The Tudor Traitor Who Killed Anne Boleyn

Forget celebrities running around the Highlands... come back to the 16th century Tudor court when being a traitor meant literally losing your head. Joining Kate today is Tudor historian and author Nicola Tallis, to expose the ultimate Tudor traitor: Thomas Cromwell. Why did he work so hard to make Anne Boleyn queen only to orchestrate the plot to kill her? How involved was Henry VIII, really? And what happened that meant Cromwell was eventually betrayed? This podcast was edited by Tim Arstall. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Subscribe to the new Betwixt The Sheets YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@BetwixtTheSheetsPodcast Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener surveyhere https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. All music from Epidemic Sounds. Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™ Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! UK & Ireland listeners please place your vote on the Spotify mobile app here: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kate Lister?

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• 0:37Speaker 01

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of the best one yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithgemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithgemini.

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• 2:55Kate Lister?

  Hello, my lovely Betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. Welcome back once again to Betwixt the Sheets, the podcast where we root about in the pants of history for your own entertainment. But before we can go any further together, I do have to tell you, I think you know what's coming. This is an adult podcast, spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things and adulty way of covering a range of adult subjects. And you should be an adult too. And we do that so everybody feels safe and not triggered going forward, right? Okay, let's crack on with it.

• 3:25Kate Lister?

  Welcome to the ultimate game of the traitors with the Tudors. There are secret alliances, whispered accusations, and plenty of backstabbing. Forget the wonderful Scottish Highlands, though, and forget Claudia's gorgeous knitwear. Ruling the round table here is none other than Henry VIII. And being banished means a one-way trip to the Tower of London, where the traitor would literally lose their head. But who were the real faithfuls? And who were the real traitors of the time? Anne Boleyn certainly had a thing or two to say about that, didn't she?

• 4:23Kate Lister?

  Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. The traitor's finale has just happened, although not at the time of recording. So what better time to uncloak the ultimate traitors of the past? Royal courts have always been a place where the resolve of the faithfuls has been tested, and perhaps none more so than at the Court of Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn thought that she had a faithful in Thomas Cromwell. They helped each other rise through the court, after all. But Cromwell clearly had other ideas. Joining me today to pick between the Tudor traitors and the Tudor faithfuls is the wonderful historian and author Nicola Tallis.

• 5:05Kate Lister?

  And before we get started, I wanted to give a special shout out to one of our listeners who met the intrepid Dan Snow in a coffee shop in Hoboken, New Jersey recently. So a very big hello and lots of Betwixt love to Zoe and her mum. Thank you so much for being an amazing fan of the show. Right, shall we crack on with this? I think we shall.

• 5:32Kate Lister?

  Well, hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Nicola Tallis, the traitor Nicola Tallis. How are you doing?

• 5:41Speaker 04

  Hi, Kay. It's so nice to see you and to be wearing these fabulous capes.

• 5:46Kate Lister?

  I know, a bit of a hint of what we're talking about. Traitor, like actual, proper, proper trattery stuff. Not like running around in the woods and doing games with celebrities. Proper Tudor traitors.

• 5:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, proper danger, like could lose your heads, did lose your heads traitors.

• 6:03Kate Lister?

  Well, what I'm hoping today is that you can answer a question for me that has been burning away for ages. And I've never quite got an answer to it that go, yeah, that makes sense. Ultimately, why did Henry VIII divorce Anne Boleyn? Which I know is a big question, and I know what the headline is, is like, oh, she couldn't have any more children, but it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. Like, he was pursuing her for like seven years? And then, and then they were married for two? And then he's, then he's got bored of it. I've always thought there has to be something going on behind the scenes. Someone going on behind the scenes. Enter Cromwell.

• 6:39Speaker 04

  I know, yeah.

• 6:40Kate Lister?

  Ba-ba-bum.

• 6:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. You have hit the nail on the head. Like, he was the ultimate traitor. And he was, in my opinion, but I say this with good evidence, I think, he was the man who engineered Anne Boleyn's downfall.

• 6:58Kate Lister?

  See, now this makes more sense to me. I don't know how he's done it yet, but I never quite bought the argument that, oh, she couldn't have boys.

• 7:06Speaker 04

  No.

• 7:07Kate Lister?

  That just was like, she was still within fertile years. They'd only been married for a couple of years. This man had like ripped apart the religion, the church, the nation to marry her. And then within like 24 months, he's just gone, nah, nah, you all right? I'll try somebody else. What the fuck happened there?

• 7:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know, you're so right. Like, you would not go through all of that trouble to try and marry someone, only to then just be like, nah, not, not interested anymore. It's definitely not as straightforward as that.

• 7:39Kate Lister?

  All right.

• 7:39Speaker 04

  There is a plot to remove Anne, and it comes from Thomas Cromwell. And he, I mean, he even admits later on.

