Thomas Cromwell

Lord Privy Seal

Thomas Cromwell (1485 – ), lawyer and king’s councillor, chancellor of the exchequer, master of the jewel house, and clerk of the hanaper. Son of Walter Cromwell, married to Liz Wykys, father of Gregory, Anne and Grace.

“You are the man with the slow resting heartbeat, the calmest person in any room, the best man in a crisis. You are a robust, confident, centred man, and your confidence comes from the power you have in reserve: your Putney self, ready to be unleashed, like an invisible pit bull. No one knows where you have been, or who you know, or what you can do, and these areas of mystery, on which you cast no light, are the source of your power. When are you angry, which is rare, you are terrifying.”
Hilary Mantel, notes on characters

The story so far…

Week 1: Across the Narrow Sea / Paternity

In 1500, Thomas flees his violent father in search of his fortune abroad. By 1527 he is a secretary in the household of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York.

Week 2: At Austin Friars / Visitation

In 1527, Cromwell is with his wife, Liz, at Austin Friars. He has a new book from Germany and memories of how he turned around Liz’s father’s business, married her and held his first child, Gregory, in his hands.

In 1529, he is with the cardinal when the king dismisses him as Lord Chancellor and turns him out on the road. They go to the cardinal’s house near Putney, where Cromwell makes Wolsey comfortable while considering a future without him.

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

“Who’s that? In the corner there?” It is Cromwell, Wolsey’s lawyer, in 1523. He’s watching Wolsey reprimand Sir Thomas Boleyn, “the coldest, smoothest man he has ever seen.” On leaving, Boleyn calls Cromwell the “butcher’s dog”.

That’s the night Cromwell tells Wolsey about Mary Boleyn and the king. But before he does this, his body betrays him. He flinches as Wolsey reaches out a hand and confides in his master that he once killed a man. A man who would have killed him.

Wolsey teaches Cromwell about the history of England and how to survive at court: work out what people wear beneath their clothes. And how to serve the king: “take him as he is, a pleasure-loving prince.”

We learn in these pages that Cromwell once handled a snake for a bet, and served in the armies of Cesare Borgia. He has picked up Machiavelli’s book on how to rule. He says it contains nothing new. Watching Wolsey work, we sense he admires the man but thinks he could do it better.

In 1527, the cardinal is away in Europe. Cromwell is careful to keep his family away from meeting with suspected heretics, like Little Bilney. But this means that no one can find him the day his wife dies from a sweating sickness. The household goes into mourning and quarantine.

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

We learn more about Cromwell’s earlier life at the start of this section. At seven, he went to work in Lambert Palace with his uncle John, a cook for Archbishop John Morton. There he learned to count and proved himself good at remembering things. And it is here he meets the scholar Master Thomas More, reading a book full of words.

Cromwell visits his father a year after returning from Europe, and once he is married and a father himself. They bicker about the family name and the family fortune. There were rich Cromwells once, but Walter supposes “we pissed it away”.

Back in 1528, his sister-in-law Johane asks him what he does these days. “Our business,” he says, “is making people rich.” Johane and her family have moved into Austin Friars so that she can help look after the children. Anne wants to marry Rafe Sadler when she grows up, and although the idea is impossible, the thought pleases Cromwell.

Cromwell remembers the rainy night he brought Rafe Sadler into his household. “Teach him all you know”, said Rafe’s father. “Shall we see how far we get?” Cromwell asks Rafe portentously, as they ride through horizontal rain from Essex into London.

In 1528, the sweating sickness returns and Cromwell sends his daughters away.

He learns that two evangelical scholars have died in the cellars at Cardinal College, forgotten by Wolsey. His grief turns to anger. He asks his master to petition the king for the release of Thoms Bilney, and he makes Wolsey cry.

In Autumn 1528, he learns from Lady Carey, Anne’s sister, that the king’s mistress intends to become his wife and queen. Mary suggests another marriage, between herself and Cromwell. He tells it to no man, but Rafe Sadler.

The next year, a legatine court fails to resolve the king’s great matter. Cromwell knows it is over for Wolsey, and for himself. He goes home and writes his will:

To God his soul. To Rafe Sadler his books.

The sweat returns, and they don’t send the girls away. Anne dies first, and Grace afterwards, in his arms. Where are they now, and in what language do they speak? These matters of religion and faith are now as personal and as vital as skin and blood.

When the Duke of Norfolk comes for Wolsey’s palace and the Great Seal of England, he turns to the “butcher’s dog” and says: “Come and see me.”

