Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch | Cambridge Union

Summary

In an engaging talk at the Cambridge Union, Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch delves into the enigmatic figure of Thomas Cromwell, a prominent minister during the Tudor period. MacCulloch challenges conventional narratives about Cromwell, emphasizing his improvisational character, his complex political relationships, notably with Anne Boleyn and Cardinal Wolsey, and his significant role in the English Reformation. He also explores the peculiarities of Cromwell's archival records and his lack of a documented educational background, which adds to his mystique. Throughout, MacCulloch paints a picture of a man who was not only politically savvy but also deeply involved in reshaping England's religious landscape.

Highlights

• Thomas Cromwell's improvisational skills were akin to a master juggler, always reacting to the political tides 🌊.
• MacCulloch explores how Cromwell's public career defied Geoffrey Elton's 'Tudor revolution' theory, highlighting his enigmatic nature 📚.
• Cromwell's political allegiance shifts, especially his animosity towards Anne Boleyn and support for Mary Tudor, are dissected 🤔.
• The lack of Cromwell's out-tray in the archives suggests a deliberate erasure to protect him posthumously 🗝️.
• Cromwell's education, seemingly absent from records, leaves historians guessing about the formative influences in his life 🎓.
• Through marriages and titles, Cromwell sought to place his family within the aristocracy, eyeing dynastic longevity 👑.
• The significant role Cromwell played in institutionalising the Reformation ideals through Parliament was game-changing 🗳️.

Key Takeaways

• Thomas Cromwell was an enigmatic figure with a knack for improvisation and a complex political life 🎭.
• Cromwell had intriguing relationships with key figures like Anne Boleyn and Cardinal Wolsey 🤝.
• Despite Cromwell's significant role, his educational background remains a mystery, adding to his enigmatic presence 🏫.
• His involvement in the English Reformation was pivotal, shifting England away from Rome's religious grasp ✝️.
• Cromwell's life was marked by risk-taking, particularly in his religious agendas, showing a courageous and strategic mind 🎯.
• The archival records of Cromwell reveal more about others' perceptions of him than his own voice, as many of his personal writings were destroyed 📜.
• Cromwell's family ties and attempts to establish a dynasty show his ambitions extended beyond politics to personal legacy 🏰.

Overview

Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch's talk at the Cambridge Union offers a deep dive into the life of Thomas Cromwell, revealing him as an improvisational artist amidst Tudor England's chaotic political landscape. Cromwell's career was marked by his remarkable ability to navigate the unpredictable waters of the court, all while maintaining a mysterious aura around him. This talk re-examines commonly held beliefs about Cromwell, emphasizing his enigmatic nature and the complex web of relationships he was entangled in, notably with figures such as Cardinal Wolsey and Anne Boleyn.

Cromwell emerges as a pivotal figure in the English Reformation, with MacCulloch shedding light on how he championed the transition away from Rome’s influence not through blunt force or coercion, but by leveraging parliamentary acts to solidify the Reformation's place in England. Despite this, much about Cromwell's early life and education remains shrouded in mystery, adding layers to his already cryptic persona. His religious convictions and ambitions, however, were clear and risk-laden, showing his commitment to his vision for England's future.

The absence of substantial personal writings from Cromwell in the archives has led historians to piece together his story through the writings of others and the political actions he took. This has only fueled curiosity and debate about his true motivations and personality. Yet, Cromwell's influence is undeniable, seen in his efforts to secure a legacy through family dynasties and in shaping England’s religious and political paths, ensuring his place as a transformative figure in British history.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 05:30: Introduction and Background of Thomas Cromwell This chapter provides an introduction and background of Thomas Cromwell. It describes Cromwell's energetic and improvisational nature as he reacts to various situations. His behavior is likened to that of a 'till oil and Spiegel,' suggesting a certain jocularity in his approach.
• 05:30 - 11:00: Cromwell's Archive and the Missing Out-tray The chapter discusses the character of Thomas Cromwell as portrayed on television, specifically referencing Mark Rylance's enigmatic and inscrutable depiction in the TV adaptation of 'Wolf Hall.' It highlights the differences in media portrayals between television and stage, noting how a camera's close-ups can capture subtle expressions that wouldn't translate well on stage.
• 11:00 - 16:00: Heraldry and Peerage Title The chapter discusses the adaptation of novels, focusing on the genre's evolution and the improvisatory nature of Thomas Cromwell's career. The author expresses disagreement with Jeffrey Elton's concept of the Tudor revolution in government. The enigmatic nature of historical archives, which took five years to explore, is also highlighted.
• 16:00 - 21:30: Enemy Relations: Anne Boleyn and Relationship with Mary This chapter delves into the complex relationship between Anne Boleyn and Mary. It introduces the challenges historians face in piecing together their history due to scattered archival materials. Documents located in the National Archives, the British Library, and the Cottonian manuscripts, which were taken by Sir Robert Cotton in the 17th century, are essential for reconstructing Cromwell's extensive archive. This chapter highlights the fragmentary nature of historical records and the efforts needed to reassemble them to understand historical figures fully.
