Thomas Cromwell: Master and Servant by Kevin G Hughes

Author:Kevin G Hughes
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2015-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

5 Fall from grace

As is well-known, Henry married Jane Seymour shortly after Anne Boleyn’s execution. Jane gave Henry the son that he craved but then died shortly after childbirth. Although he did not know it at the time, this turn of events would lead Cromwell further down the road to his downfall.

Cromwell steadily accumulated enemies as his career progressed. The nobility, in particular the dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk, resented the increasing wealth, influence and accumulation of titles that Cromwell obtained. In addition, the religious conservatives at court steadily re-established their influence over the King. However, Cromwell’s fall from the heady heights of the King’s favour began in earnest with his attempt to secure a reformist future for England. He identified Anne of Cleves, the daughter of a German duke, as a potential marriage partner for Henry, believing that this partnership would secure England’s place in an alliance of Protestant states, thus giving the realm protection from France and the Holy Roman Empire. Cromwell despatched the renowned artist Hans Holbein to Germany in order that an image of the princess could be shown to the King. It is believed that he instructed Holbein to ensure that the potential queen looked alluring enough to entice Henry into marriage. The artist managed to achieve this: unfortunately it proved to be another nail in Cromwell’s coffin.

On seeing the picture, Henry was quite taken with Anne and a formal meeting was arranged. In typically impetuous manner, Henry could not wait for the arranged time and place and rushed to meet Anne three days earlier than planned. To say that he was underwhelmed by what he saw would be an understatement. Holbein had considerably enhanced Anne’s beauty and, to top it all, her bodily cleanliness was not exactly from the top drawer. Anne was not too enamoured with Henry either, but by this stage a retreat from the marriage was diplomatically impossible.

Henry’s rage at his First Minister was incandescent. It was only made worse when, in order to annul the marriage after a few months, he was required to stand in front of peers of the realm and confess his inability to perform for his new bride on their wedding night and indeed throughout their marriage. Cromwell’s enemies sensed an opportunity.

The vultures move in

Norfolk and Gardiner seized upon the chance to discredit Cromwell. Realising that Henry was in the mood to receive the most grievous of accusations against Cromwell, they engineered charges of treason against the newly vulnerable First Minister.

The culmination of his enemies’ scheming came when Cromwell arrived for a Privy Council meeting expecting business as usual. However, Nemesis, in the shape of the Duke of Norfolk, was waiting for him. As Cromwell went to take his place at the head of the table Norfolk shouted ‘Do not sit there. It is no place for traitors’. ‘I am not a traitor’ was Cromwell’s cool response before a body of armed guards moved in to seize him. At this point Cromwell’s coolness turned to rage as he tried to elicit the support of the other members of the council.

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