Thomas Cromwell

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The English statesman Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex (ca. 1485-1540), was the chief minister of Henry VIII from 1532 to 1540 and was largely responsible for revolutionary reforms in the English Church and in administration of the state.

Thomas Cromwell was born in Putney, near London. His father, Walter Cromwell, was a fuller and shearer of cloth who also worked as a blacksmith, innkeeper, and brewer. Perhaps an unruly youth, Thomas received little formal education. About 1504 he traveled to Flanders and Italy, where he served as a mercenary soldier. While abroad he had an opportunity to learn French and Italian and to observe something of the diplomatic maneuvers of the European powers. When he returned to England about 1513, he married Elizabeth Wykes, whose father was also a shearer. Their only son, Gregory, proved dull and despite an elaborate education never achieved prominence.

In 1514 Cromwell entered the service of Thomas Wolsey, the great cardinal who dominated both Church and state. Cromwell's administrative abilities were soon recognized, and he became involved in all of Wolsey's business, especially the suppression of certain small monasteries and the application of their revenues to new colleges founded in Ipswich and Oxford. During this period Cromwell evidently studied law; in 1524 he was admitted to Gray's Inn, one of the Inns of Court. He also entered Parliament and in 1523 may have delivered a famous speech denouncing Henry VIII's war in France and its accompanying taxation.

When Wolsey fell from power, Cromwell attached himself directly to the court. In 1529 he was elected to the Reformation Parliament, the later sessions of which he helped manage for the King. In 1532 he began to accumulate government offices, and he so gained the confidence of Henry VIII that he became the King's chief minister. He drafted the act in restraint of appeals, passed by Parliament in 1533 to allow Henry's divorce to be granted in England without interference from the Pope, and subsequent legislation which affirmed royal supremacy in religion and provided for a Church of England independent of Rome. His great ideal was the establishment of England as an "empire," completely self-contained and owing no allegiance to any external power.

Although he was not a priest, Cromwell was now named the King's vice-gerent, or deputy, in spiritual affairs. He was largely responsible for legislation which authorized the dissolution of the monasteries and the confiscation of their property by the King. Although more interested in politics than theology, he was probably a sincere Protestant and certainly a supporter of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.

In secular affairs Cromwell sought efficiency above all. He instituted revolutionary reforms, especially in financial administration. His multiplicity of offices - the King's principal secretary, lord privy seal, master of the jewels, clerk of the hanaper, master of the rolls, chancellor of the Exchequer, and master of the court of wards - gave him control over virtually every aspect of government. Unlike Wolsey and his predecessors, Cromwell was never lord chancellor; he can be regarded as the first chief minister of a new type, a layman basing his influence on the office of principal secretary. In 1536 he was ennobled as Baron Cromwell of Oakham, in the county of Rutland, and in 1540 he was created Earl of Essex. Although his magnificence never approached Wolsey's, he enjoyed the considerable wealth which he acquired. He had four houses, all in or near London; friends and foreign ambassadors later recalled their pleasant walks in his gardens.

Cromwell always had his enemies, mainly religious conservatives like Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, or members of the old aristocracy like Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. After Cromwell arranged the King's disastrous marriage to Anne of Cleves, these foes combined to topple him, charging that he was an overmighty subject and a heretic. He was not given a trial but was condemned by a bill of attainder. On July 28, 1540, he was beheaded on Tower Hill. A clumsy executioner made the scene more than usually horrible, even by Tudor standards.

Although often criticized for his ambition, political ruthlessness, and plunder of the Church, Cromwell was a genuinely affable man, an administrative genius, and a loyal adviser to the King. It is doubtful that Henry VIII could have secured his divorce or devised his great scheme of ecclesiastical nationalization without Cromwell.

Further Reading

Most of Cromwell's extant letters are printed in Roger B. Merriman, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell (2 vols., 1902). There is no satisfactory biography of Cromwell. His work in secular administration is best described in Geoffrey R. Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government (1953), while his influence in the English Church is discussed in Arthur G. Dickens, Thomas Cromwell and the English Reformation (1959).

Additional Sources

Beckingsale, B. W., Thomas Cromwell, Tudor minister, Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1978.

Cromwell, Thomas (c.1485-1540). Thomas Cromwell was the second great minister to whom Henry VIII gave much trust and the one most personally associated with the programme which made Henry VIII supreme head of the church in England. The son of a Putney cloth-worker, he somehow acquired a broad education including some knowledge of business and law. He sat in the 1523 Parliament and entered the service of Thomas Wolsey. Though he stayed with Wolsey longer than most after his disgrace, he escaped the wreck to join a group of administrators who were working on plans for Henry VIII to escape from the impasse in his divorce negotiations.

