According to the sixteenth century chronicaller Edward Hall, those who genuinely mourned Cromwell’s death were far outnumbered by those who “rejoiced”. Cromwell was, by no stretch of the imagination, a popular man (a price paid by all who’re brave enough make radical changes to an inherently conservative society like England).
However, one who was definitely not among those rejoicing on the 28th July 1540, was the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt. He penned an eloquent lamentation of his personal loss, and the verse speaks of a man who was not only his patron, but his friend, and confidant.
Wyatt, in the second line, describes Cromwell as “the strongest stay of my unquiet mind”. Was Cromwell the man whom Wyatt confided in in times of need? A shoulder to cry on? It sounds that way, from the words used. Although, it is hard to imagine Cromwell as some sort of agony uncle. But something must have prompted Wyatt to write in such a manner, about a man who’d suffered a spectacular fall from grace.
Overall, the poem is a clear and moving account of Wyatt’s grief at the loss of such a great man. Wyatt himself died just two years after Cromwell, a fact that makes the final line of the verse all the more poignant. Here it is in full:
The pillar perished is whereto I leaned,
The strongest stay of my unquiet mind;
The like of it no man again can find –
From east to west, still seeking though he went –
To mine unhap, for hap away hath rent
Of all my joy, the very bark and rind,
And I, alas, by chance am thus assigned
Dearly to mourn till death to it relent.
But since that thus it is by destiny,
What can I more but have a woeful heart,
My pen in plaint, my voice in woeful cry,
My mind in woe, my body full of smart,
And I myself, myself always to hate
Till dreadful death do ease my doleful state.
