Henry, in his forties, could remember the papist ways but, as the years passed, fewer and fewer of his subjects did. In terms of the practical effect the reformation had on everyday Englishmen, the situation is more difficult to gauge. And in many towns and villages, the parish church was the community center, where births, weddings, and deaths were officiated over by a priest.
But they undoubtedly enjoyed not paying their tax to Rome. Once again, a paradox emerged — an excommunicated nation which found itself torn between loyalty to the sovereign and loyalty to the papacy. Of course, I cannot discuss all aspects of the reformation at this site; I recommend L.
There was opposition to the reformation which probably had more to do with the attendant loss of independence in north England. In , a northern uprising which came to be called the Pilgrimage of Grace, gathered over 40, men and marched through England.
Henry was angry at their presumption — how dare his ignorant subjects rebel and then tell him how to run the country! And he continued to listen to Cromwell. For example, the movement began in Louth, in Lincolnshire, and began with the murder of two tax collectors, one of whom was hanged and the other sewn into a sack and thrown to a pack of hungry dogs! So the common people might grumble somewhat but they were ultimately more influenced by practical matters. But not only did Henry enjoy good weather, he had a brilliant servant.
The king declared that Rome had no authority in England and Cromwell instituted the reforms which would make it so. The king declared that all monastic lands were forfeit and Cromwell set out to close the monasteries, assess their value, and sell them to the highest bidder. For a decade, this partnership worked marvelously. Also, Henry and Cromwell both recognized a fundamental truth of the English people; the government could do what it liked as long as traditional religious views were not upset too much.
Certainly, Henry did not upset his own. The name of the pope was omitted in their prayers but not much else. England practiced Catholicism without a pope and, in his place, was their king. This situation suited Cromwell.
Like many, he recognized that the Church had lost its way, remaining a ponderous medieval institution concerned with wealth and influence. But Europe was no longer medieval; countries were becoming nation-states, patriotic and immune to the cultural unity which Rome promoted. The pope envisioned a collection of nations joined beneath the cloak of Christendom with him at its head; but, particularly in xenophobic England, there were mutterings that the church was dominated by other nations.
Also, the church claimed authority over its subjects; no priest or cleric could be tried by their sovereign nation. They would answer only to Rome. Also, as king, he believed himself ruler of all his subjects, priest and commoner alike. One must also mention the corruption of the church, sadly evident to everyone. Certainly there were Godly men who struggled to enforce the tenets of their faith.
But there were also bishops and cardinals more interested in business and finance than theology. The church preached that the surest path to heaven was through good works, particularly at a monastery or abbey, but every Englishmen knew that only the wealthy could afford to endow or board at them.
Furthermore, an increasing number of churchmen were absent from their posts. Cardinal Wolsey embodied this avaricious streak; he was bishop, archbishop, abbot, and cardinal yet the affairs of state kept him from his duties.
Instead of tending to his flock, he tended to his purse. He sired illegitimate children and collected nearly 50, pds a year from his vast holdings.
Wolsey represented the church as it had become; certainly such abuses may not have turned most Englishmen from their faith. But when confronted with the forces of Protestantism, the church found precious few willing to die for their beliefs. When the king styled himself head of the church, many were perhaps relieved.
Henry made no claim to a holy life, not like the churchman Wolsey; he also was shrewd enough to endow his monarchy with papal apparatus. From the s on, the Tudor dynasty was even more divine and the machinery of state could enforce its divinity. Cromwell entered royal service in early and, from then on, rose rapidly. His career progressed as follows:. As the above list shows, Henry never forgot the fallen Wolsey.
He had heaped honors upon him with extravagant generosity and had written to the pope recommending religious promotion. In the end, Henry believed himself betrayed.
Not only had Wolsey accumulated obscene wealth, but he had grown arrogant and eventually treasonous. And so Cromwell, despite his years of diligence and genius, was eventually rewarded with an earldom but only a short time before his execution. His influence upon the s, one of the most influential and vital decades in English history, was enormous.