• 7:51Kate Lister?

  Does he?

• 7:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He says to Eustace Chapuis, who is the Imperial Ambassador, who absolutely hates Anne Boleyn, he actually says that he orchestrated and performed the whole thing.

• 8:03Kate Lister?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 8:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it's the ultimate confession.

• 8:07Kate Lister?

  OMG.

• 8:08Speaker 04

  But what is important to say, I think, is that Henry actually believed what Cromwell was telling him. He actually believed this plot, I think.

• 8:18Kate Lister?

  See, now that's an interesting take. We'll get to that one. All right, so let's start with a sort of a basic question. We know who Anne Boleyn is. We've spoken about her many times on the show. Anyone who's watched or read Wolf Hall will have a good idea of who Cromwell was. Who is he?

• 8:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, will they? Because.

• 8:35Kate Lister?

  Or will they? Yes.

• 8:36Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, I mean, if you see Wolf Hall, you will get quite a sympathetic version of Thomas Cromwell. You'll come away thinking, oh, what a nice guy Mark Ryliss is. I did. I do, I think, oh, he's lovely.

• 8:51Kate Lister?

  He's quite likeable. Like, it's, it's amazing how fast, when you're watching or reading this stuff, like, you can just shelve the atrocities that people do. I was doing that in Game of Thrones. I was like, oh, it's such a shame, Jamie and Cersei didn't get together, being brother and sister, and having murdered thousands of people.

• 9:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, see, like Cromwell's, Cromwell's one of those people who has been.

• 9:14Speaker 04

  Painted in a more sympathetic light as a result of wolffall and there's been a lot of work done to try and rehabilitate him, but.

• 9:24Kate Lister?

  Maybe he doesn't need rehabilitating.

• 9:26Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, I'm not Cromwell's greatest fan, I'll be honest. I think he is, he's the son of a blacksmith from Putney.

• 9:35Kate Lister?

  Working class lad made good. We have to give him that.

• 9:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But, you know, his origins are very humble. He spends a little bit of time abroad. At one point, he's even found begging on the streets of Florence.

• 9:50Kate Lister?

  Oh, wow.

• 9:51Speaker 04

  I know. So when you think about what comes later, it's pretty astonishing, really.

• 9:56Kate Lister?

  Yeah, that is.

• 9:57Speaker 04

  He kind of comes from nothing. And he ends up coming back to England. He is in the entourage of Henry VIII's right-hand man, Thomas Wolsey. And, you know, it doesn't end well for Wolsey there. But Cromwell, rather than falling with Wolsey, he basically makes himself indispensable. He's really very clever and he recognizes that Henry is in this situation where he's trying to rid himself of Catherine of Aragon, wants to marry Anne, and Cromwell sees himself as the man for the job, really.

• 10:37Kate Lister?

  Interesting. He's trained as a lawyer, is that right? He is a lawyer?

• 10:41Speaker 04

  He is a lawyer, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 10:43Kate Lister?

  Very smart.

• 10:44Speaker 04

  Very, very smart, can speak several languages, knows his stuff when it comes to the law, for sure.

• 10:51Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 10:52Speaker 04

  And it is that that makes him attractive to Henry and Anne, actually.

• 10:57Kate Lister?

  Because they were, they were mates in the beginning, is that right? Anne and Thomas, besties hanging out?

• 11:04Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, definitely, he is seen as being her man. He is the one that, if you want something done, you go to Cromwell.

• 11:13Kate Lister?

  What kind of stuff are you talking about? Like, if you want something done? I'm just trying to get a picture of like, how he's ingratiated, because he's come so far, how has he ingratiated himself into the lives of Henry and Anne?

• 11:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, again, he kind of presents himself as the man who has got the solution to this problem of their marriage.

• 11:32Kate Lister?

  He's a fixer.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  And, yeah, he is a fixer. He recognizes that Wolsey has failed the king, or been seen to fail the king. Like, he hasn't been able to procure that annulment from the Pope for Henry and Catherine's marriage. And it's really Cromwell who's instrumental in saying to Henry and Anne, okay, well, I've got a different idea. Why don't we try this? Why don't we look at separating England from the authority of the Pope in Rome? Why don't we set up a Church of England with you, Henry VIII, as his head? I mean, this is Cromwell's brainchild, really.

• 12:15Kate Lister?

  It's a hell of an idea, isn't it?

• 12:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, it really is.

• 12:18Kate Lister?

  I think sometimes, like, we don't grasp them, it's easy not to grasp the magnitude of it in our, our lives in 2026, of what that actually meant. That, I mean, because this isn't, this isn't just, like, political associations or geographical alliances, this is people's faiths.

• 12:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:36Kate Lister?

  The absolute bedrock of their life, their existence. And he is now going to say, oh, we don't do that anymore. I am now the head of the religion.

