Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1532–3 |
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| Born | 1485 Putney, Surrey, England |
| Died | 28 July 1540 (c. aged 55) Tower Hill, London, England |
| Occupation | Government |
| Religion | Anglican |
| Spouse | Elizabeth Wykys |
| Children | Gregory Cromwell, Anne and Grace |
| Parents | Walter Cromwell |
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (b. in or before 1485, executed 28 July 1540) was an English statesman who served as chief minister of King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540.
Cromwell was one of the strongest advocates of the English Reformation, the English church's break with the papacy in Rome. Cromwell helped engineer an annulment of the King's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, so that the king could marry his mistress, Anne Boleyn. Supremacy over the Church of England was officially declared by Parliament in 1534, and Cromwell supervised the Church from the unique posts of vicegerent for spirituals and vicar general.
Cromwell's rise to power made him many enemies, especially among the conservative faction at court. He fell from Henry's favour after arranging the King's marriage to a German princess, Anne of Cleves, which turned out to be a disaster. He was subjected to a bill of attainder and executed for treason and heresy on Tower Hill on 28 July 1540. The king later expressed regret at having lost his great minister.
Oliver Cromwell, the Parliamentarian leader who overthrew the monarchy during the English Civil War, was a great-great-grandson of Thomas Cromwell's sister, Katherine Cromwell (born circa 1482).
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Cromwell was born around 1485 in Putney, Surrey, the son of Walter Cromwell, a blacksmith, fuller, and cloth merchant, as well as the owner of both a hostelry and a brewery.[1] His mother is said to have been Katherine, the aunt of Nicholas Glossop of Wirksworth in Derbyshire. She reportedly lived in Putney in the house of a local attorney, John Welbeck, at the time of her marriage to Walter Cromwell in 1474.[1] Cromwell had two sisters. The younger, Elizabeth, married a farmer, William Wellyfed. The elder, Katherine, married Morgan Williams, a Welsh lawyer. Katherine and Morgan's son Richard was employed in his uncle's service and changed his name to Cromwell. Richard's great-grandson was Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector.
Little is known about Thomas Cromwell's early life aside from his declaration to Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer that he had been a ‘ruffian...in his young days’.[1] As a youth, he left his family in Putney and crossed the Channel to the continent. Accounts of his activities in France, Italy, and the Low Countries are sketchy and contradictory. It is likely that he first became a mercenary and marched with the French army to Italy, where he fought in the battle of Garigliano on 28 December 1503. While in Italy, he entered the household of the Florentine merchant banker Francesco Frescobaldi. Later he visited leading mercantile centres in the Low Countries, living among the English merchants and developing an important network of contacts while learning several languages. At some point, he returned to Italy. The records of the English Hospital in Rome indicate that he stayed there in June 1514,[1] while documents in the Vatican Archives suggest that he was an agent for Archbishop of York, Cardinal Christopher Bainbridge, and handled English ecclesiastical issues before the Roman Rota.[2] At some time during these years Cromwell returned to England, where about 1513 he married Elizabeth Wyckes (1489–1527). She was the widow of Thomas Williams, a Yeoman of the Guard, and the daughter of a Putney shearman, Henry Wykes, who had served as a Gentleman Usher to King Henry VII.[1] The couple had a son, Gregory, and two daughters Anne and Grace. Neither daughter survived childhood.[1]
By 1520, Cromwell was firmly established in London mercantile and legal circles.[1] In 1523, he obtained a seat in the House of Commons, though the constituency he represented at that time has not been identified.[1] After Parliament had been dissolved, Cromwell wrote a letter to a friend jesting about the session's unproductiveness:
I amongst other have indured a parlyament which contenwid by the space of xvii hole wekes wher we communyd of warre pease Stryffe contencyon debatte murmure grudge Riches poverte penurye trowth falshode Justyce equyte dicayte [deceit] opprescyon Magnanymyte actyvyte foce [force] attempraunce [moderation] Treason murder Felonye consyli … [conciliation] and also how a commune welth myght be ediffyed and a[lso] contenewid within our Realme. Howbeyt in conclusyon we have d[one] as our predecessors have been wont to doo that ys to say, as well we myght and lefte wher we begann.[1]
