The Cromwell Enigma

by Derek Wilson

  ‘I should dearly love to meet anyone who can cast light on his life in Southampton.’

  ‘Alas,’ he sighed, ‘the years have taken their toll. Few are left who worked closely with him then.’ After a pause ­Wilmot added, ‘There is, of course, old John Mill.’

  ‘You mean your Controller of Customs?’ Calloni asked. ‘He is certainly of a venerable age.’

  ‘Aye. Controller of Customs, and much else besides. He is one of our Members of Parliament. He is supervisor of the king’s new-planned coastal defences – and several ­other commissions also.’

  ‘If such a busy man could spare time to reminisce,’ I said, ‘I should be grateful to meet him.’

  ‘He is much in London these days – especially so now that parliament is summoned more often.’

  ‘A pity,’ I replied. ‘London is a place I must keep well clear of.’

  ‘Why so?’ Wilmot asked.

  I described my misadventures in the capital in August. ‘Having escaped the lion’s lair once in London and then again in Florence it would be folly indeed to risk another encounter.’

  ‘You need not fear Gardiner and his friends,’ Wilmot said. ‘They may prowl and snarl, but their claws are clipped. As to religion, all is confusion. Men say that even the king knows not what to believe.’

  In the silence that followed this observation Antonio said quietly, ‘I should like to go to London. I believe there are many wealthy patrons there, and Italian artists are much in fashion.’

  ‘Perhaps John Mill could help you,’ Calloni suggested. ‘He is obviously well thought of here, and now has import­ant connections in high places. If Signor Wilmot will write a letter of introduction, I will add my commendation. You and Signor Bourbon might travel together. Then Signor Bourbon could find the answers to all those questions that are troubling him. As we say in Italy, you can catch two pigeons with one broad bean.’

  I did not respond to the suggestion straight away and that night I was still undecided. As I lay in bed my mind ran over the tumults of the last months. Not for the first time I challenged myself to defend my self-appointed quest. I had met so many people who cherished the memory of Thomas Cromwell, and my own debt to him was profound indeed. With so many admirers it was inconceivable that history’s ebb and flow would wash away his reputation and achievements. And yet . . . and yet there was much of his life that was already unremembered, unknown. I took up the half-­crucifix that had clearly held great significance for ­Cromwell and gazed upon it in the candlelight. The ­fragment was crudely crafted; the facial features poorly delineated, the crown missing some of its thorns. However, somehow I sensed, intuited, knew that it held the answer.

  * * *

  * ‘honest toil is the servant of wisdom’

  12

  London again

  As Antonio and I rode through Southwark a week later my anxiety had not released its hold. Our horses slowed to an ambling pace as we took our place among the wagons, handcarts, packhorses and foot travellers toing and froing before the massive gatehouse with its array of piked traitors’ heads adorning the battlements. We passed into the dimness beyond the portal and I thought of Dante’s entrance to Inferno, with its stark admonition to abandon all hope. The crowd moving slowly between the houses and shops on the bridge seemed to my mind like lost souls. This, of course, was foolishness. London was no more (but perhaps no less) an entrance to hell than any other city aswarm with confused humanity.

  Antonio looked about him with obvious fascination. ‘It is big,’ he exclaimed as we emerged from the oppressive ­narrowness of the bridge on to the Fish Wharf.

  ‘Big enough,’ I growled, drawing up my hood against the light rain that had begun to fall.

  We made our way steadily northwards. I had care­fully augmented my own very limited knowledge of the city in discussion with Wilmot and had taken his advice that the Italian quarter was not only easy to locate but also the obvious place to establish our headquarters. Here Antonio would find others of his nationality with whom he could converse easily. Here too was the fine house where ­Thomas Cromwell had lived and where I had enjoyed his hospitality. We turned into the thoroughfare known as Lombard Street because of the Italian community that had taken over many of the houses there and in the adjacent narrow lanes. We stopped at the George Inn, where a servant showed us to a chamber on the top floor. It was narrow, but had a window overlooking the neighbouring churchyard.

