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What Was The Main Cause of Thomas Cromwell's Downfall?

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    What Was The Main Cause of Thomas Cromwell's Downfall?

    I have just finished the Wolf Hall trilogy which, while fictional, seems to posit three causes:

    1) Failure to assassinate Reginald Pole

    2) Reluctance to negotiate a divorce of the Cleves marriage

    3) Pushing the Reformation too fast, especially by forging relations with Protestants in Germany and Switzerland

    I think No. 3 is the underlying cause while the first two were catalysts for the final break of the king's confidence in him. Henry might have tolerated 3 for a couple more years if Pole was dead and Anne of Cleves had not turned him off.

    You could just reduce it to:

    4) Failing to find a woman to produce a second male heir, especially one who wasn't tied to Lutherans or Papists.

    Or:

    5) His task was impossible because Henry's demands were contradictory (anti-Pope but also anti-Lutheran, when really those opposing options couldn't be reconciled in European diplomacy at that time).
    Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 24-11-2022, 13:48.

    #2
    The absolute chance inherent in 5 is indicative of the fact that the nature of the King was such that Cromwell .was always at risk of losing everything for reasons completely beyond his control.

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      #3
      Yes, and that's also shown by the fact that anyone still alive by the year of Henry's death, 1547, was only alive by pure chance, not some greater art of statecraft.

      Comment


        #4
        Including Anne of Cleves, unfairly portrayed in history as " the Flanders Mare" managed to cut a sweet deal that Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn failed to do. She was obviously very clever and charming for Henry to look after her like that.

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          #5
          Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
          Failure to assassinate Reginald Pole
          I fear this is something we are all guilty of.

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            #6
            Without wishing to derail this thread, what's the general feeling on the accuracy of distant* history as it's reexamined? Does it get more accurate or less so? Do fictional revisitings clarify or muddy the water? I'm not positing this as a think-piece, DR-style, but I'm wondering if it's actually knowable. I have a propensity to disbelieve the historical record the older it gets because of an overriding feeling that, through repeated tellings and retellings, we move father away from the facts. But that might be dead wrong.


            *open to interpretation, obvs

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              #7
              I think each new generation of historians is meant to have access to more primary sources than previous ones, so they have more to work with.

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                #8
                Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                The absolute chance inherent in 5 is indicative of the fact that the nature of the King was such that Cromwell .was always at risk of losing everything for reasons completely beyond his control.
                Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                Yes, and that's also shown by the fact that anyone still alive by the year of Henry's death, 1547, was only alive by pure chance, not some greater art of statecraft.
                And that Henry supposedly bitterly regretted his decision almost immediately. About when he thought "I'll get Cromwell to do this - he is good at this sort of thing... Oh"

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                  #9
                  It seems odd that Henry didn't wonder beforehand who would do the dirty work when Cromwell was gone. Recall that he'd destroyed Wolsey before he acquired Cromwell so he'd already squandered one loyal right-hand man. The replacements were all problematic - Norfolk, Riche, Wriothesley - and not in Cromwell's league as a man who gets results. Henry must have been in one long mad rage to blind himself to those facts.
                  Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 24-11-2022, 15:40.

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                    #10
                    Maybe it was Cromwell himself that was the problem there - that he had stepped up from a pretty minor background figure to very adequately replace Wolsey. Henry may have been thinking that could be repeated with one of Cromwell's own proteges in time. A couple of them are there in that list.
                    Sort of like the Anfield boot room, but with the Dalglish and Souness characters coming rather earlier in the piece than happened up in Liverpool.

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                      #11
                      Yes that's very plausible. He has Riche in the privy council ready to turn on his mentor as soon as Henry gives the nod.

                      Riche also survives, as does Rafe Sadler, as if Cromwell unwittingly groomed the men who would have the longevity he didn't.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                        It seems odd that Henry didn't wonder beforehand who would do the dirty work when Cromwell was gone. Recall that he'd destroyed Wolsey before he acquired Cromwell so he'd already squandered one loyal right-hand man. The replacements were all problematic - Norfolk, Riche, Wriothesley - and not in Cromwell's league as a man who gets results. Henry must have been in one long mad rage to blind himself to those facts.
                        How dare you slander the founder of my school! Not in Cromwell's league, indeed.
                        Last edited by Eggchaser; 24-11-2022, 16:41. Reason: Added indignation through punctuation

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                          #13
                          Originally posted by WOM View Post
                          Without wishing to derail this thread, what's the general feeling on the accuracy of distant* history as it's reexamined? Does it get more accurate or less so? Do fictional revisitings clarify or muddy the water? I'm not positing this as a think-piece, DR-style, but I'm wondering if it's actually knowable. I have a propensity to disbelieve the historical record the older it gets because of an overriding feeling that, through repeated tellings and retellings, we move father away from the facts. But that might be dead wrong.


                          *open to interpretation, obvs
                          I was watching a documentary the other night which referenced the fact that Australian Aboriginal oral histories that go back 10,000+ years refer to major climate events that modern science can now confirm happened where & when the oral histories stated.

                          So, either oral records can indeed remain accurate over many thousands of years or ‘Ancient Aliens’ just made that up to fit into their Ancient Spacepeople narrative.

                          Im not entirely convinced that the earth was seeded by aliens but was really taken by the idea that we can prove that today, Australian Aborigines have access to information from so long ago.

                          There will be someone on here who can tell me the score.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            0-0, obviously...

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by Erskine Bridges View Post

                              I was watching a documentary the other night which referenced the fact that Australian Aboriginal oral histories that go back 10,000+ years refer to major climate events that modern science can now confirm happened where & when the oral histories stated.

                              So, either oral records can indeed remain accurate over many thousands of years or ‘Ancient Aliens’ just made that up to fit into their Ancient Spacepeople narrative.

                              Im not entirely convinced that the earth was seeded by aliens but was really taken by the idea that we can prove that today, Australian Aborigines have access to information from so long ago.

                              There will be someone on here who can tell me the score.
                              This is very interesting. Thank you.

                              I remember something similar after the big New Year's (Boxing Day?) tsunami years ago. Apparently villages that had telephones were overwhelmingly decimated because they had let their oral traditions lapse. Ones that didn't have telephones and relied on person-to-person storytelling had always known 'if the sea goes out suddenly, move to high ground'.

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