Ropes, Racks, and Reputations Ruined.

One of the biggest blots on the name of Thomas Cromwell is his alleged role in the downfall and execution of Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn. It had been my intention to write up, (eventually), one large blog post that dealt with the issue in one fell swoop. However, several months on into the life of this humble blog, and I have remained silent on the Boleyn issue. This, I can assure you, has not been deliberate. Nor am I going to gloss this issue over. Several times, I have sat in front of my laptop, word document open, making numerous efforts to write about these momentous events in a decisive, coherent, and a readable manner. All soon ended in dismal failure.

 So now, I am breaking the incident down, and building up from there, to try and form a picture of what happened in the violent and bloody month of May, 1536. To begin at the beginning, this blog post will be looking at the arrest, and alleged torture, of Mark Smeaton (a young musician in the Queen’s household), who was the first of Anne’s alleged lovers to be arrested.

 This is a story that many of us will be familiar with. On the day of his arrest (April 30^th), Smeaton was summoned to Austin Friars (Cromwell’s private home), and there subjected to a barrage of questions, before being gruesomely tortured for information. After being grilled about the monies obtained by Smeaton for liveries and horses, a knotted rope was produced and wrapped tightly about his head, over his eyes, and tightened to push his eyes back, or even burst them. According to Alison Weir, (The Six Wives of Henry VIII, p314) Smeaton was “Grievously racked” upon his arrival at the tower, on May 1^st.

Mark Smeaton on the rack (The Tudors, Showtime/BBC)

 In his account of what happened, David Starkey (Six Wives, the Queens of Henry VII, p 568), casts doubt on the use of torture at Cromwell’s private home, but concurs with Weir that Smeaton was racked upon his arrival at the Tower:

“Probably, he was put to torture as soon as he arrived. His ordeal lasted four hours, as ‘it was 10 of the clock that he was well lodged in his cell’”.

In his biography of Thomas Cromwell, Robert Hutchinson, also concurs with the use of torture. However, although he is rather vague on the details, he does go further to implicate Cromwell in his personal torture of the musician. In his book, “Thomas Cromwell: The Rise and Fall of Henry VIII’s Most Notorious Minister,” he has this to say:

“Mark Smeaton, a groom of the Privy Chamber and a musician and dancer who was probably a covert homosexual*, was lured from Greenwich and tortured, probably by Cromwell, into a stammering confession that he had been Anne’s lover.” (p86).

So, consensus on the use of torture is wide across the spectrum, and it all fits very snugly. Smeaton was a low born musician who could be legally tortured, unlike his noble co-accused. He was the first to be arrested, thus perfect to implicate the others. However, what is the actual primary source evidence of the arrest and interrogation of Mark Smeaton?

 The first thing I wish to address is the issue of the knotted rope. This is almost certainly a myth, and a myth that gets’ repeated in several dramatisations, novels, and later historical accounts. First of all, the only primary source for this story is the notoriously inaccurate Spanish Chronicle. For not only does the Chronicle (who’s author remains unknown) get this wrong, but he gets the names of Anne Boleyn’s alleged lovers wrong (and one man, Francis Weston, is omitted altogether). Other glaring errors in the Spanish Chronicle include Thomas Cromwell interrogating Queen Katherine Howard about her alleged adultery, including a word for word conversation that was said to have taken place between them. Despite the fact that by the time Howard’s adultery had been brought to light, Cromwell had been dead for almost two years. To get around this, the Chronicle places Katherine as Henry VIII’s fourth wife, and Anne of Cleves his fifth. So, is the Chronicle making genuine mistakes, or is it a deliberate effort to blacken Cromwell’s name by placing him at the centre of controversies that happened long after his own demise through manipulation of the facts? Certainly, in his biography of Thomas Cromwell, John Schofield has hinted at exactly that:

“Then leafing through the pages of the Chronicle the reader is puzzled to find Cromwell, who died in 1540, investigating adultery allegations against Catherine Howard, which were not uncovered until the following year. The solution – and it takes a moment or two for this particular penny to drop – is that the chronicler has been engaging in some rather radical historical revisionism.”