Cromwell became master of the king's jewel house in 1532 and principal royal secretary in 1534. Though he was thereafter to accumulate other offices including chancellor of the Exchequer, master of the rolls, lord privy seal, and great chamberlain, it was on his role as royal secretary that his power rested. It is not certain what role Cromwell played in the birth of Henry VIII's campaign for supremacy over the church. The arguments used to justify this campaign antedated Cromwell's rise to influence. Nevertheless, it seems likely that Cromwell drew the strands together, and recognized that parliamentary statute offered the most authoritative way to announce the new changes. Cromwell is thought to have been responsible for drafting the Supplication of the Commons against the Ordinaries in 1532. He certainly took charge of the drafting of the Act in Restraint of Appeals to Rome (1533) and the Act of Supremacy (1534).

Just as important was Cromwell's ruthless treatment of high-profile opponents of the policy. The long examinations of Sir Thomas More, and his eventual trial and conviction for refusing the oath of supremacy, testify to Cromwell's anxiety to be seen to observe the forms of law. Cromwell gave away a hostage to fortune by his efforts to propel Henrician religious policy in a moderately protestant direction. As royal vicegerent in spirituals from 1535 Cromwell was responsible for the Ten Articles of 1536 and the royal injunctions of 1536 and 1538, which systematically attacked catholic teaching. On a wider front, Cromwell patronized ideas for social reform, especially improvements to poor relief.

Thomas Cromwell never enjoyed the sort of ascendancy held by Cardinal Wolsey and the last four years of his life were a constant struggle to overcome rivals. Using parliamentary Acts of attainder he secured the judicial killing of Anne Boleyn (1536), and the Courtenay and Pole families (1538). By this period Cromwell was seeking an alliance with pro-protestant princes in Germany. In 1540 he brought about the disastrous marriage of Henry and Anne of Cleves in pursuit of this policy. Political and religious enemies led by the duke of Norfolk and Bishop Stephen Gardiner gained the king's ear and convinced Henry that Cromwell was a traitor and an ultra-protestant‘sacramentarian’ heretic; he was condemned untried by the weapon of parliamentary attainder which he had himself used so often, and executed on 28 July 1540.

Cromwell, Thomas, earl of Essex, 1485?-1540, English statesman. While a young man he lived abroad as a soldier, accountant, and merchant, and on his return (c.1512) to England he engaged in the wool trade and eventually became a lawyer. He entered Parliament in 1523 and soon became legal secretary to Cardinal Wolsey, for whom he managed the suppression of minor monasteries. He avoided being disgraced with Wolsey in 1529, and by 1531 was serving Henry VIII as a member of the privy council. By 1532 he had become the king's chief minister and was responsible for drafting most of the acts of Parliament by which the Reformation was effected. He probably originated the idea of making the king supreme head of the church in England. As Henry's vicar-general after 1535, he supervised (1536-9) the visitation and suppression of monasteries and the confiscation of monastic lands and wealth. Much of Cromwell's unpopularity with the people, demonstrated by the Pilgrimage of Grace, derived from the ruthlessness of his agents in carrying out that project. He issued injunctions to the clergy, regulating their conduct and duties, assailed the worship of images and relics, and initiated a much-needed system of parish registers. He was made a baron and lord privy seal in 1536, lord great chamberlain in 1539, and earl of Essex in 1540. He negotiated the king's marriage to Anne of Cleves as a means of securing the North German princes as allies against the Catholic Holy Roman emperor Charles V. When Anne proved unattractive and the alliance failed, Henry allowed charges of treason and heresy to be brought against Cromwell by his bitter enemy, the duke of Norfolk. Cromwell was condemned by act of attainder and beheaded.

Bibliography

See biographies by R. B. Merriman (1902), T. Maynard (1950), and A. G. Dickens (1959); G. R. Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government (1953) and Reform and Renewal (1973).

Cromwell, Thomas (c. 1485–1540), English royal minister. Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex, was principal secretary and chief minister to Henry VIII (ruled 1509–1547) and supervised the process by which the king became supreme head of the church in England. Born in Putney, in the county of Surrey, Cromwell was the son of a blacksmith, brewer, and cloth merchant. (The great-grandson of his nephew Richard, who took on his uncle's surname, was the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell [1599–1658].)

After an apparently unruly adolescence, the young Thomas Cromwell spent several years traveling on the Continent before establishing himself in London as a successful merchant and business agent, which included some legal work. By the early 1520s, he had begun to act for clients in a number of important suits, several of which brought him to the attention of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (c. 1475–1530). In 1523, he was elected to the House of Commons and the following year was appointed to Wolsey's staff. Here he managed the dissolution of nearly thirty monasteries to fund the cardinal's building projects in Oxford and Ipswich and came to supervise much of his legal work. When Wolsey fell from power in October 1529, Cromwell obtained a seat in the new Parliament and traveled to court on several occasions to represent the interests of the disgraced cardinal. He increasingly obtained Henry's confidence and, from June 1530, managed the receipt of Wolsey's college lands by the crown. The cardinal's death on 29 November 1530 enabled Cromwell to undertake further royal administrative and legal work, and he joined the king's council at some point toward the end of the year.

