Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
CROMWELL, THOMAS, EARL OF
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: CRE-DAH
del.icio.us it!
|
See also:CROMWELL, See also: In 1512 there is some slight See also:evidence that he was at See also:Middelburg, and also in See also:London, engaged in business as a See also:merchant and See also:solicitor. His See also:marriage must have taken See also:place about the same time, judging from the See also:age of his son See also:Gregory. His wife was See also: In 1525 he was Wolsey's See also:agent in the See also:dissolution of the smaller monasteries which were designed to provide the endowments for Wolsey's See also:foundations at See also:Oxford and See also:Ipswich, a task which gave Cromwell a See also:taste and a facility for similar enterprises on a greater See also:scale later on. For these foundations Cromwell See also:drew up the necessary deeds, and he was See also:receiver-See also:general of cardinal's See also:college, constantly supervising the workmen there and at Ipswich. His ruthless vigour and his accessibility to bribes earned him such unpopularity that there were rumours of his projected assassination or imprisonment. All this constituted a further See also:bond of sympathy between him and his See also:master, and Cromwell See also:grew in Wolsey's favour until his fall. His wife had died in 1527 or 1528, and in See also:July 1529 he made his will, in which one of the See also:chief beneficiaries was his See also:nephew, See also:Richard See also:Williams, alias Cromwell, the great-grandfather of the See also:protector. Wolsey's disgrace reduced Cromwell to such despair that See also:Cavendish once found him in tears and at his prayers " which had been a See also:strange sight in him afore." Many of the cardinal's servants had been taken over by the king, but Cromwell had made himself particularly See also:obnoxious. However, he rode to court from See also:Esher to " make or See also:mar," as he himself expressed it, and offered his services to See also:Norfolk. Possibly he had already paved the way by the See also:pensions and grants which he induced Wolsey to make through him, out of the lands and revenues of his bishoprics and abbeys, to nobles and courtiers who were hard pressed to keep up the lavish See also:style of Henry's court. Cromwell could be most useful to the See also:government in parliament, and the government, represented by Norfolk, undertook to use its See also:influence in procuring him a seat, on the natural understanding that Cromwell should do his best to further government business in the House of See also:Commons. This was on the 2nd of See also:November 1529; the elections had been made, and parliament was to meet on the morrow. A seat was, however, found or made for Cromwell at See also:Taunton. He signalized himself by a powerful speech in opposition to the See also:bill of See also:attainder against Wolsey which had already passed the Lords. The bill was thrown out, possibly with Henry's connivance, though no theory has yet explained its curious See also:history so completely as the statement of Cavendish and other contemporaries, that its rejection was due to the arguments of Cromwell. Doubtless he championed his fallen chief not so much for virtue's See also:sake as for the impression it would make on others. He did not feel called upon to accompany Wolsey on his See also:exile from the court.
Cromwell had now, according to Cardinal See also:Pole, whose See also:story has been too readily accepted, been converted into an " emissary of Satan " by the study of See also:Machiavelli's See also:Prince. In the one interview which Pole had with Cromwell, the latter, so Pole
wrote ten years later in 1539, recommended him to read a new See also:Italian See also:book on politics, which Pole says he afterwards discovered was Machiavelli's Prince. But this,See also:discovery was not made for some years: the Prince was not published until 1532, three years after the conversation; there is evidence that Cromwell was not acquainted with it until 1537 or 1539, and there is nothing in the Prince bearing on the precise point under discussion by Pole and Cromwell. On the other hand, the point is discussed in See also:Castiglione's Il Cortegiano which had just been published in 1528, and of which Cromwell promised to lend See also:Bonner a copy in 1530. The Cortegiano is the See also:antithesis of the Prince; and there is little doubt that Pole's See also:account is the offspring of an See also:imagination heated by his own perusal of the Prince in 1538, and by Cromwell's ruin of the Pole family at the same time; until then he had failed to see in Cromwell the Machiavellian " emissary of Satan."