Further to later accounts of Smeaton’s arrest, there is no mention of torture in any other account. For instance, Smeaton was perfectly capable of walking to his place of execution. Meaning that the use of the rack was highly unlikely (it, after all, dislocates every bone in the body). There is no mention anywhere in any primary source that Smeaton bore sign of any injury at the time of his trial. Surely, if he had been “grievously racked”, walking unaided, or standing up at all, would have been nigh on impossible. None of this is mentioned in Hall’s Chronicle, for instance (one of the key primary sources for the era). No eye witnesses to the trial or executions mentioned injury, and Smeaton certainly did not have to be carried to the scaffold.

In the account of George Constantine, a personal servant of Henry Norris who was lodged at the Tower with his master, he reports rumours that Smeaton had been racked, stating:“I could never know if this is of a truth”. In other words, they were rumours, and not actually stated as fact. This is something that few historians care to point out in their endless renderings of what occurred at that time. They also fail to note that there were many rumours flying. Others suggesting that Smeaton freely confessed in a fit of shame at his “indecent” thoughts of the Queen, and his jealousy of her other “lovers”.

Of course, no one can state for sure that Smeaton was not tortured. I, personally, would never presume to do so. Nor is it my intention to whitewash the dreadful events of April-May, 1536, or in any way imply that Anne Boleyn was guilty. All I intend to do here is point out that there are many causes for doubt about the perceived wisdom and common thought that surrounds this episode. To point out that perhaps, just maybe, Thomas Cromwell is not quite the bogeyman that many have branded him. After all, that is what this whole blog is about.

Eye eye, Captain!

* Hutchinson claims that Smeaton was “probably a covert homosexual”. Actually, this theory dates only to Retha M Warnicke’s “The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn”. There is no primary source documentation, or prior academic work to back this assertion up. The percieved wisdom is that Mark Smeaton, nor any of the other men implicated in Anne Boleyn’s downfall, were anything but heterosexual.

Sources:

British History Online.

Hall’s Chronicle (on line edition).

Hutchinson, Robert: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell: Henry VIII’s Most Notorious Minister (Phoenix, 2008).

Schofield, John: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell: Henry VIII’s Most Faithful Servant. (the History Press, 2009)

Spanish Chronicle.

Starkey, David. Six Wives: The Queens’ of Henry VIII (Vintage, 2004).

Weir, Alison. The Six Wives of Henry VIII (Vintage, 1997 edition).

The Relief Of The Poor Bill, 1535.

On this date, July 28^th, four hundred and sixty one years ago, Thomas Cromwell was led out onto Tower Green, Tower of London, and beheaded by order of King Henry VIII. He had been tried in absentia the previous month, and having no chance to defend himself, had been found guilty of fabricated charges of Sacramental Heresy. He died bravely, and according to Edward Hall, “he patiently bore the stroke of a ragged, and butcherly miser.” However, regardless of today’s anniversary, this post will not dwell on the sorry end of England’s most revolutionary of ministers. Instead, it will be looking into some of the lesser known aspects of Cromwell’s term in power. One that is especially over looked by historians who only seem interested in feeding into the demonisation of Thomas Cromwell;  and it’s impact on one of the other great Cromwellian myths. His role in the downfall of Anne Boleyn.

It was in 1535, following the first wave of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, that we’re told Thomas Cromwell and Queen Anne Boleyn argued, and began a blood feud that would end with her downfall and execution. The row, we’re led to believe, was about the distribution of proceeds from the reclaimed monastic lands. Queen Anne is supposed to have remonstrated with Cromwell about how this money should be put to far better uses, such as protecting the poor and needy; whereas Cromwell, (presumably), wanted to spend it all on sweets.

However, it was in this same year that Cromwell drafted a truly revolution set of reforms that completely explodes this theory for the myth that it undoubtedly is. The legislation in question is the Poor Relief Bill of 1535. Nothing like it had been proposed before, and sadly, nothing like would be seen again for a very long time after the MPs defeated the Bill.