• 12:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. And a lot of people think that Henry's separation from the Roman Catholic Church is him saying, okay, well, I'm not going to be a Catholic anymore. It's not that. Henry is a Catholic. He always, he remains a Catholic to the end of his life. He basically just doesn't want to be a Catholic who has to answer to the Pope. So he separates himself from the Pope's authority. That's it. But, yeah.

• 13:13Kate Lister?

  It's like Brexit, isn't it? It's what this is. It's like, well, we're still in Europe, but we're not under, we don't have to do what Europe tells us to do unless we want them to tell us to do something, and then we might.

• 13:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. And it is monumental, because you're absolutely right. People in England, in Europe, are looking at this and thinking, okay, wow, we haven't seen this before, like, what the hell's going on? It's totally unprecedented. But it's Cromwell who's the man who's there saying, we can make this happen, we can do this.

• 13:43Kate Lister?

  Does he come out with that idea early doors, or does he build up to it?

• 13:46Speaker 04

  No, it's sort of, it's pretty early doors, because he's seen that what has come before in terms of Henry trying to work with the Pope, hasn't worked.

• 13:55Kate Lister?

  And he really does try.

• 13:56Speaker 04

  He really does try.

• 13:57Kate Lister?

  He comes up with Bible nonsense. He, what else does he come up with? He says that, that, no, I accidentally married her and, and she was married to my brother's wife, and that's terrible.

• 14:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the big one, is, he, he says that, well, yeah, I, I've married my brother's widow, and anyone who does that, it says that they'll be childless. Of course, Henry is not childless.

• 14:21Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 14:22Speaker 04

  He does have a daughter, but that doesn't count in his eyes. He is so set on this idea of having a son. Anne is the one who he believes can provide him with that son.

• 14:32Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 14:33Speaker 04

  And I think he's just become so sort of set on this course of, of wanting to marry Anne and needing to find a way to make that happen. And Wolsey had never, ever been able to achieve that. And I think that Cromwell really sees this opportunity to put himself above anybody else in the King's graces, and.

• 14:57Kate Lister?

  Is he a religious reformer as well? Or is, yeah, so he is, this isn't just like a means to an end?

• 15:03Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no, no. So he, Cromwell isn't a Catholic. He has got far more kind of extreme views, although he doesn't necessarily, you know, Henry is very traditionalist. So it's not safe for Cromwell necessarily to showcase all of those views, but he does have very different opinions.

• 15:25Kate Lister?

  Okay, what are his opinions?

• 15:27Speaker 04

  They're more, they're much more Lutheran.

• 15:29Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 15:30Speaker 04

  You know, yeah, they're much more Lutheran.

• 15:32Kate Lister?

  Which is sort of sweeping across Europe at this time, of, of loads of different people challenging, challenging the Catholic Church on numerous points, right?

• 15:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. And Cromwell has been in Europe. He has been exposed to, yeah, he's been exposed to some of these ideas firsthand.

• 15:49Kate Lister?

  They didn't like, well, they didn't like the Pope, they didn't like the idea that there is this guy kind of intermediating between you and God, they thought that was a shit idea. They didn't like, they were called papal indulgences, the idea that you can buy forgiveness from the Church, just bang them a few quid and they'll, they'll let you off, whatever sin you'd done. They hated that one. They didn't like relics, they thought that it was, that all of the Catholics were debauched and that there was, and that they were sinning all of the time.

• 16:14Speaker 04

  Latin Mass, yeah, all of those sorts of things. Yeah, exactly. So Cromwell falls into the camps that are much more focused on the idea of being able to read and interpret the Bible yourself, without having someone to do it for you.

• 16:30Kate Lister?

  Okay. See, that sounds quite sensible to me. I imagine that I would have been in that camp.

• 16:33Speaker 04

  I think I would as well, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:36Kate Lister?

  However, that we probably ended up on a bonfire. Right, so in he comes and he's got these ideas. That's an interesting sell to Henry, though.

• 16:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, about setting himself up.

• 16:48Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 16:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, but for Henry, I think, well, I think in some respects, Henry at this point is all out of other options. He's.

• 16:59Kate Lister?

  I really want to shag Anne Boleyn.

• 17:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, because like, like you say, he's, he's been chasing after her for seven years now at this point. Like, he's been very, very patient by Henry's standards. And he is desperate shagger. And he needs to find a way to be able to make that happen. She is holding out for marriage. I mean, what else is he going to do? The Pope is not going to play ball. And suddenly, he's got this guy who, you know, has come from Wolsey's entourage, who's like, hang on, have you thought about this? And actually, if you did this, you could potentially make yourself rich at the same time, because,

• 17:42Speaker 04

  you know, the Church is very, very wealthy as well. We see under Cromwell's auspices that the monasteries in England begin to be dissolved, and Cromwell is there going, okay, but Your Majesty, all of this money from the Church, we can put into your pocket. I mean, for Henry, this really solves a multitude of problems.