Equally fanciful is Pole's ascription of the whole responsibility for the See also:Reformation to Cromwell's See also:suggestion. It was impossible for Pole to realize the substantial causes of that perfectly natural development, and it was his cue to represent Henry as having acted at the diabolic suggestion of Satan's emissary. In reality the whole See also:programme, the destruction of the liberties and See also:confiscation of the See also:wealth of the See also: In the same way Cromwell's influence over the government from 1529–1533 has been grossly exaggerated. It was not till 1531 that he was admitted to the privy See also:council nor till 1534 that he was made secretary, though he had been made master of the See also:Jewel-House, clerk of the See also:Hanaper and master of the Wards in 1532, and See also:chancellor of the See also:exchequer (then a See also:minor See also:office) in 1533. It is not till 1533 that his name is as much as mentioned in the See also:correspondence of any See also:foreign See also:ambassador See also:resident in London. This obscurity has been attributed to deliberate suppression: but no secrecy was made about Cranmer's suggestion, and it was not Henry's See also:habit to assume a responsibility which he could devolve upon others. It is said that Cromwell's life would not have been safe, had he been known as the author of this policy; but that is not a See also:consideration which would have appealed to Henry, and he was just as able to protect his See also:minister in 1530 as he was in 1536. Cromwell, in fact, was not the author of that policy, but he was the most efficient See also:instrument in its See also:execution. He was Henry's parliamentary agent, but even in this capacity his See also:power has been overrated, and he is supposed to have invented those parliamentary complaints against the See also:clergy, which were transmuted into the legislation of 1532. But the complaints were old enough; many of them had been heard in parliament nearly twenty years before, and there is ample evidence to show that the See also:petition against the clergy represents the " See also:infinite clamours " of the Commons against the Church, which the House itself resolved should be " put in See also:writing and delivered to the king." The actual drafting of the See also:statute, as of all the Reformation Acts between 1532 and 1539, was largely Cromwell's See also:work; and the success with which parliament was managed during this See also:period was also due to him. It was not an easy task, for the House of Commons more than once rejected government See also:measures, and members were heard to threaten Henry VIII. with the See also:fate. of Richard III.; they even complained pf Cromwell's See also:reporting their proceedings to the king. That was his business rather than conveying imaginary royal orders to the House. " They becontented," he wrote in one of these reports, " that See also:deed and writing shall be See also:treason," but words were only to be See also:misprision: they refused to include an heir's See also:rebellion or disobedience in the bill " as rebellion is already treason, and disobedience is no cause of See also:forfeiture of See also:inheritance." There was, of course, See also:room for manipulation, which Cromwell extended to parliamentary elections;. but parliamentary See also:opinion was a force of which he had to take account, and not a negligible quantity. From the date of his See also:appointment as secretary in 1534, Cromwell's See also:biography belongs to the history of See also:England, but it is necessary to define his See also:personal attitude to the revolution in which he was the king's most conspicuous agent. He was included by See also:Foxe in his Book of Martyrs to the See also:Protestant faith: more See also:recent historians regard him as a sacrilegious See also:ruffian. Now, there were two cardinal principles in the Protestantism of the 16th century—the supremacy of the temporal See also:sovereign over the church in matters of government, and the supremacy of the Scriptures over the Church in matters of faith. There is no room for doubt as to the sincerity of Cromwell's belief in the first of these two articles: he paid at his own expense for an See also:English See also:translation of Marsiglio of See also:Padua's Defensor Pacis, the classic See also:medieval See also:advocate of that See also:doctrine; he had a See also:scheme for governing England by means of administrative See also:councils nominated by the king to the detriment of parliament; and he urged upon Henry the See also:adoption of the See also:maxim of the See also:Roman civil law—quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem. He wanted, in his own words, " one See also:body politic " and no See also:rival to the king's authority; and he set the divine right of kings against the divine right of the papacy. There is more doubt about the sincerity of Cromwell's See also:attachment to the second See also:article; it is true that he set up a See also:Bible in every See also:parish church, and regarded them as invaluable; and the correspondents who unbosom themselves to him are all of a Protestant way of thinking. But Protestantism was the greatest support of See also:absolute See also:monarchy. Hence its value in Cromwell's eyes. Of