In a departure from the usual letters, here is the famous letter written by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury to King Henry on Thomas Cromwell’s behalf. Cranmer had written to the king about Anne Boleyn’s arrest four year earlier, and that letter sought to keep Cranmer’s, and the Reformation’s, position safe in England. This time, Cranmer was more personal in his letter of defence, and was the only one in a high enough position to stand up in Cromwell’s name.

THOMAS CRANMER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY TO KING HENRY VIII, ON BEHALF OF THOMAS CROMWELL, EARL OF ESSEX, 12 June 1540 (Cranmer’s Works, 1846, p.401)

“I heard yesterday in your Grace’s Council, that he (Crumwell) is a traitor, yet who cannot be sorrowful and amazed that he should be a traitor against your Majesty, he that was so advanced by your Majesty; he whose surety was only by your Majesty; he who loved your Majesty, as I ever thought, no less than God; he who studied always to set forwards whatsoever was your Majesty’s will and pleasure; he that cared for no man’s displeasure to serve your Majesty; he that was such a servant in my judgment, in wisdom, diligence, faithfulness, and experience, as no prince in this realm ever had; he that was so vigilant to preserve your Majesty from all treasons, that few could be so secretly conceived, but he detected the same in the beginning? If the noble princes of memory, King John, Henry the Second, and Richard II had had such a counsellor about them, I suppose that they should never have been so traitorously abandoned, and overthrown as those good princes were: I loved him as my friend, for so I took him to be; but I chiefly loved him for the love which I thought I saw him bear ever towards your Grace, singularly above all other. But now, if he be a traitor, I am sorry that ever I loved him or trusted him, and I am very glad that his treason is discovered in time; but yet again I am very sorrowful; for who shall your Grace trust hereafter, if you might not trust him? Alas! I bewail and lament your Grace’s chance herein, I wot not whom your Grace may trust. But I pray God continually night and day, to send such a counsellor in his place whom your Grace may trust, and who for all his qualities can and will serve your Grace like to him, and that will have so much solicitude and care to preserve your Grace from all dangers as I ever thought he had…[5]