• 21:30 - 27:00: Cromwell's Late Start and Rise in Public Career The transcript discusses the archival materials related to Cromwell, highlighting a peculiarity in the collection. It notes the abundance of incoming correspondence ('in tray') addressed to Cromwell but points out the absence of outgoing letters ('out tray') penned by him. This detail suggests a one-sided view of the archival records, providing insight only into what was sent to Cromwell and not what he dispatched in response. The chapter's title hints at Cromwell's later start and subsequent rise in public life, though details of this rise are not elaborated in the provided text.
• 27:00 - 32:30: Cromwell's Education and Early Influences Oliver Cromwell received thousands of letters, and though only 300 from him remain, they are compiled in a nearly complete edition from the early 20th century.
• 32:30 - 43:00: Role in Religious Reformation The chapter 'Role in Religious Reformation' appears to discuss the process of composing, revising, and sending out important correspondence during a period of significant religious change. It highlights the meticulous nature of drafting letters, where individuals engage in multiple rounds of edits, with clerks assisting in preparing the final drafts. The discussion possibly underscores the importance of communication in influencing religious movements or reforms. The process of keeping file copies suggests a need for record-keeping and accountability. The chapter hints at extraordinary events or outcomes resulting from these communications, reflecting their critical role in the broader context of religious reformation.
• 43:00 - 49:30: Cromwell's Family and Dynastic Ambitions The chapter discusses the events surrounding the arrest of Cromwell in 1540. It suggests that upon hearing the news of his arrest, Cromwell's household spent the night burning documents that could incriminate him, specifically the letters he wrote to others. The attempt, though logical, ultimately failed as Cromwell was executed. The passage examines the measures taken by his household in an effort to protect him, indicating the gravity of his situation and the perceived threat posed by written correspondence during that time.
• 49:30 - 56:20: Monasteries and Legacy Projects The chapter explores the theme of silent observation as exemplified by the character Thomas Cromwell in Hilary Mantel's novels. The discussion highlights how the lack of a voice can lead to an enigmatic presence, drawing a parallel to actor Mark Rylance's style of silent, yet powerful, performance. It delves into the idea of self-observation in conjunction with observing the world, showcasing it as an intriguing narrative approach.
• 56:20 - 63:20: Parliament and Legislative Influence The chapter titled 'Parliament and Legislative Influence' delves into the complexities surrounding the interplay between historical analysis and novelistic portrayal in understanding legislative influences. It suggests a novelistic approach, exemplified by Hillary's triumph over a significant issue, offers insights that historians might aim to emulate in their analysis. However, there is an acknowledgment that the methodologies of historians and novelists will inherently differ, potentially leading to different conclusions. The chapter sets the stage for further exploration of these themes, citing historical narratives that may not always align but are crucial for a comprehensive understanding of parliament's role in legislative influence.
• 63:20 - 68:30: Conclusion and Open Questions The chapter discusses the historical significance and practical applications of heraldry in the 16th century, drawing parallels with modern forms of symbolism, such as road signs. It emphasizes the importance of understanding heraldry as a language of power and a critical tool for navigation and communication.

Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch | Cambridge Union Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] is this manic energy of the man reacting all the time to situations improvising I thought till oil and Spiegel figure certain joking us to him there's a
• 00:30 - 01:00 Thomas chromel far more of you may have watched the telly Thomas chromel Mark Rylance in that version of Wolf Hall so different isn't it so inscrutable so enigmatic and of course this is partly the different media Mark Rylance would look dead boring if he did that on stage but the camera can play lovingly over his face
• 01:00 - 01:30 but it's more than just the genre that has adapted the novel both are true there is the energy the extraordinary improvisatory character of thomas cromoz public career which is why i ultimately disagreed with Jeffery Elton's Tudor revolution in government idea but there is also the enigma and this is a result of the archive which took me five years
• 01:30 - 02:00 to get through it is partly in the National Archives in Kew part of it is in the British Library and a set of escapees from the original papers pinched in the 17th century by Sir Robert cotton the catonian manuscripts put them together and you have krummel's archive thousands on thousands of letters and items so it's a huge task to
• 02:00 - 02:30 get to the man but what you realize also as you go through these thousands on thousands is a is a peculiarity of the archive and that is that in traditional terms when I was a boy offices had an inn tray and an out tray on the desk and what we have is the in tray the letters sent to him from outside we do not have the out tray the little letters
• 02:30 - 03:00 written to him yeah thousands on thousands of letters but around 300 in total from him they're in an edition edition in you know u P series from the early 20th century it's virtually complete virtually nothing is being found since isn't that odd well you might unthinkingly saying no it isn't odd because your archive is what sent to you know a Tudor archive is your
• 03:00 - 03:30 entry plus the very last draft of the letter you send out you get your Clark to write up the last draft and you do a few last tweaks on it it's a write copy that out fair send it out keep the last draft as a file copy and they're not there this is extraordinary what happened I who can absolutely certainly
