Today Thomas More, the king’s former chancellor, found himself being interrogated in the Tower of London by Thomas Boleyn, Thomas Audley, Thomas Cromwell and the Duke of Suffolk about the royal supremacy.
They wanted to find out if he thought the statute of supremacy was lawful: “The said Sir Thomas likewise, when examined at the Tower, 3 June, maliciously persevered in refusing to give a direct answer, and, imagining to move sedition and hatred against the King, said to the King’s councillors, “The law and statute whereby the King is made Supreme Head as is aforesaid be like a sword with two edges; for if a man say that the same laws be good then it is dangerous to the soul, and if he say contrary to the said statute then it is death to the body.”
Also on this day the same year, while More was being interrogated, Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s Vicar-General, ordered all bishops to preach in support of the royal supremacy and to remove all references to the Pope from mass books and other church books.
That’s your Tudor Minute for today. Remember you can dive deeper into life in 16th century England through the Renaissance English History Podcast at englandcast.com where there is a series on the English Reformation.
Suggested links:
Reformation Month
Episode 055: Tudor Times on Thomas More
From the shop:
Cromwell “Coffee. Because Reformation-ing is hard,” mug
Ps. All products are made on-demand and can take a few weeks to ship.
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.