The charges were flimsy, but Cromwell could make no effective rebuttal, for, as he told Henry in one of a number of letters in which he pleaded for mercy, "I have meddled in so many matters under your Highness that I am not able to answer them all".
"I loved him as a friend," he said, "for so I took him to be." On 3rd June he sent a letter to all the bishops ordering them to preach in support of the supremacy, and to ensure that the clergy in their dioceses did so as well. Norfolk shouted out, "Cromwell! He read history as well as law, spoke fluent Italian and acceptable French, and wrote Latin and some Greek. He was accused of taking bribes and of encroaching on royal authority in matters like pardoning convicted men and issuing commissions.
And unlike More, he was unlikely to have been swayed by the notion that what he was doing was for the good of souls.It is not necessary to share Thomas More’s faith to recognise his heroism – a man of his own time who remains an example of integrity for all times. When speaking, his face lit up; his conversation sparkled; and he cast roguish oblique glances when striking aphorisms. At first, after the Restoration, Cromwell was understandably hated. The so-called Supplication against the Ordinaries... emerged (prompted by Cromwell). When I’ve finished, and he’s decapitated, and a year has elapsed, I might be able to tell you. Some people accused Cromwell of taking bribes. Question 4: Writers have disagreed about the merits of Thomas Cromwell. In January 1532 Cromwell called into question the right of the Church to make laws of its own. Yet the distinction should not be overdrawn, since in Italy he discovered wide intellectual interests. The king's confidence in his secretary's judgement in religious matters was demonstrated in January 1535, when he created him Viceregent in Spirituals for the purpose of conducting a general visitation of the Church...Cromwell, as Viceregent, consistently licensed Evangelical preachers to spread the word of reform, but these were regularly challenged by conservatives bearing Episcopal licences, with the result that there was confusion and not a little strife. Cromwell's promotion to the King's service from Wolsey's had been arranged in 1521 by the Cardinal, when Cromwell was thirty-five. The bill of attainder passed through both Lords and Commons without a single dissenting vote.
Both films were over-simplified and filled with historical errors. Unscrupulous and efficient, his spy network, instituted after his rise to favour following the disgrace of Wolsey, was to become a model for future governments.Henry VIII formed a high opinion of Cromwell's abilities, and took him into his service; for though Henry had many able diplomats, he had no administrator and political manager of Cromwell's calibre.
It was Thomas Cromwell who had finally convinced the King of' the advantages of severing the Church of England from Rome.
They portrayed him as the hero of democracy who saved the country from the tyranny of Charles I. When members of the Catholic aristocracy persuaded Henry VIII that Cromwell should die, the clincher for the king was the accusation that Cromwell was a heretic.
He also policed the enforcement of the Act of Supremacy, and set up the commissions required to administer the oaths required by the Act of Succession. All I can offer is a suggestion: stand here. He was indeed guilty of all these, if guilty is the right word. John Foxe remembered him as `pregnant in wit ... in judgment discreet, in tongue eloquent, in service faithful, in stomach courageous, in his pen active'. Influence in the Rhineland would give England a powerful bargaining position and a Cleves match would signal clearly her religious position.In the spring of 1540 Thomas Cromwell was created earl of Essex; his bright particular star was still in the ascendant. Furthermore his passion for Catherine Howard encouraged him to believe what the conservatives were telling him. He was a politician who got things done. A prodigious worker with a powerful and exact memory, Cromwell took the rounded view, was inwardly determined yet outwardly urbane.... Foxe claimed that, riding to Rome in 1516-18 on business for the Guild of St Mary, Boston (Lincs. Traitors do not sit among gentlemen." Because of a territorial dispute with Charles V he needed allies. And we know who is the author of confusion, do we not?
The French king and the emperor had failed to forge an alliance, so Henry no longer needed the princes of Germany for allies; the marriage had proved to be without purpose. Letters between him and the Lutheran lords of Germany were discovered, although it is possible that they were forgeries.
The son of a blacksmith, a thick-set bull of a man with black hair and small, porcine eyes, Cromwell had led a somewhat disreputable early life, and had soldiered as a mercenary in Italy, where he may have learned to admire the Machiavellian ideal of political expediency.