Cromwell & The Reformation

Cromwell & his rise to power

• the son of a blacksmith; he was not born into nobility. It was very difficult in Tudor times to climb the social hierarchy.

• Cromwell was ambitious.  He worked for Thomas Wolsey. By 1529, he was Wolsey’s most trusted adviser. Cromwell made a name for himself in Henry’s court. He was intelligent, charming, caring and loyal.

• When Wolsey fell from favour in 1529, it could have been the end of Cromwell.  Instead Cromwell became more successful. Cromwell had impressed Henry with his loyalty, as he believed that Cromwell would be as loyal to him if her promoted him, and his skill at managing Wolsey’s legal affairs after Wolsey’s death.

In 1531 Cromwell was appointed to the Royal Council. Cromwell realised that helping Henry get a divorce would be a way of getting further promotion.

Cromwell’s personality

• witty, charming, persuasive

• reputation for being ruthless - Henry could rely on Cromwell to undertake controversial and immoral acts like sending people for executions. These actions limited the number of people willing to challenge Cromwell's position

• showed great loyalty, remained loyal to Wolsey

Cromwell & the annulment

In 1531, Cromwell started working on the case for an annulment. He realised the Pope would never give him one so he came up with other ideas for Henry’s problem.

• The power to give an annulment should not be with the pope but with Henry.

• Parliament could be used to pass a law to give the power to Henry.

These were completely new and groundbreaking ideas. Cromwell was directly challenging the Pope who had always ruled on matters of religion before and he was increasing the power of parliament.

By 1533 Anne Boleyn was pregnant so Henry needed a divorce more than ever. He had to marry Anne before the child was born so that the child was legitimate. In January 1533, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, performed a secret marriage ceremony for Henry and Anne. In the eyes of the Catholic Church this marriage was not legal. 

then the Act in Restraint of Appeals

Act in Restraint of Appeals

In March 1533, the Act in Restraint of Appeals was passed. This said that England was not subject to any form of foreign rule, this included the Pope.  It also said that the king was the ‘Supreme Head’ of England, so he had all the powers of the pope, and could give himself an annulment.

• Cromwell realised the Pope would never grant the annulment, so he used Parliament to pass laws that gave the power directly to Henry.

• The Key Law: The Act in Restraint of Appeals (March 1533) declared that England was not subject to foreign rule (including the Pope), allowing Archbishop Cranmer to legally annul the marriage in England.

In May 1533, there was a divorce hearing.  It said that:

• The original agreement to let Catherine and Henry marry was not valid (lawful).

• So Henry and Catherine were never legally married.

• So Henry’s secret marriage to Anne was legal.

The divorce for Henry - Cromwell’s big break

Getting the divorce for Henry was Cromwell’s big break. From 1533 to 1540 he acted as Henry’s Chief Minister.  He was the man that Henry went to for advice. Cromwell’s task was to give Henry everything that he wanted.

Cromwell was rewarded with lots of titles which gave him a leading say in religious, legal and financial affairs. He became rich and powerful, but he did not get as powerful as Wolsey:

• He wasn’t given as much freedom as Wolsey on policy.  Henry took a more direct role in government.

• Cromwell was not as extravagant as Wolsey. He lived simply.

• Henry was careful not to make Cromwell too powerful.  So Cromwell didn’t get as many promotions as Wolsey.

Thomas Cranmer

Archbishop of Canterbury 1532 - 1555.  He was Protestant.  He wanted the Church reformed along Protestant lines and urged Henry to control the English Church. He gave Henry VIII the divorce he wanted.

Anne Boleyn

between 1533 and 1536 (when she was executed)

As a Protestant, Anne was happy to urge Henry to defy the Pope. Anne's pregnancy forced Henry to take action to ensure their child was legitimate and so could succeed to the throne

What were the charges against Anne?