• 18:06Kate Lister?

  It does, doesn't it?

• 18:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, he can marry Anne, big tick, big win. And he's also been spending a hell of a lot of money since he became king. So this is a way of just providing him with a bit of extra cash as well.

• 18:20Kate Lister?

  I'm not a Henry expert, but it seems to me that this is a man who doesn't like to be told no. And when he's told no, he will move heaven and earth to get exactly what he wants.

• 18:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:28Kate Lister?

  And it's more that, like, the point is that he's not, he's going to get what he wants, rather than the actual thing that he wants to resolve. That sort of feels a little bit like that. Like, they've got the Anne Boleyn thing, and like, you know, we're going to overturn the Church, and he did it to get out of his marriage, and he's just got that about him.

• 18:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I think he'd sort of come too far down that path to turn back.

• 18:50Kate Lister?

  Sunk-caste jealousy.

• 18:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's not going to go back to Catherine at this point, is he?

• 18:54Kate Lister?

  No, he's definitely not.

• 18:55Speaker 04

  So, you know, that's.

• 18:56Kate Lister?

  But Cromwell and Anne, what kind of friendship have they got, sort of, early doors? Because I can see, because he was friends with the King as well, and we'll get on to that. But what is this relationship he has with Anne?

• 19:07Speaker 04

  Well, they work together very, very well, because in Cromwell, Anne sees a means of achieving her ultimate goal, of becoming queen. She sees that he is a man who is very clever, who knows his stuff when it comes to the law. And they also have similar kind of outlooks on religion.

• 19:27Kate Lister?

  Is she a religious reformer, too?

• 19:29Speaker 04

  Well, again, she's, she's not as, she's not as extreme as he is. She's more interested in reforming the Church, in terms of removing the corrupt, the corrupt kind of, yeah.

• 19:46Kate Lister?

  And to be fair to them, it seems like there was quite a bit of corruption going on.

• 19:49Speaker 04

  There was so much corruption, yeah, absolutely. So Anne is very against all of that. Eventually, their different views about the dissolution of the monasteries, for example, will send them in opposite directions. But for now, they're kind of very useful allies for one another, because Cromwell, again, recognizes Henry is not going to give up on this path to making Anne queen. And so he needs her as much as she needs him.

• 20:17Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 20:21Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Nicola after this short break.

• 20:31Kate Lister?

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• 21:51Speaker 01

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• 24:16Kate Lister?

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• 24:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:33Kate Lister?

  When do things start to change?

• 24:35Speaker 04

  Well, it's quite a while, to be fair. I mean, Henry and Anne, they do eventually get married. That all starts quite well. And Cromwell, he is always very, very involved in Anne's life when she becomes queen. I mean, to the extent where when Anne gives birth to Elizabeth and the king and queen, they're off on their warfall progress in the summer of 1535, and it's Cromwell who is being spoken to about advice as to when to wean Elizabeth, baby Elizabeth.

• 25:14Kate Lister?

  Oh, wow, that is close.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, so he's very, very involved in her life. He knows everything that's going on about her. But we also begin to see these cracks showing in their relationship, and I mentioned, they have different opinions about the dissolution of the monasteries.

• 25:30Kate Lister?

  Because that's a big move that he's made there. I mean, like, you know, again, we can say it very easily, oh, they dissolved the monasteries, but that actually means that the monasteries up and down the country would just basically, the inhabitants were turned out, that they took, is looting, basically.

• 25:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:46Kate Lister?

  And like the, because these were, yeah, there were monasteries and there was probably a lot of corruption, but these were also social hubs where people went to get better, to seek medicine, to get advice, to get food, and then suddenly, that's all gone.

• 25:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're an integral part of communities, and suddenly, the idea is just to uproot all of them. You know, people, this is centuries of tradition.

• 26:07Kate Lister?

  And people were angry, furious.

• 26:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And as you say, it forces the monks and nuns that are living in these places into poverty. It's a hugely monumental shift in the way that society has been run. And Cromwell wants to dissolve all of these monasteries and give all of the money to the king.

• 26:31Kate Lister?

  Well, that's, look at the way that that worked out, how useful.

• 26:34Speaker 04

  Well, yeah. Whereas Anne, again, she wants to root out all of this corruption, but she wants to see the money from these monasteries being plowed back into charity, for education, so she wants to do good.

• 26:50Kate Lister?

  See, I am two-man on that one.

• 26:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:52Kate Lister?

  If you're gonna do it, if you're gonna, like, it's such a bad choice, it's just, well, we're just gonna keep that then.

