He was an
impartial and respected justice.
When Wolsey was not able to convince the pope to give Henry an
annulment of his marriage, Henry dismissed him and took his
property, shortly after which Wolsey died.
The King replaced Wolsey as Chancellor with Thomas More, after
whom he made Thomas Cromwell Chancellor. Cromwell, the son of a
clothworker/blacksmith/brewer/innkeeper, was a self-taught
attorney, arbitrator, merchant, and accountant. Like Wolsey, he
was a natural orator. He drafted and had passed legislation that
created a new church of England. He had all men swear an oath to
the terms of the succession statute. Thomas More was known for his
honesty and was a highly respected man. More did not yield to
Henry's bullying for support for his statute declaring the
succession to be vested in the children of his second marriage,
and his statute declaring himself the supreme head of the church
of England, instead of the pope. He did not expressly deny this
supremacy statute, so was not guilty of treason under its terms.
But silence did not save him. He was attainted for treason on
specious grounds and beheaded. His conviction rested on the
testimony of one perjured witness, who misquoted More as saying
that Parliament did not have the power to require assent to the
supremacy statute because it was repugnant to the common law of
Christendom.
Henry ruled with an iron fist.
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