Wolf Hall Companion

lineage was a particular challenge for Chapuys given the secrecy surrounding his background. But Chapuys did discover that he was imprisoned briefly for crimes unknown, before travelling to Flanders, Rome and other Italian cities. There may be some truth to the imprisonment story as much later, in 1516, Cromwell was involved in a legal dispute against the sheriffs of London who intended to imprison him for an outstanding debt. In one report to Charles V, Chapuys wrote that Cromwell’s uncle had been a cook for William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his father Walter was an unsuccessful and impoverished blacksmith who had lived, toiled and died in Putney. This was rather innocent information which Cromwell himself might have revealed in a rather unguarded moment, or on one of those occasions when he would wallow in regret about his misspent youth, when he was ‘rather ill-conditioned and wild.’

WALTER CROMWELL

Thomas may not have obsessed over his lineage, but in Wolf Hall it is an obsession for his father Walter. His savage beating of son Thomas that opens the novel turns us against Walter and forever wins us over to Thomas’s side. Walter’s life is said to have been full of disappointment and bitterness, eating away at him as his dreams of reclaiming the wealth and status of his ancestors were shattered: ‘Walter thinks he’s entitled. He’d heard it all in his childhood: the Cromwells were a rich family once, we had estates.’

When we look at the history, there is some confusion, unhelpfully perpetuated by historians. Historical references reveal that Walter had various interests, from farming and commercial beer brewing to woollen clothmaking. One historian added blacksmithing to his curriculum vitae, even that he had served as a farrier, a smith who shoes horses, and that he served in Henry Tudor’s contingent at the Battle of Bosworth. Still other historians ascribed a certain degree of lawlessness. Among our 20th-century historians it was Roger Merriman who disparaged Walter’s character, describing him as a ‘most quarrelsome and riotous character’ and ‘not seldom drunk’. It only takes one reference to cause a veritable flood, and soon later historians, building upon these foundations, speculated that Walter was not only a violent man but a criminal; after all, he had a record of being fined for assaulting a man, convicted of brawling, fraud and repeatedly fined for breaking the assize of ale, which meant he sold watered-down merchandise. But the meticulous examination of court records by Professor MacCulloch has rescued Walter from this last accusation, noting that the frequency of the fines points to a ‘routine, manorial system of licensing ale selling, couched in terms easy to mistake as a fine in the modern sense.’

But MacCulloch had drilled down further to find every historian’s dream: real evidence in the form of a letter written to Thomas Cromwell in 1536 from Anthony St Leger, a protégé of Cromwell’s who would later become Lord deputy of Ireland. It thanks Thomas for all that he has done, and praises Walter for his goodness and assistance. Far from being the lawless drunk we have heard about, Walter was a successful local tradesmen and member of the community, as reflected in his frequent calls to serve as a juryman and his appointment as constable of Putney, suggesting he was well thought of in the community.

This has resulted in a debate regarding Cromwell’s parentage, suggesting that it may be more complicated – was Walter Thomas’ biological father? Writing of Cromwell’s years in Italy, his Italian contemporary Matteo Bandello recounted a scene in which Cromwell described himself as ‘the son of a poor cloth shearer’, which is seemingly confirmed by Reginald Pole in his Apologia ad Carolum Quintum (1539). John Foxe, however, was more succinct, writing that Cromwell was ‘born in Putney or thereabouts, being a smith’s son, whose mother married afterwards to a shearman’. Certainly the varying portraits – well-to-do brewer or poor blacksmith and cloth shearer – do not quite correspond.

Far more elusive, historically and in Wolf Hall, is Cromwell’s mother, Katherine. She is rarely referred to in official records although Cromwell once made the unlikely claim that his mother was 52 when she gave birth to him. Her maiden name was Meverell, and she came from a well-to-do family. She and Walter lived in a small house that adjoined their brewery near Putney Bridge Road in London. They had three living children, with Thomas being the youngest, born sometime between 1483 and 1485. Whatever the nature of Cromwell’s relationship with his parents, he remained close to his two older sisters, Katherine and Elizabeth; Katherine’s son, Richard, later adopted the Cromwell surname and became a protégé of his uncle’s.

Thomas Cromwell’s family details continue to be debated among historians, but with so little evidence available, not to mention Thomas Cromwell’s own conflicting stories, we may never have the full picture.

THOMAS CROMWELL ON THE CONTINENT

Thus, in his growing years, as he shot up in age and ripeness, a great delight came in his mind to stray into foreign countries, to see the world abroad, and to learn experience; whereby he learned such tongues and languages as might better serve for his use hereafter.

John Foxe

It is unlikely that Cromwell impetuously left Putney for the Continent to escape his father; more likely, he secured employment abroad before he left London. In Wolf Hall, Mantel draws back the curtain on his time in Europe but only intermittently, allowing us glimpses of the years that really shaped him:

In the year before he came back to England for good, he had crossed and recrossed the sea, undecided; he had so many friends in Antwerp ... if he was homesick, it was for Italy ....

Diarmaid MacCulloch remarks that much of Cromwell’s early career rested on his ‘ability to be the best Italian in all England’. And Italy does loom large in Cromwell’s life, a connection that began in 1503 when, in his early twenties, he joined an expedition to Italy as part of the French army, fighting