Week 5: Make or Mar / Three-Card Trick

All Hallows, 1529, Esher Palance. The walls between the worlds grow thin, and Cromwell cries over Liz’s prayer book as his dead family turns the pages. George Cavendish sees him there by the window, crying, and realises how bad things are now. Cromwell tells him, “I’m finished”, and to save Wolsey, he must go to Parliament and speak for the cardinal. “Or they will kill him.”

Rafe Sadler gets Cromwell into Parliament, and Cromwell makes that visit to Norfolk. But he will not forsake Wolsey, he says. He sees the king, who will not talk of Wolsey. And he overhears a musician called Mark Smeaton spreading gossip that Anne is no maid. She has, everyone knows, slept with Thomas Wyatt.

Christmas 1529. “No year has brought such devastation.” Cromwell’s sister Kat is dead and so is Morgan Williams. Cromwell considers his daughters, who are dead, and his sons, who are living. He has more of them now, as Richard Williams will become Richard Cromwell. Cromwell holds no Epiphany feats because he knows no one will come. When the law students mock his lord cardinal, he has no choice but to leave. When he considers his “thick-fingered hands, scars and burn marks hidden in the palms” he wonders how he can convince anyone he is a gentleman. His sister’s medal is in the Thames, a part of him “that no living hand could take”.

In 1530, Cromwell finally has a proper interview with the king. “Your reputation is bad”, says Henry Tudor. “What would Your Majesty like me to be?” Cromwell does not back off, he does not concede he was wrong in opposing the king’s war. And his fortitude makes his monarch smile.

Wolsey says he should write Cromwell “a handbook” to serve the king. Each day, he, Cromwell, takes his instruction and rides to wherever Henry is. “He thinks of the king as a terrain into which he must advance, with no sea coast to supply him”.

When Norfolk comes after Cromwell, demanding that the cardinal go north, he threatens them with his teeth. It is alarming. But “Cromwell flesh is firm, dense and impermeable. The ducal finger just bounces off.”

Lenten supper, this Antonio Bonvisi, Spring 1530. “And what do you think, now you are a courtier?” asks Humphrey Monmouth.

There are smiles around the table. Because, of course, the idea is so ridiculous, the situation so temporary.

It is ridiculous to imagine someone like Cromwell so close to the king. “The king may raise up whom he will”, our lawyer reminds the room. Bonvisi: “Up to a point, Thomas.” It is in that room that Cromwell accuses More of bringing down the cardinal, of whispering in the king’s ear, and taking Wolsey’s chain of office.

Afterwards, he, Cromwell, and Bonvisi slip into Italian. He wants to know about Thomas Wyatt, who ran away on a diplomatic mission to Italy three years ago. Why the haste? Was it something to do with Lady Anne Boleyn?

That’s when Bonvisi tells him that the “cardinal is finished” and you soon as well, Master Cromwell, if you don’t watch your step. This evening has been a warning. “He will remember it”, he thinks, “if it proves fatal”. Bonvsis does not relent. Do not, he says, sit down with the Boleyns.

Week 6: Entirely Beloved Cromwell (Part 1)

The cardinal’s man goes to see Anne Boleyn, the lady bent on Wolsey’s destruction. She’s small and sharp and a force to be reckoned with. He makes the cardinal’s case, and she dismisses it and then dismisses him. Mary Boleyn hurries out to tell him that Anne is not pregnant because she’s the first to know. And there is another lady there with a pale face who seems exasperated with the lot of them.

As Cromwell prepares the cardinal to head north, there is an uncertainty about him. “Do you think I look like a murderer?” he asks his cook.

‘'Not like a murderer, no. But if you will forgive me, master, you always look like a man who knows how to cup up a carcase.’

In his memories, we learn of how he used to work in the Frescobaldi kitchen in Florence and how one day, they called him upstairs to the counting-house. He never went back to the kitchens, he never went back to war.

There’s a rage in him when Stephen Gardiner gets between him and the king. But he uses Thomas Howard to see Henry and ask for money to help the cardinal. Henry gives him a thousand pounds and tells him, “Every day, I miss the Cardinal of York.” Cromwell thanks him on his knees. “Dear God, Master Cromwell, you can talk, can’t you?”

The cardinal gives Cromwell a package, a ring or a seal. And when he kisses his master’s hand in farewell, he sees the turquoise ring is missing. Cromwell is not going with the cardinal. But what does this mean? Richard says '“His heart is leading him” and “it is time to let the cardinal go.” But at the same time, Cromwell cries in a courtyard recess and swears softly at life, and himself for giving way to its demands.

In Holy Week, Chapuy comes to tell him that the cardinal has no more credit with the emperor. He thinks Wolsey must avoid all foreign princes to save him from accusations of treason. Cromwell considers his memory system and how it makes him see people who are not there. But now he has begun to think of Johane in a way he should not.

