Katharine of Arragon, Cromwell set about widening the breach between
England and Rome. After weakening the power of the bishops and lower
clergy, he was able to force the oath of supremacy upon the nation, and
having thus satisfied his master's pride and vanity, his next step was
by the dissolution of the monasteries to pander to Henry's greed, while
at the same time he filled his own pockets.

In pursuit of these ends he had covered the land with gibbets, and
caused the noblest heads in England to fall upon the block. He had
branded the king's own daughter with the stigma of infamy, and to
obtain her consent thereto had kept the axe suspended over her. He had
been able to accomplish all this because thus far he had taken Henry's
measure correctly, working upon his worst passions, and suggesting ever
fresh means of satisfying them. Then came a point at which his
interests and those of the king diverged.

Cromwell was deeply pledged to the Lutheran cause, and his plan was to
throw Henry into the arms of the Lutheran princes of Germany. He had
already flooded the country with foreign heretics, using them as his
tools to protestantise the Church in England.

Jane Seymour died in 1537, and Cromwell at once negotiated a marriage
between Henry and Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, Henry
consenting for the reason that it behoved him to fortify himself by an
alliance that would enable him to make a stand against a possible
combination of forces between the Pope, the Emperor, and the French
King. But at the very moment when Cromwell, believing himself to be at
the point of realising all his desires, was pledging his master to
marry Anne of Cleves, a reaction had set in which he so completely
disregarded as to seem in utter ignorance of it.