Cromwell, Thomas
, earl of Essex, an eminent
statesman in the sixteenth century, was the son of Walter
Cromwell, a blacksmith, at Putney, near London, and in
his latter days a brewer; after whose decease, his mother
was married to a sheerman in London. What education
he had, was In a private school: and all the learning he
attained to, was (according to the standard of those times),
only reading and writing, and a little Latin. When he
grew up, having a very great inclination for travelling, he
went into foreign countries, though at whose expence is
not known; and by that means he had an opportunity of
seeing the world, of gaining experience, and of learning
several languages, which proved of great service to him
afterwards. Coming to Antwerp, where was then a very
considerable English factory, he was by them retained to
be their clerk, or secretary. But that office being too
great a confinement, he embraced an opportunity that offered in 1510, of taking a journey to Rome*. Whilst he
remained in Italy he served for some time as a soldier
under the duke of Bourbon, and was at the sacking of
Rome: and at Bologna he assisted John Russel, esq. afterwards earl of Bedford, in making his escape, when he
had like to be betrayed into the hands of the French,
being secretly in those parts about our king’s affairs. It is
also much to his credit, as an early convert to the reformation, that, in his journey to and from Rome, he learned
by heart Erasmus’s translation of the New Testament.
After his return from his travels he was taken into the
family and service of cardinal Wolsey, who is said to have
first discovered him in France, and who made him his solicitor, and often employed him in business of great importance. Among other things, he had the chief hand in
| the foundation of the two colleges begun at
Oxford and
Ipswich by that magnificent prelate; and upon the cardinal’s disgrace in 1529, he used his utmost endeavours
and interest to have him restored to the king’s favour:
even when articles of high-treason against him were sent
down to the house of commons, of which Cromwell was
then a member, he defended his master with so much wit
and eloquence, that no treason cauld be laid to his charge:
which honest beginning procured Cromwell great reputation, and made his parts and abilities to be much taken
notice of. After the cardinal’s household was dissolved,
Cromwell was taken into the king’s service (upon the recommendation of sir
Christopher Hales, afterwards master of the rolls, and sir
John Russel, knt. above-mentioned)
as the fittest person to manage the disputes the king then
had with the pope; though some endeavoured to hinder
his promotion, and to prejudice his majesty against him,
on account of his defacing the small monasteries that were
dissolved for endowing Wolsey’s colleges. But he discovering to the king some particulars that were very acceptable to him respecting the submission of the clergy to
the pope, in derogation of his majesty’s authority, he took
him into the highest degree of favour, and soon after he
was sent to the convocation, then sitting, to acquaint the
clergy, that they were all fallen into a praemunire on the
above account, and the provinces of
Canterbury and
York
were glad to compromise by a present to the king of above
100,000
l. In 1531 he was knighted; made master of the
king’s jewel-house, with a salary of 50
l. per annum; and
constituted a privy-counsellor. The next year he was
made clerk of the Hanaper, an office of profit and repute
in chancery; and, before the end of the same year, chancellor of the exchequer, and in 1534, principal secretary
of state, and master of the rolls. About the same time
he was chosen chancellor of the university of
Cambridge;
soon after which followed a general visitation of that university, when the several colleges delivered up their charters, and other instruments, to sir
Thomas Cromwell. The
year before, he assessed the fines laid upon those who having
40
l.
per annum estate, refused to take the order of knighthood. In 1535 he was appointed visitor-general of the
monasteries throughout
England, in order for their suppression; and in that office is accused of having acted with
much violence, although in other cases promises and
|
pensions were employed to obtain the compliance of the monks
and nuns. But the mode, whatever it might be, gave satisfaction to the king and his courtiers, and Cromwell was,
on
July 2, 1536, constituted lord keeper of the privy seal,
when he resigned his mastership of the rolls .