He talks to a lonely and melancholic king. The king would like Cromwell to have a pedigree, a name he can understand. But the Putney boy will not fabricate one to please men who are better born. The king is impressed by Cromwell’s loyalty to the cardinal, but tonight he needs a distraction. So Cromwell tells him about monks and monasteries, and how undeserving they are of their wealth and reputation.

It’s a significant meeting. It is perhaps the moment when Cromwell is more than the cardinal’s man. He is now the king’s man also. And as summer comes round, Cromwell is making himself more useful, and helping Charles Brandon too.

At More’s house in Chelsea, Cromwell sizes up the carpet. He knows the trade, and More has bought poorly. There is a Holbein painting of the family on the wall, and Cromwell prefers it to the real thing. He pities Alice, More’s wife, and those who have to suffer More. Alice tells him that he should marry again, but he says, “No one will have me.” When Gardiner brings up the topic again on the boat, Cromwell is almost defensive: as though they know about Johane. He throws the question back on Gardiner, the churchman: “Oh, come on. Stephen. You must have women. Don’t you?” Chilly silence from Master Secretary.

Cromwell thinks: if and when the cardinal is returned to favour: “you’re all dead, Norfolk, Gardiner, More.”

Week 7: Entirely Beloved Cromwell (Part 2)

When he sees Anne, he thinks of her brother George and her father Thomas. They have got rich since the cardinal came down. He invites her to become his confidant, in not so many words. After all, they have interests in common and are both after their own advantage. She drops her head. Not tonight.

As Wolsey gets closer to his enthronement, he behaves more and more like a prince and not a cardinal. Cromwell is afraid of what this means. When Norfolk comes in frothing at the mouth, Cromwell hides his thoughts: “my lord would have made such an excellent king”.

Cromwell goes to see Anne. He asks Cramner why he never came to Cardinal College, and Cramner reminds him of the scholars dead in the fish cellar. Cromwell feels something like regret about turning down Mary Boleyn that one time, knowing that he would do it again. And a small suspicion crosses his mind that Jane Seymour left a vicious note in Anne’s bed: the king’s concubine sans tête.

Cromwell gets Cramner around to Austin Friars to pull the man’s story out of him. It is a very different story from his own. A loving father. A gentleman, who died when he was still a boy. The boy dreamed of Cambridge, while Cromwell dreamed of the world. Cramner asks him seriously whether it is true that he was “stolen by pirates”.

‘But the event never took place. Really. Pirates would have given me back.’

Talking to Cramner makes Cromwell feel rich. He has a family. “What has this man?” But Cromwell wants the cardinal back, “bottled rage and pain” in his breast. He talks of rumours that he “has been bought out”, men making “misunderstandings” between him and Wolsey. He would go and reassure Wolsey, but “there is no time.”

Cromwell in the butts with the king. He tells his king that he is “one of the others” who believe the king cannot act outside of law. It’s not the first time he has told Henry: no.

Cromwell is “increasingly where he shouldn’t be.” Like an audience of gentlemen of the court and the bedchamber, listening to Norfolk in a rage. Norfolk makes out that the king has no heirs. Cromwell reminds him of Mary. He says she can rule, with the right advisers and the right marriage. Norfolk tells the court a story of a servant who pulled the king out of a ditch. So, Cromwell thinks, a common man can save the king if needs must.

All Soul’s Day. “What have you been teaching them?” he asks Johane, because the children believe in the pope's powers and purgatory. While Richard denies the sacrament. Cromwell considers them “the survivors” of a battlefield, “his to direct”, who must learn “the defensive act of facing both ways.”

After news of the cardinal’s death, George Cavendish gives him the details. Cromwell think he “shall take it in hand” to avenge the cardinal, adding Harry Percy to his list for the arrest of Wolsey. Cromwell cannot bear to hear the story, although he does not cry. And when Cavendish says he wished Cromwell had been there, Cromwell says, “I too.” With George gone, he holds his fingers and thinks: “Henry I have your heart in my hand.” He opens the package from the cardinal and puts the turquoise ring on his finger: it fits as if it had been made for him.

Cromwell sits through the farce at Hampton Court, as four courtier devils drag Wolsey into hell. He makes sure to identify then men backstage. He walks the long walk home to Austin Friars, where he orders the cardinal’s arms to be painted over. “Leave a space,” he says.

Week 8: The Dead Complain of Their Burial / Arrange Your Face (Part 1)

In December 1530, Cromwell might expect arrest. The cardinal is dead, but he was charged with treason, and Cromwell was the cardinal’s man. When William Brereton comes in the night, it reminds him of when Liz dies. Children in their night-shifts, “forlorn and bewildered”. He placates them: “Go back to bed. The king wouldn’t order me to Greenwich to arrest me; it doesn’t happen that way.” But he doesn’t know how it happens. Not yet, anyway.

