By Scott Graber
It is Sunday, early, and I am marking time until the 10 o’clock service at St. Mark’s. When the bell rings at 9:50, I’ll take a brisk, three-minute walk to the repurposed, Appleton-built sanctuary.
This morning my mind is on those who decide to make the military a career. I’m also thinking about my Citadel classmates who went to war in 1967, survived their tour of duty, then stuck around for another 20 or 30 years.
It is believed that advancement depends, in large measure, on where a Second Lieutenant lands in the first couple of assignments. In the Army and Marine Corps a rifle platoon is a very good place to land. However, there are those who understand that finding a senior officer on his way up the ladder is as important as surviving incoming fire.
Finding a sponsor who will look after you is not easy because every other young officer is seeking such a person; or a staff position where one will get noticed.
All of which brings me to Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII.
Thomas Cromwell, the son of a blacksmith, hitched himself and his future to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in 1515. In 1534 he transferred his loyalty and his exceptional skills to King Henry VIII first focusing these considerable skills on finding the King a fertile wife who would produce an heir — specifically a boy child.
Recently Masterpiece Theatre did its second series on Cromwell featuring the actor, Mark Rylance. I’m not sure how many saw these episodes — alternatively fascinated and horrified at the betrayal, beheadings, burnings-at-the-stake, disembowelments while-still-alive. All of which were acceptable, entirely permissible variations on “capital punishment.” Cromwell being the enabler for these popular, well-attended executions.
In fact, Cromwell, orchestrated the death — usually burning to death atop a stack of straw and fat-lighter — of hundreds of Catholics who did not buy into the notion that Henry had effectively replaced and retired the Pope; and that Henry was now the head of the Church of England.
The problem with this series is that Rylance comes off as a sympathetic character. Yes, he does a lot of soul searching when remembering his departure from Cardinal Wolsey’s service. But, strangely, I found Rylance an attractive, magnetic personality even though he said very little — his eyes, mouth and his body projecting wisdom, insight and regret at what was to come.
But King Henry was also broke — and worried about Scotland and France — and so Cromwell turned his attention to the relatively wealthy monasteries. Cromwell sent his “visitors” to these places looking for idolatry, bogus relics, sexual deviance and loot — rounding up the monks and confiscating their altar art and their real estate.
This, in a way, reminds one of Elon Musk and his “visitors” who moved on the Department of Education, HHS and USAID closing down programs and firing half of the work force.
Musk was theoretically looking for woke-related sinners but, actually, he was also searching for money—money that would give his boss the ability to balance out a forthcoming tax cut.
Elon had to convince the American people that these places were bloated, entirely inefficient, and staffed by infidels — all of which proved to be a lighter lift than trying to sell Henry VIII as a substitute Pope.
Cromwell’s ship finally ran aground when he tried to talk Henry into a marriage with Anne of Cleves. Still desperate for a son, Henry was shown a portrait done by Hans Holbein that depicted an attractive, but less than beautiful woman. When Henry saw Anne in the flesh he said, “I like her not!”
Incredibly Henry went forward with a marriage ceremony anyway.
But Anne of Cleves proved to be the end of the line for Cromwell; Henry sending him to the Tower and orchestrating a trial that ended with his beheading in 1540 — his head put on a spike at London Bridge.
It is interesting that Masterpiece Theatre softened and humanized one of history’s all-time monsters. But what is equally interesting is Henry’s daughter — the disappointing daughter he conceived with Ann Boleyn — eventually became Queen Elizabeth I.
Among other things, it was Elizabeth who defeated the Spanish Armada. But her great, long-lasting gift (to the British) was a compromise between the Catholics and the Protestants that “established an English Church that helped shape a national identity and remains in place today” (Wikipedia).
Henry’s red-haired daughter — not Cromwell — set the stage for the Empire.
Scott Graber is a lawyer, novelist, veteran columnist and longtime resident of Port Royal. He can be reached at cscottgraber@gmail.com.