• 03:30 - 04:00 say but I think what happened was that when his household heard that he'd been arrested in 1540 they sat up all night burning the out tray because that is what it would be likely to convict him the things he wrote to other people not what people wrote to him it was a good try of course it didn't work because he was executed but what it has done if that is what happened and I'm pretty
• 04:00 - 04:30 sure that's what happened is that it is deprived us of his voice hence we are at the mark Rylance end of the spectrum the enigmatic silent person which Hilary mantel so beautifully noticed by making Thomas chromel in her novels he it's as if he all the time is observing himself as of well as observing everything around him interesting device once you
• 04:30 - 05:00 latch onto it in the novels so all that is part of the problem which Hillary so triumphantly surmounted a novelists point of view in which historians therefore have to try and equal in the way that we attack tackle a problem we they're bound to be different and they will not always converge so that's the beginning of a new Thomas Rahman something else which immediately
• 05:00 - 05:30 struck me as I began thinking about the man heraldry now for us maybe perhaps in this audience particularly heraldry is a pleasant task for nerds to enjoy like stamp collecting in the 16th century it is the language of power you need to read heraldry in the 16th century as we read road signs and for the same reasons
• 05:30 - 06:00 because we might get knocked over if we misunderstand them so we need to read these shields and I'm sure you're already doing it rightly you can see what the point is there are the arms of his first great public Master Gardener Thomas Wolsey and you see what Thomas Cromwell has done with his own coat of arms which was registered after Woolsey's death in 1532 he has taken what is known in heraldry as the chief
• 06:00 - 06:30 and pulled it down to the middle in what's Tyrell dick language is called the fess but the same things are on it the - chuff's Cornish chuff's for Thomas's from this is Thomas Becket so all Cornish chuff's talk about Thomas and the red rose for service to the King and what he's saying is I am wuzzies man and he's saying it two years after the Cardinals death when the Cardinal was a
• 06:30 - 07:00 disgraced memory now that is interesting isn't it straight away this man is not doing something politically sensible he is reminding his new public and his king that he is Woolsey's man how interesting that's the sort of man that that portrait was also telling us about yep that's me that's me and I don't care who knows it
• 07:00 - 07:30 another little interesting thing like that is the peerage title which he took when he eventually got a peerage in 1536 after the death of Queen and Bullen he took the title baron Krummel of Wimbledon now what's that about we need to read that - why Wimbledon well he just got a a whacking great estate in Wimbledon which had formerly belonged to his mate Thomas
• 07:30 - 08:00 Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury it's the art Archy Episcopal estate so he might think okay fairly straightforward but to anyone who knew the geography of the time the great manor of Wimbledon calmed contained within it a small village on the Thames called Putney which was where he came from it's where he'd grown up the son of the Miller and a brewer and he was shouting to the world Baron crummell of Wimbledon
• 08:00 - 08:30 is from Putney and I don't care who knows it all those arch snobs in the House of Lords must have got wings particularly Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolk the artists nobbled a lot in their midst sat the boy from Putney the Brewers son how splendid is that what quits par that has that was a man I began to glance and as you may begin to realize I rather
• 08:30 - 09:00 liked him as as biographers mostly do unless they're doing Hitler now this has told us something straightaway he's Woolsey's man hillary noticed that and so much of her novel is structured around there and there is a corollary to that if he adored Wolsey he immediately acquired a great enemy in in ricean
• 09:00 - 09:30 politics and Bullen who had destroyed Wolsey she had decided that will the her enemy obstructing her projected marriage to the king Wolsey desperately helplessly struggled to push it forward but she was not satisfied with that so she destroyed him along with her uncle cheering from the back that Duke of Norfolk that's very interesting Krummel and Anne loathed each other and if you
• 09:30 - 10:00 look at the archives with that thought in mind you see it there is virtually no personal connection between them at all despite the fact of course he's working for the bull in marriage because it's the Kings will and he was certainly going to do that but it actually overthrows everything which history has told us from the 1560s onwards they have been seen as allies in fact they were enemies and that makes perfect sense of
• 10:00 - 10:30 something which has puzzled menthe modern historians as to why he engineered her fall in 1536 which he undoubtedly did she no doubt would have fallen out with a king and that might have been the end of the marriage but she might have been pushed off into a nunnery or something like that no instead she was executed on the most ridiculous charges of not just a dull tree but incest with her own brother absolutely absurd and the the extent of
• 10:30 - 11:00 the destruction must be from the Kings closest Minister and the proof of that is the way in which he flourished after her death she had made sure that he got no significant office within the Crown's estate as the king gave him small offices and I think the explanation of that was that there would have been a huge rao if the king had made him Lord
• 11:00 - 11:30 Chancellor or something like that she was no slouch at staging violent rouse and Henry the 8th through the thorough coward and the best way was to give the key to give chromo grandma in formal powers bit by bit in apparently insignificant offices like the clerk of the Hanna / or an office which then was insignificant the Chancellor of the Exchequer these are small things but behind them is real power and that power emerged in official