One needs only to study the s to realize how the loss of Cromwell affected Tudor government. Cromwell supported Anne until she, like Wolsey, became a liability. Among his immediate accomplishments were the following:. In the s, he had instituted reforms of the English government which earned enmity from the nobility.
Cromwell recognized the basic inefficiency of feudal government and, from it, struggled to create a more logical system. Instead of offices held solely because of birth, he wanted trained servants with expertise in their field.
He built a bureaucracy of professionals outside the royal household. He began the first era of parliamentary control of England, using the institution to dissolve the monasteries which made up a quarter of all arable land and validate his other decisions. Like his predecessors in government ministry, Cromwell needed to provide secure and regular income. Cromwell also developed a novel, and very unpopular idea — in the past, taxes were created to support warfare; in , he developed a new tax.
Of course, Henry would use the entire windfall to finance his increasingly complicated foreign policy. In , however, Henry was prepared to reap the benefits of his new anti-clerical policies. They resemble the Mafia. Perhaps the children and the elderly, maybe.
A lot of you people should be so ashamed of yourselves. You are amazing cold hearted. How dare you gloat over the death of this man and wish him Hell? Who do you think you are? Nobody deserves to die in such a manner. Not Anne Boleyn, not Thomas Cromwell.
Grow up, get some perspective and compassion. Everybody calm down and go eat some fruit. I have just become seriously interested in the Court of Henry viii.
The man was clearly not very bright, mentally unstable and grossly oversexed. He was also a coward who got others to plan and do his ghastly bidding and then hide himself away from the brutal events he caused to be carried out.
Did he or is he rotting in hell? Keep writing. Holy crap! I may not be an historical buff but common sense would have us all on the same page about how history has been molded and bastardized by despots, tyrants, religious zealots and a whole lot of self proclaimed elitist individuals that profited off of the masses and their sheepish, superstitious low self esteem and in all fairness selfish desires to be just like those that ruled them!
Religion , money and power the opiate of the masses! Yeah, slim pickings here. This is a winner. I hate when silly emotions run rampant — no sense at all. Big waste of time. Ann Boleyn could not havebeen much worse than Elizabeth 1.
Remember all that the rule of Henry was based on …. WoW, I am amazed that so many users of this great website are so full of hate, hypocritical and really quite ignorant about most things. Shame on you. Remember everybody. History was written by the winners, It reflects their beliefs, and what they want you to accept. No one can really say what went on back then. Even the ones who did keep notes they put what was on their mind while writing. Look at diaries of people.
So all opinions are valid to someone. The only thing that matters is what we believe for ourselves, and are willing to share and debate, and be willing to be corrected when proven wrong and humble when proven right. I have only recently become interested in Tudor history. A jousting accident, in which his eye got injured, left him suffering from severe migraines. A leg injury caused him an ulcer which kept on flaring up.
He also suffered another jousting accident where he fell of his horse, and the horse fell on top of him. He was unconscious for two hours, and modern physicians claim that he, in all liklihood, suffered a traumatic brain injury, which completely altered his personality.
After that accident, he was a lot less active, the ulcer on his leg kept on getting worse, and the brain injury may have affected his adrenal system which made him put on weight. He was in a lot of pain, obese, probably suffering from untreated diabetes.. Anne was no saint. It is not known whether Henry seduced Anne or Anne seduced Henry. Henry definitely had a roving eye, and history all over the shows that Kings were known to have mistresses and concubines, it was almost expected.
Henry was obsessed with having an heir to continue the Tudor line. It was his singular obsession, and he treated his wives as breeding machines. Anne fell out of favour with Henry when first she gave birth to a daughter, and the miscarried a son. Cromwell, and others, used that to poison Henry against Anne — but of course, Henry was the one who wanted rid of Anne… he had set his sights on the innocent, virginal Jane, and he wanted Anne out of the way.
Cromwell may have used the right words, but Henry was more than receptive. Anne might not have been a saint. She as a tough woman, she was ambitious encouraged by her father and uncle , but she did not deserve to be treated the way she was.
