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While the prodigality of Cromwell's system thus brought into being a new check upon the Crown by enriching the nobles and the lesser gentry, the religious changes it brought about gave fire and vigour to the elements of opposition which were slowly gathering. What did most to ruin the king-worship that Cromwell set up was Cromwell's ecclesiastical policy.
The popular name for him was "Rowley," or "Old Rowley" a nickname of mysterious origin, though it is said to have been given him from a fancied resemblance to a famous hunter in his stables. Perhaps it is the very final test of popularity that a ruler should have a nickname known to every one. Cromwell's death roused all England to a frenzy of king-worship.
The Tories in particular, who had always been inclined to King-worship, and who had long felt with pain the want of an idol before whom they could bow themselves down, were as joyful as the priests of Apis, when, after a long interval, they had found a new calf to adore.
It was indeed Cromwell who more than any man had reared this fabric of king-worship. But he had hardly reared it when it began to give way. The very success of his measures indeed brought about the ruin of his policy. One of the most striking features of Cromwell's system had been his developement of parliamentary action.
He rides gallantly into the quicksand, knowing it to be such, and the quicksand, as certainly as the worm of Nilus, will do its kind. And yet though this is the vain romance of loyalty, in it, as Browning conceives, lies the test of Strafford. A self-renouncing passion of any kind is not so common that we can afford to look on his king-worship with scorn.
Of all the seven in fact Sancroft was probably the least inclined to resistance, the one prelate to whom the cheers of the great multitude at their acquittal brought least sense of triumph. No sooner indeed was James driven from the throne than the Primate fell back into the servile king-worship of an England that was passing away.
The later revolt of the Puritans against the king-worship which Cromwell established proved the justice of the prevision which forced More in the spring of 1532 to resign the post of Chancellor. But the revolution from which he shrank was an inevitable one. Till now every Englishman had practically owned a double life and a double allegiance.
It is only in the light of this emphatic protest against the king-worship which was soon to override liberty and law that we can understand More's later career.
While he aimed sarcasm after sarcasm at king-worship the new despotism of the Monarchy was being organised into a vast and all-embracing system by the genius of Thomas Wolsey. Wolsey was the son of a wealthy townsman of Ipswich whose ability had raised him into notice at the close of the preceding reign, and who had been taken by Bishop Fox into the service of the Crown.
Philosophy had always rejected the Man-God, especially in the form of King-worship; but opposition to Christianity no doubt intensifies the protest. The last chapter is very short.
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