• 11:30 - 12:00 terms after Blinn's death he became Lord privy seal third most high ranking officer of state in the land and lots and lots of power his barony that summer after her death and a knighthood as well which had always eluded him in Anne's time isn't that strange the man who was actually orchestrating the marriage the Bullen marriage was never even knighted at her coronation all that hangs together so there we are
• 12:00 - 12:30 a reversal of what the conventional picture is and there is yet another corollary if an and Rama are enemies there is another great lady at court who will be his friend and that is the Lady Mary the daughter of Catherine of Aragon and so it is that from that January at
• 12:30 - 13:00 1536 this late teenager Mary was in cahoots with chromel in order to get rid of an and put Mary back in the succession in her place and that's what happened after Anne's execution Mary was now in line to the throne lots of misery around that for Mary because it meant acknowledging her her mother's marriage had never happened to the king but Cromwell desperately
• 13:00 - 13:30 pleading with her and so so pleased when she finally in agony said yes ok ok and she was back and mutual gratitude after their they became huge mates so much so that people that summer were saying he may get married to her and we know this from the extremely acute dispatches of the Imperial ambassador Eustace sherice to his master the Emperor would
• 13:30 - 14:00 beautiful detailed account and chap which was actually a again rather like Thomas chromel Minh said that all sorts of people are saying he'll marry her but I don't think that so he wouldn't be that stupid but the relationship was there so for instance in on 14th of February 1537 in his accounts there is are 20 gold crowns for when my Lord was my Lady Mary's Valentine I think it was a sort of
• 14:00 - 14:30 favorite uncle relationship by that stage and in fact she stood godmother to his first grandchild very significant so there is a real nexus here and it is so surprising isn't it but it makes complete sense once you get the relationships the right way all these then are surprising surprises and the biggest surprise of all actually is how late his career started his public career he been you know a boy in Putney
• 14:30 - 15:00 ran away to Italy came back did all sorts of merchant type things did sort of minor lawyer type things bit of money lending this and that and that got him to his late 30s possibly at the age of 40 he entered Woolsey's service in 1524 we don't quite know when he was born but he he's he's 40 ish when most Tudor men are ting to die let alone the amazing
• 15:00 - 15:30 career that he would have for the next 15 years why why did this nobody suddenly emerge into the service of the Cardinal he why him among all the jobbing lawyers around London well the answer is that peculiarity of his late teenage years he had left Putney as any sensible teenager would no doubt
• 15:30 - 16:00 at the time but he didn't do the unimaginative fleeing Putney thing you would going up the mother Thames to London no he went to Italy he went to the center of the culture of Europe from this marginal provincial Kingdom England to the real place of Florence in Italy the greatest city of such culture at the time and there he met a merchant Fiske well Frescobaldi
• 16:00 - 16:30 one of the great merchant family is still there in in Florence now selling wine as they had done since the 13th century and he was involved in that trade which involved cloth exports from Northern Europe exchange of wine from the south and that's what he was good at so he knew the international trade but coming back from Italy it is quite clear that he now was mysteriously well educated no contact with the University don't know anything about his schooling but he could speak fluent Italian fluent
• 16:30 - 17:00 French bit of German bit of Spanish and good Latin so that's the language of power Latin and this is what attracted Wolsey that ability to speak Italian why would Wolsey want someone to speak Italian in 1524 because Wolsey it was now just looking to his future not the
• 17:00 - 17:30 future of the Kings servant but his future in the afterlife he was about to create a tomb around which there would be prayers from priests in great colleges Chantry colleges and they would be the best and biggest Chantry colleges and it would be their best and biggest tomb anyone had anywhere and the competition in to menace at the time was a very recent tomb is only about ten
• 17:30 - 18:00 years old and some of you may know it it is the tomb of Henry the seventh in Westminster Abbey in there in the chapel of Henry the seventh it is magnificent and of course by Italian craftsmen so Woolsey's tomb what of course must be better than Henry the seventh tomb and it must be by Italian craftsmen Benedict daughter of its Arno a Florentine was the chief a person to do it
• 18:00 - 18:30 and so what Wolsey was seeking from Thomas Cromwell was someone who was the best Italian in England who could be a go-between with Robert Sano and his and his colleagues we're in the Cardinal in some mood said I'm not sure I really like the nose on my effigy at the moment could you do something about it and so Cromwell is the man to go there and say seen it senior of its Arno get a bit and a joke and some Italian
• 18:30 - 19:00 reminiscences and then back to the Cardinal yes it's all fine your grace it's all fine all sorted that's the sort of relationship which he uniquely could give the best Italian in England but around the tomb why were the college's the chantry colleges in which priests would forever for all eternity offer up prayers for the soul of Thomas Wolsey before God and once more there was a model for doing this from another king
• 19:00 - 19:30 another Henry Henry the sixth one of those colleges you see every day no doubt it is King's College Cambridge founded by Henry the sixth with a feeder school behind it for bright boys to come up from Eton there's a pair of colleges eaten in Kings and Woolsey would do the same only bigger there would be one in his birthplace it's which Cardinal College hip switch and it would feed
• 19:30 - 20:00 bright boys - Cardinal College Oxford he was an Oxford man remember ex bursar of Malden college so there they were and they would be much bigger than King's College Chapel and so on oh yes much bigger and therefore enormous ly expensive even by the Cardinal legate's standard with all his own resources as Archbishop of York they would cost our bomb and where would this money come