• 26:58Speaker 04

  I know, and I mean, whatever you say about Anne Boleyn, in that sense, she was pretty good, I think.

• 27:04Kate Lister?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 27:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, so we begin to see Cromwell and Anne going on this kind of different path. And also, Anne, she really favors having an alliance between England and France. Cromwell prefers the idea of an imperial alliance, so he begins to sort of see that his interests are lying in a very different way to Anne's. And they do also begin to bicker over their differences of opinion here, so Anne makes no secret of the fact that she would quite like his head.

• 27:41Kate Lister?

  See, that's more than bickering there, though, Nicola. What's happened there to say that I want his head? That's, that's a hell of a move from, maybe we shouldn't dissolve the monasteries, to, I want his head.

• 27:55Speaker 04

  I think this is a classic case of Anne sees that Cromwell has got way too powerful. You know, he has risen from, let's not forget, very, very humble origins, you know, this blacksmith's son. He is made master of the jewels by Henry VIII.

• 28:15Kate Lister?

  He's racking up titles, isn't he?

• 28:17Speaker 04

  He really is. He is Henry's chief advisor, he's Henry's right-hand man, and I think there's a bit of jealousy going on here as well.

• 28:26Kate Lister?

  The most powerful man in the kingdom, would you say, apart from the king?

• 28:28Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah, he definitely is. If you want something, you write to Cromwell and ask him to ask the king. You know, he is very much seen as this can-do man.

• 28:40Kate Lister?

  Did Henry like him? Are they friends, or is this like a useful business associate that he's got?

• 28:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's a good question. I think he does like Cromwell. I think we tend to think of them as this kind of working partnership, but I think that he does like Cromwell to some extent as well. I mean, Henry does have other friends. He's hanging out with his, you know, all his friends, and to be fair, Cromwell is a workaholic. He is constantly working around the clock. It must be a very stressful job for him, like constantly trying to keep this whole reign of the king in check and have eyes and ears everywhere, which is exactly what Cromwell's doing.

• 29:22Kate Lister?

  I wonder if Henry knew that Anne and Cromwell had fallen out?

• 29:25Speaker 04

  I think Anne makes no secret of the fact.

• 29:28Kate Lister?

  Oh, I see.

• 29:29Speaker 04

  And it becomes very, very clear in, at the very beginning of April 1536, when Anne has her chaplain preach this sermon about corrupt and evil advisors.

• 29:42Kate Lister?

  Oh, she's going all in now.

• 29:44Speaker 04

  She is going all in. By now, she wants Cromwell gone.

• 29:49Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 29:50Speaker 04

  They have well and truly fallen out. She really sort of objects to his religious policies. She doesn't like his influence with the king, and yeah, she makes this not-so-subtle dig at him in the form of this sermon, which doesn't go down well at all.

• 30:08Kate Lister?

  It doesn't sound like a big deal, she got someone to preach a sermon, but that is a big deal, right?

• 30:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it left none in any doubt as to the fact that Anne and Cromwell are no longer friends.

• 30:19Kate Lister?

  And Cromwell wasn't a popular person with the masses, was he?

• 30:23Speaker 04

  No, no, he's not popular at all, with anyone, really.

• 30:26Kate Lister?

  No one likes him, apart from Henry, possibly.

• 30:28Speaker 04

  No, no, exactly, yeah. And, and, you know, Henry just sees him again as this useful tool for the most part. But yeah, this doesn't go unnoticed by anyone, and especially Cromwell. He is absolutely seething at this.

• 30:43Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 30:44Speaker 04

  And...

• 30:46Speaker 04

  He bites his time in some respects, but a couple of weeks later, probably by sort of mid-Aprilish, fifteen thirty-six, he's decided that Anne has to go.

• 30:59Kate Lister?

  They've both decided that the other one has to go here.

• 31:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's his head or hers, basically. Yeah, yeah.

• 31:06Kate Lister?

  Okay, it must have been very, very tense. And I do wonder what Henry made of all of this.

• 31:11Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, I know. It's really, so we've got to remember, at this point, Henry is no longer madly in love with Anne in the same way that he once had been. But you're absolutely right. She, she hasn't had a son at this point, but he has risked so much to be with her that there's no question of him getting rid of her.

• 31:36Kate Lister?

  No.

• 31:37Speaker 04

  Um, it would just cause too much scandal after all that has come before.

• 31:41Kate Lister?

  Do you think he just fell out of love with her? Or do you think Cromwell was there in the background doing something? It's just, like, I know that people's affections can change in a heartbeat, but it just seems so strange to me of like, that what he risked and what he put in and what he went through. And then within a few months, he's like, nah.

