On the one hand we have More’s Catholic view (accepted in this case by a good many non-Catholics): to swear to an oath that directly affronted one’s most deeply held religious beliefs was, quite simply, unthinkable. The crucial problem, of course, lies in interpreting those events. As we know, both Fisher and More did refuse the oath, and were executed. This was the material of Robert Bolt’s play A Man for All Seasons, and later for sections of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. But to refuse the oath was, as Henry saw it-and as new laws conveniently confirmed-plain treason. By doing so he put himself in conflict not only with Rome, but also with a number of clerics and scholars in his own realm, headed by Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, who could subscribe neither to Henry’s self-proclaimed religious authority nor to the largely secular casuistry that had cleared the way for his remarriage. Threatened with excommunication and irritated by the taxes and other levies that went to Rome, he declared himself head of the Church in Britain, and required every citizen to accept, on solemn oath, his right to this position. This both solved Henry’s second nagging problem-a chronic shortage of cash-and placated the nobility, many of whom benefited from royal largesse in the form of land-grants when the great religious estates were broken up.Īn autocratic self-serving egotist with his own theological notions, Henry VIII was obliged, in order to break free of his first marriage, to split from the pope, whom he saw as a political enemy rather than a religious superior. But Cromwell’s most lasting achievement, by taking advantage of the obvious corruptions in the wealthy monastic system of the Catholic Church, was to engineer the near-total dissolution of Britain’s religious houses. He also-when the King tired of her and, his first wife dead, aimed for respectability-secured Anne’s downfall, trial, and execution (the main subject of Bring Up the Bodies). By a series of legalistic maneuvers and dubious depositions, Cromwell, a smart lawyer with no ties to Rome, achieved the annulment, leaving Henry free to marry Anne Boleyn. Wolsey, as Cardinal, had failed to get Henry’s twenty-year marriage to Katherine of Aragon annulled, and paid the price for that failure. Thomas Cromwell, an ancestor of Oliver, was a faithful servant first to Cardinal Wolsey, and after the Cardinal’s fall, to Henry VIII.
THE NAME OF Cromwell is indissolubly associated with political upheaval, religious radicalism, and regicide.
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