1535

1535 is a year of intensifying political and religious conflict in which the struggle over royal authority becomes inseparable from the treatment of dissenters. As Henry VIII’s government asserts its power over the English Church and the succession, Thomas Cromwell helps translate contested claims into parliamentary and legal action; the resulting trials and executions expose the human consequences of that process.

Royal Authority and the Limits of Parliament

At the turn of the year, Cromwell presents Henry with propositions from Marsiglio of Padua. Their argument places priests under secular government, denies the Pope authority to confer kingship, and locates a king’s legitimacy in the will of the people expressed through Parliament. The prince, in this account, governs civic life, including marriage and legitimacy, while Parliament may regulate the maintenance of clergy and direct church wealth toward public purposes. Henry responds by wondering whether shrines can be broken. Cromwell later reflects that it was the king who first proposed this more direct assault on religious wealth.

The exchange exposes a fault line that will govern the year: Parliament may legislate in temporal affairs, but the extent of its authority over spiritual jurisdiction remains disputed. During Thomas More’s imprisonment, Richard Riche recounts a conversation in which More distinguishes the two. Parliament could make Riche king, More argues, but it could not make God cease to be God; similarly, naming Henry head of the Church could not settle a matter More regarded as belonging to a jurisdiction beyond the realm. Cromwell recognizes the political danger in this distinction: if Parliament lacks authority to define the Church’s leadership, the king’s title is threatened. Yet More has not plainly stated that conclusion, leaving the government to determine whether his words can be made to constitute treason.

More’s Refusal and the Work of Evidence

More maintains that he is speaking neither against the statute nor in support of those who refuse the oath. He describes himself as alone and silent, but that silence does not protect him from suspicion. Cromwell visits him in the Tower and warns that the king’s patience is shortening. More answers that he wants to return home and remain the king’s loving subject, not to become a martyr. He also insists that he will not risk his soul by affirming what he cannot accept.

The government’s case changes when Riche reports that More has discussed Parliament’s authority with him. More challenged Riche’s hypothetical examples, distinguishing temporal legislation from spiritual jurisdiction. Cromwell presses Riche to stand by his recollection in court; Riche has written it down, but no independent witness is established. The exchange gives the prosecution a possible route from More’s guarded speech to an accusation of denying the king’s title, while leaving a central uncertainty: whether the conversation proves deliberate denial or remains, as More might claim, a discussion of hypothetical cases.

At More’s trial, he denies having spoken the words as Riche alleges, or says that if he did, he spoke without malice. The jury, however, takes his sudden response to Riche as significant. More attacks Riche’s reputation, but Norfolk redirects attention to the question of whether the words were spoken. The episode makes the trial hinge not only on the statute but on the interpretation of speech, credibility, and silence.

Executions and Public Witness

The refusal of four monks from the London Charterhouse to swear the oath leads to their trial. Cromwell has visited the Charterhouse and Syon, tried persuasion and threats, and enlisted clergy to argue the king’s case. The monks remain unwilling to comply. The law subjects them to the traitor’s punishment, and the court sends representatives to witness their deaths. Henry does not attend, concerned that his presence might provoke support for Katherine; young Richmond is sent in his place. Afterward, Norfolk tells Cromwell that one monk appeared to speak after his heart had been removed. Cromwell denies that this was possible, speaking from experience, and lets Norfolk draw his own conclusion.

The executions form the immediate background to More’s prosecution: men who refused the oath have died, while More insists that he is not their example and says nothing against the act or its supporters. The difference does not remove him from danger. His refusal to give the government a clear answer, and the disputed meaning of what he has said, become part of the case against him.

More is executed in July. Five days after his trial, Cromwell walks in the garden with Rafe Sadler and Richard Williams, and the three revisit what they witnessed: More’s composure, his exchange with Riche, and the judges’ reactions. Later, Cromwell recalls More at the scaffold, wearing a grey cape, speaking to the headsman, and kneeling to pray. The execution does not settle the argument over conscience; it leaves Cromwell with the image of the dead and with a sense that the past continues to press upon the living.

Memory, Violence, and the Year’s Meaning

The year’s episodes connect public punishment with the struggle to control how events are remembered. Cromwell recalls seeing an elderly woman burned for her religious beliefs when he was young. The execution had been treated by the crowd as a spectacle, and the memory returns alongside the deaths of the monks and More. These scenes make state power visible through punishment, but they also show how witnesses carry those acts forward as memory rather than leaving them behind as completed proceedings.

Cromwell’s later reflection on More’s execution turns explicitly to the afterlife of historical accounts. He recalls that More had spread a report that Thomas Bilney recanted as the fire was being lit, and regards this as an attempt to shape the meaning of Bilney’s death as well as his life. For Cromwell, the living do not merely inherit the dead; they edit their writings and rewrite their stories. That concern gives 1535 its larger significance: the year is not only a crisis of jurisdiction and succession, but a contest over who can make law, demand an oath, impose death, and determine what the dead will be said to have believed.