Anne was charged with adultery, incest and treason. She was accused of sleeping with her brother, George Boleyn

Anne protested her innocence

Anne unable to produce a male heir, & her strong opinions

Henry was frustrated that Anne hasn't produced a male heir (just a daughter)

Henry had split from the Catholic Church to produce a legitimate, male heir. Anne had suffered several miscarriages and, by 1536, Henry was running out of patience

• also had strong opinions; she was outspoken and expressed her feelings about religion and political matters. henry became increasingly annoyed at her willingness to argue with him and her commitment to religious reforms.

Cromwell’s role in Anne’s charges

• took the lead role in building the adultery case against Anne. personally interrogated Mark Smeaton

• thoroughly investigated the other main suspects & collected evidence against them

• made sure the ladies-in-waiting who served Anne were spies who reported everything she said back to Cromwell.

• Cromwell wanted Anne gone from court; they had different views; Anne wanted the money being made from the Dissolution of the Monasteries to be used to fund charities and schools, and she favoured a French alliance; Cromwell wanted to keep the money for the Crown and preferred an alliance with Charlies V.

• Cromwell knew what a dangerous enemy Anne could be; she had helped bring about the downfall of Wolsey and he was determined not to share this fate. He spoke to the king about Anne’s alleged affairs, knowing it would be sure to bring about the queen’s ruin.

reason against a plot by Cromwell

Cromwell had no choice in the matter. Henry wanted to marry Jane whilst married to Anne. If he did not follow Henry's instructions, he would lose the king's favour.

They also had areas of agreement, such as their views on Protestantism and their want for Protestant reforms.

It’s unlikely that Cromwell would have been able to manipulate Henry, who was an experience and mature ruler by now.

• If Cromwell was in a position to manipulate Henry, surely he could have just persuaded Henry to ignore Anne’s advice on policy?

• It would have been very dangerous for Cromwell to accuse the Queen of adultery with very little evidence.

• Henry fell in love with Jane Seymour

Jane Seymour

Henry started to become attracted to Jane Seymour by early 1536. Henry wanted Jane to be his wife rather than Anne.

He asked her to marry him the day after Anne’s execution.

Jane was the opposite of Anne; obedient to him, disinterested in politics.

Henry VIII needed a male and legitimate heir to the throne.

Jane fulfilled her duty by giving birth to a son, Edward, in 1537

Henry had a legitimate male heir to the throne

The birth of Edward reduced the threat of a civil war after Henry's death

A male heir strengthened Henry's position as king Henry saw his son as a sign that God approved of his actions, including the annulment of his marriage to Catherine and the execution of Anne

The Death of Jane Seymour Around two weeks after giving birth to Edward, Jane died. Henry went into mourning & refused to marry for two years.

Cromwell’s reforms (general)

• Parliament

• Crime & justice

• Royal power / systems of government

• The Royal Council —→ the Privy Council

• Royal Finances

Cromwell’s Reforms: Parliament

• Cromwell increased the power of Parliament and made them more involved in decision making, in the hopes that they would approve more of his and Henry’s decisions

• he interfered with elections and bribed MPs to support the king’s reforms

• Lords who disagreed with the king’s policies were told to abstain

• Cromwell used parliament much more than it had been used before- getting the Act in Restraint of Appeals (1533) passed is an example of how Cromwell used the law to increase Henry’s power.

he made him enemies amongst some MPs who felt bullied in supporting reforms/laws

some disapproved of Cromwell’s meddling in elections

Cromwell’s Reforms: Crime & justice

• Criminals could no longer claim sanctuary for crimes like rape and murder. This made it easier for royal officials to make arrests

• However, sanctuary continued to be used for less serious crimes

Cromwell’s Reforms: Royal power / systems of government

• Cromwell guided the Act of Union through parliament in 1536, which made Wales a part of England. Wales was divided into counties to make it easier to control and English laws replaced Welsh laws.

• the establishment of a permanent military force in Ireland enabled the ability to fight potential invaders

• Cromwell did not extend English control of Ireland beyond the Dublin because of cost

The systems of government were not uniform enough

• in 1536, the north officially came under royal control. The Council of the North was strengthened by Cromwell to improve how the North was governed. It was made responsible for law and order in the North and keeping the North in line with what the Crown wanted.