Cromwell was a loyal servant to the King. But he served the King loyally. He was a great statesman and ran a successful parliament. In the end he fell victim to his own meteoric rise… he got too comfortable and used his position to serve his own cause,… in suggesting the marriage to Anne of Cleves, as he believed in would serve the Protestant Reformation.
It was his ambition that killed him. Henry VIII might have been a paranoid tyrant in his later years , but he was a great King and changed the face of England whether to good or bad is for each individual to decide.
He produced Queen Elizabeth I who was one of the best monarchs in British history. We need to remember that history is written by the winners, and that historians, despite their claims to the contrary, will always have a biased view, based on their own personal, political, religious, or whatever beliefs. We can only examine the facts as we know them, and make our own conclusions. After all, can we honestly say that given the same opportunities as Anne Boleyn, Thomas Cromwell, the Seymour brothers, Charles Brandon and many others, that we would not use our ambitions and self-serving interests to do the same?
Whatever evil they may or may not have done in their lives, was forgiven by the grisly manner of their death. Finally, thanks so much for that long and very necessary comment. It was annoying and sad seeing all the haters who seem to have barely touched a history book commenting on how certain historical figures should have been treated.
So many people here commenting about how Cromwell deserves to burn in hell for what he did to Anne Boleyn. You guys like Anne and support her wholeheartedly, I get it. It seems like he was doing anything and everything he could to remain in the Kings good graces and retain his own powers. No need for all the hate here. History is there to be learned from. And more to do yet to improve the system of government further! Thomas Cromwell did the best for England and wanted Henry to marry Anne of Cleves because it would bring a strong alliance as England were hated by the French as the death of cardinal Pole.
Thomas Cromwell did the bad things because Henry forced him to and Henry never gave the chance for Thomas to actually give him the right advice. I find it astonishing the amount of hate so many can have for a man they never met. I have a had time fathoming the things people can do to each other and the pain they can give. Thomas Cromwell is an amazing study in social mobility. I look forward to more commentary. We should all appreciate our 21st C good fortune to commentate on this website today!
I look on Henry and his court as being like a Mafia family. This is not a very academic way of looking at the Tudors but it is not at all inaccurate. We Americans can hardly give a thought to anything that happened before we were born, unless we saw a movie about it.
We impeach presidents because they got a blow job once, but we tolerate absolute nut-cases like Sir Donald the Trampe. The majority of site visitors are American, though, so please be assured that Americans love Tudor history too.
Henry was a mentally ill man. From there all bad and sadness came to all who were close to him. How sad…. Personally, i cannot stand to have someone touch me unless i care an awful LOT fot that person.
She had failed to produce him a male heir, like her predecessor, so she was either going to be killed or divorced She was labelled for death because of rumours of her adultery and incestuous behaviour-when this was all just fabricated by the King to get rid of her. He paid the price by dying for your sins under the hopeful pretext that you accept Him as your Savior. Cromwell lead an evil life. Make no mistake about that. Yes, he rose from the lower ranks.
So what. It happens all the time. Ann Boleyn was just one of many offenses. This is beheading. A gruesome death reserved for the very worst of criminals. No person could have been more innocent than Thomas More and Cromwell formed the most egregious levels of lies to exact his death.
A man with 6 wives and who died rotting from the inside had, via Parliament, declared himself a papal equivalent on earth and head of the Church of England.
Spare me. This was the introduction of a more permanent and diabolical error that countered Catholicism. She promised the King sons. How was she to know that it took more than wanting to; that it took more than promising to. She thought it would be as easy as that — a simple promise; easy as that. That promise was her downfall. Where does that come from? Far from being great benefactors of the poor. Monasteries were great generators of revenue for the church using fake relics to attract the gullible etc.
Some good was done but lets not get carried away with that notion. If they wanted to educate the masses they could have done so much more effectively by spending more of their revenue on schools etc, than on false artifacts and lies that eventually bought about the reformation.
Then again, i saw quite a few with the same appearance……. That is all. OLiver Cromwell was a completely different man. I am related to Anne Boleyn and her sister Mary….. By being the King trusted servant does not prevent Cromwell from giving pieces of advice that would prevent the King from his eagerness and unsatisfactory attitudes.