• 20:00 - 20:30 from where would the endowments come from well Wolsey was also papal Leggett the Pope's personal representative in England and therefore I had powers of reform in the church and his way of reforming the church was to dissolve what he regarded as small useless monasteries and adopt their land take their land in and make them the basis of the endowment of the colleges so now you see this is also a task for the jobbing lawyer from all he can
• 20:30 - 21:00 negotiate with the sculptures and he can do the work of conveyancing on dissolved monasteries land and that precisely started in 1524 as he entered the cardinal service it's all a Legacy Project and that's what he was doing for the Cardinal nothing else wasn't involved in foreign policy or any pub political decision to talk it's all the Legacy Project and that's what he went on doing for the next six years in the
• 21:00 - 21:30 Cardinals service curious really isn't it because it all looks very Catholic we found that he hates and Bullen he likes the Lady Mary he adores Cardinal Wolsey and he's doing all that in the service of a great Chantry project isn't this odd from the hero of the Reformation well yes and no because he was doing all
• 21:30 - 22:00 these things for Wolsey but at the same time quietly promoting the gathering English Reformation while it was still unofficial and proscribed and very dangerous one of the curious things about Cardinal College Oxford was that it's virtually the entire academic staff were recruited from here Cambridge Don's exported to Oxford to
• 22:00 - 22:30 staff the new colleges bright young men the flower of the Cambridge sort of postdoc world and there they went to Cardinal College Oxford and almost to a man they turned out to be heretics huge scandal huge national scandal and many of them were imprisoned or fled the Cardinal outraged and puzzle no doubt who had done it Thomas chromel
• 22:30 - 23:00 gromek knew Cambridge very well and in fact sent his son here to be educated a bit in the later years he knew Cambridge men this is deliberate he was infecting the colleges with the with with these people and they went on to be those who survived the leaders of the English Reformation so even in 9 years of the Cardinal he was subvert the Cardinals
• 23:00 - 23:30 intentions in a very odd sort of complicit underhand way and he went on to do exactly the same thing with Henry the eighth's when he entered his service Henry as he gradually appreciated just how valuable this servant was gave him extraordinary powers in the church now of course Henry's church he gave him a title unprecedented and with no successor successor to it vice-gerent in spirituals often in undergraduate essays
• 23:30 - 24:00 miss spelt as vice regent do not do that vice-gerent in spirituals Garrow I exercise VJ in place of exercising powers in place of the king in other words exactly the powers which Cardinal Wolsey had had in relation to the Pope it's just recreating the Cardinals legged ship in the interest of the English monarchy but what did Cromwell do with it well he again consistently pressed the Reformation against the will
• 24:00 - 24:30 of the king without the king noticing it the obvious example being the Bible in English something which about which Henry the eighth was unenthusiastic he actually issued a Latin Bible in 1535 but then krummel made sure the king was gradually persuaded to issue a vernacular Bible most of the text of which had actually been written by one of the King's chief bugbears William
• 24:30 - 25:00 Tyndale a man in whose arrest and eventual execution the King had connived the Kindle had been arrested in the Low Countries and was strangled today in 1536 and yet the following year his Bible was being authorized by the king who had helped to get him destroyed the previous year only Thomas Cromwell could have done that I suspect Henry the eighth never realized that perhaps it
• 25:00 - 25:30 might have contribute to distributed to his Connells death in 1540 who knows but that's the sort of thing you look for and I will not at the stage bore you with any other examples but let me reassure you there there in the book he has his own religious agenda which you'll notice is terribly risky in the fate of William Tyndale shows how risky it was in his own fate this gives the lie to the idea that this is a cynical
• 25:30 - 26:00 bureaucrat the sort of man who actually Geoffrey Elton might have approved of no he's something more than that he is an ideologue who is taking risks for his own agenda but the agenda is not just religion just like the king he had an interest in the future he is a dynastic man he is Baron chromel of Wimbledon in fact Earl of Essex as part of his last disastrous year and this is the reason
• 26:00 - 26:30 that so much of that energy was expended Gregory the only son two daughters who had died tragically 1529 same year as his wife never remarried interestingly and he's left with Gregory this boy is about 17 when this Holbein miniature was done sort of quite pretty in a way and you can see that it's the same face as Thomas with the retrouve nose and so on
• 26:30 - 27:00 it's a very individual face and curiously unstylish there is a second Holbein miniature of Gregory as well from a few years on 37 y 1537 because in that year Gregory was married and he married there here this is a companion miniature so the these are to commemorate the marriage and proud father look at him he doesn't look nearly as unpleasant as in the
• 27:00 - 27:30 Holbein that's me you just see him my son but the wife is the reason partly for the satisfaction Elizabeth Seymour this is Queen Jane Seymour's sister work it out Thomas chromel has married his son to the Kings sister-in-law Gregory is the
• 27:30 - 28:00 Kings brother-in-law and in some informal genealogical sense that made Thomas crumble the king's uncle and you can see why so many many members of the nobility then were determined to get him destroyed this man is really making a bid for dynastic power not marrying the Lady Mary but marrying his son to this really quite extraordinary lady this is
