Thomas Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell are most famous for serving Henry VIII during his time as monarch. Both played influential roles when serving the English Crown, the Crown being the kingdom of England. It was Cromwell’s ruthlessness and theological ideas that infused him with the zeal that transformed English and British history forever; he achieved for his master what Wolsey never could.
When it came to the King’s “great matter,” Cardinal Wolsey could not sate Henry VIII’s desire by extracting a verdict of annulment of his marriage to Catherine from the Papacy. On three fronts Wolsey tried to secure Henry a separation from his wife; the niece of Charles V. Firstly Wolsey argued that the biblical gospel of “Leviticus rendered the marriage void,” as Catherine had been married to Henry’s dead brother Arthur; and Leviticus forbids a man to take the widow of his brother if the marriage has been consummated. Catherine maintained the marriage had not been consummated whilst Wolsey and Henry claimed it had. Secondly Wolsey “objected to original dispensation on grounds it was incorrect, shortly after a correctly worded version was found in Spain.” Wolsey also wanted the decision to be made by “Papal legates in England, the Pope authorised this. Wolsey and the Italian Cardinal Campeggio were to be the arbiters but Campeggio stalled the proceedings to the point of causing a postponement.” As a result Wolsey’s fate was sealed. It did not help his cause that Anne Boleyn believed him to be stalling the divorce. On the 9th of October 1529 the Cardinal was indicted for praemunire, on the 18th of the same month he resigned the great seal. He “surrendered all his property, an inventory of all his goods was made at once,” The premiere reason for the Cardinal’s fall was of course his failure to secure an annulment but it did not help him that he was seen as corrupt hence the charge of praemunire, it was “hard to find a better example of abuse in the Church than the Cardinal himself.” It was this venality that left him without great support at court. Where Wolsey failed Cromwell sought to succeed, “within the boundaries of his kingdom, there was little Henry could not accomplish; yet meanwhile in Rome the situation remained static. During the years 1529-23 his advisors lacked any feasible plans either to move the Pope or to dispense altogether with Papal authority. They used one lever after another, and if their levers of 1530-31 were heavy implements they still lacked the slightest chance of success. By the time of Cromwell’s advent their failure had become all too apparent, and the new minister soon induced the king to abandon the lever in favour of the hammer.” Amid Archbishop Cranmer’s verdict that Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn was illegal, Cromwell orchestrated, “smear campaigns against the Papacy just before the break from Rome.” Even though it was Edward Foxe and Thomas Cranmer who constructed the separation, it was the Lawyer Cromwell’s choice of Parliament as the expedient to achieve it that proved key. The 1534 Act of Supremacy which assigned Henry VIII as head of the English Church effectively severed England from Rome. On the “21st of January 1535 Cromwell became Royal vice-regent and was directed to oversee the activities of the Church,” he was to root out those defending the Pope and uncover any monastic corruption. Cromwell’s own Lutheran beliefs made the suppression of the monasteries a task he took to with relish. Another factor that may have encouraged Cromwell was “the twenty two volumes of the Valor-Ecclesiasticus- the largest survey of property since the Norman Conquest’s Doomsday Book in the eleventh century,” (Hutchinson, 2007, 92) This census of the Church and Monasteries enabled him to ascertain the worth of the religious houses which was, “£200,000 or more than £72 million at 2006 prices.” Cromwell appointed visitors who most likely discovered corrupt practices but their gatherings were from “only a third of the eight hundred odd religious houses,” Of the Monastic Dissolution David Starkey said, “It was the most visible, dramatic rupture in English history since the Norman Conquest.”) The fact that the Reformation occurred in Cromwell’s period of office makes his efficacy as a servant of the Crown perhaps as profound as anyone that has gone before or after him. Professor of the History of the Church in the University of Oxford, Diarmaid Macculloch ascribed the idea of the dissolution to Henry VIII, “who better than that monstrous heap of conceit, to have that idea of breaking a thousand year history with Rome.” Conversely Robert Hutchinson argues, “There seems little reason to doubt the widespread belief of the time that it was Cromwell who suggested the suppression of the monasteries to the king.” Regardless of whose idea it was the reality that Cromwell oversaw the severing of that thousand year history with Rome, ensured that the English crown had autonomy like never before. Cromwell helped redefine what the English Crown was in steering it away from Papal authority. Even though Wolsey’s failure to secure Henry an annulment can be deemed a failure of foreign policy there were mitigating factors. Charles V was the Holy Roman Emperor, controlled swathes of European territory and perhaps most pertinently was the nephew to Catherine of Aragon. These factors meant that Wolsey was embroiled in a difficult struggle with a major international power. “England’s diplomatic freedom was seriously cramped by the fact that nothing but diehard opposition to any plan for Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon could be expected from her nephew Charles V, or indeed from a Pope under his influence.”) Despite this he did enjoy success in other aspects of foreign policy. In 1512/13 “Wolsey organised military and naval supplies for campaigns,” in France that reaped success. Following on from this, “Wolsey made his debut as an international statesman in 1514 by negotiating not merely a peace with France, but one under which Henry’s sister married King Louis XII, Henry kept the conquered city of Tournai, and the king and his courtiers received large French pensions.” As a diplomat Wolsey’s pedigree is perhaps most glowingly surmised in this passage: Whether overstated grandeur diminished