* On the
9th of the same month he was advanced to the dignity of
a baron of this realm, by the title of lord Cromwell of
Okeham in Rutlandshire; and, six days after, took his
place in the house of lords. The pope’s supremacy being
now abolished in
England, lord Cromwell was made, on
the 18th of
July, vicar-general, and vicegerent, over all
the spirituality, under the king, who was declared supreme
head of the church. In that quality his lordship satin the
convocation holden this year, above the archbishops, as the
king’s representative. Being-invested with such extensive
power, he employed it in discouraging popery, and promoting the reformation. For that purpose he caused certain articles to be enjoined by the king’s authority, differing in many essential points from the established system
of the Roman-catholic religion; and in
September, this
same year, he published some injunctions to the clergy,
in which they were ordered to preach up the king’s supremacy; not to lay out their rhetoric in extolling images,
relics, miracle*, or pilgrimages, but rather to exhort their
people to serve God, and make provision for their families:
to put parents and other directors of youth in mind to
teach their children the Lord’s-prayer, the Creed, and the
Ten Commandments in their mother-tongue, and to provide a
Bible in Latin and English, to be laid in the
churches for every one to read at their pleasure. He likewise encouraged the translation of the
Bible into English;
and, when finished, enjoined that one of the largest volume should be provided for every parish church, at the
joint charge of the parson and parishioners. These alterations, with the dissolution of the monasteries, and (notwithstanding the immense riches gotten from thence) his
demanding at the same time for the king subsidies both
from the clergy and laity, occasioned very great murmurs
against him, and indeed with some reason. All this, however, rather served to establish him in the king’s esteem,
|
who was as prodigal of money as he was rapacious and
in 1537 his majesty constituted him chief justice itinerant
of all the forests beyond
Trent and on the 26th of
August,
the same year, he was elected knight of the garter, and
dean of the cathedral church of Weils. The year following he obtained a grant of the castle and lordship of Okeham in the county of
Rutland; and was also made constable of Carisbrook-castle in the
Isle of Wight. In
September he published new injunctions, directed to all bishops and curates, in which he ordered that a
Bible, in
English, should be set up in some convenient place in
every church, where the parishioners might most commodiously resort to read the same: that the clergy should,
every Sunday and holiday, openly and plainly recite to
their parishioners, twice or thrice together, one article of
the Lord’s Prayer, or Creed, in English, that they might
learn the same by heart: that they should make, or cause
to be made, in their churches, one sermon every quarter
of a year at least, in which they should purely and sincerely declare the very gospel of Christ, and exhort their
hearers to the works of charity, mercy, and faith not to
pilgrimages, images, &c. that they should forthwith take
clown all images to which pilgrimages or offerings were
wont to be made: that in all such benefices upon which
they were not themselves resident, they should appoint
able curates: that they, and every parson, vicar, or curate, should for every church keep one book of register,
wherein they should write the day and year of every wedding, christening, and burying, within their parish; and
therein set every person’s name that shall be so wedded,
christened, or buried, &c. Having been thus highly instrumental in promoting the reformation, and in dissolving
the monasteries, he was amply rewarded by the king in
1539, with many noble manors and large estates that had
belonged to those dissolved houses. On the 17th of
April,
the same year, he was advanced to the dignity of earl of
Essex; and soon after constituted lord high chamberlain of
England. The same day he was created earl of
Essex he
procured
Gregory his son to be made baron Cromwell of
Okeham. On the 12th of
March 1540, he was put in
commission, with others, to sell the abbey-lands, at twenty
years’ purchase: which was a thing he had advised the
king to do, in order to stop the clamours of the people, to
attach them to his interest, and to reconcile them to the
| dissolution of the monasteries. But as, like his old master
Wolsey, he had risen rapidly, he was now doomed, like
him, to exhibit as striking an example of the instability of
human grandeur; and au unhappy precaution to secure (as he imagined) his greatness, proved his ruin. Observing
that some of his most inveterate enemies, particularly
Gardiner, bishop of
Winchester, began to be more in
favour at court than himself, he used his utmost endeavours
to procure a marriage between king Henry and
Anne of
Cleves, expecting great support from a queen of his
own making; and as her friends were
Lutherans, he imagined it would bring down the popish party at court, and
again recover the ground he and Cranmer had now lost.