In 1524, Cromwell was elected as a member of Gray's Inn and entered the service of Henry VIII's chief minister, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.[1] In the mid-1520s, Cromwell assisted in the dissolution of nearly thirty monasteries, to raise funds for Wolsey to found The King's School, Ipswich (1528) and Cardinal College in Oxford (1529).[1] In 1526, Wolsey appointed Cromwell a member of his council; and, by 1529, Cromwell was one of Wolsey's most senior and trusted advisers. However, by the end of October of that year, Wolsey had fallen from power.[1] Cromwell had made enemies for aiding Wolsey to suppress the monasteries but was determined not to fall with his master, as he told George Cavendish, then a Gentleman Usher and later Wolsey's biographer:
I do entend (god wyllyng) this after none, whan my lord hathe dyned to ride to london and so to the Court, where I wyll other make or marre or [ere, i.e. before] I come agayn, I wyll put my self in the prese [press] to se what any man is Able to lay to my charge of ontrouthe or mysdemeanor.[1]
Cromwell's efforts to overcome the shadow cast over his career by Wolsey's downfall were successful. By November 1529, he had secured a seat in Parliament, as a member for Taunton,[1] and was reported to be in favour with the King.[1] At some point, during the closing weeks of 1530, the King appointed him to the Privy Council.[1]
By the autumn of 1531, Cromwell had taken control of the supervision of the King's legal and parliamentary affairs, working closely with Thomas Audley, and had joined the inner circle of the Council. By the following spring he had begun to exert influence over elections to the Commons.[1] He was a modest man, not fond of flattery.[3]
Since 1527, Henry VIII had sought to have his marriage to Queen Catherine annulled in order to marry Anne Boleyn. At the centre of the campaign to secure the divorce was the emerging doctrine of the royal supremacy over the church. The third session of what is now known as the Reformation Parliament had been scheduled for October 1531, but was postponed until 15 January 1532 due to government indecision as to the best way to proceed. Cromwell now favoured the assertion of the royal supremacy, and manipulated the Commons by resurrecting anti-clerical grievances expressed earlier in the session of 1529. On 18 March 1532 the Commons delivered a supplication to the King denouncing clerical abuses and the power of the ecclesiastical courts and describing Henry as ‘the only head, sovereign lord, protector, and defender’ of the church. The clergy resisted at first, but capitulated when faced with the threat of parliamentary reprisal. On 14 May 1532 parliament was prorogued, and two days later Sir Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor, realizing that the battle to save Queen Catherine's marriage to the King was lost. More's resignation from the Council represented a triumph for Cromwell and the reform faction at court.[1]
The King's gratitude to Cromwell was expressed in a grant of the lordship of Romney in Newport in Wales and appointment to three relatively minor offices: Master of the Jewels on 14 April 1532, Clerk of the Hanaper on 16 July, and Chancellor of the Exchequer on 12 April 1533. None of these offices afforded much income, but the grants were an indication of royal favour and gave Cromwell a position in three major institutions of government: the royal household, the Chancery, and the Exchequer.[1]
By January 1533, Anne Boleyn was pregnant and the marriage could no longer be delayed. The date of the wedding is unclear. It may have taken place when Anne was with the King in Calais in November 1532, but it seems more likely that it took place at a secret ceremony on 25 January 1533.[4] Parliament was immediately recalled to pass the necessary legislation. On 26 January 1533 Audley was appointed Lord Chancellor, and Cromwell increased his control over the Commons through his management of by-elections. The parliamentary session began on 4 February, and Cromwell introduced a new bill restricting the right to make appeals to Rome. On 30 March Cranmer was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, and Convocation immediately declared the King's marriage to Katherine unlawful. In the first week of April 1533, Parliament passed the bill into law as the Act in Restraint of Appeals, ensuring that any verdict concerning the King's marriage could not be challenged in Rome. On 11 April Archbishop Cranmer sent the King a pro forma challenge to the validity of his marriage to Queen Katherine. A formal trial began on 10 May 1533 in Dunstable, and on the 23rd the Archbishop pronounced sentence declaring King Henry's marriage to Queen Katherine illegal. Five days later he pronounced the King's marriage to Anne to be lawful, and on 1 June, she was crowned queen.[1]