• 28:00 - 28:30 not a Holbein it's in Spain in Toledo now but look at her there self-possession she married as you see three times she had been married before her marriage to Gregory she was probably about a year or two older than him so maybe 18 or 19 at 1537 already had two children if that stage by her first husband Sir Henry who tread therefore she came to the marriage as lady you tread and technically she
• 28:30 - 29:00 out ranked her husband after that until he got a peerage later on peerage thanks to her she again married after Gregory's death to the son of the Marquess of Winchester so she knew a thing or two and at the face gives it to you and the letters which she wrote also this is a lady of enormous presence I think much more than her sister Jane and she saved Gregory and his future after Thomas Cromwell's destruction she wrote to the king and said Librium I whatever my
• 29:00 - 29:30 father-in-law did remember your poor servant and my poor husband Gregory and our poor children and the result was a barony a couple of months later young Gregory was now in his own right barren chromel and the family actually lasted until the end of the 17th century the Baron's crow mom they got a couple of Irish peerage titles as well so in that sense Thomas Cromwell delivered the goods he actually did create a dynasty just like Henry the 8th was desperately trying to create a
• 29:30 - 30:00 dynasty that's to explain so much of the 1530s it is to promote Thomas promo and this boy whom he loved a clearly adored him like Wolsey and that's a key to the story Gregory has had a bad press he has been given the wrong age and therefore letters he wrote at 12 have been interpreted as letters well of a 15 year
• 30:00 - 30:30 old that's unfair he was no great genius but he clearly had charm he charmed Elizabeth who put up with a lot from him and I would like to know more about Gregory really well I don't want to monopolize our time but just a few things from the 1530s obviously one thinks of monasteries as we began to think at the beginning of what I was saying what is cronniss well the first thing
• 30:30 - 31:00 which you you'll have already realized is that this Henry the 8th policy of dissolving monasteries is Woolsey's policy and Thomas Cromwell knew how to do it because of Wolsey and the the mechanism is to dissolve monasteries in order to create another institution a college and you can see Thomas Cromwell doing that under the king there are a few cautious specimen dissolutions in 1532 to see how the public would take it
• 31:00 - 31:30 only a few today the mood was not good and then there are very systematic moves from 1535 six dissolving monasteries there is legislation in parliament 1536 getting rid of smaller monasteries the sort of monasteries that Wolsey had dissolved and emphasizing in the which probably got it through Parliament that good big monasteries were great divers Solomon great monasteries where
• 31:30 - 32:00 religion thanks be to God is right well observed now that sounds cynical but I'm not sure it was because it is not certain that Thomas Cromwell really wanted to dissolve all the monasteries we know in fact in winter 1536 he opposed a general dissolution as put forward in the legislation of spring 1536 he said now you should do it as the Cardinal did it you should do it one or two at a time otherwise there will be
• 32:00 - 32:30 trouble and of course he was right because in the spring and in the summer sorry of 1536 in the autumn there was that huge explosion of rebellion and anger in the north of England the pilgrimage of grace Crom got it right after that the whole situation was different and monastery started going down in large numbers but I think even in 1538 and 9 the the the program is still like that of Wolsey in
• 32:30 - 33:00 autumn 1538 it is clear that there was a government program of dissolving monasteries in order to create colleges all sorts of people across the political spectrum were putting up suggestions to do that Bishop Latimer at one end great Reformation hero the Duke of Norfolk at the other and most astonishingly of all Thomas Cromwell himself proposing that the the great shrine monastery at little
• 33:00 - 33:30 Walsingham in Norfolk the shrine of our lady that monastery should become a college and be saved and the reason that this program apparently went nowhere was because of the King's sudden urgent need to build the most expensive set of fortifications up to the 19th century along the south and east coasts of this country against the French so the program became Universal dissolution except that it didn't we forget that
• 33:30 - 34:00 some monasteries in England were not finally resolved they became cathedrals six new cathedrals which in the beginning were formerly called formerly called colleges they had a Dean and fellows just like colleges in other word this is the Woolsey plan and Thomas chromel was in charge of it still so the
• 34:00 - 34:30 ruins that Krummel knocked about a bit when the ruins at Henry the eighth knocked about a bit and many of them chromel would also have knocked them about but there was still a program there which despite the Kings selfishness and greed did produce results cathedrals are still there they are the lasting product of Thomas Cromwell and Woolsey's plan for the reform of the English church so there is a significant modification of traditional story what of revolution in government well
• 34:30 - 35:00 Reformation we've talked about I've mentioned Wales and Ireland and could bore you with more on that but there's one thing where I think you can say that there is something really distinctively Cromwellian the one shaping of the future which could not be attributed to anyone else and that is the role of parliament in all that happened in the 16th century Cromwell was a parliament man he'd first sat as a humble
• 35:00 - 35:30 backbencher in 1523 the 1523 Parliament we don't actually know which borough he set for interesting possible little project for someone but he clearly loved Parliament and in a way that Wolsey didn't Woolsey regarded Parliament's are nuisance and so incidentally did Sir Thomas Moore who was Speaker of the 15:23 Parliament and extremely annoyed at the vocal opposition to Royal taxation shown within that Parliament
• 35:30 - 36:00 now Crom or then went forward into the 1530s to do all that he did in supporting the Kings break with Rome by using parliament the King could in theory at least have done it by Royal Proclamation or some something like a great cow of Notables no Parliament at every stage or was given the task of putting the legislation in place which created the English Reformation and the Parliament
