Cranmer was the only man who dared to say a word to the King on Cromwell’s behalf. He wrote a pathetic letter to Henry the day after the arrest, expressing his wonder and distress that one whom he had deemed so good and so faithful, should be accused of treason, but in vain[713]. The fallen minister was not even permitted a trial in which he could be heard in his own defence. That terrible engine of extra-legal destruction, the attainder, by which so many of his own enemies had been annihilated, was used as a swifter and surer means to bring him to the block. The Act of Parliament which attainted him was read in the House of Lords just one week after his arrest[714]: it simply enumerated various acts and speeches which had been laid to his charge, as indicating that he had plotted to make himself more powerful than the King in matters both religious and political, and stated that he had thus incurred the charge of high treason, for which he was condemned to die. He was to suffer as a heretic or a traitor at the King’s pleasure, and forfeit all property held since March 31, 1538. That Cromwell was deprived of all titles and prerogatives on the day of his arrest, and was called only ‘Thomas Cromwell, shearman,’ and that his servants were forbidden to wear his livery, led Marillac to think that he would not be beheaded, as befitted a lord, but would be ‘dragged up as an ignoble person, and afterwards hanged and quartered[715].’ This impression was current two weeks later, for Norfolk told Marillac on July 6, that Cromwell’s end would be ‘the most ignominious in use in the country[716].’ It was not until the day of his execution that ‘grace was made to him upon the method of his death,’ and beheading was substituted for a more painful and ignominious penalty[717]. For though his arrest had been immediately followed by his attainder, execution was delayed for six weeks more, in order that the King might make use of him for a last time, to gain an end which Cromwell had successfully secured for him once before, namely a divorce from a hated Queen.