In December, the King authorized Cromwell to discredit the papacy, and the Pope was attacked throughout the nation in sermons and pamphlets. In 1534 a new Parliament was summoned, again under Cromwell's supervision, to enact the legislation necessary to formally break England's remaining ties with Rome. Archbishop Cranmer's sentence took statutory form as the Act of Succession, the Dispensations Act reiterated the royal supremacy, and the Act for the Submission of the Clergy incorporated into law the clergy's surrender in 1532. On 30 March 1534 Audley gave royal assent to the legislation in the presence of the King.[1]
In April 1534, Henry confirmed Cromwell as his principal secretary and chief minister, a position he had held in all but name for some time. Cromwell immediately took steps to enforce the legislation which had just been passed by Parliament. Before the members of both houses returned home on 30 March they were required to swear an oath accepting the Act of Succession, and all the King's subjects were now required to swear to the legitimacy of the marriage and, by implication, to acceptance of the King's new powers and the break from Rome. On 13 April the London clergy accepted the oath. On the same day the commissioners offered it to Sir Thomas More and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, who both refused it. More was taken into custody on the same day, and was moved to the Tower on 17 April. Fisher joined him there four days later. On 18 April an order was issued that all citizens of London were to swear. Similar orders were issued throughout the country. When Parliament reconvened in November, Cromwell brought in the most significant revision of the treason laws since 1352, making it treasonous to speak rebellious words against the royal family, to deny their titles, or to call the king a heretic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper. The Act of Supremacy also clarified the king's position as head of the church, and the Act for Payment of First Fruits and Tenths substantially increased clerical taxes. Cromwell also strengthened his own control over the church. On 21 January 1535 the King appointed him royal vicegerent, or vicar-general, and commissioned him to organize visitations of all the country's churches, monasteries, and clergy. In this capacity Cromwell conducted a census in 1535 to enable the government to tax church property more effectively.[1]
The final session of the Reformation Parliament began on 4 February 1536. By 18 March, an Act for the Suppression of the Lesser Monasteries, those with a gross income of less than £200 per annum, had passed both houses. This caused a clash with Anne Boleyn, who wanted the proceeds of the dissolution to be employed for charitable purposes, not paid into the King's coffers. Anne instructed her chaplains to preach against the vicegerent, and on 2 April 1536 her almoner, John Skip, denounced Cromwell before the entire court as an enemy of the Queen. Anne had so far failed to produce a male heir, and Cromwell, aware that the King was growing impatient and had become enamoured of the young Jane Seymour, acted with ruthless determination, accusing Anne of adultery with several courtiers, including her own brother, Viscount Rochford. The Queen and her brother stood trial on Monday 15 May, while the four others accused with them were condemned on the Friday beforehand. The men were executed on 17 May, and on the same day Cranmer declared Henry's marriage to Anne invalid, a ruling which bastardized their daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Two days later Anne herself was executed. On 30 May the King married Jane Seymour. On 8 June a new parliament passed the second Act of Succession, securing the rights of Queen Anne's heirs to the throne.[1]
Cromwell's position was now stronger than ever. He succeeded Anne Boleyn's father, Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire as Lord Privy Seal on 2 July 1536, resigning the office of Master of the Rolls which he had held since 8 October 1534. On 8 July 1536 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon.