  However, royal control in the North was still not secure, as shown by the Pilgrimage of Grace (1536), which demonstrated continued resistance to Henry VIII's religious changes and Cromwell's reforms, limiting Cromwell's success in securing loyalty to the Crown

Cromwell’s Reforms: Royal council

Cromwell established a new, simpler version of the Royal Council called the Privy Council. It was made up of 20 permanent advisors- most were lawyers and professionals rather than untrained noblemen or clergymen. This helped to stop one person from becoming too powerful in the Council.

Cromwell hoped that everyone's equal skillset would stop one person from dominating the Privy Council

Cromwell’s Reforms: royal finances

The dissolution of the monasteries led to a massive increase in the Crown’s income and the King’s Chamber would not be able to cope

Routine tasks, such as monitoring spending and income, bored Henry so he rarely got involved

Cromwell decided to remove most of the King’s Chamber’s financial responsibilities. He created a number of new government departments, each looking after a specific area of revenue (money):

1. The Court of Augmentations: created in 1536, which dealt with property income gained from dissolving the monasteries.

2. The Court of First Fruits and Tenths: created in 1540, which collected a tax from the clergy that had previously been sent to Rome (and the Pope).

each department was routinely checked and appropriately staffed  and received  a set sum of money.

• He managed to increase royal income from £100,000 p.a. in 1530 to £240,000 p.a. in 1536.

• Cromwell also sold off church lands which quickly raised large sums.

However, there was a huge Catholic opposition to the selling off of Church land/buildings and so the threat of an  invasion increased.

What was Cromwell’s involvement in the Reformation? 

• Following Wolsey’s fall from power in 1529 and subsequent death, by 1531, Cromwell began working on the case for Henry’s annulment.

•  His ability to get Henry the divorce he so desired in 1533 meant that Cromwell quickly became Henry’s most trusted advisor

• He was rewarded with many titles and offices which gave him a leading say in the kingdom’s legal, religious and financial affairs.

• Cromwell, therefore, played a large role in the English Reformation.

• In 1535, Cromwell was given the title ‘Vice-Gerent in Spirituals’ meant that he was now the King’s deputy in everything to do with religion.

•  Shortly after, Cromwell began his Valor Ecclesiasticus, a survey of all of the wealth and condition of the Church. Then sent out documents to towns explaining why the reforms were badly needed.

• Cromwell now had the power and influence to introduce and enforce many of his Protestant ideas in England.

Act of Submission of the Clergy

1532

• Cromwell pressured the archbishops and bishops to publicly agree that Henry was their lawmaker, rather than the Pope.

• All Church laws needed Henry’s approval. Soon, taxes that the clergymen had originally paid to the Pope went to the King.

• it was now in Henry’s power to appoint Bishops, not the Pope’s.

Act of Succession

1534

The Act of Succession declared that:

1. Henry’s marriage to Catherine was invalid, so their daughter Mary could no longer inherit the throne.

2. Henry and Anne’s marriage was his first true marriage, so their daughter Elizabeth would be first in line of succession.

3. It was treason to criticise Henry’s marriage to Anne, so anyone who defended Catherine’s marriage could be executed if caught.

Everyone also had to take an oath (promise), swearing to accept this act and support Henry’s ‘true’ marriage. The Act of Succession aimed to prevent the possibility of civil war after Henry’s death, since it now proclaimed that Henry had only one rightful heir.

Act of Supremacy

1534

This Act said that the King was now the ‘Supreme Head of the Church of England’. All clergymen had to take an oath (promise) recognising this and by doing so rejected the Pope’s authority in England. Anyone who didn’t take this oath was a traitor. The oath also helped force Henry’s opponents out into the open so Cromwell could take action against them.

Treason Act

1534

This listed crimes that were treason and punishable by execution. It was now a crime to say the King and Queen were heretics, to talk about supporting the Pope against the King, or to say that the King’s religious changes were a sin. What was particularly important was that the accused did not need to have taken action against Henry, all they had to do was be caught saying something against him.