• 36:00 - 36:30 had never done anything as important as that before what Parliament did was to break with a thousand years of relationship with the Holy Father in Rome and they did it by legislation bills turned into acts and not just in the 1530s but at every stage there after the Protestant Reformation and incidentally Marys River a return to Rome was all done by parliamentary acts and so Parliament came to have a place
• 36:30 - 37:00 in the English polity which he did not anywhere else in Europe everywhere had parliaments at the time now the English forget that and apartments are just a piece of medieval and decision making but virtually everywhere else apart from Iceland Parliament's began withering away in the 16th century and the future was absolutism but not in England Parliament literally grew so that there were 50% more members of the House of
• 37:00 - 37:30 Commons in 1600 than there had been in 1500 and the big difference the big jump in numbers is the 1530s it's the chromo era and he tried the same thing in Ireland he boosted the Dublin Parliament which was a yeah a faded medieval relic and tried to give it a central place in the government of the King which he was now trying to establish there so he's a parliament man yeah let us not try and make him into the the predecessor of a
• 37:30 - 38:00 Democrat and democracy that's not what he understood at all but he saw the value of this institution that the voice of the realm assembled in the cuy court of parliament Lords Spiritual and temporal and the Commons assembled beside them that is the achievement of the 1530s and it is distinctly Thomas grumbles and Geoffrey Elton saw that but let's hang on to that it the distinctive way in which the English polity went on
• 38:00 - 38:30 to develop is thanks to him that hugely important respect we now see Parliament asserting itself against the executive in a way that he would have interest it would have interested him he understood it probably might not have approved but he would understood what was happening well I hope I've given you a sense of the difference of the man the unexpectedness of the man and also the way in which he has been traduced by many of his biographers the observed
• 38:30 - 39:00 biography by Robert Hutchinson for instance of ten years ago just talking about him as a jocular lad a ruffian on the make well of course that's true but not true and how inadequate that is to describe this till oil and spiegel this master improviser this man who adored his family and adored the death the dead Cardinal he in other words is not just a thug in a doublet thank you
• 39:00 - 39:30 right well we have time for questions do we not and how much time we got ten minutes earlier right so great any
• 39:30 - 40:00 questions yeah you yeah yeah remember
• 40:00 - 40:30 that she is Mary's quite young in 1536 she's 19 or so and I'm sure she did have strong opinions and religion at that but they're not apart from breaking with Rome the church is not that different it is in everyone's interest later on to forget the relationship certainly in Mary's interest but it's also in prophecy interests so there's a lot of
• 40:30 - 41:00 forgetting there but the fact it went on throughout krummel's emitted ly brief life for the next six years or so and she went on cooperating it is often forgotten for instance that what brought him down with the Anne of Cleves business and we could go into that but the the Anne of Cleves marriage was actually a two princess deal and would come here but Mary would go to Bavaria and marry the
• 41:00 - 41:30 Duke of Bavaria it's it's a complete - princess deal to the extent that when anne of cleves was travelling here to meet her new bridegroom the Duke of Bavaria was also travelling here and met Mary in the garden of the abbot of Westminster and kissed her against all precedents and she she didn't objects it Hey so she's happy with this idea and of
• 41:30 - 42:00 course it's all off because the island cleaves thing went wrong and the do you had to go back I'm its extruding monarch coming here incognito and then kissing in a monix daughter so that was off that think of the way history would have been different if Mary and Mary Duchess of both Bavaria how different things would have been yeah questions yes madam all right
• 42:00 - 42:30 absolutely nothing I mean absolutely none that did this extraordinary isn't it because he's clearly a very well-educated man with an interesting library he liked reading Italian books he I mean he read Machiavelli's Prince we know because it was given by an aristocratic mate of his and where's that all come from it's extraordinary I mean his education presumably in
• 42:30 - 43:00 Putney is Chantry priest teaching Rahzel alphabet no hint of university rushing off to Florence but Florence in itself is an education and the fact that he linked up with one of its greatest families of Frescobaldi must have given him the education but he's just very bright very clever soap didn't I think the most mysterious part of his education is the law the English law side and admittedly it's not the most
• 43:00 - 43:30 difficult side of the law it's conveyancing any fool can do that and he never really got into the intricacies of the law and interestingly didn't become Lord Chancellor when I'm no doubt he could have done in the end and perhaps he just didn't want to get drawn into the law of that much but he knew how to use it and in parliamentary terms in particular yeah sir and Mike coming through the chuff's on the coat of arms
• 43:30 - 44:00 hmm they were Woolsey's and you said that originally they were talking back yeah they've got that's another name for the justice Beckett's right the fact that Cromwell adopted them when he did yeah clearly a gesture of respect for Wolsey yeah but does it also imply that at that date he did not stand for quite
• 44:00 - 44:30 such an opposite policy to Beckett's now I think I think it's probably right and when Becket had not taken on the valence that he would if once you break with Rome with Rome but actually I think the Thomas side is much more important any-any Thomas can take out the chuff's and they're all called Thomas since the traveling of Thomas Cranmer Thomas Cromwell Thomas Wolsey so I think it's
