On July 27 the Parliament closed, having finished the work that the King had mapped out for it. Since Cromwell’s arrest it had practically undone all that his foreign policy of the two past years had accomplished, by nullifying the marriage of Henry and Anne. The rest of its proceedings are unimportant, except perhaps the attainder of Barnes, Garret, and Jerome, the Lutheran preachers, who were convicted of heresy and sentenced to die at the stake[734]. With the divorce from Anne secured, and those whom the minister had favoured at home condemned, there was now no longer any impediment to the completion of the final act of the tragedy, and on July 28 ‘Thomas Cromwell, shearman,’ was led forth to execution. In a letter to Francis, Marillac simply mentions the fact of his death[735], but a more complete account of the end of the great minister is fortunately preserved to us in the chronicles of Holinshed and Hall, and the history of Foxe[736].
From the stories of all these chroniclers it appears that Cromwell on the scaffold made an address to the people, declaring the faith in which he died. That his speech was printed and publicly circulated is attested by Pole; and the fact that Holinshed, Hall, and Foxe give it in almost exactly the same words corroborates the truth of the Cardinal’s statement. Pole, however, goes on to say that though at first he accepted the printed speech as a true version of Cromwell’s words, he later learned from trustworthy persons that what Cromwell had actually said was something very different[737]. The words of the speech certainly have the appearance of being composed beforehand and forced upon Cromwell’s dying lips. He confessed that he had done wrong, asked forgiveness of his King, and finally asserted that he died in the Catholic Faith, not doubting in any article of his faith, ‘no nor doubting in any Sacrament of the Church[738].’ This last statement was certainly untrue; nor would it have been in any way less false, if Cromwell had said that he died a true Protestant[739]. His religious beliefs were, as far as can be discovered, absolutely nothing when disconnected from practical ends, and he probably made his last speech at the King’s command, either to save himself from a more shameful death than beheading, or else, as is quite probable, to avert the ruin of his son Gregory, who he perhaps feared would fall with him. On this point, however, he need not have had any apprehension; Gregory Cromwell, perhaps on account of his fortunate marriage with the aunt of Prince Edward, appeared to be in as high favour as ever[740], and the title of Baron Cromwell, which his father forfeited at his attainder, was regranted to the young man by patent, Dec. 18, 1540[741].
Besides this speech, which has given historians so much trouble, Hall makes mention of the fact that Cromwell ‘made his praier, which was long, but not so long as both Godly and learned[742].’ This prayer is given in full in Foxe, and, as it reads there, it certainly justifies the use of the epithets that Hall applied to it[743]. Whether Foxe’s words were Cromwell’s words, or whether Cromwell’s words were his own, and not those of the King which were given him to speak, is however entirely another matter. It is unfortunate that we have no more credible authority than the martyrologist on this point. Cromwell’s prayer, as he gives it, was certainly that of a man who humbly acknowledged his faults, and threw himself solely on the mercy of God; but the words which he spoke are suspiciously devout, for those of a man to whom religion mattered so little.
‘And thus,’ says Foxe, ‘his Prayer made, after he had godly and lovingly exhorted them that were about him on the Scaffold, he quietly committed his Soul into the hands of God, and so patiently suffered the stroke of the Ax, by a ragged and butcherly Miser, which very ungodly performed his Office[744].’
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XIV
PASSAGES FROM FOXE’S ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
Vol. ii. p. 433.