Act for the Dissolution of the Smaller Monasteries

1536

Lesser monasteries= those with an annual income of less that £200/year. Being small, they were less likely to command public sympathy or support when Cromwell closed them down. This was a clever move because it tested people’s reactions to closing monasteries without committing to closing the bigger ones. Henry believed the monks were still loyal to Rome so closing the monasteries removed a large group of potential opponents.

Act for the Dissolution of the Greater Monasteries

1539

All the remaining monasteries, including the bigger and more powerful monasteries, were destroyed. Their lands were seized and solds, and their possessions were confiscated by the Crown. This was important because the destruction could not be reversed and, once the land was sold, the people who bought this land had a vested interest in supporting Henry’s religious changes.

Thomas Cromwell / Thomas Cranmer for the Reformation

• Thomas Cranmer initially won Henry’s confidence by collecting evidence to show that Henry’s marriage to Catherine was invalid.

• Appointed Archbishop - he declared the marriage illegal and led the service at which Henry & Anne were married

• Cranmer wanted to move the Church well away from Catholic beliefs and urged Henry to adopt Protestant ideas.

Cromwell was the man who worked out how to make changes happen and how to enforce them.

• The Royal Injunctions in 1538 ordered that every church had to have an English Bible and that pilgrimage sites be destroyed e.g. Thomas Becket’s shrine. This was because Cromwell & Cranmer’s aims were to get rid of practices that they saw as the worship of holy relics, saints and statues rather than of God and Christ.

• In 1535, Cromwell was given the title ‘Vice-Gerent in Spirituals’ meant that he was now the King’s deputy in everything to do with religion.

•  Shortly after, Cromwell began his Valor Ecclesiasticus, a survey of all of the wealth and condition of the Church. Then sent out documents to towns explaining why the reforms were badly needed.

however, Cromwell had a strong sense of what Henry would & would not accept; therefore, he went along with Henry’s decision to turn back towards Catholic ideas.

monasteries meaning

Religious houses where monks and nuns lived

why were religious houses important?

• Helped the sick and elderly

• Education

• Fed the poor

• Local merchants made money when they sold them gold etc. 

• Helped the poor by giving alms (charity money)

• Prayers to God, including prayers for the dead

Why did Henry VIII dissolve the monasteries?

• Some of the biggest opponents of Henry’s break with Rome were abbots and monks. Dissolving the monasteries would silence these opponents. 

• Nuns & monks were more loyal to the Pope. Henry VIII would have more power over the church if they were gone.

• Henry was worried that the break with Rome might trigger an invasion by France. Closing the monasteries would raise money to pay for defence. 

• Cromwell’s ‘Valor Ecclesiasticus’ revealed that religious houses were extremely wealthy. The King could use this wealth to play a more central role in European politics. 

• With all of the wealth from the monasteries, Henry would not need to summon Parliament to raise taxes, which was always unpopular. 

• Protestants like Cromwell and Archbishop Cranmer wanted to see them closed down.  They believed that the monasteries were useless as their primary role was to pray for the souls of the dead

• Cromwell’s findings in Compendium Compertorum claimed 100s of monks involved in homosexual practices, often with young boys.

Cromwell found that monks and nuns were not doing their duty, lived with women, had false relics etc.

How did Cromwell get rid of the monasteries?

In 1535, Cromwell then ordered a survey, the Valor Ecclesiasticus, to find out just how much the Church was worth. 

Cromwell ordered commissioners, led by Richard Layton and Thomas Legh, to write a report on corruption in the Catholic Church. This was compiled in a document known as the Compendium Compertorum. 

Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries (1536) closed 300 smaller monasteries with an income of less than £200 a year. 

Abbots were ‘invited’ to surrender their religious houses as a gift to the king. Many realised they couldn’t say no.

The second Act of Dissolution (Dissolution of the greater monasteries) was passed in 1539, closing all remaining religious houses. 

By 1540, no monasteries remained in England.