But this led immodiaieiy to his destruction; for the king,
not liking the queen, began to hate Cromwell, the great
promoter of the marriage, and soon found an opportunity
to sacrifice him; nor was this difficult. Cromwell was
odious to all the nobility by reason of his low binh: hated
particularly by Gardiner, and the Roman catholics, for
having been so busy in the dissolution of the abbies: the
reformers themselves found he could not protect them
from persecution; and the nation in general was highly
incensed against him for his having lately obtained a subsidy of four shillings in the pound from the clergy, and
one tenth and one fifteenth from the laity; notwithstanding
the immense sums that had flowed into the treasury out of
the monasteries. Henry, with his usual caprice, and without ever considering that Cromwell’s faults were his own,
and committed, if we may use the expression, for his own
gratification, caused him to be arrested at the council table, by the duke of
Norfolk, on the 10th of
June, when he
least suspected it. Being committed to the Tower, he
wrote a letter to the king, to vindicate himself from the
guilt of treason; and another concerning his majesty’s marriage with
Anne of Cleves; but we do not find that any
notice was taken of these: yet, as his enemies knew if he
were brought to the bar he would justify himself by producing the king’s orders and warrants for what he had
done, they resolved to prosecute him by attainder; and
the bill being brought into the house of lords the 17th of
June, and read the first time, on the 19th was read the
second and third times, and sent down to the commons.
Here, however, it stuck ten days, and at last a new bill of
attainder was sent up to the lords, framed in the house of
| commons: and they sent back at the same time the bill
the lords had sent to them. The grounds of his condemnation were chieHy treason and heresy; the former very
confusedly expressed.
* Like other falling favourites, he
was deserted by most of his friends, except archbishop
Cranmer, who wrote to the king in his behalf with great
boldness and spirit. But the duke of
Norfolk, and the
rest of the popish party, prevailed; and, accordingly, in
pursuance of his attainder, the lord Cromwell was brought
to a scaffold erected on Tower-hill, where, after having
made a speech, and prayed, he was beheaded,
July 28,
1540. His death is solely to be attributed to the ingratitude and caprice of Henry, whom he had served with great
faithfulness, courage, and resolution, in the most hazardous, difficult, and important undertakings. As for the
lord Cromwell’s character, he is represented by popish
historians as a crafty, cruel, ambitious, and covetous man,
and a heretic; but their opponents, on better grounds,
assert that he was a person of great wit, and excellent
parts, joined to extraordinary diligence and industry; that
his apprehension was quick and clear; his judgment methodical and solid; his memory strong and rational; his
tongue fluent and pertinent; his presence stately and
obliging; his heart large and noble; his temper patient
and cautious; his correspondence well laid and constant;
his conversation insinuating and close: none more dextrous in finding out the designs of men and courts; and
none more reserved in keeping a secret. Though he was
raised from the meanest condition to a high pitch of honour, he carried his greatness with wonderful temper;
being noted in the exercise of his places of judicature, to
have used much moderation, and in his greatest pomp to
have taken notice of, and been thankful to mean persons
of his old acquaintance. In his whole behaviour he was
courteous and affable to all; a favourer in particular of the
poor in their suits; and ready to relieve such as were in
danger of being oppressed by powerful adversaries; and
so very hospitable and bountiful, that about two hundred
persons were served at the gate of his house in
|
Throgmorton-strcet,
London, twice every day, with bread,
meat, and drink sufficient.
* He must be regarded as one
of the chief instruments in the reformation; and though
he could not prevent the promulgation, he stopped the
execution, as far as he could, of the bloody act of the six
articles. But when the king’s command pressed him close,
he was not firm enough to refuse his concurrence to the
condemnation and burning of
John Lambert. In his domestic concerns he was very regular; calling upon his
servants yearly, to give him an account of what they had
got under him, and what they desired of him; warning
them to improve their opportunities, because, he said, he
was too great to stand long; providing for them as carefully, as for his own son, by his purse and credit, that they
might live as handsomely when he was dead, as they did
when he was alive. In a word, we are assured, that for
piety towards God, fidelity to his king, prudence in the
management of affairs, gratitude to his benefactors, dutifulness, charity, and benevolence, there was not any one
then superior to him in
England.
Among all the arts of expediency, says Gilpin, laid up
in the cabinets of princes, the readiest is to sacrifice a
minister. The death of Cromwell was represented to the
king as the best mean of composing the people. But
though prudential reasons may necessitate a prince to discard a minister, yet guilt only, and that nicely examined,
can authorize an act of blood. The hand of a tyrant,
however, generally throws aside the balance. It is a nice
machine; and requires pains and temper to adjust it. The
sword is an instrument more decisive; and of easier dispatch. Henry’s was always stained with blood often with
innocent blood — but never with blood more innocent than
that of Essex. 1
|
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