus the year 1538 opened rather darkly for England. The dread with which Henry watched the increasing signs of good-feeling between Charles and Francis led him into ridiculous and undignified action. As soon as it was settled that Mary of Guise was to become James’ wife, Henry literally scoured the continent of Europe in search of an alliance for himself or his daughters, which would strengthen his position and avert the impending crisis. A somewhat confusing set of double instructions from Cromwell to his friend Philip Hoby, instructing him to negotiate for possible marriages with the younger sister of James’ wife, with the daughter of the Duke of Lorraine, and also with the Duchess of Milan, and to obtain their portraits, is not without interest as revealing Henry’s state of mind[595]. The first two of these unions, if accomplished, would of course have rendered him safe from France; the other would have put him on friendly terms with Spain; but none of them was destined to succeed. The King even went so far as to permit Sir Francis Brian, his agent at the French Court, to suggest that various suitable ladies should be brought to Calais for his inspection, that he might be sure that he made no mistake. Henry’s proceedings evoked such ridicule and derision in continental Europe, that Castillon, the French ambassador, contrived to convey to him the general feeling with such directness and force that he actually drew a blush from the King himself[596]. Finding that his endeavours to obtain a suitable wife for himself were abortive, Henry looked about for an advantageous marriage for his daughter Mary. By alternately holding out to the Emperor a prospect of a match for her with the Infant of Portugal, and pretending to accept a proposition of the French representative, Castillon, that she should marry the Duke of Orleans, he contrived to lay the basis for a continental quarrel. But his success in this scheme was very short-lived. The only person that he could deceive at all was Castillon. It seems that Cromwell, who again at this crisis took the opportunity to show his decided leaning towards Spain, had openly disapproved of the proposed French alliance, and when Castillon complained of this, Henry turned fiercely upon his minister and reprimanded him, saying that he was a good manager, but not fit to intermeddle in the affairs of kings, and finally Norfolk was sent for. Cromwell’s ‘great Spanish passion,’ as Castillon called it, had got him into trouble again, and the French ambassador was delighted, thinking that he had at last obtained the upper hand. But Castillon’s delusions were rudely dispelled three weeks later, when he learned that the King and Council were resolved ‘to withdraw from the French match,’ on account of offers which the Emperor had made, and when Francis wrote that the King’s proceedings only proved that he was jealous of the negotiations for peace[597]. It is needless to state that neither of the proposed unions ever took place, and Henry’s frantic endeavours to frustrate the steadily increasing amity of France and Spain were entirely unavailing.

Matrimonial agitations being found useless to serve his purpose, Henry had recourse to other methods to stir up suspicions between Charles and Francis, and to prevent the dreaded peace. Whatever malicious tale-bearing and false representations could accomplish was used to the full by the King and his minister. Cromwell wrote to Sir Thomas Wyatt at the Spanish Court, directing him to ‘declare how the frenche men show themselfes so ernest to put al in the kinges hand that they offer vpon any significacion that themperour woll make . . . to condescende to the same,’ and telling how the French ambassador had promised that Henry ‘shuld for the French kinges parte haue the hole and entier manyeng of the Peax betwen him and Themperor[598].’ If Henry could not obtain the ‘hole and entier manyeng of the Peax,’ he did his best to convince Charles and Francis separately that his own friendship was more valuable to each of them than that of the other. Furthermore he took pains to assure each one of the two rivals apart, that the other prized England’s amity so much that great concessions would be necessary to regain it.

But in spite of all Henry’s efforts to avert it, the news of the truce between Charles and Francis and of their subsequent interview at Aigues Mortes reached England in July, 1538[599]. Still so confident was the King in the wisdom of his original policy of strengthening England solely by attempts to embroil these two powerful sovereigns under cover of offers of mediation, that he refused definitely to abandon it, in spite of the threatening outlook on the Continent. He remembered that the situation there had often changed before, and saw that it would probably do so again. He encouraged himself with hopes that in spite of the failure of his attempts to contract a marriage in France, he might still gain the hand of the Duchess of Milan, and with the reflection that the inroads of the Turk into the Emperor’s dominions would be a serious hindrance to any direct attack upon England. He was unwilling to seek security in an outside alliance, for fear of imperilling his hard-won position as a neutral between France and Spain. He wished still to rely solely on judicious interference in the affairs of Charles and Francis for England’s safety.

