Thomas Cromwell: Servant to Henry VIII (34 page)

15. Thomas Wyatt, poet and friend of Cromwell. On Cromwell’s death, he penned an eloquent epitaph.

16. A view of the Tudor palace at Greenwich where Henry married Anne of Cleves at Cromwell’s recommendation and much to the king’s distaste.

17. The Tower of London. Cromwell was arrested at three o’clock on 10 June 1540, stripped of the insignia of the Garter and taken to the Tower.

18. Following his arrest, Cromwell was conveyed by boat to the Tower and would have entered through the Traitor’s Gate.

19. After his downfall, Cromwell’s head was placed on a spike on London Bridge.

20. A plan of Westminster Palace, showing the Great Hall, the Abbey and the two Houses of Parliament. Cromwell effectively ran the House of Commons from 1532, and the House of Lords from 1536.

21. A view of Westminster,
c.
1550, by Anthony van Wyngaerde. Westminster was the seat of the royal courts of justice and the meeting place of Parliament.

22. Whitehall Palace,
c.
1550, also by van Wyngaerde. Whitehall had been extensively rebuilt by Cardinal Wolsey. It came into the king’s hands on the fall of Wolsey in 1529 and was further rebuilt. It was used as a principal royal residence until largely destroyed by fire in the 1690s.

23. A drawing for the painting of Sir Thomas More and his family by Hans Holbein,
c.
1527. Thomas More waged a fierce war on heretics while Cromwell had an increasing number of dealings with Continental Lutherans.

24. Windsor Castle, a royal palace and home of the Knights of the Garter.

25. A copy of Pope Clement VII’s ‘definitive sentence’ in favour of Catherine of Aragon and against Henry VIII, issued on 23 March 1534. It was ignored in England.

26. Henry VIII in council. This appears to be a formal session, with the king seated under his ‘cloth of estate’. In practice, the council normally met without the king, and attendance was usually about a dozen.

27. Title page from the Great Bible, printed by Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch, 1539. Enthroned as God’s vicar, Henry symbolically hands out the Word of God to the spiritual and temporal hierarchies of his realm, headed by Thomas Cranmer on his right and Thomas Cromwell on his left.