religious conviction there is in him little trace, and still less of the religious temperament. He was a polished representative of the callous, See also:secular See also:middle class of that most irreligious age. Sentiment found no place, and feeling little, in his See also:composition; he used the See also:axe with as little See also:passion as the surgeon does the See also:knife, and he operated on some of the best and noblest in the See also:land. He saw that it was wiser to proscribe a few great opponents than to fall on humbler See also:prey; but he set See also:law above See also:justice, and law to him was simply the will of the state. In 1534 Cromwell was appointed master of the Rolls, and in 1535 chancellor of See also:Cambridge University and visitor-general of the monasteries. The policy of the Dissolution has been theoretically denounced, but practically approved in every civilized state, See also:Catholic as well as Protestant. Every one has found it necessary, sooner or later, to curtail or to destroy its monastic foundations; only those which delayed the task longest have generally lagged farthest behind in See also:national progress. The need for reform was admitted by a See also:committee of cardinals appointed by See also:Paul III. in 1535, and it had been begun by Wolsey. Cromwell was not affected by the iniquities of the monks except as arguments for the confiscation of their See also:property. He had boasted that he would make Henry VIII. the richest prince in Christendom; and the monasteries, with their See also:direct dependence on the See also:pope and their See also:cosmopolitan organization, were obstacles to that absolute authority of the national state which was Cromwell's ideal. He had learnt how to visit monasteries under Wolsey, and the visitation of 1535 was carried out with ruthless efficiency. During the See also:storm which followed, Henry took the management of affairs into his own hands, but Cromwell was rewarded in July 1536 by being knighted, created lord privy See also:seal, See also:Baron Cromwell, and vicar-general and viceregent of the king in " Spirituals."
In this last offensive capacity he sent a See also:lay See also:deputy to preside in See also:Convocation, taking See also:precedence of the bishops and archbishops, and issued his famous Injunctions of 1536 and 1538; a Bible was to be provided in every church; the Paternoster, Creed and Ten Commandments were to be recited by the See also:incumbent in
English; he was to preach at least once a See also:quarter, and to start a See also:register of births, marriages and deaths. During these years the outlook abroad grew threatening because of the See also:alliance, under papal See also:guarantee, between See also: The friendship between Francis and Charles was apparently getting closer; Pole was exhorting them to a crusade against a king who was worse than the Turk; and anxious eyes searched the Channel in 1539 for signs of the coming See also:Armada. Under these circumstances Henry acquiesced in Cromwell's negotiations for a marriage with Anne of See also:Cleves. Anne, of course, was not a Lutheran, and the state See also:religion in Cleves was at least as Catholic as Henry's own. But her See also:sister was married to the elector of See also:Saxony, and her See also:brother had claims on Guelders, which Charles V. refused to recognize. Guelders was to the See also:emperor's dominions in the See also:Netherlands what Scotland was to England, and had often been used by France in the same way, and an alliance between England, Guelders, Cleves and the Schmalkaldic See also:League would, Cromwell thought, make Charles's position in the Netherlands almost untenable. Anne herself was the weak point in the See also:argument; Henry conceived an invincible repugnance to her from the first; he was restrained from an immediate See also:breach with his new See also:allies only by fear of Francis and Charles. In the See also:spring of 1J40 he was reassured on that See also:score; no attack on him from that quarter was impending; there was a rift between the two Catholic sovereigns, and there was no real need for Anne and her See also:German See also:friends.
From that moment Cromwell's fate was sealed; the Lords loathed him as an upstart even more than they had loathed Wolsey; he had no church to support him; Norfolk and See also:Gardiner detested him from pique as well as on principle, and he had no friend in the council See also:save Cranmer. As lay viceregent he had given umbrage to nearly every churchman, and he had put all his eggs in the one See also:basket of royal favour, which had now failed him. Cromwell did not succumb without an effort, and a desperate struggle ensued in the council. In See also:April the French ambassador wrote that he was tottering to his fall; a few days later he was created earl of Essex and lord great See also: A vast number of crimes was laid to his See also:charge, but not submitted for trial. An act of attainder was passed against him without a dissentient See also:voice, and after contributing his See also:mite towards the divorce of Anne, he was beheaded on Tower See also: - xvi. ; Cavendish's Life of Wolsey; See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
|
[back] CROMWELL, RICHARD (1626–1712) |
[next] CRONJE, PIET ARNOLDUS (c. 1840– ) |