Liz Cromwell

Wife of Thomas Cromwell

Elizabeth Cromwell née Wykys, the wife of Thomas Cromwell, and mother of Gregory, Anne and Grace.

The story so far…

Week 1: Across the Narrow Sea / Paternity

In 1527, we learn that Thomas is married to Liz and they have children. In another impossible reality, he may have married Anselma, and “his children would be different children from the ones he has now.”

Week 2: At Austin Friars / Visitation

In 1527, she welcomes her husband home with a letter from their son, Gregory. She tells him city gossip about an expensive emerald they say the king has bought for someone. She says all the women of England will be against the king’s divorce. In Cromwell’s memory, he asks Liz’s father for her hand. “Well, Father. You didn’t pick him for his looks.”

Week 3: An Occult History of Britain (Part 1)

“I’ve never made you cry, have I?” asks Cromwell.
“Only with laughter,” says Liz.
As they grow richer, Cromwell considers he must write a will. “Tom,” she says, “don’t die.” Together they listen to the silence of their house and go to bed happy.

The night before Liz dies, Cromwell dreams of snakes. Snake blood and snake eyes. His own eyes, in the mirror that morning. He thinks he sees Liz follow him downstairs. The flash of her white cap, but he is mistaken. By four in the afternoon, she is dead. Her mother sees it happen and is there when Cromwell comes home.

Week 4: An Occult History of Britain (Part 2)

Her family gather after her death and Morgan Williams tells Thomas Cromwell, ‘Why are the best taken? Ah, why are they?’ Then, ‘I know you were happy with her, Thomas.’

We see a glimpse of her again, the night Rafe Sadler is brought to London as an apprentice. “Heaven direct me: boy or hedgehog?” she asks of the bedraggled child that her husband has just brought in.

Week 5: Make or Mar / Three-Card Trick

“Thomas, there’s no end to you, is there?” says Liz to Cromwell when the old soldier, banker, lawyer, is making peacock wings for his little angel Grace. At Christmas past, she would make the costumes for the Three Kings, and he would think of the gifts they held in their boxes.