Cromwell had now caught the King’s eye, and he used his legal knowledge and acquired Court experience to climb the ladder, lately so nearly overturned. The King wished much to divorce Katherine of Aragon, and to marry Anne Boleyn, but the Pope stood in the way. Cromwell, the lawyer, suggested that as no legal obstacles stood in the way of the King, who can do no wrong, the simplest way of disposing of the religious difficulties was to deny the supremacy of the Pope in England and to proclaim himself head of the Church in his own land. Henry VIII followed this advice, threw the Pope overboard, divorced Katherine of Aragon, and married Anne Boleyn. Naturally these great personal services went not unrewarded, first in his appointment as a Privy Councillor, and next as Keeper of the Jewel House, on April 14th, 1532. The latter was one of the substantial benefits which in pay and perquisites made a man rich in those days. His growing wealth and importance clearly pointed to the enlargement of his house and property at Austin Friars. It is curious to learn that what is thought a modern invention, the moving of a whole house on rollers, was employed by Cromwell nearly four centuries ago. A house belonging to a Mr. Stow was deemed to be inconveniently close to the Cromwellian mansion, so it was with or without consent jacked up on to rollers and bodily moved away to a less objectionable propinquity. His part in securing the divorce of Katherine of Aragon and the succession of Anne Boleyn brought him still further quick and plenteous rewards. In rapid succession he became Lord Chancellor, the King’s Secretary, Master of Rolls, and lastly Vicar-General, so that he might be in a position to enforce the supremacy of his King over the Church. Sir Thomas More, late Chancellor, and Bishop Fisher, fell beneath the axe on Cromwell’s prosecution, their crime being a refusal to acknowledge the King’s spiritual supremacy. A little later we find Cromwell one of those who on the fatal May 2nd, 1536, escorted the Queen he had helped to make, the hapless Anne Boleyn, to the Tower. And only a few days later we see him seated a witness at her execution. In his portfolio was later found that most pathetic and well-known letter addressed by Anne Boleyn to the King[16] praying for mercy, which letter was never passed on to the King. For four more years the sun shone on the erstwhile solicitor and shearer, and he became first a Knight of the Garter, then a Baron and Lord Great Chamberlain, and finally Earl of Essex. Great riches and territory too came to him from the suppression of the greater monasteries and the confiscation of their property. But in 1540 the sun set on this phenomenal career, for on June 10th of that year, accused of high treason by the Duke of Norfolk, attainted by Parliament, he passed silently to that same block on Tower Hill to which he had assigned so many.