But with Cromwell the case was very different. The closing months of the year 1538 were the turning-point in his career, for they saw him take a step which was destined to bring him into collision with the King, and later to lead him to his death. The original difference of opinion between King and minister, which first came to the fore in the quarrel of 1536, now broke forth again under a slightly altered form, which it was destined to maintain till the end. At first we saw that Cromwell vented his distrust of the policy of neutrality in favouring a definite alliance with Spain. The changed situation on the Continent rendered a league with Charles impossible now, so that the only refuge that remained for England, if the policy which had been so successful in 1536 and 1537 really broke down, was to court an alliance with some power outside the two great continental rivals. And Cromwell, inexperienced, and overestimating the danger of foreign invasion, certainly believed that Henry’s efforts to maintain his old position between France and Spain were now doomed to inevitable failure. He did not see, as the King did, that the friendship of Charles and Francis was but temporary, and that the old quarrels were ultimately certain to break forth afresh. He looked the situation as it was squarely in the face, abandoned once and for all the policy of seeking safety by playing on the mutual jealousies of Charles and Francis; he frankly recognized the probability of war, and deliberately courted an outside league for England’s defence. As he had always considered the friendship of the Emperor more valuable than that of Francis, so he considered his enmity, which he now regarded as inevitable, as more to be feared. Consequently, in looking about for an alliance to fortify England, he sought one which could be most effectively directed against Charles.

It will be remembered that in order to guard against the danger of a possible coalition of the Emperor and the King of France in 1533 and 1534, some proposals had been made for a league with the Protestant princes of Germany; but that owing to theological differences, the Lübeck affair, and the death of Katherine and its results, the scheme had been abandoned as useless. As long as the interests of France and Spain were separated, the value of the German alliance as a defensive measure was of course lost, and England thought no more of it. But now that the news of the interview of Aigues Mortes had persuaded Cromwell that mere meddling in the affairs of France and Spain was not sufficient to prevent a coalition against England, he turned to his forsaken friends in Germany once more. Cromwell must have had great difficulty in bringing Henry to sanction a move to seek friendship with the Lutherans, but so hopeless did the King’s efforts to prevent a cordial relation between Charles and Francis appear, that he was at last induced to consent to the experiment, though, as we shall soon see, his acquiescence was only temporary. The opportunity for an alliance with the Germans was in many respects most favourable. The proclamation which Henry had put forth to show his contempt of the Papal authority to convoke a General Council, coupled with the Ten Articles of 1536, had called forth the most hearty approbation of the Lutheran princes. An elaborate set of instructions in the hand of one of the King’s secretaries directed Christopher Mont to go to the Germans again, and tell them how nearly Henry’s theological views coincided with their own, and to request them to send representatives to discuss with him points of faith[600]. The fact that the proposals for the German alliance ostensibly emanated from the King, is no sign that Cromwell was not the real originator of it. An invitation to send ambassadors could scarcely proceed from any other source than the Crown, so that the evidence afforded by the authorship of the instructions to Mont is of small weight; whereas the course of events in 1539 and 1540 leaves little doubt that the guiding hand throughout was that of the King’s minister. Henry’s name really appeared as little as possible in connexion with the Lutheran alliance from first to last, and only in the most formal manner. Cromwell’s was the moving spirit in it throughout, and Henry really never cordially supported him, but regarded the measure in the light of a disagreeable necessity, temporarily forced upon him by the apparent failure of his own plans.

But the outside world of course knew nothing of the difference of opinion between King and minister, and had no suspicion that the foundations were being laid here for the quarrel which was later to bring Cromwell to disaster. The Lutherans were greatly flattered by the proposals that had been made to them, and in May an embassy, headed by Franz Burckhard, Vice-Chancellor of Saxony, arrived in England. But in spite of all the trouble that had been taken, the plans of the King’s minister were not destined to bear fruit, for the only result of the Lutheran embassy was procrastination which seemed little better than failure. Theological differences were the ostensible reason for inability to conclude an agreement, but not the real one. The Protestantism of the Lutherans differed from that of Henry and Cromwell in much the same way as that of Tyndale, years before: they cared for their theology for its own sake, and not, like Henry, as a means to an end, as a stepping-stone to political greatness. A theological entente, however, would have been possible, had Cromwell and Henry united to bring it about; but they did not. The true reason for the failure to conclude an agreement was the obstinacy of the King, which asserted itself at the very moment that his minister had hoped to gain his complete consent to the proposed alliance. In the midst of the negotiations with the Lutherans, Henry’s faith in his old policy had been suddenly revived by the news that the extensive preparations of the Emperor, which he at first had feared were to be aimed at England, were in reality directed against the Turk[601]: the King was at least persuaded that he had no cause to fear an attack in the immediate future. Gardiner in Paris, moreover, had been steadily working to defeat the plans of Cromwell[602], and at the crucial moment his efforts appear to have borne fruit. The King refused to commit himself any further to the policy to which he had given his temporary sanction, but which, if definitely adopted, would have seriously hampered his own schemes. The most that Cromwell could do was to persuade the King to keep up the appearance of amity, and not to cut himself off from all chances of returning to his Lutheran friends at a later date. So the envoys were sent home in October, with a letter to the Elector of Saxony, telling him that his representatives had given assurance of such sound erudition and Christian piety, as would certainly lead to the best results; but as the matter of the negotiations concerned the glory of Christ and the discipline of religion, it required much more mature deliberation, and that a second embassy would have to be sent over before matters could be concluded[603]. For Cromwell, the dismissal of the Lutherans amounted to a second rebuke from the King, for meddling in foreign affairs; but this time the minister did not humbly accept the rebuff as he had done before, but continued to oppose his schemes to those of his master.