cession of offices to nearly all of the supreme authority that could be conveyed to a subject. In 1531 he was knighted, admitted of the Privy Council, and made Master of the Jewel-House; in 1532 he was appointed Clerk of the Hanaper, and soon after Chancellor of the Exchequer for life; in 1534 he was raised to the posts of Master of the Rolls, and Principal Secretary of State; in 1535 he was commissioned to superintend the general suppression of the monasteries with the title of Visitor General; in 1536 he exchanged his place of Master of the Rolls for that of Lord Privy Seal, and a few days after was made a peer, with the title of Lord Cromwell of Okeham; the same year he was constituted Vicar General and Vicegerent over all the spirituality, under the King, and in that capacity took his seat in the convocation, as the King's representative, above both archbishops; in 1537 he was made Chief Justice Itinerant beyond Trent, and a Knight of the Garter; in 1538 he was made Constable of Carisbrook Castle, and received a grant of the Castle and Lordship of Okeham in Rutlandshire; in 1539 he was enriched by grants of thirty other manors which had belonged to the dissolved religious houses, and was advanced to the dignity of Earl of Essex (the oldest of the then existing English earldoms), his son being at the same time called to the House of Lords by his father's former title; and shortly after his ambition was still farther gratified by having conferred upon him the office of Lord High Chamberlain of England, which had for a long succession of generations been held by the De Veres, Earls of Oxford, one of the most distinguished families of the ancient peerage.

During nearly all this time, too, he may be considered, as we have said, to have been really the ruler of the kingdom. And the most interesting part of his story is the manner in which he used his supreme power.

He was, in the first place, beyond all question a most zealous, active, and efficient promoter of the Reformation in religion. With that cause, indeed, his personal interests were intimately and inseparably involved; but there

is every reason to believe that his honest convictions of right and truth were also strongly enlisted on the same side. The popish writers have attributed to him the most flagitious principles, or rather have denied him the possession of any principles of either religion or morals; but their general denunciations are discountenanced by all that we really know of the man and of his life. He may have been, and probably was, both ambitious and rapacious-fond of power, as strong and ardent minds are apt to be, in all its forms; his daring and enthusiastic temperament may have even made him sometimes unscrupulous enough, and reckless of everything except the object of the moment; but it does not follow that he must have been a bad man, or without good and high qualities. He appears to have been on the whole conscientious, at least in so far as regarded the ends he had in view, although not always very particular as to his means. But the latter characteristic belongs more or less to all the more aspiring spirits of that time. The objects for which men then contended against one another appeared to be of such infinite importance as to justify their attainment in any way. Besides, the regular dominion of law had not yet been established; society was still in a convulsed and semi-chaotic state; even in civil life, to a great extent, the only recognised morality was something little better than that now practised in war and on the field of battle.

Cromwell, placed in the seat of supreme authority, may have used his power despotically; but, although he no doubt committed some questionable acts, his general administration appears to have been far from oppressive or unpopular. On the contrary, even when he somewhat disregarded or overstepped the law, he seems usually to have acted both with a right purpose and in accordance with the public sentiment. Some stories

preserved by Fox are illustrative of this, and. are also curious as picturing a social state so different from that which now exists in England. One is about the mere report of his approach dispersing a body of ruffians who had barricaded both ends of Paternoster Row with carts,

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and were about to have a conflict in the public street. "It happened," says the historian, "that, as this desperate skirmish should begin, the Lord Cromwell, coming from the court through Paul's Churchyard, and entering into Cheap, had intelligence of the great fray toward, and because of the carts he could not come at them, but was forced to go about the Little Conduit, and so came upon them through Pannier Alley. Thus, as the conflict began to wax hot, and the people were standing by in great expectation to see them fight, suddenly, at the noise of the Lord Cromwell's coming, the camp brake up, and the ruffians to go; neither could the carts keep in those so courageous campers, but well was he that first could be gone. And so ceased this tumultuous outrage, without any other parting, only through the authority of the Lord Cromwell's name. Then follows another story, which he tells with immense gusto, cerning a certain serving-man," as he expresses it, "of the like ruffianly order, who, thinking to dissever himself from the common usage of all other men in strange new-fangleness of fashions by himself (as many there be whom nothing doth please which is daily seen and received), used to go with his hair hanging about his ears down unto his shoulders, after a strange monstrous manner, counterfeiting, belike, the wild Irishmen, or else crinitus Ioppas, which Virgil speaketh of, as one weary of his own English fashion; or else, as one ashamed to be seen like a man, would rather go like a woman, or like to one of the Gorgon sisters, but most of all like to himself, that is, like to a ruffian, that could not tell how to go. After this eloquent exordium, the narrative proceeds :-"As this ruffian, ruffling thus with his locks, was walking in the streets, as chance was, who should meet him but the Lord Cromwell, who, beholding the deform and unseemly manner of his disguised going, full of much vanity and hurtful example, called the man to question with him whose servant he was; which being declared, then was demanded whether his maister or any of his fellows used so to go with such hair about their shoulders as he did, or no? Which when he denied,