  ‘Rather small,’ I said.

  Antonio threw himself down on the bed. ‘Bigger than the last place we shared,’ he said. Then, springing up again, ‘Come, let us eat. I am starving.’

  We dined at a long table where several other of the young man’s compatriots were already eating. They were eager for the latest news from Florence, and Antonio soon had an attentive audience as he related – with some embellishment – our recent adventures. As soon as I had eaten my fill I left them to their happy chatter. I calculated that there was just time to make a brief personal pilgrimage. I made the short walk to Throgmorton Street and was soon standing opposite Thomas Cromwell’s fine house. He had converted it from some of the extensive buildings of the ancient Augustinian friars’ convent and for a few years it had been the centre of London society. Here the minister had entertained friends, scholars, merchants, courtiers, clergy, ambassadors and foreign dignitaries. Here I had been privileged on more than one occasion to share in enlightened conversation, entertaining discourse and serious Bible study.

  For my further comfort, you were contented . . . to call me to your honourable board divers dinners and suppers, where in very deed, I heard such com­munications which were the very cause of the be­ginning of my conversion. For methought it were a stony heart and a blockish wit that could carry nothing away of such colloquy as was at your honourable board, and that made me to note them well, and, when I came home, to compare them with my English Bible. And I found always the conclusions which you maintained at your board to be consonant with the holy Word of God. And then I thought good to compare the English with the Latin through the whole Testament, and so I did . . . For a further trial I went and compared Erasmus’s translation with the Vulgate and did interline Erasmus’s translation through the whole Testament in the other translation with my own hand . . . And thus was I surely strengthened as an adversary to all papists and ever have been since.

  (Letter from John Oliver, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, to Thomas Cromwell, 1536)

  I stared across the road in the fading light of a December day and wished I had not come. The door through which a cavalcade of fashionable visitors had once passed was fast shut. The windows where candlelight had once sparkled were close shuttered. And no one had, as yet, effaced the scarlet slogan daubed across one wall: HERETIC.

  ***

  The following morning we rode westward out of London for our meeting with John Mill. He had agreed to receive us in the modest house he leased in the lawyers’ district, which lies between the capital and the royal palace at Westminster. Mill was a sharp-featured, white-haired man, uncommonly tall for his more than sixty years. As we took our seats in the room that obviously served him as an office, he made it clear that our visit was not altogether welcome.

  ‘My dear friend Edward Wilmot asked me to receive you and I am content to oblige him, but you must understand that I can spare you little time.’ He indicated the table before him strewn with papers. ‘As you can see, I am very busy.’

  I expressed our gratitude as fulsomely as I could.

  The response was an impatient gesture. ‘Well, well, proceed. How may I be of service?’

  I thought it wise, under the circumstances, to begin by presenting Antonio’s more straightforward search for patronage. I extolled his reputation as the most promising pupil of one of Florence’s leading painters and intimated that any courtier or man of standing would benefit from employing him.

/>   ‘Well, well,’ the old man conceded, ‘there is a great fashion here for likenesses at the moment. Everyone wants his portrait made by the king’s painter, Master Holbein, but not all can afford his charges. No, nor bear his haughtiness. ’Twas only a week since that this mere artist kicked downstairs a nobleman’s son who went to him to demand a portrait. ’Tis all the talk of the town.’

  ‘I assure you that Master Speronti here knows well his station in life. And I believe the current taste here is for Italian craftsmen.’

  ‘More for Netherlanders, I think, though I am not a close follower of fashion. I have neither the time nor the taste for such vanity. Well, well, there are two or three of my fellow members of the House of Commons who are ambitious enough to have themselves painted so that others can gaze upon them. I will write their names and give you an introduction.’ He took up his pen and a sheet of paper, and spent several moments scrawling his message.

  As he sanded over the wet ink and handed the letter to Antonio, he muttered, ‘And you, Master . . . er . . . ’

  ‘Bourbon,’ I prompted.

  ‘Yes, yes, Bourbon. I gather you want to know about King Henry’s late minister. What is your interest?’

