Politics and Profit

In the reign of Henry VIII a lay, as distinct from a clerical, staff of administrators was rapidly emerging as an essential instrument of government. To a remarkable degree the Crown depended on the servants of great ministers to supply the deficiencies of a formal bureaucratic structure. Thomas Cromwell's regime is perhaps the outstanding example of this phenomenon and, within his household staff, Ralph Sadler and Thomas Wriothesley emerged as the most capable servants. Sadler, the son of a man with some government connections but without pretensions to membership of the gentry, quickly rose in Cromwell's service and by 1535 began to appear as something more than Cromwell's man. In fact, he functioned as an ambassador linking Cromwell and Henry VIII.