No. 171: Thomas Cromwell
[There are no known US or Canadian versions of this ballad.]
CONTENTS:
1. Child's Narrative
2. Footnotes (Found at the end of Child's Narrative)
3. Brief (Kittredge)
4. Child's Ballad Text A
5. Endnotes
ATTACHED PAGES (see left hand column):
1. Recordings & Info: 171. Thomas Cromwell
A. Roud No. 4002: Thomas Cromwell (2 Listings)
2. Sheet Music: 171. Thomas Cromwell (Bronson's gives no music examples)
3. English and Other Versions (Including Child version A with additional notes)]
Child's Narrative: 171. Thomas Cromwell
A. Percy Manuscript, p. 55; Hales and Furnivall, I, 129.
June 10, 1540, Thomas Lord Cromwell, "when he least expected it," was arrested at the council-table by the Duke of Norfolk for high-treason, and on the 28th of July following he was executed. Cromwell, says Lord Herbert of Cherbury, judged "his perdition more certain that the duke was uncle to the Lady Katherine Howard, whom the king began now to affect." Later writers[1] have asserted that Katherine Howard exerted herself to procure Cromwell's death, and we can understand nobody else but her to be doing this in the third stanza of this fragment; nevertheless there is no authority for such a representation. The king had no personal interview with the minister whom he so suddenly struck down, but he did send the Duke of Norfolk and two others to visit Cromwell in prison, for the purpose of extracting confessions pertaining to Anne of Cleves. Cromwell wrote a letter to the king, imploring the mercy which, as well as confession, he refuses in stanza five.
Percy inserted in the Reliques, 1765, II, 58, a song against Cromwell, printed in 1540, and apparently before his death, and he observes, 1767, II, 86, that there was a succession of seven or eight more, for and against, which were then preserved, and of course are still existing, in the archives of the Antiquarian Society.
Footnote:
1. Burnet; Rapin-Thoyras, 1724, V, 401.
Brief Description by George Lyman Kittredge
June 10, 1540, Thomas Lord Cromwell, "when he least expected it," was arrested at the council-table by the Duke of Norfolk for high-treason, and on the 28th of July following he was executed. Cromwell, says Lord Herbert of Cherbury, judged "his perdition more certain that the duke was uncle to the Lady Katherine Howard, whom the king began now to affect." Later writers have asserted that Katherine Howard exerted herself to procure Cromwell's death, and we can understand nobody else but her to be doing this in the third stanza of this fragment; nevertheless there is no authority for such a representation. The king had no personal interview with the minister whom he so suddenly struck down, but he did send the Duke of Norfolk and two others to visit Cromwell in prison, for the purpose of extracting confessions pertaining to Anne of Cleves. Cromwell wrote two letters to the king, imploring the mercy which, as well as confession, he refuses in stanza five. (See Merriman, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, 1902.)
Child's Ballad Text
['Thomas Cromwell']- Version A; Child 171 Thomas Cromwell
Percy Manuscript, p. 55; Hales and Furnivall, I, 129.
1 . . .
. . .
'Ffor if your boone be askeable,
Soone granted it shalbe:
2 'If it be not touching my crowne,' he said,
'Nor hurting poore comminaltye.'
'Nay, it is not touching your crowne,' shee sayes,
'Nor hurting poore cominaltye,
3 'But I begg the death of Thomas Cromwell,
For a false traitor to you is hee.'
'Then feitch me hither the Earle of Darby
And the Earle of Shrewsbury,
4 'And bidde them bring Thomas Cromawell;
Let's see what he can say to mee;'
For Thomas had woont to haue carryed his head vp,
But now he hanges it vppon his knee.
5 'How now? How now?' the king did say,
'Thomas, how is it with thee?'
'Hanging and drawing, O king!' he saide;
'You shall neuer gett more from mee.'
End-Notes
Half of the page is gone before the beginning.
23. it it is.