Part two of the Tale of Two Thomases – two more Thomases – Cromwell and Cranmer – who were instrumental in Henry’s reign.
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Transcript: A Tale of Two Thomases Part 2 (Cromwell & Cranmer)
Hello, and welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast. I’m your host Heather Teysko. Last episode I spoke about two of the four very important Thomases in Henry VIII’s political life, Thomas Wolsey and Thomas More. Today I’ll talk about another two Thomases – Cromwell and Cranmer. These men were both influential advisors to Henry, who had not only shaped his political beliefs, but also the direction of the country.
Thomas Cromwell
Thomas Cromwell was born around 1485 and rose from poor beginnings to serve as Henry VIII’s chief minister from 1532 to 1540. Cromwell is most remembered for attempting to modernize government at the expense of the privileges of the nobility in church, which made him a lot of powerful enemies. He was one of the strongest advocates of Henry breaking away from the Roman Catholic faith. After the king’s supremacy over the Church of England was declared by Parliament in 1534, Cromwell managed the church as vicar-general.
Cromwell was born in Putney, and there are not many details of his early life. Before 1512, he was employed by Frescobaldis, a powerful Florentine merchant banker family in cloth dealings in the Netherlands. Documents from archives of the Vatican City indicate that he was an agent for Cardinal Bainbridge and handled English ecclesiastical issues before the papal Rota, which was the highest appellate tribunal of the Roman Catholic Church.
Cromwell was fluent in Latin, Italian, and French. After Bainbridge died in 1514, Cromwell returned to England. He was employed by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, chief minister to Henry VIII, and placed in charge of ecclesiastical business despite being a layman.
By 1519, he had married Elizabeth Wyckes and had a son, Gregory, and two daughters, Anne and Grace, who died of the plague in 1527, the same year as their mother. After studying law, Cromwell became a member of the English Parliament in 1523, and continued to rise in politics. In 1524, he was appointed at Gray’s Inn, one of the four Inns of Court in the late 1520’s. He helped Wolsey dissolve 30 monasteries in order to raise funds for Wolsey’s Grammar School in Ipswich and the Cardinal College in Oxford.
Cromwell’s Contributions
In 1529, Henry VIII summoned a parliament, later known as the Reformation Parliament, in order to obtain an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. In late 1530 or early 1531, Cromwell was appointed a Royal Counsellor for parliamentary business, and by the end of 1531, he was a member of Henry VIII’s trusted inner circle. Cromwell became Henry’s Chief Minister in 1532, not via any formal appointment to office but by gaining the king’s confidence.
Subsequently, his authority was validated through appointments to key positions across the government. A measure of control of the finances came with the appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a key position in the judiciary came with the appointment of Master of the Rolls, one of the most senior judges in England.
Being named Secretary and Lord Privy Seal gave him influence over the king’s correspondence and the granting of letters-patent. Elevation to Lord Great Chamberlain gave him at least nominal control of the king’s household. Perhaps most importantly, he gained supervisory roles in the church that was unprecedented for a layman.
Cromwell played an important role in the English Reformation. As we’ve heard in previous episodes, the Parliamentary sessions of 1529 to 1531 had brought Henry no nearer to an annulment. However, the session of 1532, Cromwell’s first as Chief Minister heralded a change of course – key sources of papal revenue were cut off and ecclesiastical legislation was transferred to the king.
In the next year’s session came the Act in Restraint of Appeals of 1533, which forbade appeals to Rome, thus allowing divorce in England without the need for the Pope’s permission. This was drafted by Cromwell and its famous preamble declared:
“Where by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles, it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an Empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one Supreme Head and King having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial Crown of the same, unto whom a body politic compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of Spirituality and Temporalty, be bounden and owe to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience.”
When Cromwell used the label Empire for England, he did so in a special way. Previous English monarchs had claimed to be emperors, in that they ruled more than one kingdom. But in this act, it meant something different. Here the Kingdom of England is declared an empire by itself, free from the authority of any foreign powers.
This meant that England was now an independent and sovereign nation-state, and no longer under the jurisdiction of the Pope. Cromwell was the most important of those who suggested to Henry VIII that the king make himself head of the English Church, and so the Act of Supremacy of 1534 through Parliament.
In 1535, Henry delegated powers that he had gained under the Supremacy Act to Cromwell, appointing him to the newly created office of Vicegerent in Spirituals. In this role, Cromwell presided over the dissolution of the monasteries, which began with his visitation of the monasteries and abbeys, announced in 1535 and begun in the winter of 1536.
His vicegerency evolved into another new position Vicar General, which gave him the power as supreme judge in ecclesiastical cases, and provided a single unifying institution over the two provinces of the English Church, Canterbury and York.
