ABSTRACT
During Thomas Cromwell stay in Rome, Cromwell got to know Cardinal Bainbridge, Henry’s ambassador to the papal court, and following Bainbridge’s sudden death in 1514 he returned to England with the cardinal’s entourage. Cromwell had already sat in Parliament, in 1523, and once he was informed that the King had no objection to his standing for election again, he secured a seat at Taunton in Somerset. The third session of the Reformation Parliament opened in January 1532 and the Commons immediately reverted to the question of clerical abuses. Thomas Cranmer subsequently declared that Henry’s marriage with Anne Boleyn was lawful, and on Whit Sunday 1533 he crowned Anne as queen in a magnificent ceremony in Westminster Abbey. By the middle of 1535 Henry and Cromwell had accomplished the first stage of their revolution by destroying papal authority in England and firmly establishing the royal supremacy in statute law.