Impact of the Dissolution of the Monasteries

• Cromwell and Cranmer achieved their aims. The dissolution of the monasteries was a step towards a Protestant Church in England

• Henry VIII became very wealthy. He was financially independent from parliament

• The dissolution of the monasteries reduced the Church's opposition to Henry's supremacy

• Monks lost their purpose. Some monks were re-employed by the Church. Other monks fell into unemployment and poverty

• The most vulnerable people in society suffered the most. They no longer had the support that they needed. Many people fell into vagrancy or became ill. rise in poverty in England

monks & nuns were left in hardship. they lost their homes and weren’t given much money

People who worked at the monasteries (who weren’t monks or nuns) found it difficult to get jobs because it was a time of unemployment.

The poor and sick found it difficult to get help.  The money that was taken from the monasteries was mainly used for war and defence rather than hospitals and the poor.

Monasteries were a huge symbol of Roman Catholics, so for Protestants it meant the removal of a powerful symbol of Catholicism

Cultural vandalism: architecture was lost, many of the treasures of the monasteries were sold off or destroyed including libraries, stained glass windows and furnishings.  Henry VIII installed the church windows of Rewley Abbey in his bowling alley in Hampton Court. 95% of English medieval art was destroyed.

Thomas More’s opposition of the Reformation

• Many people regarded More as one of Europe’s great scholars.

• He was a devout Catholic. He called Martin Luther and Protestants criminals and believed that Protestantism threatened the souls of English people. He banned Protestant books, and during his Chancellorship, six people were burnt for their Protestant beliefs

• appointed Lord Chancellor in 1529, following the fall of Wolsey

• He personally hunted down and interrogated suspected heretics.

• he never openly opposed Henry’s changes to the Church

• his Catholic principles went against Henry’s wish to divorce Catherine of Aragon and break from Rome; he resigned the chancellorship, claiming ill health.

• Henry wouldn’t allow him to retire from public life; Henry saw him as a dangerous enemy because he wouldn’t offer public support

• he was asked to take the Oath of Succession but refused. He was eventually executed under the Treason Act.

significance of Thomas More’s fate

• showed that, in Henry’s England, declarations of loyalty to the king were not enough; you had to prove

• More became a popular martyr for the Catholic cause.

• the execution of one of Europe’s great scholars outraged many and discredited Henry.

• The Pope was incredibly angry; England became more divided from Rome and The Pope threatened to excommunicate Henry.

• His death created an atmosphere of fear and repression in England; Henry had killed one of his closest advisers, and so people were afraid of what could happen to them if they spoke out against the king

significance of Thomas More’s opposition

His opposition showed that even one of Henry’s closes advisers disagreed with the reform of the Church. Henry & Cromwell could not afford to let More live as this would have given others the courage to oppose the king; sent the message that no opponent would escape punishment, even a man who the King had greatly admired.

Elizabeth Barton

• a nun, famous for her religious gift; she claimed that the Virgin Mary had appeared to her in a vision and miraculously cured her.

• She attacked Henry’s plans to divorce Catherine of Aragon, as well as Protestant ideas in general

• she spoke about the need to burn English translations of the Bible and to remain loyal to the pope.

• in a face-to-face meeting with the king she warned that if he married Anne Boleyn he would die.

• the visions were dangerous for Henry; they had the potential to inspire people to resist his religious reforms. She was executed for treason in 1534.

John Fisher

• a stronger challenge to Henry’s reforms than Elizabeth Barton

• Bishop

• European-wide reputation as a scholar

• tutored Henry as a young prince and supported him throughout his early reign.

• found it impossible to support Henry after 1527. He believed that Catherine of Aragon was Henry’s lawful wedded wife and was outspoken against the king’s efforts to secure a divorce.

• opposed Henry’s move to split with Rome because he believed the powers used by the pope were given by God. By claiming them as his own, Henry was committing a mortal sin.

• Fisher would not change his mind

• Henry grew to hate Fisher but could not do anything to stop him as he had not broken any laws.

• he continued to oppose Henry’s religious reforms and secretly appealed to Charles V to invade England.

• refused to take the Oath of Succession & acknowledge Anne Boleyn as the true queen so he was sent to the Tower of London.

• executed for treason in 1535.