(Comprising Brief Historical and Topographical Delineation...)
Comprising Brief Historical and Topographical Delineations; Together with Descriptions of the Residences of the Objects of Curiosity. Forming a Complete G.
History and Description of the Ancient Town and Borough of Colchester
(Excerpt from History and Description of the Ancient Town ...)
Excerpt from History and Description of the Ancient Town and Borough of Colchester, in Essex, Vol. 1
The author of these volumes is however far from imagining, that he has worthily executed the task he proposed to him.
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex was an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540. He was largely responsible for revolutionary reforms in the English Church and in the administration of the state.
Background
Thomas Cromwell was born around 1485 in Putney, near London, United Kingdom. His father, Walter Cromwell, was a fuller and shearer of the cloth who also worked as a blacksmith, innkeeper, and brewer. Thomas's mother, Katherine, was the aunt of Nicholas Glossop of Wirksworth in Derbyshire. She lived in Putney in the house of a local attorney, John Welbeck, at the time of her marriage to Walter Cromwell in 1474. Cromwell had two sisters: the elder, Katherine, married Morgan Williams, a Welsh lawyer; the younger, Elizabeth, married a farmer, William Wellyfed. Katherine and Morgan's son, Richard, was employed in his uncle's service and changed his name to Cromwell.
Education
Perhaps an unruly youth, Thomas received little formal education.
Career
About 1504 he traveled to Flanders and Italy, where he served as a mercenary soldier. While abroad he had an opportunity to learn French and Italian and to observe something of the diplomatic maneuvers of the European powers.
In 1514 Cromwell entered the service of Thomas Wolsey, the great cardinal who dominated both Church and state. Cromwell's administrative abilities were soon recognized, and he became involved in all of Wolsey's business, especially the suppression of certain small monasteries and the application of their revenues to new colleges founded in Ipswich and Oxford.
During this period Cromwell evidently studied law; in 1524 he was admitted to Gray's Inn, one of the Inns of Court. He also entered Parliament and in 1523 may have delivered a famous speech denouncing Henry VIII's war in France and its accompanying taxation. When Wolsey fell from power, Cromwell attached himself directly to the court.
In 1529 he was elected to the Reformation Parliament, the later sessions of which he helped manage for the King. In 1532 he began to accumulate government offices, and he so gained the confidence of Henry VIII that he became the King's chief minister. He drafted the act in restraint of appeals, passed by Parliament in 1533 to allow Henry's divorce to be granted in England without interference from the Pope, and subsequent legislation which affirmed royal supremacy in religion and provided for a Church of England independent of Rome.
His great ideal was the establishment of England as an "empire, " completely self-contained and owing no allegiance to any external power. Although he was not a priest, Cromwell was now named the King's vice-gerent, or deputy, in spiritual affairs.
He was largely responsible for legislation which authorized the dissolution of the monasteries and the confiscation of their property by the King.
In secular affairs Cromwell sought efficiency above all. He instituted revolutionary reforms, especially in financial administration. His multiplicity of offices-the King's principal secretary, lord privy seal, master of the jewels, clerk of the hanaper, master of the rolls, chancellor of the Exchequer, and master of the court of wards-gave him control over virtually every aspect of government.
Unlike Wolsey and his predecessors, Cromwell was never lord chancellor; he can be regarded as the first chief minister of a new type, a layman basing his influence on the office of principal secretary.
In 1536 he was ennobled as Baron Cromwell of Oakham, in the county of Rutland, and in 1540 he was created Earl of Essex. Although his magnificence never approached Wolsey's, he enjoyed the considerable wealth which he acquired.
He had four houses, all in or near London; friends and foreign ambassadors later recalled their pleasant walks in his gardens. Cromwell always had his enemies, mainly religious conservatives like Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, or members of the old aristocracy like Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk.
After Cromwell arranged the King's disastrous marriage to Anne of Cleves, these foes combined to topple him, charging that he was an overmighty subject and a heretic. He was not given a trial but was condemned by a bill of attainder.
On July 28, 1540, he was beheaded on Tower Hill. A clumsy executioner made the scene more than usually horrible, even by Tudor standards.
It is doubtful that Henry VIII could have secured his divorce or devised his great scheme of ecclesiastical nationalization without Cromwell.
Achievements
Cromwell was one of the strongest and most powerful advocates of the English Reformation. He helped to engineer an annulment of the king's marriage to Queen Catherine of Aragon so that Henry could lawfully marry Anne Boleyn. Henry failed to obtain the Pope's approval for the annulment in 1534, so Parliament endorsed the king's claim to be Supreme Head of the Church of England, giving him the authority to annul his own marriage. Cromwell subsequently charted an evangelical and reformist course for the Church of England from the unique posts of vicegerent in spirituals and vicar-general.
Although more interested in politics than theology, he was probably a sincere Protestant and certainly a supporter of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.
Views
Quotations:
After Parliament had been dissolved, Cromwell wrote a letter to a friend, jesting about the session's lack of productivity: "I amongst other have indured a parlyament which contenwid by the space of xvii hole wekes wher we communyd of warre pease Stryffe contencyon debatte murmure grudge Riches poverte penurye trowth falshode Justyce equyte dicayte [deceit] opprescyon Magnanymyte actyvyte foce [force] attempraunce [moderation] Treason murder Felonye consyli. .. [conciliation] and also how a commune welth myght be ediffyed and a[lso] contenewid within our Realme. Howbeyt in conclusyon we have d[one] as our predecessors have been wont to doo that ys to say, as well we myght and lefte wher we begann. '
Personality
Although often criticized for his ambition, political ruthlessness, and plunder of the Church, Cromwell was a genuinely affable man, an administrative genius, and a loyal adviser to the King.
Connections
At some time during these years, Cromwell returned to England, where around 1515 he married Elizabeth Wyckes (d. 1529). She was the widow of Thomas Williams, a Yeoman of the Guard, and the daughter of a Putney shearman, Henry Wykes, who had served as a gentleman usher to King Henry VII. The couple had three children: Gregory Cromwell, 1st Baron Cromwell (c. 1520–51), who was Elizabeth Seymour's second husband, Anne Cromwell (died c. 1529), Grace Cromwell (died c. 1529).
