Thomas Cromwell (1485 – July 28, 1540) was the principle adviser to King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540. He played a major role in establishing the Protestant faith in England during the Reformation and managed the dissolution of the monasteries. His enemies arrested him for heresy and treason and he was executed in 1540. Oliver Cromwell is a distant relative.
When Henry failed to convince to pope to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Cromwell proposed ending papal authority over the English church and replacing it with royal supremacy. To achieve these purposes, Cromwell supervised the drafting of the Act in Restraint of Appeals (1533), to prevent appeals to the pope, and the Act of Supremacy (1534), to establish the king as the head of the Church of England.
External links
- Thomas Cromwell at the Encyclopædia Britannica.
- Thomas Cromwell at The Oxford Companion to British History
- Thomas Cromwell at Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World