Thomas Cromwell: the triumph and tragedy of Henry VIII's right-hand man

Summary

History Extra Podcast Summary: "Thomas Cromwell: the Triumph and Tragedy of Henry VIII's Right-Hand Man"

Release Date: November 13, 2024
Host: Rob Attar
Guest: Professor Dermot McCulloch, Biographer of Thomas Cromwell

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of the History Extra Podcast, host Rob Attar delves into the tumultuous career of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's influential but ultimately tragic chief minister. Professor Dermot McCulloch, Cromwell's biographer, provides expert insights into Cromwell's meteoric rise and sudden downfall, contextualizing his role within the broader political and religious upheavals of Tudor England.

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Thomas Cromwell’s Ascent: The Rise to Power (01:46 - 04:36)

Professor McCulloch begins by examining the aftermath of Anne Boleyn's execution in 1536, a pivotal moment that significantly impacted Cromwell's career. He explains:

“Thomas Cromwell was in a much better position [after Anne's death]. Anne had blocked Thomas Cromwell from power. Under Anne's time as queen, he was not even made a knight. And yet after Anne's death, he not just got a knighthood, but in almost the same stroke was made a Baron of the realm, member of the House of Lords. That's a great triumph.”
— Professor Dermot McCulloch [02:04]

Cromwell’s relationship with Anne Boleyn was complex and often hostile, primarily due to their shared commitment to the Reformation but diverging interests in political maneuvering. His acquisition of titles and offices post-Anne’s execution marked the apex of his influence, positioning him as a formidable force in Henry VIII's court.

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The Pinnacle of Cromwell’s Career (04:36 - 07:08)

The period from 1536 to 1540 represented Cromwell's zenith. He was elevated to Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon, a strategic move that flaunted his modest origins and antagonized the traditional nobility. McCulloch notes:

“Thomas Cromwell made this rather pointed statement. So after her death, which he had encouraged Henry to make death rather than retirement to a nunnery or something, he was in a much better position.”
— Professor Dermot McCulloch [02:04]

Cromwell's rise was not without friction. His ascent threatened the established nobility, particularly figures like Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who resented Cromwell's impetuous rise from modest beginnings.

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Alliances and the Seymour Family (07:08 - 08:51)

Cromwell adeptly forged alliances with influential families, notably the Seymours. This alliance was solidified through strategic marriages:

“Thomas Cromwell's son, Gregory, married the younger sister of the Queen [Jane Seymour]... in some sort of informal sense made Thomas Cromwell the King's uncle.”
— Professor Dermot McCulloch [07:15]

These connections bolstered Cromwell's standing at court, intertwining his fortunes with Jane Seymour's, who succeeded Anne Boleyn as Henry VIII's queen.

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Accelerating the Reformation (08:51 - 11:21)

As Vicegerent in Spirituals, Cromwell played a pivotal role in advancing the English Reformation beyond Henry's initial break with the Papacy. He systematically dismantled Catholic institutions:

“Thomas Cromwell deliberately [...] accelerated the Reformation... the attack on shrines, for instance, shrines of the saints, that's a big story. In 1538 onwards, shrines were being dismantled...”
— Professor Dermot McCulloch [08:58]

Cromwell's efforts extended to dissolving monasteries and friaries, significantly altering the religious landscape of England and provoking resistance among traditional Catholic factions.

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Rising Enemies and Rebellions (11:21 - 14:56)

Cromwell's aggressive reforms ignited opposition, culminating in uprisings like the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. McCulloch explains:

“They want to get rid of Cromwell. They want to get rid of the reform-inclined Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer.”
— Professor Dermot McCulloch [11:30]

The rebellion revealed the widespread discontent with Cromwell's policies and showcased the vulnerability of his position, as even the nobility hesitated to support the king against the uprising.

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Impact of Jane Seymour’s Death (14:56 - 17:10)

Jane Seymour's untimely death in 1537 disrupted Cromwell's alliances but did not immediately threaten his position. However, it compounded the pressure to secure a male heir, leading Cromwell to pursue a foreign princess for Henry VIII:

“Thomas Cromwell's consistent aim was to get a foreign princess for the King to marry, because that would have no internal political dimension to them.”
— Professor Dermot McCulloch [15:05]

This strategy aimed to stabilize Henry's succession while minimizing political complications from domestic alliances.