A skilled parliamentary draftsmen, by autumn 1531 Cromwell had taken control of the king's legal and parliamentary affairs. Although others formulated the policy relating to the king's divorce, Cromwell was responsible for much of its execution. He played a pivotal role in achieving the submission of the clergy in 1532 and secured parliamentary legitimacy for the royal supremacy through the management of Parliament and by supervising the drafting of all the major legislation, including the Act in Restraint of Appeals (1533) and the Act of Supremacy (1534). In 1532, he was also appointed master of the jewels, the first of many offices he accumulated, including clerk of the hanaper (1532), chancellor of the exchequer (1533), principal secretary (1534), master of the rolls (1534), lord privy seal (1536), and lord great chamberlain (1540).

When Henry confirmed him as his principal secretary and chief minister in April 1534, Cromwell's main priority was the enforcement of policy. All the king's subjects had to swear to the act of succession, and those in religious life were required to either swear oaths or make declarations indicating their acceptance of the royal supremacy. His appointment as the king's vicegerent, or vicar-general, in January 1535 also substantially increased his power over the church. Cromwell was not the butcher he has sometimes been characterized as, though he was not above manipulating the legal process to remove dissenters viewed as a particular threat, most notably Sir Thomas More, who was beheaded in 1535.

As vicegerent, Cromwell ordered two commissions, one to determine the lands and revenues of the church (Valor Ecclesiasticus, 1535) and another to investigate monastic life (the so-called comperta, 1535–1536). The latter included grossly exaggerated reports of corruption and vice in the nation's smaller religious houses and was used to justify the suppression of most of these in early 1536. Yet while Queen Anne Boleyn shared the evangelical convictions that Cromwell had held since at least the beginning of the decade, she was furious that the proceeds were not to be used for charitable purposes. Recognizing the serious threat to his position, Cromwell levied an almost certainly groundless charge of adultery against her, which led to the trial for treason and the execution of Anne and several of her closest supporters in May 1536.

Cromwell was now at the height of his powers, but the remaining four years of his life were to represent a constant struggle against conservative opponents at court. Working closely with archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556), he sought to introduce an increasingly radical series of evangelical reforms, principally the Ten Articles (1536), two sets of royal injunctions (1536 and 1538), and the introduction of the English Great Bible (1540). Although Cromwell had Henry's complete support when he became a principal target of those who rebelled in the Pilgrimage of Grace (1536), there were signs from early in 1538 that the king was becoming uncomfortable about the pace of reform. The Act of Six Articles passed the following year was unambiguously conservative.

Cromwell managed to discredit or remove many of his religious and political opponents (as in the judicial killing of the Courtenay and Pole families in 1538). But he was fatally weakened by his masterminding of the king's disastrous marriage to Anne of Cleves in 1539 (Henry abhorred her physically), which Cromwell believed would increase the prospect of an alliance with the Schmalkaldic League of Lutheran princes. Despite Henry's initial support, Cromwell's conservative enemies, led by Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, and Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, managed to persuade the king of the minister's treachery and heresy. After a dramatic arrest in the council chamber, Cromwell was condemned without a trial by parliamentary act of attainder (ironically, his favored means of dispatching opponents), and executed on 28 July 1540.

An efficient and pragmatic administrator, Cromwell's main function as chief minister was the execution and enforcement of the royal supremacy, and he was first and foremost the king's loyal servant. However, by using the influence this situation provided, he was able to introduce a number of reforms, both social and religious, and significantly advanced the evangelical cause during the 1530s.

Bibliography

Beckingsale, B. W. Thomas Cromwell: Tudor Minister. Basingstoke, U.K., 1978. In the absence of a definitive biography, this remains the most comprehensive available.

Coleman, C., and D. Starkey, eds. Revolution Reassessed: Revisions in the History of Tudor Government and Administration. Oxford, 1986. Revises Elton's thesis.

Dickens, A. G. Thomas Cromwell and the English Reformation. London, 1959.

Elton, G. R. Policy and Police: The Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age of Thomas Cromwell. Cambridge, U.K., 1972. Cromwell and the enforcement of the Reformation.

——. Reform and Renewal: Thomas Cromwell and the Common Weal. Cambridge, U.K., 1973. Cromwell and reform.

——. The Tudor Revolution in Government: Administrative Changes in the Reign of Henry VIII. Cambridge, U.K., 1953. Elton's highly influential work on Cromwell and administration.

Merriman, Roger Bigelow. Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell. 2 vols. Oxford, 1902.

—HOWARD LEITHEAD