• 32:01Speaker 04

  Well, the thing is, I think that all of the things that Henry liked about her as a mistress, he hated in her as a wife. So he loved the chase. He loved the fact that she was so passionate and so fiery. But once she had the ring on her finger, he expected her to be quiet, to be obedient and subservient. And all of the things that Catherine of Aragon had been, you know, turn a blind eye to the extramarital affairs. And Anne doesn't do any of that. And I think that all of that really begins to grate on him. And, and I

• 32:42Speaker 04

  think that that is why we see Anne, unfortunately, becoming so sort of susceptible to, to what happens to her. And, you know, I think that is why it is all too believable when Cromwell orchestrates this plot to secure her downfall. I think that's why Henry does genuinely believe it.

• 33:03Kate Lister?

  You see, it's an interesting question. It's a chicken and egg one. It's like, did Henry go to Cromwell first? Or did Cromwell go to Henry first? Like, who is bringing this suggestion that, oh, if you wanted to get rid of her, I perhaps, I perhaps could do that? Because there's numerous ways of looking at this. It's like, one of them is that Henry was still in love with Anne, but you know, maybe not as furiously as before. But Cromwell sees an opportunity and basically cooks up an entire plot. Or is it that Henry starts hinting to Cromwell that he'd like quite like to be rid of her for whatever reason?

• 33:31Speaker 04

  I think that the emphasis very much comes from Cromwell.

• 33:34Kate Lister?

  I see.

• 33:34Speaker 04

  Um, so we know by this point, Henry is pursuing, let's just say, Jane Seymour.

• 33:41Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 33:41Speaker 04

  Um, but, and Cromwell is quite sympathetic to the Seemores. He does kind of openly throw his lot in with them a bit later. But I think he realizes that Anne is after his head. And

• 33:58Kate Lister?

  He's backed into a corner.

• 33:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, it is his head or hers. And he's determined to ensure that it's hers. And so he, I think, lays this evidence before Henry. He goes to Henry and says, "Look, Your Majesty, there are these rumours going around about the Queen. It's said that she is perhaps having dalliances with some of the men at court. Some of these men are actually your friends. One of them is actually her brother." And Henry is like, okay, whoa, hang on a minute, get to the bottom of this. So he doesn't, Henry doesn't immediately say, okay, well, that's it, send her to the Tower.

• 34:37Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 34:37Speaker 04

  He asks Cromwell to investigate and says, just check this out first.

• 34:43Kate Lister?

  I mean, the, the accusations laid against her are so insane that I do look at them and think, Henry must have known that this was nonsense. What, what does Cromwell come up with?

• 34:52Speaker 04

  So Cromwell says that Anne has been engaging in multiple affairs with men at court. As I say, one of them is her own brother, George. Uh, one of them is Henry's groom of the stool, Henry Norris. But they're all men that are known to Henry and that are quite close to Henry. One of them, which I think is probably a deliberate choice by Cromwell to sort of show that Anne has really sort of debased herself, is a musician, um, called Mark Smeaton. And again, it's sort of said that Anne was having sex with these men, but

• 35:34Speaker 04

  more than that, that she was also conspiring Henry's death. So that's the real kind of sticking point here.

• 35:41Kate Lister?

  And what evidence does he get for this?

• 35:44Speaker 04

  Well, this is a really interesting thing, right? Because when we look at it now, we can say almost certainly that most of these charges were falsified. Um, because we know that most of the charges laid against her, for example, Cromwell would say that Anne had committed adultery with Mark Smeaton at such and such palace, when we know that she was somewhere completely different on that day, at that time. Um, but crucially, Cromwell gets chatting to some of the people in Anne's chamber, her ladies. Um, so we're told that the Countess of Worcester, who was a friend of Anne's, was one of the first

• 36:27Speaker 04

  to come forward and betray her and say, well, have you heard about this? Like, yes, this is what the Queen has been doing. She has been committing adultery. She has been conspiring the King's death.

• 36:38Kate Lister?

  Why is she saying that?

• 36:40Speaker 04

  Well, again, it's, this is, we don't really know for sure what her motivations are for doing that.

• 36:46Kate Lister?

  Because it's not true, is it? Or do you think, is it true?

• 36:48Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no, not at all. I think whether she had been coerced into, or blackmailed into cooperating with Cromwell, she doesn't really seem to have had any axe to grind with Anne herself, from what we can tell. They're actually quite pally. So we don't really know. Um, but all of the charges are really sort of playing on what we know of Anne's kind of fiery behaviour, if you like. And I think that's why it's so believable to Henry. And she isn't very subtle.

• 37:24Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 37:24Speaker 04

  Anne does actually make a comment, a very, very indiscreet comment to Henry Norris, Henry's groom of the chamber, Henry's groom of the stool, where she says to him, "You look for dead man's shoes, because if anything happened to the King, you'd look to have me." And she realizes immediately what a stupid thing that is to say. Um, and unfortunately for Anne, that conversation is overheard and reported back to Cromwell. So Cromwell's able to use that later on.