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The Anne of Cleves Marriage: Disaster Strikes (17:10 - 23:02)

Cromwell orchestrated the marriage between Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves, expecting it to secure a politically advantageous alliance. However, the marriage rapidly deteriorated:

“It must have been a terrible shock... the King simply couldn't bear her.”
— Professor Dermot McCulloch [17:23]

The union's failure not only embarrassed Henry VIII but also destabilized Cromwell's standing, as the annulment process exposed vulnerabilities and fueled courtly intrigues against him.

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Cromwell’s Downfall: Conspiracies and Court Intrigues (23:02 - 25:10)

The fallout from the Anne of Cleves debacle provided Cromwell's adversaries with ammunition to dismantle his influence. McCulloch describes:

“They would like to see Cromwell destroyed. And Henry VIII was a man who [...] gave Thomas Cromwell his own ring when Cromwell pleaded with him.”
— Professor Dermot McCulloch [25:00]

Despite Cromwell’s accumulation of titles and power, the combination of courtly resentment and the king's shifting favor led to his precipitous fall from grace.

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Evidence of Henry VIII’s Role (25:10 - 25:55)

While direct evidence of Henry VIII's sanctioning of Cromwell's execution is scant, the political maneuvers and parliamentary attainders imply the king’s approval:

“I think it's implicit in the empowerment and the things which were said in the act of Parliament which declared Thomas Cromwell a non-person...”
— Professor Dermot McCulloch [25:10]

This indirect evidence underscores the king's ultimate authority over Cromwell's fate.

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Cromwell’s Final Efforts and Execution (25:55 - 27:36)

Cromwell attempted to plead for mercy, akin to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's approach, but without success:

“He was bundled straight off to the Tower, Tower of London... He wrote to the King, of course, beseeching for mercy.”
— Professor Dermot McCulloch [25:57]

Unlike Cranmer, Cromwell was denied the opportunity to personally confront Henry VIII, sealing his tragic end.

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Thomas Cromwell’s Execution and Dignity (27:36 - 31:19)

Facing execution in July 1540, Cromwell maintained his composure and dignity, contrasting sharply with others:

“He died with dignity, having said goodbye to his friend.”
— Professor Dermot McCulloch [27:43]

Cromwell's dignified final moments highlighted his resilience and commitment, even as his political career unraveled.

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Professor McCulloch’s Reflections and Sympathy (31:10 - 33:40)

Professor McCulloch expresses a nuanced view of Cromwell, acknowledging his ruthless actions while sympathizing with his circumstances:

“I enjoyed the company of Thomas Cromwell. He did bad things, but so did really everyone working for Henry VIII.”
— Professor Dermot McCulloch [29:32]

He emphasizes that Cromwell, like many of his contemporaries, was a product of Henry VIII’s volatile rule, which compelled even noble figures to engage in morally ambiguous actions.

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Aftermath and Legacy: Revenge from Beyond the Grave (33:40 - 34:46)

Cromwell’s execution led to a temporary weakening of his allies and the empowerment of his rivals. However, his legacy endured as:

“Gregory Cromwell was still the young Prince Edward's uncle, and that's a sort of dynastic investment for the King.”
— Professor Dermot McCulloch [33:53]

Eventually, the rise of Edward VI saw the resurgence of Cromwell’s allies and the downfall of those who had orchestrated his demise, offering a semblance of retribution for Cromwell’s enduring influence.

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Anticipation for Wolf Hall Season Two (33:40 - End)

Concluding the episode, McCulloch shares his expectations for the upcoming BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel's "Mirror and the Light," expressing enthusiasm for its potential to faithfully portray Cromwell's complex narrative despite some production limitations:

“We're going to have a really high-class piece of entertainment and drama.”
— Professor Dermot McCulloch [33:53]

He anticipates the series will capture both the political intricacies and personal struggles that defined Cromwell's life.

