Hm idk if I have a contentious opinion on Cromwell, all mine have probably been said before?
I think he was very adept at adjusting to shifts in power, and even pushing them himself at times.
Don’t agree with the take that he was Henry’s puppet, don’t think Henry ‘forced’ him into ‘finding a way to get rid of Anne’ early as April.
Cromwell was aligning himself with Chapuys and apologizing to him directly “for having promoted the King’s marriage to Anne” in April:
True, it was (he said), that seeing the King so much bent upon it, and so determined, he (Cromwell) had paved the way towards it. Although the King, his master, was still inclined to pay his court to ladles, yet it was generally believed that in future he would lead a more moral life than hitherto—a chaste and marital one with his present Queen. This Cromwell said to me in such a cold indifferent manner that I had a strong suspicion that he meant just the contrary. Indeed, I observed whilst he said so…he leant against the window close to which we were both standing, and put his hand to his mouth to prevent the smile on his lips, or to conceal it altogether from me should it come on;
“Put his hand on his mouth to prevent a smile on his lips” …. doesn’t really strike me as him being pressured by Henry to do something he doesn’t want to do….or like the prospect of Anne being ousted is something he’s really torn up about.
He was aligning himself with the Seymours, and with Mary.
He benefited from the events of May 1536 as well (at least, in the short term):
“The cui bono evidence is also interesting: Cromwell replaced Anne’s father as Lord Privy Seal and obtained a valuable stewardship as a result of George Boleyn’s execution; his servant Sadler received William Brereton’s freehold estate near Greenwich.”
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