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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
The role of Thomas Cromwell in the events of the English Reformation has long been a contentious issue. This brief study is designed to introduce some new evidence on Cromwell's interaction with the monasteries and the issue of the royal supremacy. The information arises out of Henry viii's exchange of lands with the abbey of Waltham Holy Cross in 1531-2. On 1 November 1531 the abbot and convent granted to the crown the manor of Stansted Abbot and other property in Stansted, Hertfordshire, and Roydon, Essex. They were compensated on 1 January following with a royal gift of Blackmore Priory, the manor of Wormingford, and other lands. The abbey's surrender has long been available in print, but these sources have been based upon the formal copy in the close roll. The discovery of a longer, more informative draft version of this grant, composed by the crown, provides new insights of significance for the Church at large during this period.
1 This exchange is described in: The Victoria History of the County of Essex, ed. , William and Round, j. H., London 1907, ii, 169–70Google Scholar.
2 Rymer, Thomas, Foedera, 10 vols, London 1741, vi, ii. 168Google Scholar ; Letters and Papers, and Domestic, Henry VIII, ed. Brewer, J. S. et at., London 1862-1932 (hereafter L & P), v, 622Google Scholar.
3 Public Record Office, C 54/400, m. 24.
4 P.R.O., E 407/8/180/4.
5 This is on the authority of John Foxe and is discussed in Marriman, R. B., Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, 2 vols, Oxford 1902, i. 25, 75Google Scholar.
6 Cromwell's activity in this matter provides the explanation for a contemporary letter to him from Robert Fuller, abbot of Waltham: L & P, v. 1684. Dated 31 December, it has been assigned to 1532 by the editors, but it almost certainly relates to this exchange and is therefore of the preceding year. In the letter Fuller stated how he had, according to Cromwell's letter of instruction, assembled the convent to seal the deed of lands to the king. But he very much doubted that they would consent to the proposed exchange and requested that Cromwell come and speak to them on the king's behalf. This dispute was apparently settled on the same day, for the close roll notes that the abbot and convent acknowledged the deed of surrender dated 1 November on 31 December 1531 before Ralph Sadler (Cromwell's servant), and the royal gift of lands in exchange was dated 1 January 1532: L & P, v. 622.
7 Dickens, A. G., Thomas Cromwell and the English Reformation, London 1959, 26.Google Scholar
8 Elton, G. R., The Tudor Revolution in Government, Cambridge 1953. 88–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; , Dickens, op. cit., 25, 35Google Scholar ; , Merriman, Life and Letters, i, 339–40Google Scholar.
9 This is true of the first use of the phrase in the grant; the second is on the portion of the document which is not transcribed on the close roll.
10 For two of the most informative accounts of this issue see Elton, G. R., Reform and Reformation: England, 1509-1558, London 1977, 130–56Google Scholar ; Scarisbrick, J. J., Henry VIII, London 1968, 246–304Google Scholar.
11 , Elton, Reform and Reformation, 136–44.Google Scholar
12 Bradshaw, Brendan, ‘The Tudor Commonwealth: Reform and Revision’, Historical journal, xxii (1979), 463.Google Scholar An alternative explanation in which Cromwell retains an important, but not the dominant, role is provided by Haas, S. W., ‘Henry VIII's Glasse of Truth’, History, Ixiv (1979), 353-62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13 For a similar expression of 1533 see , Rymer, Foedera, vi, ii. 179Google Scholar.
14 , Haas, op. cit. 353–62.Google Scholar
15 ibid.
16 , Elton, Reform and Reformation, 146.Google Scholar