Cromwell thinks he sees the cardinal in the shadows, but it is Cranmer. The priest is telling Henry not to listen to his dreams. But Cromwell understands Henry and gives him a story he can believe; a story that flatters Henry’s sense of himself. Later, when Cranmer takes issue with Cromwell’s “vigorous invention”, Cromwell says:

‘Dr Cranmer, look at me. Believe me. I am sincere. I cannot help it if God has given me a sinner’s aspect. He must mean something by it.’

Later that day, Cromwell is sworn into the king’s council. “Give him a year or two, and we may all find ourselves superfluous,” says Thomas Boleyn. Cromwell seems to agree, looking at the ancient Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury. “I could do the job.” And, “Why can More never get a proper shave?” More hopes Cromwell will advise the king on what he “ought to do, not merely what he can do.” It seems unlikely.

1531. He has been busy passing legislation in Parliament, compelling the clergy to pay a fine. Sorry, “a benevolence.” For their allegiance to Rome.

“Wolsey was to me a father and a friend. That does not alter my feelings towards our Holy Mother the church.”

Queen Katherine: “The blacksmith makes his own tools.”

He is relieved to be away from the mother and the daughter, in the fresh air with Rafe, Gregory and Call-Me. He begins to tell a story. “He stops: what is this? I don't tell stories about myself.”

A story about making a new statue look old to sell to a cardinal. He and Cranmer have been up all night making their new precedents look old. Forgers and fakery.

“The question is, have you picked your prince? Because that is what you do, you choose him, and you know what he is… You give way to the king's requests. You open the way to his desires. That is what a courtier does.”

Brethren in the city, harassed by the Lord Chancellor, come to him for help. Cromwell can only do so much, but he is bullish about the prospect of More coming after him and his people:

Let him come near my people. I’ll drag him out of his court at Westminster and beat his head on the cobble till I knock into him some sense of the love of God and what it means.

Week 9: Arrange Your Face (Part 2)

It is spring, 1531. Thomas Cromwell is making it his business to be cheerful. He is on the king’s council and must look and act the part. At home, he decides to draw a line under his indiscretions with Johane Williamson, a married woman and sister to his late wife. They part amicably. “Thomas,” Mercy says, “when you’re cold and under a stone, you’ll talk yourself out of your grave.”

In the summer, Halley’s Comet is visible in the night sky. Austin Friars is busy. Theology in the garden, astronomy in his study. Petitioners visit hourly, and gentlemen send gifts of meat. Cromwell offers to help Thurston with the butchery. “Are our benefactors getting letters of thanks?”

Anne Boleyn is always with the king now. But her temper is no better. One of her enemies at court, Stephen Gardiner, has replaced Wolsey as Bishop of Winchester. She would prefer an ally as Master Secretary. Like Thomas Cromwell? “Too soon.” Little Bilney goes to the fire, and there are more burnings to come.

The king wants his two councillors, Cromwell and Gardiner, to settle their differences. But Cromwell thinks it will be better for Cromwell if they don’t. Later, Gardiner is sent on embassy to France, leaving him in charge in all but name.

Sir Henry Wyatt visits Austin Friars and tells the children stories of bad king Richard, a dungeon and a cat. He tells the one about the lion and his son, Thomas Wyatt. We meet him at the end of the year, drunk with his gentleman friends. “Say thank you to Master Cromwell… Who else would be up so early on a holiday, and with his purse open?”

When Cromwell dines with Anne Boleyn, he sees “she has made pets of the king’s friends.” A bigger set of fools you would go far to seek. They are all in love with Anne. “You don’t see it, do you?” says Henry Norris. They seem under some enchantment, like the one Chapuys would like him to break.

This is Cromwell in 1531. The courtier, the facilitator, the yes-man. So we end the chapter in 1497, when he was an unruly child with a self-made knife like an “evil tooth” ready to kill Cornishmen and a giant called Bolster. They hope the Cornish rebels will kill Walter too, but no such luck. The rebels are minced at Blackheath, and the giant is gone.

‘Dead till next time,’ his sister says.

Week 10: 'Alas, What Shall I Do For Love?' (Part 1)

It is early 1532, and Thomas Cromwell is moving against the clergy in Parliament. Stephen Gardiner feels obliged to lead the loyal opposition and it is Cromwell who saves Gardiner from losing his job as Master Secretary.

Cromwell is doing everyone’s job these days but has no office of his own. So, as Henry Wyatt suggested, he asks Anne Boleyn for a position in the Jewel House.

