Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, Vol. 1 of 2: Life, Letters to 1535Merriman, Roger Bigelow
History
Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, Vol. 1 of 2: Life, Letters to 1535
Merriman, Roger Bigelow
Cromwell, Thomas, Earl of Essex, 1485?-1540
were once more revived in a most unexpected way. The terms of the
agreement which he attempted to conclude with the Duke may thus be
regarded as the first intimation of the complete reversal of England’s
foreign policy which was witnessed by the first six months of the year
1540. According to the draft of a treaty drawn up in England to be
presented to Philip for his approval, the Duke was to send to the King’s
assistance the number of ---- horse and foot if Henry was attacked by
any prince or private person, and was further to aid the King if he made
war for the recovery of any right of which he was defrauded[668]. We
unfortunately do not possess the original copy of the treaty signed on
January 24, but in an account of Philip’s life by his brother
Ottheinrich, it appears that the final agreement was that the Duke
should furnish the King with 1,000 horsemen and 4,000 foot-soldiers
against everyone except the Roman Empire[669]. The exception of the
‘Roman Empire,’ which was probably introduced at Philip’s request, was
a provision of so vague a nature that it could not bind either party
very strictly; it certainly could not have applied to a coalition of
Charles and Francis, which was all that Henry wanted, and it had the
additional advantage that it made it appear that the compact was not
especially directed against the Emperor, and so could not be resented by
him. On the subject of the Pope and the illegitimacy of Mary, the King,
as we have seen, had remained firm: to yield to Philip on these two
points would simply have been to stultify all the work of the previous
ten years, a step which Henry, even in the gravest peril, was not
prepared to take. But the other terms of the agreement were precisely to
his taste. The new treaty could be very useful if the crisis came, and
yet it was so arranged that with his well-known ability for quibbling,
the King could easily throw it over, if his hopes of a change for the
better in his relations with France and Spain were actually fulfilled.
It thus stands out in sharp contrast to the Lutheran alliance which
Cromwell had advocated, and which, if it had been accomplished, would
have irrevocably committed England to permanent hostility to Charles.
The terms of the treaty with Philip were cautious, carefully guarded,
and strictly non-committal; the Lutheran alliance, had it been carried
through, would have been rash, definite, and irrevocable. The contrast
between the two schemes is the contrast between the policies of Henry
and Cromwell. Though the treaty with Philip was never ratified and the
agreement which it proposed was thus never destined to succeed, the fact
that so many efforts were made to accomplish it at the very moment that
the negotiations with the Lutherans, of which Cromwell had been the
chief supporter, were finally abandoned, is very significant in
revealing the relative positions of King and minister at the opening of
the year 1540.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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