In addition to his influence on English religious life, Cromwell worked to modernize the English government. He founded the Court of Wards and Court of Surveyors (Augmentations)to make the tax system more efficient. And he contributed to the professionalization of the bureaucracy. He was also an architect in the Laws in Wales Acts, which united England and Wales. And he helped to strengthen the English government in Ireland.
He also became a patron to a group of English intellectual humanists, who he used to promote the English Reformation through the printed word. He also used the printing press, which was a relatively new technology to spread propaganda for the Reformation.
So if he had lived now, he’d probably have a Twitter feed and a Facebook fan page full of reformation ideas. Though viewed as a new man, Cromwell rose to aristocratic rank. He was named Baron Cromwell in 1536, 300th Knight of the Garter in 1537, and Earl of Essex on April 18, 1540.
Cromwell’s Downfall
Cromwell had supported Henry VIII in disposing of Anne Boleyn and replacing her with Jane Seymour. But during his years as the king’s Chief Minister, he had created many powerful enemies for himself, and his final downfall happened when he pushed too hard for the marriage to Anne of Cleves; a marriage that had favored his political views.
A relationship with Protestant Germany would have sealed the success of the English Reformation. When Henry confided to Cromwell that he had not consummated the marriage to Anne, Henry ordered him to get him out of the marriage by legal means, but the king was obliged to go ahead with it, or risk the vital German Alliance.
The disaster of the king’s marriage to Anne of Cleves was all the opportunity that Cromwell’s opponents needed to press for his fall. Even though he was made 1st Earl of Essex by the king on April 18, 1540, he became very suspicious that his downfall was coming because he had never been so officially high in the king’s graces. His fears are proven correct.
While at a council meeting on June 10, 1540, Cromwell was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower. He was subjected to an act of attainder and was kept alive by Henry VIII until Henry’s marriage to Anne of Cleves could be annulled. Cromwell was executed at the Tower on July 28, 1540. The same day that the king went on to marry Catherine Howard.
After his execution, his head was boiled and put on a spike on London Bridge, facing away from the city of London. On the scaffold, he professed to be dying in the traditional faith. Henry came to regret Cromwell’s execution. About eight months later, Henry accused his ministers of bringing about Cromwell’s downfall by false charges. And Henry spent the rest of his life regretting the fact that Cromwell had been executed.
Thomas Cranmer
Now we’ll move on to Thomas Cranmer, a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during Henry’s reign. While crammer was Archbishop of Canterbury, he was responsible for establishing the first doctrinal and liturgical structures of the Reformed Church.
Under Henry’s rule, Crammer did not make many radical changes to the church due to the power struggles between the religious conservatives and the reformers. However, he did succeed in publishing the first officially authorized vernacular service, the Exhortation and Litany.
When Edward came to the throne, Crammer was able to promote major reforms. He wrote and compiled the first two editions of the Book of Common Prayer, a complete liturgy for the English Church.
Since he actively had opposed the ascension of Mary I, a Catholic Cranmer was tried and condemned to death for treason in 1553. The sentence was postponed which allowed the Catholic forces to try Cranmer for heresy. He was imprisoned for over two years, and under pressure from the church authorities, he made several recantations, apparently accepting the Roman Catholic faith.
However, on the day of his execution, he dramatically withdrew his recantation and died a Protestant martyr. Many parts of his Book of Common Prayer are still used in the Anglican service today.
Cranmer’s Early Life
Cranmer was born in 1489 in Nottinghamshire, not an older son set to inherit land, Crammer was placed on a path to a clerical career. At the age of 14, two years after the death of his father, he was sent to Jesus College, Cambridge. He studied logic, philosophy, and the modern humanism like Erasmus.
Sometime after he finished his studies, he married, although he was not yet a priest, he was forced to forfeit his fellowship, thus losing his residence at Jesus College. When his wife died during her first childbirth, Jesus College reinstated his fellowship, and he began studying Theology, and by 1520, he had received holy orders, and the university was already naming him one of their preachers.
When Cardinal Wolsey began prosecuting Henry’s case against Catherine of Aragon, Wolsey began consulting with university experts. From 1527, in addition to his duties at Cambridge, Cranmer assisted with the annulment proceedings.
In the summer of 1529, Cranmer stayed with relatives in Waltham Holy Cross to avoid an outbreak of the plague in Cambridge. Two Cambridge friends, Stephen Gardiner and Edward Foxe joined him. The three discuss the annulment and Cranmer suggested putting aside the legal case in Rome, in favor of a general canvassing of opinions from university theologians throughout Europe.
When the plan was implemented, Cranmer joined the team in Rome to gather opinions from universities. Edward Foxe coordinated the research effort, and the team produced two titles, The Sufficiently Abundant Collections and The Determinations, historical and theological support for the king being the Supreme Head of the Church.