Thomas Wyatt comes to see Cromwell. He says he never slept with Anne Boleyn but thinks she has had other lovers. Cromwell says it suits him to take her at her own valuation: the queen-to-be is a virgin.

Thomas More comes to Austin Friars to threaten Cromwell. Cromwell remembers the burning of a Lollard he witnessed as a child.

In April, he becomes Keeper of the Jewel House. Hugh Latimer visits him and asks about James Bainham, awaiting execution. But Bainham must burn. Thomas Avery returns home with a book of mathematics by Luca Pacioli.

Cromwell bags two big fish in May: More resigns as Lord Chancellor. And Stephen Gardiner gets his house pinched by the king for Anne Boleyn, the queen-in-waiting. Cranmer writes from Nuremberg, with notes in the margin: he has a secret, he says.

The painter Hans Holbein is at Austin Friars. Holbein does not want to return home to the religious infighting in the Swiss cantons and cities. Cromwell assures him that he and the king have plenty of work for him.

But first a crisis: Harry Percy’s wife is petitioning for a divorce. He claims he is married to Anne Boleyn. The Boleyns and Howards call in Cromwell. They need a man like Wolsey to make Harry Percy go away. Cromwell steps up.

He meets with the earl and explains to him how the world works. And the next day the young earl swears on the Good Book that he was never married to Anne Boleyn. Later, at Austin Friars, Cromwell consults another case pending: a prophetess down in Kent speaking out against the king’s marriage.

“This girl, you know, she claims she can raise the dead.”

Week 11: 'Alas, What Shall I Do For Love?' (Part 2) / Early Mass

Summer, 1532. John Petyt has died. One less heretic, if you ask Sir Thomas More. One more martyr, if you speak to Humphrey Monmouth. The kingdom is fractious: congregations are heckling priests. Bards are writing ballads about Lady Anne: “The words are not repeatable in this company.”

Promotions are in order: Cromwell is now Clerk of the Hanaper and Anne is Marquess of Pembroke. Stephen Gardiner thinks she should settle for Marquess, and Charles Brandon says his wife won’t appear in the train of a harlot. So it’s Cromwell’s job to be peacemaker and king-pleaser as Anne edges throneward.

It is October, and we are going to Calais. It’s going to be the first international meeting of the kings of England and France since the Field of the Cloth of Gold. It must be bigger, better, and cost less. Demand the impossible, Master Cromwell.

At Canterbury, his grace the King has a run-in with the Holy Maid, Elizabeth Barton. The prophetess says he’ll be dethroned, stricken, and scorched within seven months of marrying Anne. Norfolk steps in and almost punches the nun. They sail for Calais, and Cromwell makes his glum king laugh. “It is welcome to his ears.”

Calais: Cromwell slips away to talk with alchemists and find a man called Giulio Camillo. He’s building something for the King of France, but Cromwell wants it for his master and for England. “The magister believes he would dislike the English climate,” they tell him. “And also, the whole island is covered with witches.”

The men leave the women behind at Calais to join the French court at Boulogne. There, Cromwell has a brief interview with King Francis. The Most Christian King can’t get his head around Cromwell or Anne. But he does give him a ruby in a glove. The dutiful servant passes it on to his monarch, who purchases it from his beloved councillor. “Two hours. Two kings.” He thinks. “What do you know, Walter?”

Singing and dancing. The French king spends too much time with Anne, so Cromwell makes Norfolk intervene. Norfolk dances: priceless stuff. Later, a Bible is needed and a door is unbolted. And outside, the other Boleyn girl is keeping her options open in the salty sea air. Cromwell thinks of another night in Cyprus and then another in Antwerp. The memories fold into one another and then again, into the night.

Early Mass, November, 1532. Cromwell is awoken from a bed of phantoms. The king has gone to Mass with his queen-to-be and comes out with a wife-that-is and a feather in his hat. A new era has begun.

Week 12: Anna Regina (Part 1)

At the start of 1533, Thomas Cromwell takes into Austin Friars Helen Barre, the wife or widow of a violent man who has left her with two children and no home. To his growing household, Cromwell also adds the Calais boy known as Christophe.

Before they left Calais, Cromwell inspected the library of Lord Berners. The governor of Calais is also Chancellor of the Exchequer. When he dies the following year, Cromwell is given the job. It’s his first real title.

Anne and Henry take their vows in secret at a chapel at Whitehall. Afterwards, Mary lets Cromwell know that she has let out Anne’s bodice. Her sister is pregnant. Cromwell passes on this secret to Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop Elect. Cranmer doesn’t reciprocate with his own secret, alluded to in a letter from Nuremberg.

Another secret is out in the world: Anne thinks she’s carrying the king’s heir. She is beaming with pleasure while mentally rounding up her enemies. Chapuy puts it plainly to Cromwell: Do you know how much you are staking on the body of one woman?