In July 1536, the first attempt was made to clarify religious doctrine after the break with Rome. Bishop Edward Foxe, with strong backing from Cromwell and Cranmer, tabled proposals in Convocation which the King later endorsed as the Ten Articles, printed in August. Cromwell circulated injunctions for their enforcement which went beyond the Articles themselves, provoking opposition in September and October in Lincolnshire and then throughout the six northern counties. These widespread popular and clerical uprisings, which found support among the gentry and even the nobility, were collectively known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Although the rebels' grievances were wide-ranging, the most significant was the suppression of the monasteries, blamed on the King's ‘evil counsellors’, principally Cromwell and Cranmer.[1]
The suppression of the risings spurred further religious reform. In February 1537, Cromwell convened a vicegerential synod of bishops and doctors. By July, the synod, co-ordinated by Cranmer and Foxe, had prepared a draft document, The Institution of a Christian Man, more commonly known as the Bishops' Book. By October it was in circulation, although the King had not yet given it his full assent. However Cromwell's success in the sphere of religious reform was offset by the fact that his political influence had been weakened by the emergence of a ‘privy council’, a body of nobles and office-holders which had first come together to suppress the Pilgrimage of Grace. The King confirmed his support of Cromwell by electing him to the Order of the Garter on 5 August 1537, but Cromwell was nonetheless forced to accept the existence of an executive body dominated by his conservative opponents.[1]
In January 1538, Cromwell pursued an extensive campaign against what was termed "idolatry" by the followers of the new religion. Statues, roods, and images were attacked, culminating in September with the dismantling of the shrine of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury. Early in September Cromwell also completed a new set of vicegerential injunctions declaring open war on ‘pilgrimages, feigned relics, or images, or any such superstitions’, and commanding that ‘one book of the whole Bible of the largest volume in English’ be set up in every church. Moreover following the ‘voluntary’ surrender of the remaining smaller monasteries during the previous year, the larger monasteries were now also ‘invited’ to surrender throughout 1538, a process legitimized in the 1539 session of parliament and completed in the following year.[1]
The King was becoming increasingly unhappy about the extent of religious reform, and the conservative faction at court was gaining strength. Cromwell took the initiative against his enemies. In November 1538, using evidence acquired from Sir Geoffrey Pole under interrogation in the Tower, he imprisoned the Marquess of Exeter, Sir Edward Neville, and Sir Nicholas Carew on charges of treason; all were executed in the following months.
On 17 December 1538, the Inquisitor-General of France interdicted the printing of Miles Coverdale's Great Bible. Cromwell persuaded the French King to release the unfinished books so that printing could continue in England. In April 1539 the first edition was finally available. The publication of the Great Bible, the first authoritative version in English, was one of Cromwell's most significant achievements.[1]
The King, however, continued to hold back reform. A parliamentary committee was established to examine doctrine, and on 16 May 1539 the Duke of Norfolk presented six questions for the house to consider which were duly passed as the Act of Six Articles shortly before the session ended on 28 June. The Six Articles reaffirmed a traditional view of the Mass, the sacraments and the priesthood.[1]
In early October 1539, the King finally accepted Cromwell's suggestion that he marry Anne, the sister of Duke Wilhelm of Cleves. On 27 December, Anne arrived at Dover. On New Year's Day 1540 the King met her at Rochester and was chagrined to find that she was not the beauty Holbein had depicted in his portrait of her. The wedding ceremony took place on 6 January at Greenwich, but the marriage was not consummated.[5]
On 18 April 1540 Henry granted Cromwell the earldom of Essex and the senior court office of Lord Great Chamberlain.[1] Despite these signs of royal favour, Cromwell's tenure as the King's chief minister was almost over. The King's anger at being forced to marry Anne of Cleves was the opportunity Cromwell's conservative opponents, most notably the Duke of Norfolk, needed to topple him.[6]
At a Council meeting on 10 June 1540 Cromwell was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower. A bill of attainder containing a long list of indictments including treason, heresy, corruption, and plotting to marry Princess Mary was introduced into the House of Lords a week later, and was passed on 29 June 1540.[1] All Cromwell's honours were forfeited. The King deferred the execution until his marriage to Anne of Cleves could be annulled. Hoping for clemency, Cromwell wrote in support of the annulment in his last personal address to the King.[7]
Cromwell was condemned to death without trial and beheaded on Tower Hill on 28 July 1540, the day of the King's marriage to Katherine Howard.[8] After the execution, his head was set on a spike on London Bridge. Edward Halle, a contemporary chronicler, records that Cromwell made a speech on the scaffold, professing to die, "in the traditional faith" and then "so paciently suffered the stroke of the axe, by a ragged Boocherly miser whiche very ungoodly perfourmed the Office". Halle said of Cromwell's downfall:
Many lamented but more rejoiced, and specially such as either had been religious men, or favoured religious persons; for they banqueted and triumphed together that night, many wishing that that day had been seven year before; and some fearing lest he should escape, although he were imprisoned, could not be merry. Others who knew nothing but truth by him both lamented him and heartily prayed for him. But this is true that of certain of the clergy he was detestably hated, & specially of such as had borne swynge, and by his means was put from it; for in dead he was a man that in all his doings seemed not to favour any kind of Popery, nor could not abide the snoffyng pride of some prelates, which undoubtedly, whatsoever else was the cause of his death, did shorten his life and procured the end that he was brought unto.
