Henry VIII: The Fall of Cromwell & Factions at Court, 1539-1547 (AQA A Level History: Component 1: Breadth study): Revision Note

Summary

• Cromwell's power suddenly collapsed in 1540, followed by a decade of factional struggle between conservative and reforming groups at Henry's court

• Cromwell was executed in 1540:

  • He was brought down by the Anne of Cleves marriage "disaster", the Howard faction's scheming, and ultimately by Henry's personal decision to destroy him

• After Cromwell, court politics was dominated by rivalry between the conservative faction (led by the Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Gardiner) and the reforming faction (led by the Earl of Hertford)

• The Six Articles (1539) and the King's Book (1543) represented a conservative backlash in religion, reasserting Catholic doctrine and limiting some of the Protestant direction associated with Cromwell's reforms

• The conservatives ultimately lost:

  • Norfolk was arrested in 1546, and the reformers around Hertford were well positioned to control the government of the young Edward VI

• Historians debate whether Henry VIII was an effective ruler who controlled his ministers, or whether factional instability in his final years reveals the fundamental weakness of his style of kingship

The Fall of Cromwell, 1540: Why was he Executed?

Cromwell's position by 1540

• By early 1540, Cromwell appeared to be at the peak of his power

  • He had just been created Earl of Essex and Lord Great Chamberlain

  • He had survived the Pilgrimage of Grace, the dissolution and the fall of Anne Boleyn

  • He had no obvious rival in government

• Yet, within months, he was in the Tower, attainted and executed

  • His fall was rapid, total and irreversible

The Anne of Cleves "disaster"

• Cromwell had arranged Henry's fourth marriage to Anne of Cleves in 1540 as a Protestant diplomatic alliance

  • Henry found her physically unattractive on their first meeting

    • Henry reportedly said she looked like a horse ("a great Flemish mare")

  • The marriage was annulled after just six months

• Henry never forgave Cromwell for the humiliation

  • It left Cromwell politically exposed and unable to rely on Henry's personal goodwill

The Howard faction

• The conservative Catholic faction, led by Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, had been waiting for an opportunity to destroy Cromwell

  • Norfolk introduced Henry to his niece, Catherine Howard, who quickly caught Henry's attention

    • The Howards now had direct personal access to the king and used it ruthlessly

• Cromwell was accused of heresy and treason

  • The heresy charge was ironic:

    • Cromwell was a moderate Protestant in practice

  • He was alleged to have said he would fight even against Henry's wishes to defend Protestant reform

The execution

• Cromwell was suddenly arrested at a Privy Council meeting on 10 June 1540

  • This shocked many contemporaries who believed he was still secure in Henry's favour

• Cromwell was attainted by Parliament in June 1540, condemned without trial

  • He wrote a desperate letter to Henry begging for mercy

    • Henry ignored it

• Cromwell was executed on Tower Hill, 28 July 1540

  • Henry later expressed regret, reportedly saying he had been misled into destroying the best servant he had ever had

    • This suggests that the Howards and Gardiner may have manipulated Henry, rather than simply acting on his wishes

Faction at Court after Cromwell: Conservatives vs Reformers

• After Cromwell's fall, no single minister replaced him as chief minister

  • Instead, Henry governed through two competing factions whose rivalry defined the politics of the 1540s

The Conservative Reaction: Religion & Politics, 1539–1547

• After the rapid Protestant-leaning changes of 1536 to 1538, Henry pulled back towards Catholic orthodoxy

• This conservative reaction was driven by three overlapping forces:

  • Henry's own theological conservatism: he had never intended to change doctrine, only Church governance

  • The need for Catholic allies in Europe as the threat of a Franco-Habsburg alliance loomed

  • The Howard faction's growing influence at court following Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard

The Six Articles, 1539

• This was pushed through Parliament by the Duke of Norfolk in 1539

• It reasserted six core Catholic doctrines:

  • Transubstantiation: the bread and wine at Mass literally become the body and blood of Christ

  • Clerical celibacy: priests could not marry

  • Private masses, auricular confession and communion in one kind were all reaffirmed

• It imposed severe penalties: denial of transubstantiation was punishable by death

  • It was known by Protestants as "the whip with six strings"

• The impact was immediate:

  • Protestant bishops Latimer and Shaxton resigned their positions

  • Archbishop Cranmer discreetly sent his wife to live in Germany, as the articles required clerical celibacy

  • Protestant reformers at court were temporarily silenced

The King's Book, 1543

• This was a revised doctrinal statement replacing the more Protestant Bishop's Book of 1537

  • It was more Catholic in tone, reaffirming traditional practices and doctrine

  • It showed Henry consciously pulling back from the Protestant direction of the late 1530s

Why the conservative reaction proved temporary

• Catherine Howard's fall in February 1542 destroyed the Howards' direct influence over Henry

  • She was arrested for alleged adultery and executed

  • Norfolk's family lost the personal access to Henry they had relied upon

• Henry's marriage to Catherine Parr (1543) brought reformers back into his close circle

  • Catherine Parr was educated, Protestant in sympathy and genuinely intellectually influential

• The Howards overreached in 1546 when they tried to have Cranmer arrested on heresy charges

  • Henry personally intervened to protect Cranmer, handing him his own ring as a token of royal favour

  • This episode revealed the limits of factional power: Henry could shut down any attack when he chose to

• Norfolk was arrested in December 1546; his son the Earl of Surrey was executed in January 1547

  • Henry died on 28 January 1547, with Norfolk still in the Tower

  • The reformers around Hertford and Cranmer inherited power with little immediate opposition

How Effectively was England Governed under Henry VIII?

• This question draws on evidence from across the whole of Henry VIII's reign

• Use the specific evidence below to build and support your own argument

Evidence that Henry VIII governed effectively

• Henry demonstrated consistent personal control over his ministers

  • Wolsey and Cromwell were both promoted and destroyed entirely at Henry's will

  • This suggests Henry was the puppeteer, not the puppet: he chose when to act and when to delegate

• The Break with Rome and the Reformation Parliament represented a genuine constitutional achievement

  • Parliament was used to give sweeping changes a legal legitimacy that proved very hard to reverse

  • The Royal Supremacy permanently transformed the relationship between Crown, Church and Parliament

• The dissolution of the monasteries was efficiently executed and brought enormous wealth to the Crown

  • It required complex administrative machinery and was completed within five years

• England remained stable and largely free from major domestic revolt for most of the reign

  • The Pilgrimage of Grace (1536) was the most serious challenge but was suppressed without major military engagement

• The Privy Council emerged as a more professional body, laying the foundations for later Tudor government

Key historians

Evidence that Henry VIII's governance had serious weaknesses

• The factional instability of the 1540s revealed the dangers of Henry's personal style of kingship

  • Without a dominant minister after Cromwell's fall, rival factions competed destructively for royal favour

  • Policy became inconsistent and erratic, shifting between Protestant and Catholic positions

• Henry wasted the financial gains of the dissolution on expensive and largely fruitless foreign wars

  • More than half of all monastic lands were sold off between 1543 and 1547 to fund campaigns in France

  • The Crown lost the long-term income these lands would have generated

• The succession was repeatedly destabilised by Henry's personal decisions

  • Three of his six wives were discarded or executed

  • Mary and Elizabeth were both declared illegitimate at different points, then reinstated

  • The succession crisis this created was never fully resolved in Henry's lifetime

• The executions of More, Fisher and Cromwell damaged England's international reputation

  • They also illustrated how Henry's government operated through fear rather than consent

• Henry left a 9-year-old son as his heir, making a contested minority government almost inevitable

Key historians