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
- Eighty Years' War / Dutch Revolt (1568)
- Spanish Armada (1588)
- Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519)
- Columbus reaches the Americas (1492)
- Mona Lisa (1503)
- French Wars of Religion (1562)
- Spanish conquest of the Incas (1532)
- The Reformation (1517)
- Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation (1519)
- Luther's 95 Theses (1517)