Anne has other plans. She wants to marry Mary Boleyn to Cromwell’s nephew, Richard. But the king overrules the match: he wants Mary for himself while her sister is carrying his heir. He calls Gregory “a very fine young man”, and Gregory almost dies of happiness.

At the Tower, Cromwell visits John Frith, a survivor from Wolsey’s fish cellar. He was locked up while Cromwell was in Calais and will be burned for books he cannot unwrite and beliefs he cannot unbelieve. Cromwell cannot save inflexible men.

The king sends him to see Katherine in secret. She will not recognise the court annulling their marriage, the new queen, or the archbishop. She denies correspondence with the king’s enemies. “I have brought England little good, but I would be loath to bring her any harm.”

Finally, Cromwell visits Thomas More at Chelsea. He must be convinced to attend the coronation, for his own sake. In his favour, he has written to the Holy Maid, Elizabeth Barton, advising her to cease to trouble the king with prophecies. While More’s daughter is out of the room fetching the letter, Cromwell does what he can to make More save Frith from the fire.

Frith. Katherine. More. For a persuasive man, Cromwell could do better. But at least his new robes have arrived. It is time for Cromwell to go into crimson.

Week 13: Anna Regina (Part 2)

June 1533. Anne Boleyn is crowned Queen of England. Four days of processions, ceremonies and feasting. And Thomas Cromwell is running everything, including the weather. He pays a visit to his neighbour Chapuys, a satirical procession for the ambassador who says he has failed his master and failed Katherine.

The coronation at Westminster Abbey allows Cromwell to survey the present and the future. He sees Anne’s enemies humbled and his enemies humiliated. And himself as the guardian of a prince of England, for twenty years to come.

He takes the king’s ring to Anne, a token of his love. But Anne is ungrateful because when will England love her? “When this creature is out of me,” she says. “Never,” says Lady Rochford, helpfully. In the wings, Mary Boleyn is tired and miserable. The king visits her nightly and all Cromwell can say is, “This will end. He will free you.”

In the gallery, the king and the French ambassadors are talking about Giulio Camillo’s theatre of memory. It sounds a little like witchcraft to the king of England. And besides, he doesn’t need a memory machine. He has Thomas Cromwell, who will replace Stephen Gardiner as his Master Secretary.

Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Canterbury summons his “chief friend,” Thomas Cromwell to reveal his marginal secret. In England, priests cannot marry. But Cranmer is hiding a pregnant German wife. “I hope for a daughter,” says Cranmer. “Jesus,” says Master Secretary. Cromwell installs Helen Barre as companion to Margarete. Rafe seems sad to see her go.

John Frith burns. The pope prepares to excomunicate the English king, meaning Henry will burn in hell for heresy. The prophetess Elizabeth Barton is brought in for questioning and rumours go around that Cromwell is keeping a woman in secret. And in August, Anne begins her confinement to deliver England its future king.

Week 14: Devil’s Spit / A Painter’s Eye

Autumn 1533. A princess of England is born. Cromwell is there when the king hears the news. For a moment, Henry is felled. But Cromwell’s other self, Thomas Cranmer, puts the king back on his feet. “It was like watching Lazarus get up,” says Thomas Cromwell.

Elizabeth Barton is brought to London for questioning. On her lips is the devil’s spit, and the prophecy that all heretics will be dead in six months. It is not quite treason. ‘I think new laws are needed,’ says Sir Richard Riche. ‘I have it in hand,’ says Thomas Cromwell.

Sunday supper at Austin Friars. A cosmopolitan table: statecraft and gossip. His niece Alice comes to see him: the Maid of Kent is close to breaking point. But so is Alice. Her mother has died and she wants to wed. Thomas Rotherham. Cromwell adds the boy’s name to his dead wife’s book of hours. Then crosses out another Thomas, Liz’s first husband. ‘I have got over Liz, he says to himself. Surely?’

Elizabeth Barton cracks. She confesses to being a fraud. Cromwell has them now: John Fisher, the Courtenays and the Poles. And “a fat haul of Franciscans.” Barton will do public penance while they decide what to do with the rest.

Jane Rochford comes to Cromwell. She offers friendship for information. Her husband, George Boleyn, wants her dead, she says. And the queen “craves novelty” beyond the stale bed of the King of England.

Cromwell counsels the king towards mercy and patience. Thomas More is adamant that he played no part in the affair. “Thomas. In the name of Christ, you know that.” He sounds rattled. But he will not recognise Henry as head of the church.