Cromwell, and his army of staff, spent a year investigating the causes of poverty. Among their conclusions were: cruel employers, ill health/incapacity, crime, and bad living conditions/poor upbringing.

With the chief causes of poverty identified, Cromwell then set about drafting what he believed to be the remedy, and the result, (for it’s time), can only be described as revolutionary. Eminent historian John Schofield goes into great detail about this in his 2008 Cromwell biography (The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell), and has this to say:

“An ambitious plan of public works was then laid out. It included new buildings, repairs to harbours, highways, and fortresses, and scouring and cleansing of water courses; all under the direction of officers reporting to a central council.” (p103).

The poor, until now, had been almost wholly dependent on hand outs (“Alms”) from the monastic houses. However, what Cromwell was doing was empowering the poor to be able to stand on their own two feet, and better themselves through their own hard work. Because, in return, the labourers would be paid “reasonable wages.” But, also among Cromwell’s listed causes of poverty, were the terminally ill, and the incapacitated. So, the legislation did not stop with helping the able bodied to empower themselves.
“There would be free medical treatment for poor persons unable to work through sickness, and provisions were made for those too old, or terminally ill. Officials would be appointed to make sure no one was abusing the system… They would record the details of men who had become impoverished through no fault of their own and were unable to live on their wages, either because they had too many children to feed, or because they were victims of robbery, or some natural disaster.” (p104).

Public funds would become available to compensate the victims, and the ill. Child beggars were to be taken off the streets, and hired as apprentices to learn a skill, and make a valuable contribution to society.

So much for the greedy, ruthless Thomas Cromwell who was only interested in lining his own pockets from the lands of the God fearing, selfless monks! However, flippancy to one side. There is another point that needs to be made, at this juncture. Unsurprisingly, this Bill was rejected when put before Parliament in the autumn of 1535. So, something that Cromwell badly wanted was rejected. Cromwell who, we’re told time and time again, was supposed to have had Parliament “in his pocket”, and none dared refuse him anything lest they should feel the sharp edge of his wrath? In light of the failure of this Bill, we once again see that Cromwell didn’t quite have everything his own way. It was a bitter setback for him, and the Bill that was eventually passed by Parliament had been somewhat watered down.

So, what did he and Anne Boleyn fall out over, exactly? Because it surely wasn’t Cromwell’s lack of care for the most vulnerable sections of Tudor society. If this argument ever actually happened at all, and there is doubt over it, then it happened one full year before Anne Boleyn’s eventual downfall, and there was no evidence of long running bad blood between them (Anne referred to Cromwell as “her man”, several times over that period).

This, however, is not just about exposing the myth of Cromwell’s “Boleyn vendetta”. It’s about showing the man behind the “blood stained henchman myth”. It shows that Cromwell never forgot his roots. He never abandoned his people, despite the fact that his star had long entered an altogether higher orbit. It showed that he wanted to take this nation, and build it into something bigger, stronger, and much more progressive. As with everything he did, he was hindered every step of the way by the Conservative nobility who feared the effects of the “upstart” Cromwell’s legislation.

In conclusion, Thomas Cromwell is one Tudor personality that has been long in need of reassessment. John Schofield’s excellent biography, “The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell: Henry VIII’s Most Faithful Servant”, and the much more established, (and excellent), works of Professor G.R Elton, have all gone a long way towards doing just that. However, the pantomime villain version of Cromwell makes for better drama, and this is a tragedy. For we’re losing one of England’s greatest revolutionary’s to myth, hysteria, and sentimentality over a few ruined abbeys.

~Hannah, 28^th July, 2011~

Sources/Refernces:

• Elton. G.R. “England Under The Tudors”. (1990 Edition) Routledge.

• Hall, Edward. “The Chronicle of Edward Hall” (online)
• Schofield, John. “The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell: Henry VIII’s Most Faithful Servant”. (2008) History Press LTD