  ‘To know, and perhaps record, the truth. Many people speak about Lord Cromwell, but scarce two of them agree. Much of his life seems to be a chest of secrets to which no one has a key. I believe you knew him in the early years ­after his return from Italy—’

  ‘Has it not occurred to you, Master . . . that men have a good reason to keep their silence about Thomas Cromwell?’

  ‘You mean for fear of Bishop Gardiner and his party?’

  ‘Pah! Gardiner, that puffed-up prelate? No, he has been silenced almost as effectively as Cromwell. Sent abroad on embassy to the Emperor. His “party”, as you call it, is headless and powerless.’

  I was relieved to hear Mill’s analysis of the current situ­ation. ‘Then persecution of suspected Lutherans is at an end?’ I asked.

  ‘England’s religion is the king’s religion and only he can tell us what to believe. Today heresy-hunting is suspended. But tomorrow?’

  ‘You mean Henry swings back and forth, changing ­England’s religion at will?’

  He nodded. ‘You see why it behoves us to be cautious.’

  ‘I understand and I certainly would not want to make any problems for you. But, as I say, it is Cromwell’s distant past that I am trying to discover. You are one of the few who knew him thirty or so years ago. What was he like then?’

  Mill sat back in his chair, eyes closed, presumably seeing again Cromwell in his mid-twenties. ‘Brash, confident, ­ambitious. Convinced that he was a man for the new age.’

  ‘New age?’

  ‘Yes. You must realize that his return to England coincided with a time of great change. The old king died – not greatly mourned by his people – and was replaced by a lad of seventeen. Everything seemed to be changing. The ­dynasty was secure in the hands of a vigorous young monarch. Trade was flourishing. Our sailors had discovered the new land to the west. Cromwell believed he had an import­ant part to play in building the new England. There was little he did not know about international trade and he was already well versed in mercantile law. He had family and friends in the London trading community. He was ­accepted as a member of Gray’s Inn. He was soon making frequent business trips to Florence, Rome, Antwerp. He was fluent in French, Italian and Latin, and had a working knowledge of the barbarous German and Flemish tongues. As well as representing the Frescobaldis, he was venturing his own capital. Oh yes, young Master Cromwell knew that he was destined to get to the top – and he set himself to complete the journey in the fastest time possible.’

  ‘Did he hold strong religious opinions in those days?’ I asked.

  ‘Not as I recall. Although . . . ’ He paused and seemed to be struggling to remember something. ‘. . . he abhorred the religious orders. Some years later, we were dining together here in London. It was the time when everyone was talking about Martin Luther’s challenge to the Pope. Cromwell dismissed it with contempt: “That is the sort of crooked thinking one expects of monks.”’

  ‘And yet—’

  ‘I know what you are going to say: Cromwell ended up England’s arch-Lutheran. I have no explanation for that.’

  With sudden inspiration I took out the demi-crucifix and laid it on the table.

  Before I could frame a question, Mill’s eyes widened. ‘So that has survived,’ he gasped.

  ‘It was carefully preserved with his private papers,’ I explained. ‘It has puzzled me greatly. What can you tell me about it?’

  ‘It was his Mary.’

  ‘Mary?’

  ‘He wore it always. I imagined it was instead of an image of the Virgin.’

  ‘A talisman?’

  ‘He certainly relied on it for protection. I recall one night in Southampton. A group of us had been celebrating the arrival of some new wine. Cromwell was very drunk. That, in itself, was unusual. He always kept his drinking in check. He took off his Mary from around his neck and waved it around. “I will be safe as long as I am not parted from this,” he said. “No harm can befall me if I have my Mary.” And it seemed he was right. More than once disasters threatened to overwhelm him, but always he escaped.’

  ‘What sort of disasters?’ I asked.