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Conclusion

This episode of the History Extra Podcast offers a thorough examination of Thomas Cromwell's rise and fall, enriched by Professor Dermot McCulloch's scholarly insights. By intertwining political strategy, personal alliances, and religious reform, the podcast paints a vivid portrait of Cromwell as both a masterful statesman and a tragic figure ensnared by the volatile tides of Tudor politics.

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Transcript

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[Rob Attar]

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. In the spring of 1540, Thomas Cromwell was at the height of his power. But just a few months later, he found himself at the scaffold on Tower Hill preparing to be executed for treason and heresy. What had gone so badly wrong for Henry VIII's right hand man? Well, this is a question at the heart of the second series of the new BBC drama Wolf Hall. In advance of its release, Rob Attar spoke to Cromwell's biographer, Professor Dermot McCulloch, to get an expert's view on his precipitous downfall.

[Professor Dermot McCulloch]

We're talking now as the second season of Wolf hall, which adapts Hilary Mantell's book Mirror and the Light, is due to appear on BBC1. And this picks up the story in the aftermath of the execution of anne Boleyn in 1536. What does the downfall of Anne Boleyn mean for Thomas Cromwell?

[Home Depot Advertiser]

It was very good news. What has not been appreciated in the past about the relationship of Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell was that it was really quite hostile. They were both interested in the Reformation. That's an underwhelming way of putting it. They both passionately believed in the Church needing reformation and both of them were of course committed to Henry VIII's version of reformation, which, crudely speaking, meant simply replacing the Pope with himself. Anne was part of that process. Thomas Cromwell had done the legwork on it. But in that there was a real antagonism because Cromwell, Cromwell was the protege, the admirer of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. Anne regarded Wolsey as one of the problems, one of the obstacles to her Becoming queen rather unfairly. I mean, she began to identify Woolsey as the enemy and was very much involved in his destruction. Cromwell, I think, never forgave her for that. And very ostentatiously had taken Thomas Wolsey's heraldry as his own coat of arms. That's really quite pointed. After Wolsey's death, they did this when Anne was rising in a political way. Thomas Cromwell made this rather pointed statement. So after her death, which he had encouraged Henry to make death rather than retirement to a nunnery or something, he was in a much better position. Anne had blocked Thomas Cromwell from power. Under Anne's time as queen, he was not even made a knight. And yet after Anne's death, he not just got a knighthood, but in almost the same stroke was made a Baron of the realm, member of the House of Lords. That's a great triumph. He got a new great office of state, Lord Privy Seal, which put him really up in the hierarchy of people who registered royal decisions and influenced them. He had already become Henry VIII's effective deputy in the Church as vicegerent, and he began using that position more, more for his own agenda, for his own reformation agenda. So things looked as if they were going extremely well in the summer of 1536. And his opponents in the nobility were correspondingly not in a good position, particularly Anne's uncle, the Duke of Norfolk.

[Professor Dermot McCulloch]

Is it fair to say then that this four year period from 1536 to 1540 is the absolute pinnacle of Thomas Cromwell's career?

[Home Depot Advertiser]

This four year period is when Thomas Cromwell was most powerful under Henry viii. It was a bit of a rollercoaster, as no doubt we'll discuss. But getting a barony at the beginning and then at the end, just before the end, getting an earldom, that's real progress, staggering progress from a man whose father had been a brewer and a miller in the obscure village of Putney and Wandsworth at the beginning of Henry VIII's reign. So there is a lot of upping and downing during this period. And the constant problem with Thomas Cromwell, for Thomas Cromwell is that there were lots of people who regarded his mere presence in politics as a threat to themselves. The older nobility. They might not be much older, but they thought of themselves as older, such as Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, really resented this newcomer in their world. And the very title that Thomas Cromwell was given in the summer of 1536, Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon, now that Wimbledon was a great manor, previously owned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, now owned by Thomas Cromwell, in which he had grown up Putney and Wandsworth were part of this manor. And so he's really flourishing this in front of the old nobility. He's got no inhibitions about saying to them, look, I come from Putney. And the Duke of Norfolk, I think, would be furious at that. This very title saying, I've arrived. And that threatened those who felt that they were the God given servants of the King. Howard been the most important, but lots of others. And there would be a real consciousness that he was a man of the Reformation. Many of them were not. So that's an extra dimension to the threat involved. And although Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, could be extremely friendly in public to Thomas Cromwell in private, I think he was nursing a grievance, constantly worried that his position would be undermined, which it was by the end of the summer 1536. So that's always the lurking background problem for Thomas Cromwell. There are those who might be nice to his face while he is triumphant, but the moment there is a sense of trouble, they will be like a pack of hunting dogs.