• 38:00Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Nicola after this short break.

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• 40:08Kate Lister?

  When it comes to the trial, how involved is Cromwell?

• 40:11Speaker 04

  He is very involved. He is the one who has organised the trial. He is at the trial. The trial, let's face it, is nothing more than a formality.

• 40:20Kate Lister?

  No, it's nonsense, isn't it?

• 40:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:22Kate Lister?

  It's just interesting, like, how involved this guy is, that we'd never, ever, ever, I know our legal system isn't great, but the idea that, like, somebody could literally be judge, jury and executioner all in one, and that is what Cromwell is, just moving people behind the scenes, producing witnesses, putting pressure on people, torturing these men to confess to things that never, ever, ever happened.

• 40:44Speaker 04

  So Mark Smee, the musician, is the only one of those accused who admits that he has committed adultery with Anne. And there is some suggestion that either he was tortured or that he was at least threatened with torture or promised a pardon if he confessed, which, you know, is nothing more than an empty promise.

• 41:07Kate Lister?

  And was he on the jury, Cromwell?

• 41:09Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. I mean, he is there. Yeah. I mean, he is committed at this point. Cromwell needs to, yeah, he is. He knows what is at stake here. He needs to make sure that this goes his way.

• 41:24Kate Lister?

  The psychological strength, I don't know if that's the right word of that, to know that somebody is completely innocent of this and to orchestrate this and to bring up these charges and to get the whole thing and push it through. Here's a question. I don't believe that Cromwell believed any of this. I think that he knew that this was just complete nonsense, that he's falsifying records and evidence and all the rest of it. And he's doing it because he thinks that it's her or me, basically. Do you think that Henry believed what Cromwell was telling him? Do you think Henry believed the charges?

• 41:57Speaker 04

  This is so hard because a big part of me thinks that, yes, he did believe them. Because I just think that Anne's behaviour, her sort of flirtatiousness, you know, he was very willing to believe that she was capable of that. Part of me, I mean, I don't believe that he wholeheartedly believed it. I think it was all kind of too convenient. But equally, at the same time, I don't know, it's so shocking, isn't it?

• 42:32Kate Lister?

  It's so shocking.

• 42:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:34Kate Lister?

  It's, I mean, because the reality of that, for him to not believe it, we've got all of the value of hindsight and hundreds of years in between now and then. But like, it's so extraordinary that his chief minister would have made the entire thing up to stitch up his wife. I don't know, I'm not Henry's fan here at all.

• 42:53Speaker 04

  No.

• 42:53Kate Lister?

  But like, I think there is a tiny possibility here that he believed what was being told to him, or at least it's so deceded doubt in that sort of, like, Iago Othello kind of a way, and that, that once it's there, like, the rot sets in and he can't, yeah, I think, I think maybe he did believe it.

• 43:11Speaker 04

  Yeah. I definitely don't think that Henry thinks this is all Cromwell and it's all been made up.

• 43:17Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 43:18Speaker 04

  There's definitely some, you know, belief in there somewhere, for sure. I mean, because Henry, I know we don't think of him like this, but he is quite prudish, you know, anything about sex.

• 43:32Kate Lister?

  Do you think he was very happy to be convinced of this?

• 43:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, I do. I think, you know, he'd seen the way that Anne kind of was. And if you're being told, which Anne did say, you know, she did speak indiscreetly to Henry Norris, if you're being told that, it's then all too easy to start believing other rumours. You know, I don't, these were all men who spent time with Anne.

• 44:01Kate Lister?

  And it wouldn't have just been Cromwell, would it? There would have been other people in the mix telling him this stuff, like, going with this lie, pushing it forward.

• 44:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Cromwell is definitely the main orchestrator. But I mean, even Anne's uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, has sat in judgement on her. Even he condemns her. I think everyone...

• 44:24Kate Lister?

  It must have seemed quite real then, like, even if, even her uncle is saying, yes, and if there are people confessing to doing this, and if there are ladies in waiting for some insane reason, saying that they saw this happening, is, it's so, that would be really difficult to be able to look at that and go, you've, you've made it all up, it's all completely untrue.

• 44:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's totally unprecedented. Never before has England seen a queen on trial for her life, accused of, you know, adultery, bad enough. Incest, pretty shocking. Treason, that is the lowest of the low. So, yeah, these are really, really horrendous charges that totally send shockwaves throughout the court.

• 45:13Kate Lister?

  Was he there when she got executed?

• 45:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:15Kate Lister?

  Of course he was. What a fucker. What a bastard.

• 45:18Speaker 04

  I know. That's, oh, I know, that always gets me every time. But, yeah, again, he, he was literally there until the bitter end.

• 45:27Kate Lister?

  But she had to climb the scaffold and look in at him, oh.