Henry came to regret Cromwell's execution, and later accused his ministers of bringing about Cromwell's downfall by false charges. On 3 March 1541, the French Ambassador, Charles de Marillac, reported in a letter that the King was now said to be lamenting that ‘under pretext of some slight offences which he had committed, they had brought several accusations against him, on the strength of which he had put to death the most faithful servant he ever had’.[9]
Cromwell's life and legacy have aroused enormous controversy. However his effectiveness and creativity as a royal minister cannot be denied, nor can his loyalty to the King. During Cromwell's years in power he skilfully managed Crown finances and extended royal authority. In 1536 he established the Court of Augmentations to handle the massive windfall to the royal coffers occasioned by the dissolution of the monasteries. Two other important financial institutions, the Court of Wards and the Court of First Fruits and Tenths owed their existence to him, although they were not set up until after his death. He strengthened royal authority in the north of England through reform of the Council of the North, extended royal power and introduced religious reform in Ireland, and was the architect of legislation, the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542, which promoted stability and gained acceptance for the royal supremacy in Wales. He also introduced important social and economic reforms in England in the 1530s, including action against enclosures, the promotion of English cloth exports, and the poor relief legislation of 1536.[1]
Thomas Cromwell's son Gregory Cromwell, 1st Baron Cromwell, married Elizabeth Seymour, the sister of Queen Jane Seymour and widow of Sir Anthony Ughtred (or Oughtred). They had five children.
Thomas Cromwell was a patron of Hans Holbein the Younger, as were Sir Thomas More and Anne Boleyn. Holbein's portrait of Cromwell is shown at the top of this page. The paper lying on the table in the portrait describes Cromwell as "Master of the Jewell House", an official position he occupied for just one year from 12 April 1532, thus dating the portrait.
In New York's Frick Collection two portraits by Holbein hang facing each other on the same wall of the Living Hall, one depicting Thomas Cromwell, the other Thomas More, whose execution he had procured.
Cromwell has been portrayed in a number of plays, feature films and television miniseries.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Stephen Gardiner |
Secretary of State 1533–1536 |
Succeeded by Thomas Wriothesley |
| Preceded by John Bourchier |
Chancellor of the Exchequer 1533–1540 |
Succeeded by John Baker |
| Preceded by John Taylor |
Master of the Rolls 1534–1536 |
Succeeded by Christopher Hales |
| Preceded by The Earl of Wiltshire |
Lord Privy Seal 1536–1540 |
Succeeded by The Earl of Southampton |
| Preceded by unknown |
Governor of the Isle of Wight 1538–1540 |
Succeeded by John Paulet, 2nd Baron St John |
| Preceded by John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford |
Lord Great Chamberlain 1540 |
Succeeded by John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford |
| Legal offices | ||
| Preceded by Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy de Darcy |
Justice in Eyre North of the Trent 1537–1540 |
Succeeded by The Earl of Rutland |
| Peerage of England | ||
| Preceded by New Creation |
Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon 1536–1540 |
Succeeded by Forfeit |
| Preceded by New Creation |
Earl of Essex 1540-1540 |
Succeeded by Forfeit |