In January 1532, Cranmer was appointed the resident ambassador to the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and followed the Emperor throughout his realm. He passed through Lutheran cities seeing firsthand the effect of the Reformation. He married while in Nuremberg, which was remarkable because he had to give up his vow of celibacy. Most priests for whom celibacy was too difficult, took mistresses, but Cranmer married.
In October of that year, Crammer was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury and ordered back to England. Anne Boleyn’s family had pressed for the appointment, thinking that he would be able to bring about an annulment of the marriage and marriage for Anne sooner. By 1533 Anne was pregnant, so the issue of the annulment was becoming desperate.
In late May, Crammer pronounced judgment that Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon was against the law of God, and threatened excommunication if Henry did not leave Catherine. On June 1, Cranmer crowned Anne Boleyn queen.
In July, the Pope in Rome provisionally excommunicated Henry and his advisors unless he left Anne. Cranmer baptized Elizabeth, who was born in September, and almost three years later, he would hear Anne Boleyn’s final confession when she was imprisoned in the Tower. And he would go on to pronounce her marriage to Henry null and void.
Cranmer’s Contributions
Crammer continued to play a prominent role in the development of the new Anglican Church, and after Cromwell was executed, he was thrust into the world of politics as Henry trusted him more than anybody else. In 1541, when Henry left with his fourth wife, Catherine Howard for a tour of the north of England, Catherine’s extramarital affairs came to light, and the king’s Council, fearful of Henry’s wrath, decided to ask Cranmer to tell Henry.
He also continued to develop his religious beliefs, becoming more and more of a reformer, finally testifying that he had abandoned his belief in transubstantiation, which was the belief that the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Jesus during communion.
He was instrumental in writing the Book of Common Prayer, which was used to outline the services in the Anglican Church. And when the Book of Common Prayer was made mandatory for use in the church, there was a series of rebellions starting in Devon and Cornwall, and moving towards London. Crammer gave a vigorous defense of the new church in St. Paul’s, and denounced the wickedness of the rebellion.
After Henry died and his son Edward became king, Cranmer’s career continued to flourish, and he worked on new projects, including an updated Book of Common Prayer. But after Edward’s death, and the rise of Henry’s eldest daughter, Mary, the Catholic daughter of Catherine of Aragon, Cranmer’s star began to fade. Reformers were fleeing England, but Cranmer stayed. In November of 1553, Cranmer was brought to trial for treason, found guilty, and condemned to death.
The first leaders who were killed under the new Marian regime were those who had supported Lady Jane Grey as queen over Mary. After their executions in 1554, there was time to deal with the religious leaders. But even that process went slowly.
Cranmer was in prison until September 1555, when he was finally tried for heresy under the jurisdiction of the Pope. While in prison, he made six recantations and was told that he would be able to make a final one in public during a church service. He wrote and submitted the speech in advance and it was published after his death.
At the pulpit on the day of his execution, he opened with a prayer and an exhortation to obey the queen, but he ended his sermon totally unexpectedly, deviating from the prepared script, he renounced the recantation that he had written and signed with his hand, and as such, he stated that his hand would be punished by being burnt first when he was burned at the stake. He then said,
“And as for the pope, I refuse him, as Christ’s enemy, and Antichrist with all his false doctrine.”
When he was burned at the stake, he did in fact thrust his hand into the fire first. Queen Mary’s government published pamphlets of the recantation, but it was common knowledge that Cranmer had withdrawn his statements, so it was difficult to use them as propaganda.
When Elizabeth came to power, she restored the Church of England’s independence from Rome and brought back the Book of Common Prayer. Cranmer is still commemorated in the Anglican Communion on March 21, the anniversary of his death.
Thank you for listening this week. I know this podcast hasn’t been published as often as many of you would like. And I’m committed to putting out at least one episode per month and keeping the blog updated with Renaissance news and events. Thank you for your ongoing patience, and I’m so thrilled that there’s such an appetite for information like this.
Next time, I’ll be discussing the Pilgrimage of Grace, the Protestant uprising in the north of England in 1536. Sorry, it wasn’t a Protestant uprising, it was an uprising against the Reformation. Clearly, my notes are wrong – was a Catholic uprising in the north of England in 1536.
And as always, you can leave comments, show ideas, and email me from the blog, Englandcast.com. Thank you again for listening!
[advertisement insert here: if you like this show, and you want to support me and my work, the best thing you can do (and it’s free!) is to leave us a rating on iTunes. It really helps others discover the podcast. Second best is to buy Tudor-themed gifts for all your loved ones at my shop, at TudorFair.com, like leggings with the Anne Boleyn portrait pattern on them, or boots with Elizabeth I portraits. Finally, you can also become a patron of this show for as little as $1/episode at Patreon.com/englandcast … And thank you!]