As that famous observation indicates, the responsibility for Anne’s destruction remains squarely with Cromwell, as he cheerfully admitted. At least he thought of her as a worthy adversary, as he observed in that remarkably frank debriefing with Chapuys on 24 May: ‘he emphatically praised the sense, wit and courage of the late Concubine, and of her brother.’74 Cromwell did not abandon or betray a partner in reformation. With Anne dead, the Reformation which he sought suddenly became much less complicated, though he would always have to work in a roller-coaster collaboration with the King’s
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