However, Cromwell was so focused on pleasing the King than guiding him in making sound decisions. First of all Thomas Cromwell died years ago so the personal comments on the state of his soul are illogical.
Yes, AB was innocent, but Henry Viii was ultimately responsible for her death, not Cromwell, although his role was considerable. The actual charges against him are ludicrous. He was also kept alive long enough to give his account of the problems Henry created with Anne of Cleves.
The Cleves match was actually beneficial to England. Had Henry not had sexual problems it would have succeeded. The political situation changed during the marriage and Henry invented his reasons for the annulment. Cromwell was conveniently blamed. I think he did a lot of bad things in his life, but mostly because he was serving Henry Viii. I would recommend people do some research before making most of the comments above.
Try to keep things in perspective and present a balanced view. Your email address will not be published. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Anne Boleyn, Sex and the Church of England ». July 29, at am. Anne-fan says:. May 8, at pm. Edward Sueiro says:. November 15, at am. It is likely that he privately instructed Cromwell to get him out of it.
By now, Cromwell and Anne were sworn enemies, so he had his own reasons to seek her destruction. She was arrested on 2 May and taken to the Tower, where she was tried and found guilty a little over two weeks later. Cromwell was among the witnesses who gathered to see her beheaded there on 19 May. Not only had he rid the king of his troublesome second wife, but he soon engineered a marriage between the sister of wife number three, Jane Seymour , and his son Gregory.
This made the Cromwells almost part of the royal family. In October, opposition to the religious reforms that he had orchestrated broke out into open rebellion with the Pilgrimage of Grace, a large-scale revolt that quickly spread across the Midlands and northern counties. Although Henry eventually put down the rebellion, his faith in Cromwell had been shaken. Increasingly, he began to distance himself from his chief minister.
Henry and his council had never delved into the matters of alliance forming marriage since Henry had his wives near at hand. Cromwell had stood on far too many noble toes as he climbed to power.. Great comment Anyanka, succinctly put. Henry Viii wanted a foreign match and was perfectly fine with such an arrangement. Cromwell made enquiries with many courts including Cleves and Henry went through all of the candidates. Yes, others fell out of the race and went on to marry someone else or the political situation changed, making the Duchy of Cleves the best match.
However, Henry set aside a dowry and then acted with stupidity. He decided to get dressed up like a romantic hero and pay Anne a visit. After that he tried to get out of the marriage but failed. Henry found it hard in the bedroom and things went downhill. The charges in the Act of Attainder are farcical. The failure of the marriage he may well have promoted opened the door for treason charges, but there was more to his fall than that.
Please, write better. I am from latin country and i translate this files. And I like this web. Originally ignorant, I was ambivalent, leaning one way and another as I gained knowledge of the utterly base behavior exhibited by the king and in his abject sycophancy, Cromwell. No action was to extreme, no bounds acknowledged, as they together destroyed an admittedly flawed Church.
Not, it seems to cleanse the land of a parasitic Catholicism, but for undisguised personal advancement, Royal and lay alike. I am of English extraction but am separated from England by 5 generations. I live near Seattle. Cromwell was absolutely vile. Six months after her home was searched and she was arrested and imprisoned, Cromwell claimed to have found a Catholic item in her home that proved her allegiance to Rome.
Odd that it took six months after the search for this to come to light. After some two years in prison, Lady Margaret was beheaded by an amateur who hacked away at her neck and shoulders until her head came off. Henry, Cromwell, and others who did his bidding, sending good people to their deaths, hopefully have a special place in hell.
Even after the Dissolution — after his break with Rome — after the destruction that he wreaked on the Church and after the remaining nuns left England — they continued to do so. Yes, Claire. Thanks for clearing up some Muddiness. The Poles were anti Henry, anti-reform, Cromwell or no Cromwell—they were unabashed papists.
Definitely Paul Scofield and mark Rylance, for me. Even seeing the portrait of the real Cromwell has not altered my image of him! Thanx, to those two amazing actors. Your email address will not be published. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
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