Anne Boleyn is pregnant again. This time, surely it will be a boy. They are breaking up the household of Lady Mary, the princess-that-was. She will go to Hatfield and serve the baby Elizabeth. Cromwell exerts his power and influence over the old families: telling Margaret Pole and Nicholas Carew what they must do.

1534, and Holbein’s portrait comes to Austin Friars. Everyone has an opinion and the real Thomas Cromwell learns that he is middle-aged, stout, and vain. The painter’s eye sees a man like a seawall with fingers that could wield a killing knife. I look like a murderer, Cromwell says.

Gregory says, ‘Did you not know?’

Week 15: Supremacy

1534. It’s a busy year for Parliament. It’s a busy year for Thomas Cromwell. A new law will give backing to the king’s marriage and require all England to swear an oath in its favour. But Anne doesn’t like the small print where it explains what happens if she dies.

Stephen Gardiner is back from France. But the king and Anne want him away from court, minding his flock. “Meanwhile we like Cromwell,” says the king. “Cromwell treats us well.” Cromwell is preparing a bill of attainder, charging with treason Elizabeth Barton and his co-conspirators. Anne makes him add Thomas More to the list alongside John Fisher. He visits Barton in the Tower.

The king sends Cromwell to Hatfield to review the arrangements of Elizabeth’s household. He takes Gregory, who says all the wrong things. And Cromwell speaks mildly to Mary, encouraging her to accept the world that is now. He explains to Gregory why their future still may depend on Mary Tudor.

Parliament will not let the king kill Thomas More. Norfolk, Audley, Cranmer and Cromwell get down on their knees and beg Henry to remove More’s name. It buys them some time to sit More down with the Act of Succession. He says he will be damned if he takes the oath, but he won’t say why. Cromwell loses his temper. Which feels like a victory for Sir Thomas More.

The next day, Cromwell is made Master Secretary. He returns to the city in Gardiner’s old barge with the Cromwell flag flying. Rafe picks this moment to tell him he has married Helen Barre. It is a terrible match for a boy born a gentleman. But Rafe can afford it. He will be Cromwell’s double at court and rise with him.

Thomas More’s family take the oath. Thomas More is sent to the Tower. Midsummer, the queen miscarries and “dragons stalk the streets, puffing out smoke and clattering their mechanical wings.”

Week 16: The Map of Christendom (Part 1)

Autumn, 1534. The king offers Cromwell the job of Lord Chancellor. It is Thomas Audley’s current title. Squawk squawk. And before him: Thomas More and Thomas Wolsey. But Cromwell eyes up a different job: Master of the Rolls.

It comes with a house in Chancery Lane, close to the Court and Parliament. Christophe goes with him to dust off the cobwebs. His move to the Rolls House makes him take stock of life: its growing magnificence veiling haunted hollows.

Ireland is in rebellion, and Cromwell serves a paranoid king with a gammy leg. He, Cromwell, visits More in the Tower. The prisoner must now swear an oath to the Act of Supremacy, recognising the king as head of the church. It’s just words, but More won’t budge.

Uproar in the Boleyn camp. Mary is pregnant, and Anne thinks it is the king’s. She is sent off to Kent, and Jane Seymour helps her pack.

Hans Holbein talks about the Queen of Sheba. Hans talks about Anselma. He knows who she is: Cromwell’s old flame in Antwerp. He could have her if he wants, Hans says. He, Cromwell, could have any woman in England.

Alice More comes to see him. She wants to plead the king’s mercy for her husband in the Tower. She talks about More’s piety and his hair shirt, but also her tenderness and desire to protect him.

New year, 1535. The king makes him his deputy in church affairs. It’s a new title: Vicegerent in Spirituals. It empowers him to visit, inspect and reform the monasteries. He is working harder than ever. Too hard. He falls ill. The Italian fever, he says. He is visited by the living and the dead. And then by the King of England himself, who calls him, “My dear Cromwell.”

When the king is gone, it is Johane who tells him the truth. “Henry,” she says, “is frightened of you.”

Week 17: The Map of Christendom (Part 2) / To Wolf Hall

The Duke of Norfolk visits Cromwell in his sickbed and goes away disappointed that the blacksmith’s boy is not yet dead. Chapuys puts his head around the corner: “My dear Thomas, you are always the only opponent.”

Death comes, and Death goes. “Knock him down and he will get up.” Cromwell returns to the land of the living to find everyone has cut their hair and Call-Me is still frightened of him.

April 1535. The Charterhouse monks refuse the oath and are tried for treason. They are hung, drawn and quartered. The king’s bastard Henry FitzRoy watches, to “learn the sights and sounds of slaughter.”

Thomas More is unmoved. He is preparing himself for death. But John Fisher will die first: the pope has made him a cardinal, and the king "swears he will send Fisher’s head across the sea to meet his hat.”