[Professor Dermot McCulloch]

And all this time Thomas Cromwell is very much reliant on the favour of Henry viii. That's what's keeping him in position, I guess.

[Home Depot Advertiser]

Yes, Henry VIII was all important to Thomas Cromwell. It had been Henry VIII who chose him and it would be Henry VIII who decided his career at every stage. And that meant getting the King results. It had been the same for Thomas Cromwell's old master, Cardinal Wolsey. When you stop getting results, you're in dead trouble. He did make alliances within the other great courtiers of the realm, particularly the Seymour family. And that looked really, really a good investment because Jane Seymour, after the death of Anne Bullen, rather indecently, soon after the death of Anne Bullen married Henry viii. And Cromwell's fortunes were increasingly tied up with not just Queen Jane, but her brothers Thomas and Edward. And then remarkably, in the summer of 1537, Thomas Cromwell's son, Gregory Teenager, married the younger sister of the Queen. The social elevation of that the brewer's son from Putney, his son is now the brother in law of the Queen. And that in some sort of informal sense made Thomas Cromwell the King's uncle, again, reference the Duke of Norfolk. What will he think about that? So although there is this Seymour Cromwell alliance, there is also the consequences of that. Everyone else at court is threatened by the power of that alliance.

[Professor Dermot McCulloch]

What can we say about the process and progress of the Reformation during these last four years of Thomas Cromwell's life?

[Home Depot Advertiser]

Thomas Cromwell deliberately and off his own bat, accelerated the Reformation at all times, Henry VIII was a wild card in this. He'd broken with the Pope, but he'd not necessarily broken with any other aspect of the Pope's theology, apart from the Pope being head of the Church. Now King Henry VIII was head of the Church, would that mean that he would enforce Catholicism in all its many senses on his new Church of England? But Thomas Cromwell was thinking beyond that and seeing how he could move the King on bit by bit, towards a sort of Protestant theology which Henry would not by himself have taken up. Henry did not, for instance, like Martin Luther, whereas Thomas Cromwell made sure that he had links to that world and other more radical Protestant thinkers in mainland Europe, such as the theologians and ministers of the great Swiss city of Zurich. And Cromwell was putting all sorts of feelers out there and also pressing points which would destroy the old world of Catholicism. The attack on shrines, for instance, shrines of the saints, that's a big story. In 1538 onwards, shrines were being dismantled as superstitious, and alongside them, the institutions which often held the shrines which were the great monastic churches of early medieval England. So the monasteries were beginning to come under pressure from Cromwell's powers as vicegerent in spirituals, this formal title which made him the King's deputy in the Church. And one other aspect of this decatholicization, or an attack on the old world, was dissolving all the friaries of England. Now that's separate from the monasteries. This was a single campaign during the year 1538. What's so special about the friars? Well, they were the preachers of the medieval Church. They roved around the country from their friaries, preaching principally the old faith, though some of them, because they're ideas, people were actually jumping over into Protestantism and therefore inclined to leave their friaries behind. So Thomas Cromwell is pushing all these agendas. While the King may not always be on board with them, he must have.

[Professor Dermot McCulloch]

Been making quite a few enemies then, over the course of these years. Thomas Cromwell, surely there were people who objected to all these religious reforms that were taking place.