his diplomatic effectiveness is another question, one the papal nuncio in France answered in the negative in his pen portrait of Wolsey at Amiens: “although in all his outward acts he shows excessive pomp and great ostentation, nevertheless, in speaking, in behaviour and in negotiation, he reveals an intellect capable of every greatness, proper to any undertaking or affair, because he is a dexterous and gracious man, full of glorious and noble intentions.” Even though the Cardinal proved himself beguiling his, “increasingly desperate efforts to secure the King’s divorce made him no longer credible as an honest broker.” But Wolsey’s endeavours geopolitically were a reflection of his service to a younger and more adventurous monarch. Contrastingly Cromwell left England on very few occasions and “much preferred to remain always at the heart of power.” This could indicate the more serene geopolitical relationships a mature, less bellicose Henry VIII had. Or as Wolsey was not an undivided servant of the realm given his status as a Papal legate, he may have been more naturally inclined to have an interest to matters outside the English realm. Even though many believed him to be “ambivalent to Rome,” and “strictly Henry’s servant,” there was a suspicion of collusion with the Pope that prompted, Henry to charge him with “high treason,” thus concluding his downfall.) The reality that Wolsey was officially regarded as a Papal servant, as well as a servant of the English crown and that he coveted the office of Pope shows his efficacy as a servant of solely the English crown; may have been hindered in comparison to Cromwell. Both these ministers showed regard to the poor and social reform. In 1536 Thomas Cromwell introduced “poor relief legislation that made parishes responsible for measures to combat local poverty,” this was the “first occasion on which an English government had recognised a responsibility to those on society’s fringes.” Cromwell’s erstwhile colleague Wolsey used, “Star Chamber to enforce policy of, “just price,” which sought to prevent excessive prices for meat.” Cromwell and Wolsey also took action against land enclosures, in the course of Wolsey’s administration “he used The Court of Chancery to prosecute 264 landowners, peers, bishops and knights.” During Wolsey’s time in office his reputation as a fair arbiter was such that many civil cases that should have gone through a common law court were masqueraded as looting and rioting and brought to the Royal Court, which was meant to deal with cases implicating society’s upper echelons and national affairs. Many believed that if their grievance was brought to a judiciary presided by the Lord Chancellor, as Wolsey once was, then they would stand a better chance of getting justice. Despite Wolsey’s edifying image in this regard, abuse of the court meant he, “eventually ordered all minor cases out of Star Chamber,” perhaps sensing the Chamber was not serving the Crown with enough efficacy? When seeking to maintain power both men displayed ruthlessness but Wolsey never evinced this trait to the extremity that Cromwell did. Wolsey had the 3rd Duke of Buckingham executed for treason amid rumours he had try to veer Henry from Wolsey’s favour and had accused the Cardinal of necromancy. “Wolsey himself told the French ambassador that Buckingham’s opposition to an alliance with France had been the cause of beheading but this cannot be taken as gospel.” One instance where Cromwell exceeded the capacity shown by Wolsey for ruthlessness was in his annihilation of Anne Boleyn. Boleyn came to represent at court, a faction opposed to Cromwell, Anne had the temerity to suggest, “Money from the dissolution should be spent on hospitals, schools, things like that, not suiting Cromwell’s plans at all.”. Cromwell cruelly fabricated a charge of adultery for which Anne Boleyn was executed; this was Cromwell at his cruellest. The aforementioned executions were in response to perceived threats and revealed the lengths both men would take to retain their power. It is ironic that Cromwell and Wolsey were both brought down by women. Wolsey’s failure to remove one ended his ministerial career and Cromwell’s acquisition of one precipitated his bookend. Cromwell believed a marriage to Anne of Cleves made sense. In terms of foreign policy terms it did as Anne’s brother, “ruled an important conglomeration of territories in north-west Germany, strategically sighted between France and Catholic Emperor Charles V,” The union was devised with the will to, “take England into Reformation Germany.” Unfortunately for Cromwell the king, “sexually couldn’t bear her,” and when she arrived in England, having been spoken of as a great beauty, Henry was “appalled,” It was probably the fact Cromwell subscribed to Lutheran ideas and that Henry did not that caused Cromwell to be executed as a heretic. Cromwell and Wolsey were both, “ambitious and rapacious,” and rose from modest roots. The reality that they fought their way to positions of power perhaps ingrained them with a heightened determination to remain as the English monarch’s right arm. But it is Cromwell whose role in the Reformation makes his legacy the one that endures more resonantly; given that the Church of England is still to this day the church of the state much due to his actions.
Bibliography
Top English Protestants: Cromwell #17
Youtube channel of Robert Jones, published 25 September 2013
Thomas Wolsey-
Youtube channel of Cornell Godwin, published 17 November 2013
Henry VIII Mind of a Tyrant, 1533-1537, Channel 4
David Starkey
Published on 8 June 2013 by Pedsta 83
Henry V and Thomas Cromwell –History Extra Podcast- hero and villain 46:35
Released 21 June 2013
Sybil M. Jack, ‘Wolsey, Thomas (1470/71–1530)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2012 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/29854, accessed 9 Dec 2013]
Howard Leithead, ‘Cromwell, Thomas, earl of Essex (b. in or before 1485, d. 1540)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/6769, accessed 9 Dec 2013]
Gunn, S.J & Lindley, P,G, 1996, Cardinal Wolsey
Hutchinson, R, 2007, Thomas Cromwell, The Rise and Fall of Henry VIII’s most Notorious Minister
Dickens, A, G, 1959, Thomas Cromwell and the English Reformation
Guy, J, 1996, The Reign of Henry VIII,
historytocontemporay 