ON 16 November 1538 Henry VIII stopped the Reformation dead. His personal involvement in the trial of John Lambert and the proclamation against heresy showed his mind; he would no longer let Cranmer and Cromwell have their way: they must follow his way, or pay for their disobedience. It is a measure of Henry's determination that he threw his support behind the conservative bishops just when diplomatic calculation suggested a Lutheran alliance. Also in November, the pope had finally published his excommunication of the king, and then sent Cardinal Pole off to persuade Francis I and Charles V to mount a crusade against England. In January 1539, by the Treaty of Toledo, France and the Empire agreed not to ally with Henry, and then recalled their ambassadors. For a time at least, England was ringed by a Catholic alliance: France, the Empire, and Scotland. Frantic missions were dispatched to Saxony, Hesse, and Denmark--though by now the Lutherans were somewhat sceptical of Henry's intentions. Thomas Cromwell floated the project of a marriage between the widowed Henry and the sister of the half-Lutheran duke of Cleves, and a treaty was eventually signed in October 1539.

At home, Henry began a massive building programme to strengthen fortifications against the expected invasion, but he did not make theological concessions to the Lutherans, as he had done before when danger had threatened. Lutheran emissaries arrived late in April 1539, but Henry allowed Norfolk, Suffolk, and Bishop Tunstall to impede Cromwell's negotiations.¹ The international situation now moved in the conservatives' favour, as the risk from abroad diminished and the Lutherans became expendable. To stiffen the king's reactionary resolve, conservative councillors warned him of the progress of heresy in Calais; Henry apparently agreed that the terms of the heresy proclamation should be given statutory force. Cromwell and his allies tried to block this proposal by having it shunted off to a committee of bishops, on which the reformers had a narrow majority. But Henry would not wait. On 16 May the duke of Norfolk asked the House of Lords to consider six controversial issues: transubstantiation, communion in one kind, vows of chastity, votive masses, clerical celibacy, and auricular confession, thus including the very problems which had wrecked negotiations with the Lutherans in September 1538.²

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