and was not able to yield any reason for refuge of that his monstrous disguising, at length he fell to this excuse, that he had made a vow. To this the Lord Cromwell answered again, that, for so much as he had made himself a votary, he would not force him to break his vow; but, until his vow should be expired, he should lie the mean time in prison; and so sent him immediately to the Marshalsea, where he endured till at length this intonsus Cato, being persuaded by his maister to cut his hair, by suit and petition of friends he was brought again to the Lord Cromwell with his head polled according to the accustomed sort of his other fellows, and so was dismissed." We cannot help adding the curious and characteristic comment with which the old martyrologist concludes: the passage is one which should not be overlooked by the investigators of the history of English costume:"If," says he, "the same Lord Cromwell, which could not abide this serving-man so disfigured in his hair, were now in these our days alive, with the same authority which then he had, and saw these new-fangle fashions of attire used here amongst us both of men and women, I suppose verily that neither these monstrous ruffs, nor these prodigious hose, and prodigal, or rather hyperbolical barbarous breeches (which seem rather like barrels than breeches), would have any place in England. In which unmeasurable excess of vesture, this I have to marvel; first, how these serving-men, which commonly have nothing else but their wages, and that so slender and bare, can maintain such stops,* so huge and so sumptuous, which commonly stand them in more than their three years' wages do come unto. Secondly, I marvel that their maisters and lords (who shall yield to God account of their servants' doings) do not search and try out their servants' walks, how they come by these expences, wherewith to uphold this bravery, seeing their stipendary wages, and all revenues else they have, will not extend thereunto. Thirdly, this most of all is to be marvelled, that magistrates, which have in their hands the

*Stoops, or large wooden wine-cans.

ordering and guiding of good laws, do not provide more severely for the needful reformation of these enormities. But here we may well see, and truly this may say, that England once had a Cromwell."

Another of Fox's stories, entitled "How Cromwell holp a poor woman with child out of great trouble, longing for a piece of meat in time of Lent," is much too long to be given in full. It begins-" In the year of our Lord, 1538, Sir William Forman being mayor of the city of London, three weeks before Easter, the wife of one Thomas Freebairn, dwelling in Paternoster Row, being with child, longed after a morsel of a pig, and told her mind unto a maid dwelling in Abchurch Lane, desiring her, if it were possible, to help her unto a piece. The maid, perceiving her earnest desire, shewed unto her husband what his wife had said unto her, telling him that it might chance to cost her her life, and the child's too which she went withall, if she had it not. Upon this, Thomas Freebairn, her husband, spake to a butterwife which he knew, that dwelled at Hornsey, named Goodwife Fisher, to help him to a pig for his wife, for she was with child, and longed sore to eat of a pig. Unto whom the said Goodwife Fisher promised that she would bring him one the Friday following; and so she did, being ready dressed and scalded before. But, when she had delivered him the pig, she craftily conveyed one of the pig's feet, and carried it unto Doctor Cockes, at that time being Dean of Canterbury, dwelling in Ivy Lane, who, at that time of his dinner, before certain guests which he had bidden, shewed his pig's foot, declaring who had the body thereof; and, after that they had talked their pleasure and dinner was done, one of his guests, being landlord unto Freebairn aforesaid, called M. Garter, and by his office King of Arms, sent his man unto the said Freebairn, demanding if there were nobody sick in his house. Unto whom he answered that they were all in good health, he gave God thanks. Then said he again, it was told his maister that somebody was sick, or else they would not eat flesh in Lent. Unto whom Freebairn made answer, that his