The Act of the Six Articles – the Reformation stopped?
In 1539 the Act of Six Articles was passed. This is seen as an important moment in your study of the English Reformation as it demonstrates the meandering nature of the reformation process and the idea that Henry ‘sailed’ England
Why then did Henry do this?
- In 15 38 Henry presided over the trial and sentence of heresy of John Lambert and this demonstrates that the reformation according to Christopher Haigh was stopped dead in its tracks. The main factor was the potential threat from abroad from the alliance of the papacy, Francis I and Charles V, not to mention
- Perhaps because the Conservative faction, led by
Denial of transubstantiation was to be punished by burning without the opportunity to recant. Denial of any of the other articles was punishable by hanging or life imprisonment.
The impact was to end negotiations with the Lutheran princes and Cromwell’s plans were in tatters. Two of the reformist bishops, Latimer and Shaxton resigned, leaving Cranmer isolated; so isolated that he sent his wife to Germany
‘The act might have been a decisive weapon against the reformers had it ever been employed very wideyl, but while Cromwell lived it slept, and it was never fully operative. The radicals with few exceptions [Latimer and Shaxton], accepted the verdict of king and parliament and waited for better times. The importance of the act has been overestimated by bith sides; id did not even signal the overthrow of Cromwell who recovered most of his strength by July.’
G R Elton: England
‘The Act of Six Articles was a disaster for Cromwell and Cranmer’
C Haigh: English Reformations
‘The ensuing Act of the Six Articles was a total defeat for the reformers and brought the resignation of the Protestant bishops Latimer and Shaxton…..It provided the framework for doctrinal orthodoxy for ther emainder of Henry’s reign, and the execution of Thomas Cromwell later that summerstrengthened the position of the conservatives still further.’
W J Sheils: The English Reformation 1530-1570
Thomas Cromwell and the Role of Faction
By Starkey
Cromwell was a ruthless politician and a more subtle one than Wolsey. Indifferent to the outward show of power yet realistic about its potential. Debate about his claims to be a social and religious reformer but no doubt about his success in increasing the royal power and revenues.
Wolsey ruled in a solitary style as the ‘king’s friend’. Faction had no place in his scheme but it did in Cromwell’s. In clearing up the mess of Wolsey’s aftermath his former colleagues Russell, Heneage and Page became his dependents. Thus he began as a leader of a Privy Chamber faction in a fully factionalised court. He was also very good at the craft of faction politics.
Thus Cromwell’s power was institutionalised and less personal than Wolsey’s but it was not the bureaucracy or the council but the court. So Cromwell used and trusted his servants far more than his predecessors had done.
Cromwell’s first victory as a faction leader came in the aftermath of Wolsey’s fall. Henry was now advised by a range of advisers and favourites; Boleyns, ex-Wolseyians, Stephen Gardiner, the Duke of Norfolk. The result was a stalemate especially for Anne Boleyn and her followers. To them Cromwell was decisive and had similar religious opinions combined with a powerful court following. The two factions joined and the divorce was pursued with a new vigour and energy.
The real test of the faction is its collapse but Cromwell’s swift realignment when the divorce between Henry and Anne is inevitable. Cromwell is able to disassociate himself from the Boleyn faction and steer through the treason charge against her. However in so doing he has to make sure that the fall of Anne did not lead to the Conservative faction reasserting itself. Yet it was this faction led by Sir Nicholas Carew who had introduced Jane Seymour to Henry; the intent was clear.
Cromwell therefore had to oversee the fall of Anne personally and it was he who shifted the claims for Anne’s fall from a point of canon law to one of treason and more specifically treason. The long term benefit was that it killed Anne whereas the conservatives’ would have left her as a ‘vocal and resentful ex-wife’. The pressure of Cromwell and the conservatives pushed Henry into a decision which saw not only the execution of Anne but effectively removed the male adulterers – all members of the Privy Chamber – Henry Norris [Groom of the Stool], Lord Rochford [Anne’s brother], Sir Francis Weston, Sir Thomas Wyatt [ the one non-member of the Privy Chamber], Sir Francis Bryan.
Detail here is not necessary but there seems to have been much negotiating and politicking with Bryan
With the fall of Anne and having allied with the conservatives for this purpose he now set about their fall. He focussed on the conservatives efforts to get Mary restored to the succession.. This of course they had been doing – but then so had Cromwell [claimed]. Mary was told that unless she capitulated and recognised her own bastardy and the formal dissolution if her mother’s marriage then her friends were lost. Under intense pressure she gave in – saving the lives of her friends but destroying their influence. Two years later Cromwell had three of that group executed for ‘treason’ – the Marquess of Exeter, Sir Edward Neville and Sir Nicholas Carew.
1536 – 39 in Starkey’s view demonstrates the problem of royal manipulation in its most extreme form. The means of destruction of Anne are clear but the destruction of Henry’s long standing friends like Norris and Carew are more difficult to fathom. According to Starkey they most likely found themselves in situations created by Cromwell where they had to reveal an allegiance that questioned their loyalty to Henry. Norris would not accuse Anne Boleyn thus he was more loyal to her than he was to the king. Carew worked for Mary and so valued her more than the king. As Starkey says, ‘such a double loyalty could be guaranteed tot urn the king’s deepest affection into implacable hatred’.
The results of this factional in-fighting were significant. Two-thirds of the inner-court were destroyed, the Boleyn faction was decimated and the conservative faction was equally damaged.
The most important result was that it gave Cromwell a complete and unprecedented dominance over both court and government. It was also Cromwell who had engineered this through his single-mindedness and also his ruthless employment of the axe!
Cromwell then went on to place his loyal followers into the vacant places in the Privy Chamber; men such as Ralph Sadler, Philip Hoby, Anthony Denny. Significantly these men were not only loyal adherents of Cromwell, they were also evangelicals and perhaps even Protestants. With their ability to exercise patronage in its own right it is little surprise that the inner court should be overwhelmingly evangelical by the late 1530s.
The social make up of the inner court changed too for these men were not the traditional courtier but were men who would have made their way in the professions. The most notable beneficiary of this change was Cromwell himself who in 1539 became head of the Privy Chamber and then in 1540 took the office of Lord Great Chamberlain.
With such confidence it is not surprising that Cromwell pursued the Cleves marriage for Henry. We know the story of the failed marriage and Cromwell’s blame Starkey thinks however that Cromwell would have avoided the ‘chop’ but for the influence of the other great power centre of Tudor England Norfolk
