Son of Thomas and Liz Cromwell.
The story so far…
Week 2: At Austin Friars / Visitation
In 1527, we learn that Cromwell has sent his son to study in Cambridge. He is almost thirteen, and his Latin is bad. He writes terse little notes back home wishing everyone well. Cromwell says “he’s busy growing” and doesn’t mind his academic failings. At least he’s not growing up like his father, or grandfather. “He likes to be told stories, dragon stories, stories of green people who in in the woods.” When he was born, Cromwell kissed his “fluffy skull” and promised to be “tender to you as my father was not to me.”
Week 3: An Occult History of Britain (Part 1)
Liz embroiders his shirts. His younger sister Anne is already faster than him with the pen. Cromwell desires to “protect his own son from a quarter of what he knows.” His sweet nature is the result of Liz’s prayers because it sure enough doesn’t come from Tom. When Cromwell comes home on that fateful day in 1527, he thinks first it is Gregory who is dead. But no.
Week 4: An Occult History of Britain (Part 2)
There is something terribly earnest and serious about Gregory. When his aunts joke about Johane Williamson marrying his father, with a dispensation from the pope, he says, ‘why is that funny? You can’t marry your wife’s sister, can you?’
Week 5: Make or Mar / Three-Card Trick
The first day of 1530 and Gregory goes to see his father. He enters Cromwell’s study as a gentleman, with a gentleman’s hands. He leaves the room as a child, without mother or sisters. He sorts his father’s papers and sweeps up his father’s counters with no regard for their purpose. Cromwell marvels at what he has created. And the boy asks about a giant called Marlinspike.
And one day, his father brings home a kitten born in the cardinal’s own rooms. “Gregory, look. I am a giant, my name is Marlinspike.”
Week 6: Entirely Beloved Cromwell (Part 1)
In 1530, Gregory is fifteen. He is worried people in Cambridge are laughing about his black dogs. When Cromwell was fifteen, he had bigger things to worry about. Gregory has a new copy of Le Morte d’Arthur. ‘Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories.’
Cromwell thinks of the plain noblewoman in Anne’s court. He should find out her name and family, and see if Gregory can marry her.
Week 8: The Dead Complain of Their Burial / Arrange Your Face (Part 1)
“When I was small, I dreamed of demons. I thought they were under my bed, but you said, it can’t be so, you don’t get demons our side of the river, the guards won’t let them over London Bridge.”
Cromwell: “Gregory, those Merlin stories you read - we are going to write some more.”
Week 9: Arrange Your Face (Part 2)
Glimpses of Gregory, playing with his dog on a cushion. Waking his father up on New Year’s Day to tell him that they have arrested Thomas Wyatt.
Week 12: Anna Regina (Part 1)
The king calls Gregory “a very fine young man”, and Gregory almost dies of happiness. “How do you manage to speak to him every day?” he asks his father.
Cromwell is sending Gregory to the household of Rowland Lee. “I think Cambridge has done all that it can for him. And I admit that Gregory has done nothing for Cambridge.”
Week 14: Devil’s Spit / A Painter’s Eye
Gregory writes from Kent: “And now no more for lack of time.” Cromwell writes back: “come home and spend the new year with us.”
He is conscious that his son is taller than he is: not that it takes much. He steps sideways, though only in his mind, to see his boy with a painter’s eye: a boy with fine white skin and hazel eyes, a slender angel of the second rank in the fresco dappled with damp, in some hill town far from here. He thinks of him as a page in a forest riding across vellum, dark curls crisp under a narrow band of gold; whereas the young men about him every day, the young men of Austin Friars, are muscled like fighting dogs, hair cropped to stubble, eyes sharp as sword points. He thinks, Gregory is all he should be. He is everything I have a right to hope for: his openness, his gentleness, the reserve and consideration with which he holds back his thoughts till he has framed them. He feels such tenderness for him he thinks he might cry.
Week 15: Supremacy
Gregory goes with Cromwell to Hatfield to see Princess Elizabeth and Lady Mary. He compares the princess to a changeling spirit, commenting that, “She could be anybody’s.” People have gone to the Tower for saying less.
Gregory seems surprised by how mild his father is to Mary Tudor, “as if he has never heard this softened tone.” Gregory is shocked by what he sees of this “sneery girl,” and his father tells him not to talk about it to anyone. He explains that if the king dies tomorrow, Mary is best place to succeed him, whatever Parliament says.
Arguing with Thomas More, Cromwell loses his temper:
‘I would rather see my own son dead, I would rather see them cut off his head, than see you refuse this oath, and give comfort to every enemy of England.’
More replies: “Gregory is a goodly young man. Don’t wish him away. If he has done badly, he will do better. I say the same of my own boy. What’s the use of him? But he is worth more than a debating point.”
Week 16: The Map of Christendom (Part 1)
Christmas, 1534. Gregory comes home from Rowland Lee, who calls him a treasure.
“Rafe says I am being brought up like a prince.”
”For now, you are all I have to practice on.”
Cromwell shows him a map of the Scots border and explains how he will punish Harry Percy. “Is this because of the cardinal?” Gregory asks. “Go and play,” says Cromwell.
Week 17: The Map of Christendom (Part 2) / To Wolf Hall
Gregory’s new haircut: “Your mother would have wept over your baby curls.”
“Would she? I hardly remember her.”
Week 18: Falcons
At Wolf Hall, Gregory defends his dead sisters from an attack by Francis Weston: “You insult my sisters and their memory, sir, and you never knew them.” Later, he and Rafe throw Weston’s ghost out the window.
In the evening, he asks his father whether he is to marry Jane Seymour. “They say you liked Jane yourself.”
Gregory is a good boy, though all the Latin he has learned, all the sonorous period of the gread authors, have rolled through his head and out again, like stones… Gregory is a fine archer, a fine horseman, a shining star in the tilt yard, and his manners cannot be faulted."
Week 19: Crows (Part 1)
Gregory admires Call-Me. He has been hunting all summer and now is with William Fitzwilliam, learning how to be a gentleman. He calls him “Fitz.”
Gregory is unobservant. When Jane avoids the king’s gaze, Gregory says: “Doesn’t Mistress Seymour eat a lot?”