• 45:29Speaker 04

  I know. I really hope that she didn't actually see him.

• 45:33Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 45:33Speaker 04

  And to her credit, of course, Anne makes a very brave end. Even those people you don't like are saying that. So in some ways, that must have been like her saying, you know, screw you, Cromwell.

• 45:46Kate Lister?

  And of course, if only Anne had known, and maybe she did know somewhere, that, you know, what goes around comes around. If, you know, if they'll do it with you, they'll do it to you. And all of these old expressions is, Cromwell doesn't, he comes a cropper himself, doesn't he?

• 46:03Speaker 04

  I mean, yeah, only four years later. So it is Anne who has the last laugh. It's pretty awful for her. It's stressful. It's absolutely horrendous. But, yeah, he definitely, he gets his comeuppance.

• 46:16Kate Lister?

  Is there any chance that he got his comeuppance because Henry figured it out? Of like, oh my God, you were a lying piece of shit and that you, you know, or, no.

• 46:24Speaker 04

  I don't, no, no. I don't think so, because again, after Cromwell's been executed, you know, it's said that Henry actually came to regret the fact that he had ordered the execution of his face.

• 46:38Kate Lister?

  Was there someone else whispering poison in his ear then to get Cromwell executed?

• 46:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, the court is a hotbed of conspiracy. Cromwell has got enemies left, right and centre, you know, and definitely that marriage between Henry and Anne Cleves

• 46:59Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 47:00Speaker 04

  does ultimately seal his fate. And it does give his enemies at court, which chief among them, Duke of Norfolk, the opportunity to act against him and to really sort of say to Henry, well, look what he's done now, you know.

• 47:15Kate Lister?

  So you said at the beginning that you, you're not a fan of Cromwell and that you think his depiction in Wolf Hall is, is very, very sympathetic. Because you just speak a little bit more to that, about like, why we shouldn't feel sorry for Cromwell?

• 47:28Speaker 04

  Well, I think any man who, we've said, I don't think for one second, whatever Henry believed, Cromwell knows that these charges against Anne are falsified.

• 47:38Kate Lister?

  Yes, he does.

• 47:39Speaker 04

  He knows that he is sending a woman to her death. He's not interested in whether she's actually committed any of these terrible crimes. He's just interested in saving his own skin and preserving his own position. What sort of person does that?

• 47:56Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 47:57Speaker 04

  I know that the Tudor court is full of backbiting and scandal and, and all of that. But clearly, he is somebody who doesn't actually have any morals and is just out for himself.

• 48:09Kate Lister?

  I mean, he didn't have any morals from the get-go, I would have said. I think that maybe, like, Anne and Henry were looking at him and like, yeah, he was useful for a while. But if you were looking at what he was doing, he was quite prepared to, you know, overturn the faith of the nation. What he did to Catherine of Aragon was horrendous, like Mary, Mary's treatment, the, the number of people that were then put to death because of religious turmoil. He's just there, like, la, la, la, la, dissolving the monasteries, taking their money, making up lies about them as well. Because he sent out a squad of snitches to get reports on what was going on in the monasteries and found out, you know, his absolute cesspit of sin and all this stuff. And then, of course, when he's unleashed on them, he does exactly the same thing. I mean, this man's body count is insane.

• 48:51Speaker 04

  Yeah. Actually, that's a good way of looking at it. Do we really, do we really have Henry to blame for all of the executions that are taking place in his reign? Or how many of them can we put down to Cromwell?

• 49:04Kate Lister?

  So we don't feel sorry for him?

• 49:06Speaker 04

  No. I mean, Mark Rylance, love.

• 49:10Kate Lister?

  Love.

• 49:10Speaker 04

  Thomas Cromwell, no.

• 49:13Kate Lister?

  He's out. He's out. The worst traitor, I would have said. One of the worst. But, and we'll give it, we'll give him this, he did play the game very well.

• 49:23Speaker 04

  Agreed.

• 49:25Kate Lister?

  Nicola, you have been magnificent. Thank you so much for coming to talk to us about Cromwell. And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

• 49:33Speaker 04

  They can check out my Instagram, which is at @historiannicola.

• 49:37Kate Lister?

  Well, thank you so much for coming on. Will you come back and talk to us more about the Tudors?

• 49:41Speaker 04

  I'd be only too delighted.

• 49:43Kate Lister?

  Thank you so much.

• 49:46Kate Lister?

  Thank you to Nicola, and thank you so much to all of you for joining us. And if you like what you heard and what you saw, we are on YouTube after all, then don't forget to like, review and follow along wherever it is that you get your podcasts. And if you wanted us to explore a subject or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at [email protected]. This podcast was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Stuart Beckwith and McKenna Fernandez. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Join me again, Betwixt at History of Sex, Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 51:00Speaker 02

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