House of Commons. Cromwell was a member of that parliament, as he had been of that of 1523. He sat for Taunton, by whose influence nominated we cannot tell. The bill, in Brewer's opinion, was not a bill of attainder, for Wolsey had been already condemned of a præmunire in the king's bench, and if further proceedings had been intended by the king, they would not have been dropped. But it wore an ugly enough aspect, and Cromwell distinguished himself by pleading Wolsey's cause in the lower house, taking continual counsel with him as to the answer to be made to each separate charge, till at length the proceedings were dropped on his showing a writing signed by the cardinal confessing a number of misdemeanors, and another, sealed with his seal, giving up his property to the king (Cavendish, i. 208–9; Hall, Chronicle, ed. 1809, pp. 767–8).
Wolsey's gratitude was effusive. ‘Mine only aider,’ he calls him, ‘in this mine intolerable anxiety;’ and there is a whole series of letters addressed to him at this period beginning with expressions no less fervent (Calendar, vol. iv. Nos. 6098, 6181, 6203–4, 6226, 6249, &c.). Yet some months later, when this particular crisis was passed, and Wolsey, deprived of his fattest benefices, was sent to live in the north simply as archbishop of York, leaving Cromwell to protect his interests at court, it does not seem that his confidence in him was altogether unbounded; and though he disclaimed any suspicion of his integrity when Cromwell charged him with mistrusting him, he confessed that it had been reported to him Cromwell ‘had not done him so good offices as he might concerning his colleges and his archbishopric.’ He, however, was faithful to him in the parliamentary crisis, and it was by his efforts ultimately that Wolsey obtained his pardon (ib. No. 6212). His conduct had such a look of honesty and fidelity about it, that it raised him in public estimation, and won favour for him at court, so that Stephen Vaughan's anxiety about his fortunes was soon set at rest. ‘You now sail in a sure haven,’ wrote Vaughan to him from Bergen-op-Zoom on 3 Feb. 1530, and he hopes it is true, as reported, that Cromwell was to go abroad in the retinue of Anne Boleyn's father, then Earl of Wiltshire and ambassador to the emperor.
Whether this was really contemplated at court it would be rash to say, but that it was even talked about shows the marvellous progress made by Cromwell out of danger and difficulty into the sunshine of court favour within a very few weeks. From this time, in fact, his rise was steady and continuous. The preparation for it had been well laid beforehand. Not merely his legal attainments and his commercial success, but his knowledge of men acquired in foreign countries, his fascinating manners, his sumptuous tastes and his interest in the pursuits of every man that was thrown into his company, had already fitted him for a career of greatness. Among even his early correspondents were men more distinguished afterwards. Miles Coverdale, not yet known as a reformer, writes to him from Cambridge (ib. vol. iv. No. 3388; see also v. 221). Edmund Bonner, equally unknown in the world, reminds him of a promise to lend him the ‘Triumphs of Petrarch’ to help him to learn Italian (ib. No. 6346). Among his servants were Ralph Sadler, afterwards noted in Scotch embassies, and Stephen Vaughan above mentioned, who was frequently afterwards his political, as at this time his commercial, agent in the Netherlands; and the things which Vaughan procures for him thence are not a little curious. An iron chest of very special make, difficult to get, and so expensive that Vaughan at first shrank from the purchase, two ‘Cronica Cronicarum cum figuris,’ the only ones he could find in all Antwerp, and those very dear, and a globe, with a book of reference to the contents (ib. Nos. 4613, 4884, 5034, 6429, 6744), are among the number.
Notwithstanding a reference, already quoted from an early correspondent, to his ‘ghostly walking,’ and the fact that he received letters from Coverdale speaking of his ‘fervent zeal for virtue and godly study’ (ib. vol. vi. No. 221), it is pretty certain that no religious change had yet come over him, and it may be doubted whether that change, when it did come, was not merely a change in externals, in conformity with the political requirements of a new era. In his will he makes the usual bequests for masses. In his letters he hopes Lutheran opinions will be suppressed and wishes Luther had never been born (ib. No. 6391). Yet it was apparently at this very time, just after Cardinal Wolsey's fall, that he found means of access to the king's presence and suggested to him that policy of making himself head of the church of England which would enable him to have his own way in the matter of the divorce and give him other advantages as well. So at least we must suppose from the testimony of Cardinal Pole, writing nine or ten years later. Henry, he tells us, seeing that even Wolsey (who was supposed, though untruly, to have first instigated the divorce) could no longer advance the project, was heard to declare with a sigh that he could prosecute it no longer; and those about him rejoiced
