Richard Williams (1510 – ), son of Morgan Williams and Kat, Thomas Cromwell’s sister.
The story so far…
Week 3: An Occult History of Britain (Part 1)
“Richard William, Kat’s boy, is sharp, keen and forward.” This is 1527.
Week 4: An Occult History of Britain (Part 2)
Here he is again, at the family gathering for Liz Cromwell. Cromwell wonders about Richard’s brother, Walter. ‘Why did they call that child Walter? Did they need a reminder of their father, lurking around after his death, to remind them not to get too happy?’
Week 5: Make or Mar / Three-Card Trick
Richard has lost his parents, Thomas Cromwell has lost his children. “Our father is dead, and you are our father now.” Cromwell explains to Richard how he is descended from a Tudor: Uncle Jasper Tudor, and his bastard daughters. Joan was Richard’s grandmother. Helen was Stephen Gardiner’s mother.
Week 6: Entirely Beloved Cromwell (Part 1)
Richard Williams tells his uncle that it is time to let the cardinal go. When he thinks Cromwell can’t hear him, he says, “His heart is leading him.”
Week 7: Entirely Beloved Cromwell (Part 2)
In the battle of religion at Austin Friars, Richard is of the new brethren. He denies the sacrament. Mercy: “Richard is right. When the good Lord said, this is my body, he meant, this signifies my body. He did not license priests to be conjurers.”
Week 8: The Dead Complain of Their Burial / Arrange Your Face (Part 1)
When Will Brereton comes for his uncle, you can tell “he wants to give this lordling a smack in the mouth.” Cromwell thinks that was once him, “but now I am as sweet as a May morning.”
Week 11: 'Alas, What Shall I Do For Love?' (Part 2) / Early Mass
Cromwell’s lively apprentice takes advice from his master: Get the price down by reading their faces. Measure the bricks, and if they panic, you’ll know they are trying to trick you.
Week 12: Anna Regina (Part 1)
“Your grandfather ap Evan the archer was a great servant to the king my father. You have a fine build. I should like to see you in the tilt yard. I should like to see you carry your colours in the joust.”
That’s the king, who now calls Richard his cousin. But despite Anne’s machinations, Richard will not be Henry’s brother-in-law and will not marry Mary Boleyn. Even if everyone would have loved to have seen Uncle Norfolk’s face.
Week 15: Supremacy
When Thomas Cromwell can’t stop laughing about Stephen Gardiner, his nephew is on standby to say, “Arrange your face.”
When Thomas Cromwell takes his son to Hatfield to see the king’s children, Gregory says: “Already you are wishing you had brought Richard.”
Cromwell explains to Rafe how the future will work: Sadler is his fellow “nursemaid” to the king, Wriothesley teases the diplomats, and Richard heads the household.
Week 16: The Map of Christendom (Part 1)
Richard is building near his uncle’s house. He is married to Frances.
“Perhaps we should go to Ireland, sir… I would like to be in arms. Every man should be a soldier once in his life.”
“That is your grandfather speaking through you. Ap Evans the archer. Concentrate for now on making a show in the tournaments.”
“He carries the Cromwell colours, and the king loves him for it.” When the king comes to visit his sick councillor, he calls Richard his cousin.
Week 17: The Map of Christendom (Part 2) / To Wolf Hall
His new haircut makes “no change in Richard’s aspect; committed to the tilting ground, he keeps his hair cropped to fit under a helmet.”
Week 19: Crows (Part 1)
Reunited at Austin Friars.
Richard is a solid boy with the Cromwell eye, direct and brutal, and the Cromwell voice that can caress or contradict. He is afraid of nothing that walks the earth, and nothing that walks below it; if a demon turned up at Austin Friars, Richard would kick it downstairs on its hairy arse.
Cromwell has confided in Richard about what happened at Elvetham and knows something of the conversation he, Cromwell, had with the king about Anne.
Richard tells his uncle about the scrapping between Nicholas Carew and George Boleyn.