[Home Depot Advertiser]

Yes, it became apparent in the Last months of 1536 just how many people hated him and hated what he stood for, because first in remote parts of Yorkshire and then in Lincolnshire, an open rising erupted against everything that was happening, particularly the closure of the smaller monasteries, which started on a large scale earlier in that year, 1536. These events are summed up in the phrase the Lincolnshire Rising, but also, of course, the Pilgrimage of Grace, which actually has a longer title than that, the Pilgrimage of Grace for The Commonwealth. In other words, this is dressed up as a sort of religious event to plead with the King for grace for his subjects who are the Commonwealth. But in fact this became not just rioting, but actually military action. And the commissioners who were dissolving monasteries were often seized and harassed and terrorized by the pilgrims in the North. But the person at the heart of it is Thomas Cromwell. They want to get rid of Cromwell. They want to get rid of the reform inclined Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. The terrifying thing for Henry VIII about these events in Lincolnshire and all points north was that there was no real distinction, it seemed, between the ordinary people of the north and the gentry and nobility. Normally, the King, if there were disturbances, would look to the gentry and nobility to suppress them in the name of loyalty to the monarch. But now the nobility and gentry just stood back and let the crowds develop. That was incredibly worrying for the King. And you can see him swaying backwards and forwards during the autumn of 1536. How to tackle this? And fascinatingly, the person he brought in to suppress these disturbances was the Duke of Norfolk, now suddenly back in the game after a summer where Thomas Cromwell had been bearing everything in front of him. Norfolk going north with a great royal army. And there was one very frightening week for Thomas Cromwell where the King began providing answers, printed answers, to be distributed to the people of the north, in which he talked about all the great and noble counselors he had and he listed them. And in draft number one, he did not mention Thomas Cromwell or Archbishop Cranmer and in fact said there would be action taken against anyone who had offended the people of the North. That, I think was the moment when Cromwell's opponents at court nearly got the King to destroy him at that point, which he would of course do four years later. But the King drew back. Very unusual a move by the King was to his old home, his childhood home of Richmond, down from his normal palaces. And that happened to be very near where Thomas Cromwell lived. Whatever happened in those days at Richmond saved Cromwell for the moment. But only just. Only just.

[Professor Dermot McCulloch]

There were a series of events that eventually contributed to Thomas Cromwell's downfall. Would you say one of them was the death of Jane Seymour?

[Home Depot Advertiser]

It was very inconvenient, to say the least, that Jane Seymour died soon after childbirth. It wasn't a fatal move. It did disturbed the alliance of the Seymours and Cromwells by the fact that the Queen was no longer there, but her brothers were still there at court. Gregory was still there, married to Elizabeth Seymour. It was still very much a situation in which they would go up the ladder of privilege and become nobility as well as Cromwell and his son. So at that point there isn't an immediate threat. There is, of course, the big problem for both Seymours and Cromwell, that the King would want to remarry. He did have one son now, but you really want an heir and a spare, which means a new queen. And the one thing which Thomas Cromwell could not allow to happen was another member of the English nobility getting their daughter as Queen, which had happened with and Bullen. She had been the niece of the Duke of Norfolk. That must not happen again. So through these years, from the death of the Queen through to what happened next, Thomas Cromwell's consistent aim was to get a foreign princess for the King to marry, because that would have no internal political dimension to them. The big problem was that not many foreign princesses wanted to marry Henry viii. He had a bit of a reputation now, having discarded one wife, executed another and the search grew ever more manic. Ladies turned down the overtures and you can see how desperate they were because they eventually ended up with Cleves, which is a series of territories in the western part of the Holy Roman Empire, with a Duke in charge, a duke with a couple of spare sisters. And so Cromwell's interest concentrated on this not top of the notch royal marriage.

[Professor Dermot McCulloch]

Possibility, as we'll come to. Henry VIII's marriage to Anne of Cleves turned out to be a complete disaster and disastrous for Thomas Cromwell. Was this just bad luck or had he overreached somehow?

