As we said earlier, Henry VIII divorced Queen Catherine, married Anne Boleyn, and was decoupled from the Church of Rome, with the king himself serving as the supreme head of the Church of England. Thus, catholics loyal to Rome, disgruntled aristocrats, and melon-eating masses sympathetic to Catherine came together, posing a threat and challenge to Henry VIII's rule. So Cromwell, with the support of Henry VIII, simply did nothing and carried out a thorough transformation of the political structure of the country with a policy of repression and bloodshed.
First, on the ideological front, Cromwell waged the fiercest and dirtiest smear campaign in English history, borrowing material from German Martin Luther, all sorts of disgusting Catholic churches, and destroying the Pope. But this was also detrimental to Henry VIII, and if the Great Pope of Rome was stinked, how would he, the little pope of England, live his life?
However, Cromwell had long accepted the ideas of Protestantism, did not realize Henry VIII's contradictory mentality in time, and once advised Henry VIII to accept evangelical doctrine, which was really stupid, and this matter laid the groundwork for the future loss of the monarch.
Cromwell's second measure was to do things in Parliament.
In March 1534, Cromwell manipulated Parliament to pass the Inheritance Act, declaring Anne's children heirs and requiring MPs and London clergy to take an oath to the Succession Act. And Thomas Mohr, the famous scholar who shook Europe for writing "Utopia", was arrested and thrown into the Tower of London for refusing to take the oath, which shook the whole of Europe.
Cromwell, who faced a great deal of positive and negative resistance, continued to manipulate Parliament and in November 1534 a new treason act stipulating that henceforth any "verbal opposition to the crown, or a call to the king a heretic, tyrant, infidel or usurper, shall be considered treason."
It was also this parliament that passed the famous "Supreme Act", which established the position of the King of England as the supreme leader of the Church of England, and clearly stipulated that the king and his heirs "have absolute power and authority", in a word, the freedom of spirit, thought and belief of the English people was completely deprived.
As soon as the new treason bill was passed, Cromwell immediately went on a killing spree, and in the eight years since, nearly nine hundred people have been accused of treason and more than three hundred have been executed. The Treason Bill sets a bad precedent for trampling on the legitimacy of justice, and any person suspected of treason can bypass due process and be arbitrarily tortured, convicted and executed. Didn't Bacon say, "Crime only pollutes the water, but unfair judgment pollutes the water." ”
What Cromwell did not expect was that his trampling on the judicial process would soon be repaid to him.
It was not easy to seize power from the church and the nobility in a comprehensive way, but what did Cromwell do? He was very clever, and he adopted a one-handed soft-handed and hard-handed strategy.
The soft hand was in the House of Commons, and a lot of persuasion work was done, so that the unpopular laws and regulations were passed as much as possible in the form of legislation in the parliament representing the interests of the gentry, so as to avoid the direct decree of the king, which greatly alleviated the resistance of society.
With the support of the House of Commons, Cromwell demolished the monastery in large numbers, drove out the clergy, snatched up the land and property of the church, legalized it as the king's property through parliament, and sold it to the squire at a low price by the king.
The exchange of interests behind the Supreme Act was that the squire supported the king's robbery of the church and then shared the loot with the king, which was the fundamental reason for the eventual success of the English Reformation.
In the fight against the nobility, Cromwell raised a large number of secretaries and assistants, and sent a large number of important posts, mostly the children of commoners, and after eight years of painstaking management, he put up the shelf of a modern government. From the institutional and structural point of view, this eliminates the possibility of aristocratic participation in politics.
This was what Henry VIII needed most, so it is not surprising that after the fall of Cromwell, his men were instead heavily promoted by Henry VIII and occupied almost all important positions in the government. This British version of the martingale transformation method can be said to be a great success.
After the passage of the Supreme Act, Henry VIII immediately promoted Cromwell to chief minister and chief secretary, in charge of a large number of affairs such as parliament, justice, religion, etc., and only a salary was a lot of money, and he also obtained a lot of land.
In general, marked by the promulgation of the Supreme Act, Henry VIII and Cromwell joined forces to complete the complete transformation of English society, the comprehensive expansion of the royal power, the nobility and the church, the two greatest threats to the royal power, and from then on completely surrendered, which is a very remarkable achievement.