  ‘Several examples come readily to my mind. The most important was his escape from financial ruin. He spent three or four years working for the Frescobaldis in England. Eventually he left to develop his own business interests. Within weeks the Italian house was hit by a major financial crisis. It took them a decade or more to recover. If ­Cromwell had been caught up in it, it would have undermined his career. As it was, he was free to establish his business premises elsewhere. Where did he choose? Antwerp. And of all the cities vying for commercial leadership in Europe, which one rapidly achieved the ascendancy? Antwerp.’

  ‘And do you really think Cromwell’s good fortune can be attributed to this little piece of wood?’

  ‘He believed so. Is that not what matters? For gener­ations folk made pilgrimage to holy places. I myself ­visited St Thomas Becket’s shrine at Canterbury before it was pillaged by our king. The stories of miraculous cures pilgrims experienced by touching the saint’s relics are legion. Fevers, leprosy, lameness, even death itself are supposed to have been overcome there.’

  ‘But,’ I protested, ‘Cromwell came to reject all this as ­papist superstition.’

  ‘Ah, yes, indeed he did.’ The old man leaned forward, ­elbows on the table, chin resting on his hands. ‘So perhaps he stopped wearing his Mary. And look what happened to him.’

  At this point a servant entered the room and whispered briefly in his master’s ear. Mill stood up. ‘And now, gentlemen, I have other calls on my time. I hope I have been of some small service to you, but I must ask you to excuse me. I am summoned to attend upon the Bishop of London.’

  We rode back towards the city. As the wall loomed ahead of us Antonio said, ‘I have little liking for that man.’

  ‘Then you have learned a valuable lesson,’ I replied. ‘It is not necessary to like those who can be useful to you, but you should strive to make them like you.’

  ‘So you did not like him either.’

  ‘I was very grateful for what he said and I tried to hear and understand what he did not say.’

  Antonio looked puzzled. ‘Can you explain?’

  ‘Well, I will pose you a question: do you think Master Mill was sorry or glad at Lord Cromwell’s fall?’

  ‘I cannot judge. My grasp of English is not yet firm enough.’

  ‘Then let me answer for you. He was both. Few men were better positioned to see Cromwell’s rise from the beginning. He acknowledged, and to some extent admired, the ­younger man’s obvious talents. From my conversations with ­Master Wilmot I learn
ed that Mill was one of those men who worked closely, and profitably, with this extra­ordinary phenomenon. But his admiration was tainted with jealousy. It could scarcely be otherwise. Mill worked hard. He advanced his career. He rose to be a leading citizen of Southampton. He was employed on government business. Yet, as high as his star rose, it was always outpaced and outshone by Cromwell’s. You recall Wilmot telling us how John Huttoft’s business collapsed when his Italian brother-in-law absconded? Well, Huttoft was Mill’s son-in-law and his feathers were also badly singed. Do you not suppose that Mill would have derived some satisfaction from seeing the great Lord Cromwell dragged from his pedestal? It is also clear that he did not share Cromwell’s change of religion. To his mind Cromwell was a heretic and his fall was divine punishment.’

  ‘I see – I think,’ Antonio said, ‘but I did not understand what Mill said about the broken crucifix.’

  ‘Nor I. And yet I know it is important. I must try to find someone else close enough to Cromwell to ask about it.’

  I had already begun to consider who I might approach for more information now that I found myself, to my surprise, back in England. The most obvious man to speak to was Sir Richard Cromwell, but how was I to find him in this densely packed, overcrowded city? I had been to his town house but under such clandestine circumstances that I had little confidence in my ability to locate it again. Eventually I recalled that Sir Richard had mentioned his enrolment as a member of the lawyers’ fraternity of Gray’s Inn, so it was there that, later that same day, I retraced my steps via ­Newgate and Holborn Hill to the sprawl of buildings where the men of law learned and plied their trade.

  When I applied to the porter at the main entrance to Gray’s Inn, his reply was a haughty rebuff. However, when sufficient silver had passed from my purse to his, the information I required was forthcoming. Following the man’s directions I found Sir Richard’s mansion, where I was fortunate to meet Simon, the page who had brought me there on my previous visit. He explained that his master was at the court about His Majesty’s business, but he made a note of where I was lodged and promised that he would pass on my enquiry.