• 44:30 - 45:00 the symbolism of the Wolsey which is more important than the huge irony obviously he just he is responsible for destroying Thomas Becket shrine in 1538 but that's that's a different world things have just moved so quickly in the intervening years yes sir back yeah thank you so much
• 45:00 - 45:30 and of course Hillary does to some extent and she says look I'm a novelist and I'm writing from Thomas cromoz point of view there is that danger and and more let's let me not try and denigrate more he is an extraordinary fascinating man he has a very dark side which came out in 1530 32 when he decided that he
• 45:30 - 46:00 was an existential struggle for the soul of the world and heretics must be destroyed as a result I mean he said in his literary duel with Tyndall not enough heretics have been burned and that's the context in which you have to see the more chromel relationship I've no doubt that in the 1520's they got on fine they're part of the same cultured London world and Moore is partly in
• 46:00 - 46:30 Wolsey service too they have the same cultural interest they've got the same friends and and that clearly became very awkward and embarrassing once more was in the tower but but krama let one of the great friends in Italian called Antonia Levine's bond vz-- go to more bring him nice food and wine and that sort of thing so that sort of civilized relationship did go on but in the end I
• 46:30 - 47:00 mean that there is a dark and implacable side to chromel to and anyone who is the King's enemy must be dealt with and he had a fierce and bile vile temper so there's all that and I'm not trying to minimize that but you have to see that they they do begin to see themselves as in a great struggle literally to the death with Tyndall on one side being killed on the other more and Fisher being killed the Charterhouse monks so
• 47:00 - 47:30 it's it's a zero-sum game there was a sort of hand floating there no that's not we do it we got Oh David yes where does his Protestantism come from well you say that but there is a developing what does one call it evangelicalism in Italy which didn't we forget that Italy is not necessarily Catholic just cuz the Pope lives there and there is a native
• 47:30 - 48:00 Italian reformism which became we hardly call it Protestantism but it's evangelicalism and some of his Italian friends went into that world one can't say more than that but the other source is wrong lollardy and in the Woolsey years that there are definite definite links between what he was doing in dissolving monasteries and local Lollards in the Thames Valley and he
• 48:00 - 48:30 actually took he kept on a lot private legal practice and at one stage he was very publicly involved in being the lawyer for the the biggest Lollard in Oxfordshire and and its mate his friends said look what are you doing taking on this lady it's it's clear that there's a sense of that's a bit surprising so it may be lollardy it may be he's a humanist and he told John Fox that his conversion started from reading Erasmus
• 48:30 - 49:00 his New Testament on his way to negotiate with the Pope for Boston guild and that's possible I know it was a sort of alibi for Fox for the great Protestant hero but I don't see any reason to dismiss a disavow it for that so II I'm saying I don't know but I'm saying that there are all these interesting links Italian evangelism lollardy humanism all his mates in Cambridge they're you know classic card-carrying humanists which doesn't
• 49:00 - 49:30 necessarily make you our Protestant but it's it's one way in and so many of them did go that way no my batter do you into the ground oh one last snippet since we have two minutes he's ancestry this is really strange and it's another piece of nice revision we thought we knew where his family came from Northamptonshire Nottinghamshire sorry there's a place called ROM well in Nottinghamshire and there were had been
• 49:30 - 50:00 a baron Cromwell in the century so it all looked right curiously he didn't take anything like the heraldry of that 15th century Baron chroma despite the fact it was an extinct period you could easily ethnic nicked the heraldry so then it became apparent from a local historian in putney who did a marvelous little pamphlet on krummel's context in putney that virtually everything we thought we knew about his answer tree had been made up by a victorian antiquary it's
• 50:00 - 50:30 actually just lies and we'd all taken it on board and not examined it now this came as a revelation to me thank goodness before I finish the book but it also opened my ears to something I'd been once deliberately ignoring that in the late 1530s one or two people said Thomas cromwell's family came from Ireland I thought yeah yeah but one of these is a
• 50:30 - 51:00 really well informed anonymous chronicler in London who gave us information which my Putney friend then confirmed about Thomas Kronos father in Putney that was extraordinary we didn't know that was true until then and so that's a convincing and what that probably means is that Walter Cromwell his father came from Ireland possibly in the 1480s and established himself near the court in Putney now that is
• 51:00 - 51:30 extraordinary because it means that his Co lateral descendant Oliver Cromwell he's also of Irish descent and if you know anything about Irish stereotypes and history that is a bit of a bombshell the massacres of guerrilla dare all that is actually committed by an Irishman Irish descent I said this when I spoke in Dublin about the book and the room just sort of went blank
• 51:30 - 52:00 they didn't laugh as I expected them to no no so there's something again that would be a marvelous research project for someone because it would mean going into the the shattered archives of Ireland and looking for Cromwell's in the medieval Anglo Irish bit of their there clearly and an English fam all Dingley family if that's the truth and who knows there they might be a double in Oran all Drogheda that would be an irony wouldn't it English port in
• 52:00 - 52:30 medieval Ireland so there you are last snippet what we done [Music] now I think I'm signing books outside so let me go and do that yes but yes
• 52:30 - 53:00 [Applause]
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• 53:30 - 54:00 you