[Home Depot Advertiser]

You might say that Thomas Cromwell had overreached himself with arranging the marriage to Anne of Cleves because he'd not actually done much in foreign policy during his time as the King's great minister. Henry VIII had stopped that out of a sort of belated snobbery. Henry VIII had allowed Cardinal Wolsey to do an enormous amount of foreign negotiation diplomacy, rather too much, really. The Cardinal could have been doing something useful, but when it came to Thomas Cromwell, he deliberately did not give Cromwell the same sort of powers. And yet Cromwell took them. In this instance, it was very much his project, the Cleves project, and you could say the result was unlucky. Yet that's about the best thing you can say, because it all looked okay. The great thing about the Duke of Cleves and Cleves was that although the Duke had not broken with the Pope, the Dukes of Cleves, both him and his father had set up more or less their own church for Cleves a bit. In other words, like Henry VIII's church, only just the other side of the narrow line, keeping it within the Roman fold. But equally importantly, they were a counterweight to the Habsburg Roman Emperor within the Holy Roman Empire. And that would be very useful for Henry viii. It's not often noticed that actually Cromwell was setting up a two princess deal. Other princess involved. On one side you've got Anne of Cleves marrying Henry, on the other side you've got Henry's daughter, the Lady Mary, Catherine of Aragon's daughter, about to marry the Prince of Bavaria, the Duke of Bavaria, who is rather like the Cleves dynasty in that he is a prince of the Empire. He is also a counterweight to the Holy Roman Emperor. So very good person for Mary. To Mary. It's quite surprising that this has been so ignored in Tudor history. Of course it didn't happen and Mary in the end married a Habsburg. But at that time, the Duke of Bavaria actually came to England and just after Christmas 1539, he met Mary in the garden of the Abbot of Westminster and gave her a kiss. Extraordinary thing to do for Tudor royalty. They're pretty formal lot. That is clearly planned. This is part of an ongoing process in parallel to the Anne of Cleves process. So beginning of January, New Year's Eve 1539, Cromwell could have thought, yeah, it's all going according to plan. The Lady Anne is coming from Cleves and was being escorted by Tudor noblemen who didn't say anything that was in any way worrying. They all thought, yeah, she might be a bit dull, but she's fine, really. They played cards as they went along. She was good humored. The weather was awful when they got to Calais, but she put up with that, went across to Kent and then the utterly unexpected disaster. As she was processing towards the King, the King decided to have a quick look incognito, and he was apparently appalled. He simply couldn't bear her. And that continued and went on all through the formal meetings. This must have been a terrible shock, not just to Cromwell, but to everybody, that within the mystery that is Henry viii, there was complete sexual, emotional incompatibility. Henry desperately struggled to get out of the marriage. His canon lawyers said, no, no, he can't do it. The diplomat said, he can't do it. You've got to marry her. And so there's probably the gloomiest wedding in Tudor history. Then happened between Henry and the Lady Anne. They went to her bed. Henry simply did not or could not perform with her. Anne apparently was very innocent, didn't realize anything was the matter. But from then on, the disaster was Unfolding for Thomas Cromwell, it became clearly apparent that the King would not change his mind on this. What could happen? Well, yet another annulment of marriage. We need to understand what this means. Henry VIII was never divorced. They did use the word divorce informally, but what they were talking about was actually the idea that a marriage had never happened, it was null. And so in those circumstances, what you needed was for canon lawyers, the lawyers of the Church, to declare the marriage null, an annulment. And there are certain reasons in church law why you can get an annulment, and the only one available to Henry was impotence, that he could not sexually perform with the lady who was supposed to be his wife. Impotence. And can you imagine the humiliation of a man who prides himself on his virility to have to stand in front of a po faced set of canon lawyers and say, I can't get it up with her. And you can imagine Henry looking around the room saying, who can I blame? Well, the obvious person was Thomas Cromwell. So in a sense, the traditional story is right. It's all about Anne of Cleves, this disaster which happened to Cromwell.

[Professor Dermot McCulloch]

So the Anne of Cleves wedding is a complete disaster. Henry VIII is humiliated and furious and furious with Thomas Cromwell. But it's not Henry 8th alone who brings him down, is it? It requires Thomas Cromwell's enemies at court to seize their moment.

