The 'botched' execution of Thomas Cromwell. The evidence for what really happened.
On 28 July 1540 there were two executions at this site. One was of the 37 year old Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford of Heytesbury who had been convicted under the Buggery Act 1533 which was quite ironic given that the other person who was to be executed on that day was the person who had steered the Buggery Act through parliament.
Thomas Cromwell was the fixer of Henry VIII. It had had a career which brought him to be the second most important person in the land. He had not only steered the Buggery Act through parliament but also he who had steered the annulment of the king’s marriages to both Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn as well as forced the closure of the monasteries thus gifting the king with their wealth and brought about the reformation so that the Pope was no longer the head the church. That is amongst other things.
Thomas Cromwell lost the favour of the king when he botched the king’s fourth marriage by not finding someone attractive enough and the nobles around the king saw their chance to get rid of him. He was condemned to death by something called an attainder, which passed parliament on 29 June 1540. A bill of attainder is an act of a legislature declaring a person guilty of a crime, and providing for a punishment, usually without a trial.
The 28 July 1540, was the day of the Royal Wedding. King Henry VIII married Catherine Howard. Cromwell was unable to attend the wedding on that day as he was otherwise engaged getting his head chopped off. On the scaffold he said a prayer and speech on the scaffold, professing to die "in the traditional faith", that is to say he remained a Catholic and made a point of denying that he had aided heretics, this was to protect people around him.
He then had his chopped off.
There is more than one video on YouTube claiming that the executioner had difficulty getting his head to come off. Whereas there was no shortage of botched executions, this was not one of them. Cromwell was not a sympathetic character, he has not been remembered in a positive light by history and it is though people want him to suffer. However, and this is something I am always going on about, one needs to look at original sources. It is a pity those that did the other videos did not bother. All references to Cromwell’s head not coming off date to many years after his death, mainly the nineteenth century. I appreciate that a video entitled the horrendous suffering of Thomas Cromwell who was brutally hacked to death by a vicious butcher – in capital letters – might get peoples attention and get a hundred times more views than this one will but it is not history, it is fiction.
Furthermore his head was apparently displayed on London Bridge – if the executioners had spent half an hour hacking away at it then I think it might not have been a suitable object to display in such a position.
That apart, lets have a look at what people at the time said.
Charles de Marillac, the French ambassador, who sent detailed reports to France wrote that Cromwell was spared a worse death (that means he was not hanged, drawn and quartered). The Venetian ambassador said his end was better than he deserved.
Richard Hilles, was a London businessperson who observed a number of executions and reported on them in letters to acquaintances. He knew Cromwell but wrote nothing about his execution being botched.
Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton was in 1540 one of the secretaries to the king and someone who had had the opportunity to know Cromwell well over the previous year or so, said that he was beheaded. Nothing about a botched execution.
Edward Hall was a chronicler, today we might call him a blogger on current events and he wrote The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and Yorke—commonly known as Hall's Chronicle—first published in 1548. So he was a contemporary,born around 1496, making him only 11 years younger than Cromwell and five years younger than the king.
He wrote the following about the death of Thomas Cromwell:
Many lamented but more rejoiced, and specially such as either had been religious men, or favoured religious persons; for they banqueted and triumphed together that night, many wishing that that day had been seven years before; and some fearing lest he should escape, although he were imprisoned, could not be merry. Others who knew nothing but truth by him both lamented him and heartily prayed for him. But this is true that of certain of the clergy he was detestably hated, for in deed he was a man that in all his doings seemed not to favour any kind of Popery, nor could not abide the snoffyng pride of some prelates, which undoubtedly, whatsoever else was the cause of his death, did shorten his life and procured the end that he was brought unto.
Therefore from his words, many people would have been pleased to see the back of him.
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