Execution of Thomas Cromwell
1540 · Event
The architect of the royal supremacy is destroyed by the machine he built: attainted without trial — his own legal innovation — for heresy and treason, and beheaded on Tower Hill the day Henry marries wife number five. Within months the king is lamenting the loss of 'the most faithful servant he ever had'.
On these timelines: Henry VIII's Break with Rome, England, Master, United Kingdom (combined)
More from Henry VIII's Break with Rome
- English Reformation (1533)
- Act of Supremacy (1534) (1534)
- The King's Great Matter (1527)
- Henry secretly marries Anne Boleyn (1533)
- Execution of Anne Boleyn (1536)
- Execution of Thomas More (1535)
- Cromwell becomes the king's chief minister (1532)
- Act in Restraint of Appeals (1533)
Around 1540
- Spanish conquest of the Incas (1532)
- Spanish Armada (1588)
- French Wars of Religion (1562)
- Eighty Years' War / Dutch Revolt (1568)
- The Reformation (1517)
- Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation (1519)
- Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519)
- Columbus reaches the Americas (1492)
- Luther's 95 Theses (1517)
- Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508)