[Home Depot Advertiser]

Indeed. Well, we've talked about the way in which all the time there are very many senior politicians who simply resent him being there and they hold their tongues while he's in favor. But the moment there's any sign of doubt in the King's mind, therein there putting their poison in the King's ear. And Henry VIII was a man who was used to poison being directed at his ears and had developed the ability to open the ear to that poison which he wished to hear. That is what had brought Anne Bullen down. And in that case, it had been Thomas Cromwell who'd been orchestrating the poison. Now it's increasingly the Duke of Norfolk, it's increasingly those who simply resent Cromwell for being there. And you just need Henry VIII to open that ear and all is lost. And what followed the arrest of Cromwell, Cromwell, completely out of the blue, after a period in which it looked as if he was still zooming up the political ladder. Just before his arrest, he was made Earl of Essex, one of the oldest titles in the English peerage, and given a title at court, Lord Great Chamberlain, which had suddenly become vacant and that looked as if he really was going to triumph. And I think that's the reason that they redoubled the poison in the King's ears and probably said all the right things, one of which would be that Thomas Cromwell was a heretic allowing heretics to get inside the Church. And you just add that to the mixture of fury and shame and humiliation in the King's mind and hey presto, you've got the fall of a great minister.

[Professor Dermot McCulloch]

Do we have explicit evidence for Henry VIII authorising the downfall of Thomas Cromwell, or is it just implicit in the fact that these nobles were empowered to do this?

[Home Depot Advertiser]

I think it's implicit in the empowerment and the things which were said in the act of Parliament which declared Thomas Cromwell a non person, the act of Attainder, the various incidents in which he had threatened the King, apparently in private, through anger, that's the sort of thing which would have been said to the King. And we have a certain amount of depositions about the nobility talking to the King, but we need just to see the result, really, that when the King allowed a Privy Council meeting to go forward and Thomas Cromwell entered it, he was just arrested, stripped of his finery, his garter ornament, for instance, his George, that he'd only been in the House of Lords that morning.

[Professor Dermot McCulloch]

What attempts did Thomas Cromwell make to try and save himself?

[Home Depot Advertiser]

At this point, the thing you need to do to escape Henry's destructive anger is to see him. And what you then must do is get to the King's presence, preferably in private, and look him in the eye and say, you really can't do this to me, can you? You really can't. Now, that is what, three years later saved Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been faced with the same sort of plot. A lot of leading politicians and churchmen producing evidence that he was a heretic. But he was warned that the strike was going to happen, and had himself rode across the Thames from Lambeth palace, up the back stair of Whitehall, into the King's privy Chamber. And he looked him in the eye and said, you can't do this to me, can you? And the King, crucially, gave him his own ring, which he then wore when his enemies, in exactly the same way at the Privy Council Chamber, had him arrested, only they couldn't because of the ring. Now, Thomas Cromwell never got that opportunity. His enemies knew that it must not happen. So he was bundled straight off to the Tower, Tower of London, from the Privy Chamber, up the Thames in a barge and never left it. He wrote to the King, of course, beseeching for mercy. But that's not the same thing at all, because it's quite likely that the King would not read those letters, he would have them read to him, in which case the pleas for mercy could easily not be read.

[Professor Dermot McCulloch]

Over the years, Thomas Cromwell had helped send many people to their own early deaths. How did he face his own in.

[Home Depot Advertiser]

July 1540 when he came to the point of execution? He seems to have behaved with remarkable dignity. He did have friends allowed to be there. Thomas Wyatt, the poet, was there. And what he must do is make a good death, because death is going to happen. But good death is important because of that beloved son, Gregory, still married to Elizabeth Seymour. There is a danger that the heirs of an attainted man will suffer oblivion as well. So you mustn't give any more fuel, ammunition for that. So a deathbed speech or an execution speech is really, really important. And you've got show your loyalty to the King, say what a wonderful King he is. You must also, in Thomas Cromwell's case, say, I am not a heretic, I have never been a heretic, I hold the Catholic faith. That's often been misunderstood. What he meant was the version of the Catholic faith which the Reformation represented. But that's really important to make sure that no one can say he is a wicked heretic, an Anabaptist, for instance. So good death, dignified speech, not causing a fuss. He was executed alongside a minor aristocrat called Lord Hungerford, who was clearly in emotional meltdown and was a fairly seedy character anyway, with rather horrid sexual charges levied against him. So he died in a frenzy, it is said, but Thomas Cromwell didn't. He died with dignity, having said goodbye to his friend.

