The Arrest of Thomas Cromwell: Machiavellian Minister of Henry VIII: 10 June 1540

Thomas Cromwell being taken to the Tower of London
after being sentenced to death.

1540: Thomas Cromwell
It was on this date in 1540 that Thomas Cromwell fell by the instrument he had wielded so ably against so many others. While Henry strove to get his end away, Thomas Cromwell made the Reformation, setting his energetic hand to the needfully violent reordering of England. In almost a decade as the king’s chief minister, he had dissolved so many monasteries, annulled so many noble prerogatives, backstabbed so many courtiers, and sent so many of every class to the scaffold that most at court had some reason to hate him. (Cranmer was the only one to (cautiously) object to his old partner’s arrest.)




Though it may be, as Edward Hall recorded, that “many lamented but more rejoiced” at Cromwell’s fall from the very height of his power “and specially such as either had been religious men, or favoured religious persons; for they banqueted and triumphed together that night [of his execution], many wishing that that day had been seven year before” the reasons for it are murky.


Why, too, should the minister have been ennobled Duke of Essex in April 1540, months after the disastrous union? That Cromwell, whose own security rested upon the stability of the realm, was a radical Protestant promulgating inflammatory religious ideas and he was condemned for both treason and heresy, incidentally giving the king wide latitude for just how painfully to kill his former servant seems to beggar belief.


Henry gave his loyal servant the easiest death, beheading on Tower Hill (although it turned out to be a botched job) alongside a Walter Hungerford, the first person executed under the Buggery Act.

Here are the events of the day from a more 'objective' perspective; a Charles Carlton: A Study in Interrogation explains:
On the afternoon of Thursday, the 10th of June 1540, a squad of Yeoman of the guard burst into the Council Chamber in Westminster Hall, and arrested Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's chief minister. They escorted him out through a postern to a boat waiting at Westminster Steps, rowed him down the Thames, and through Traitors' Gate into the Tower of London. Within this gaunt prison Cromwell was held till the early morning of July 28th, when the Yeoman marched him to Tower Hill to be executed for treason, heresy, bribery,and misuse of power. He climbed the scaffold, and addressed the crowd. He had come here to die, he confessed, and not to justify himself. He was a grievous wretch, who sought God's pardon. He had offended the King, and asked the crowd to pray that Henry VIII would forgive him. Finally, Cromwell insisted that he would die a Catholic, and that he had never waivered in a single article of the Catholic faith. Then, after a short paryer commending his soul to the Almighty, Cromwell laid his head on the block, and, as John Foxe records, "patiently suffered the stroke of the axe" swung "by a ragged and butcherly miser (who) very ungodly performed the office."



So died one of England's greatest statesmen the architect of the Reformation and the Tudor Revolution Government. Just as his career has been the source of much historical debate, the events of the last seven weeks of his life, from his arrest to his execution,and his scaffold address especially, have been an irritant of contradiction and confusion.

Thomas Cromwell: A Study in Interrogation, Charles Carlton, Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Summer, 1973), pp. 116-127.

Edward Hall, The Union of the two noble and illustre families of York and Lancaster (London, 1548), pp. 246-47.

John Foxe, Actes and Monuments, ed. George Townsend, 8 vols. (London, 1834), V:402-03.

Please feel free to leave any questions or comments,


Anonymous said…
Very nice....and interesting. gigigirl
Robert Parry said…
So the architect of the Reformation died a self-proclaimed Catholic! Extraordinary, when you think of it. After all the suffering he caused, all the vandalism and destruction and theft of monastic lands and buildings. Tudor history never ceases to amaze, confuse and confound us!
Kimberly Eve said…
Thanks for commenting gigigirl! I'm glad you liked it! Robert, I caught that too, how do you die a self-proclaimed Catholic, if you are a Protestant? It's a conundrum or is it?
Anonymous said…
Brilliantly written as usual, and comments and reviews spot-on....If I recall from the series, is he not one of the many men who falsely accused Anne Boleyn of Infidelity to the King? If that is the case....he deserved exactly what he got..But that is just my opinion...and if I am a little off here, by all means clear this up for me..

Kimberly Eve said…
Thank you for commenting Anonymous and your generous compliments.
Although, Showtime's The Tudors is not known for its historical accuracy, Thomas Cromwell was not one of the twelve men on the jury panel at Anne Boleyn's trial. However, Thomas Cromwell did plot her downfall, orchestrate her fall and execution.