The English Reformation—­the way to which had been long preparing—­ began in the reign of Henry VIII.; and this unscrupulous and tyrannical monarch, without being a religious man, gave the first great impulse to an outbreak the remote consequences of which he did not anticipate, and with which he had no sympathy.  He rebelled against the authority of the Pope, without abjuring the Roman Catholic religion, either as to dogmas or forms.  In fact, the first great step towards reform was made, not by Cranmer, but by Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, as the prime minister of Henry VIII.,—­a man of whom we really know the least of all the very great statesmen of English history.  It was he who demolished the monasteries, and made war on the whole monastic system, and undermined the papal power in England, and swept away many of the most glaring of those abuses which disgraced the Papal Empire.  Armed with the powers which Wolsey had wielded, he directed them into a totally different channel; so far as the religious welfare of the nation is considered, although in his principles of government he was as absolute as Richelieu.  Like the great French statesman, he exalted the throne; but, unlike him, he promoted the personal reign of the sovereign he served with remarkable ability and devotion.

Thomas Cromwell, the prime minister of Henry VIII., after the fall of Wolsey, was born in humble ranks, and was in early life a common soldier in the wars of Italy, then a clerk in a mercantile house in Antwerp, then a wool merchant in Middleborough, then a member of Parliament, and was employed by Wolsey in suppressing some of the smaller monasteries.  His fidelity to his patron Wolsey, at the time of that great cardinal’s fall, attracted the special notice of the King, who made him royal secretary in the House of Commons.  He made his fortune by advising Henry to declare himself Head of the English Church, when he was entangled in the difficulties growing out of the divorce of Catharine.  This advice was given with the patriotic view of making the royal authority superior to that of the Pope in Church patronage, and of making England independent of Rome.

The great scandal of the times was the immoral lives of the clergy, especially of the monks, and the immunities they enjoyed.  They were a hindrance to the royal authority, and weakened the resources of the country by the excessive drain of gold and silver sent to Rome to replenish the papal treasury.  Cromwell would make the clergy dependent on the King and not on the Pope for their investitures and promotions; and he abominated the idle and vagabond lives of the monks, who had degenerated in England, perhaps more than in any other country in Europe, in consequence of the great wealth of their monasteries.  He was able to render his master and the kingdom a great service, from the powers lavished upon him.  He presided at convocations as the King’s vicegerent; controlled the House of Commons, and was inquisitor-general