[Professor Dermot McCulloch]

Thomas Wyatt, you spent many years working on Thomas Cromwell's life. You've written a substantial biography of him and you've seen some of the things he put other people through. Did you feel much sympathy for Thomas Cromwell when you were writing about his end?

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Yes, I did. Because most of them would have done the same thing to him. Perhaps one can't say that about the Carthusian hermits, some of whom he did treat abominably, but because the King was treating them abominably, I mean, he's helping the process. But many of those who died, particularly the aristocrats in the so called Montague conspiracy, the White Rose Conspiracy, they would have killed him. Drop of a executioner's ax. In the same way, I have to say, on balance, I enjoyed the company of Thomas Cromwell. He did bad things, but so did really everyone working for Henry viii. Henry VIII was that sort of ruler who makes good people and neutral people do bad things. And that was the case with Thomas Cromwell from around 1534, when Henry VIII began becoming extremely jumpy about rebellion in Ireland as well as England. That's the moment that the real brutality started, and Thomas Cromwell was complicit in that. But his enemies were no less ruthless than he was. And to be frank, I liked his style. I liked the fact that he gave this deliberate provocation to Anne Bullen with Thomas Woolsey's heraldry. I like the style of taking the formal title Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon, when he must have known how much that would irritate the old nobility. So there is style there, and I warm to that. I hope others will too.

[Professor Dermot McCulloch]

Unless you write at the end of the piece you've written for the magazine about the doubt of Thomas Cromwell. He does kind of get revenge from beyond the grave, doesn't he?

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That's the interesting thing about Thomas Cromwell, that you'd expect his circle to suffer real disaster after his execution. Well, immediately, three of them did. Three clergy were burnt at the stake, which is pretty severe for being heretics. They were clearly associated with him. But after that, it's remarkable how quickly that mood of savagery softened. The big piece of evidence in that, really, straight away that autumn, was a report by the French ambassador of a Privy Council meeting in which the King lost his temper with his councillors and said, how did you let me get rid of my best servant? Well, what could they say? But there is also the positive evidence that Thomas Cromwell's son Gregory did not suffer quite the reverse. He was made a baron in his own right. He couldn't take his father's title because it had been attainted by Parliament, but the King granted him a barony, Just Baron Cromwell, without any qualifications. And the key person in all that, the crucial figure who's not had her due in history, was Gregory Cromwell's wife, Elizabeth Seymour, as was to start with. And she wrote a letter, which we still have, to the King, saying, your Grace, I am utterly devastated, as is my poor husband, by the wicked things our father did. Cromwell. But remember me, remember my poor children, remember my poor husband in the middle of all this. And, well, the result is our barony. That's not bad. After all, Gregory Cromwell was still the young Prince Edward's uncle, and that's a sort of dynastic investment for the King. And then you go forward, you have to look forward to the reign of Edward vi, where the chief people who come out on top were the Cromwellians, the Seymours once more and John Dudley. These were the people who'd been within the Cromwell circle. And those who had destroyed Thomas Cromwell were now humiliated, or, in the case of the Duke of Norfolk, imprisoned in their tower. All the people who'd been involved in the destruction of Cromwell now suffered. So that's pretty good revenge.

[Professor Dermot McCulloch]

So, as I mentioned at the start, we're soon about to see on our screens the second series of the Wolf Hall BBC Drama. What are you hoping to see in the BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel's final novel?

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I think I'm looking to the same excellence as in the first part and a way of transcribing the very complicated events that I've described, the ups and downs. I know that there will be great acting performances from the principles we've seen before. I suspect there will be one thing I won't particularly like, and that's the sets, because they've chosen meticulously Tudor buildings for the sets and the trouble is they're now 400, 500 years old. You really want to set the whole thing in Edwardian imitation Tudor to get it right. And there's one backdrop of Thomas Cromwell's garden, which they used in the first series, with Westminster Abbey's towers in the background. Alas, they were not built until the 18th century. There we are. I don't think they're going to change that. We're going to have a really high class piece of entertainment and drama.

[Rob Attar]

That was Professor Dermot McCulloch. His biography of Thomas Cromwell was published by Penguin in 2018. Season two of Wolf hall is due to air on BBC One. Thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Jack Bateman.