Thomas Cromwell

On June 10, 1540, Thomas Cromwell was arrested in Westminster. An excerpt from the article:

"Downfall & Execution

Cromwell's grip on power was finally loosened in the summer of 1540 CE as his enemies gathered to plot against him. Most dangerous were Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Stephen Gardiner, leaders of the conservative Catholic faction that rivalled Thomas Cranmer's more radical group. The political hawks bent the ear of the king and persuaded him that Cromwell was guilty of treason and heresy. The Lord Chancellor, the 'architect of the Reformation' had seemingly gone too far in his reforms and was arrested on 10 June 1540 CE. The prisoner's protestations of innocence and several pleading letters to Henry were ignored. Never given a trial, Cromwell was executed at Tower Hill, London on 28 July 1540 CE, and unfortunately, it was a messy business as the executioner's blade was blunt. The head was displayed on a pike on London Bridge as a warning to others.

The role of Lord Chancellor or First Minister would be replaced henceforth by the Privy Council, which regained some of its former function and so high government once again involved a cabinet of ministers rather than a single all-powerful one who could monopolise the king. Although Thomas Cromwell's influence on how government worked in practice in England has been exaggerated by some historians and claims that he 'revolutionised' politics have now been discredited, he did perhaps see potential where others previously had not. As the historian J. Morrill here summarises:

Cromwell's wide-ranging vision comprehended additional possibilities for parliamentary action…He saw that the state's power could be used to resolve or at least ameliorate some of the problems generated by the contemporary population explosion - poverty, unemployment, and social disorder. His tentative moves in this direction, added to the religious Acts, produced an unprecedented volume of parliamentary enactments, inaugurating an age in which the scope of legislation and of members' activity in Parliament would increase rapidly (318)."