In this deck, we'll explore the dramatic decade of the 1530s, dominated by one of English history's most formidable figures: Thomas Cromwell. We'll see how this blacksmith's son rose to become Henry the Eighth's chief minister, solved the king's 'Great Matter', and fundamentally changed the nature of English government and religion before his own dramatic fall from power.

After the fall of Cardinal Wolsey in 1529, Henry the Eighth was still trapped in his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Thomas Cromwell, a lawyer and Member of Parliament who had previously worked for Wolsey, saw an opportunity. He was intelligent, ruthless, and fiercely loyal. He approached the king with a radical new solution to the marriage problem.

Unlike Wolsey, who had tried to get the Pope's permission for an annulment, Cromwell proposed a much bolder plan. He argued that Henry didn't need the Pope's permission at all. Instead, England should break away from the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, allowing Henry, as king, to be the ultimate authority on all matters in his own kingdom, including his marriage.

To achieve this 'Break with Rome', Cromwell skillfully used Parliament. Over several years, the so-called 'Reformation Parliament' passed a series of laws that dismantled papal power in England piece by piece. The most important of these was the 1534 Act of Supremacy, which officially made the king the head of the Church in England, not the Pope.