The marriage of Anne of Cleves, however, was but the first step in a policy which, had it been carried out as he designed it, would have anticipated the triumphs of Richelieu. Charles and the house of Austria could alone bring about a Catholic reaction strong enough to arrest and roll back the Reformation; and Cromwell was no sooner united with the princes of North Germany than he sought to league them with France for the overthrow of the Emperor.
Had he succeeded, the whole face of Europe would have been changed, Southern Germany would have been secured for Protestantism, and the Thirty Years' War averted. But he failed as men fail who stand ahead of their age. The German princes shrank from a contest with the Emperor, France from a struggle which would be fatal to Catholicism; and Henry, left alone to bear the resentment of the house of Austria and chained to a wife he loathed, turned savagely on his minister.
In June the long struggle came to an end. The nobles sprang on Cromwell with a fierceness that told of their long-hoarded hate. Taunts and execrations burst from the Lords at the council table as the Duke of Norfolk, who had been intrusted with the minister's arrest, tore the ensign of the garter from his neck. At the charge of treason Cromwell flung his cap on the ground with a passionate cry of despair. "This, then," he exclaimed, "is my guerdon for the services I have done! On your consciences, I ask you, am I a traitor?" Then, with a sudden sense that all was over, he bade his foes make quick work, and not leave him to languish in prison.
Quick work was made. A few days after his arrest he was attainted in parliament, and at the close of July a burst of popular applause hailed his death on the scaffold.