They put the oath to More one last time. Silence. They indict him for treason and take away his books. Left alone with Richard Riche, More lets slip that matters spiritual are rightfully determined “out of this realm.” “Hang him for a papist,” says Cromwell.

He visits More before the trial. The prisoner fears the manner of his death. He, Cromwell, says he would let him live, “to repent of your butcheries.”

The trial of Sir Thomas More. “It’s England against Rome, he says. The living against the dead.” The jury is fixed, Riche presents his evidence, and the judgement takes fifteen minutes. Afterwards, More breaks his silence and speaks his mind. He summons the dead. Take him out, says Norfolk. “It is finished.”

July, 1535. More to the scaffold, Cromwell to his garden. The rain abates and a map of England is laid before us. This summer, the court heads west. He, Cromwell, plots the route. There are some spare days in the itinerary and time to drop in on the Seymours. “Who says I never get a holiday?”

Early September. Five days. Wolf Hall.

Week 18: Falcons

Wiltshire, September, 1535. Cromwell is with the king as the court progresses through the home counties. The days are taken up with hunting and falconry, the evenings with entertainment, and the nights with the business of England.

This day, the king has lost his hat. In deference, everyone has gone bareheaded and is now sunburnt. Everyone except Master Secretary, who has the skin of a lily.

The king is with the Seymours of Wolf Hall. Old Sir John boasts that his daughters are “great hunters” but are not troubled by an education. They can dance, but don’t speak foreign tongues because “they’re not going anywhere.” Cromwell says his daughters were taught equal to his son Gregory.

Jane Seymour speaks of gossip and women’s secrets, and Francis Weston goads Cromwell, knowing the king protects him. Weston accuses him of bribing and threatening a guilty verdict out of Thomas More’s jury. The king falls asleep, and Jane wakes him.

Edward Seymour and Thomas Cromwell play chess, a rematch of their game in Calais. Seymour wants to talk about religion and affairs of state, and Cromwell is unusually candid. At chess, Cromwell wins again.

Upstairs, Rafe and Gregory are kicking Weston’s ghost and throwing him out the window. In their bed chamber, Gregory asks whether he will marry Jane Seymour. Alone, he, Cromwell, speaks to the trinity: to God, the cardinal, and Lady Rochford.

The next day, they cut short the chase, and Henry walks with Jane in the gardens of Wolf Hall. Cromwell observes them through glass. Afterwards, the king looks stunned. Early next morning, he sees Jane in her stiff finery, looking out into England.

Week 19: Crows (Part 1)

Autumn, 1535. Thomas Cromwell runs into Stephen Gardiner outside the king’s chamber. Gardiner has written a book defending the divinity of the king’s authority and supremacy as head of the church.

The court arrives at Winchester, and Anne’s bishops are concretated at the cathedral. Cromwell reflects on his souring relationship with Anne and his attempts to accommodate the men surrounding the king and queen.

The plague diverts the court to the Seymour house of Elvetham, where Cromwell arranges for Jane to be seen by the king. That night, Henry can’t sleep and summons Cromwell. The king asks him how he might free himself of his marriage to Anne.

This summer, Cromwell sent his inspectors to the kingdom’s monasteries. They are tasked with assessing the church's wealth and any good cause for the king to reclaim what is rightfully his. As he talks this over with his son Gregory, he reminds himself to visit Wolsey’s daughter Dorothea at Shaftesbury.

Back at Austin Friars, Cromwell visits the kitchens to get the London gossip from Thurston, the cook. The word on the street is that Anne is cuckolding the king. With whom? Thomas Wyatt, Henry Percy, and every gentleman of the privy chamber.

At Cromwell’s household council, discuss a turf war between George Boleyn and Nicholas Carew and Gardiner’s fresh appointment as ambassador to France. The empire is once again a threat to England, and Katherine of Aragon is dying.

Richard Riche says, “If she should die within the year, I wonder what world would be then?”

Week 20: Crows (Part 2)

Cromwell remembers the day he turned up at the Frescobaldi house in Florence. He boasted like an Italian and called himself Hercules. He started by sweeping the floor and worked his way up.

Back in 1535, he is writing in his head The Book Called Henry. He asks his little Welsh boy whether he prays in his own tongue. When his agent, John Ap Rice, comes in with a box of relics, he says, ‘John, you must sit down and write. Your compatriots must have prayers.’

Stephen Gardiner has been down in Putney. He says, ‘I know things about your life you don’t know yourself.’ He says Cromwell doesn’t just look like a murderer. He is one. And his father, Walter, bought off the bereaved family.

Anne summons him. Once he gets past a superfluous Mark Smeaton, he faces a discontented queen. She suspects Katherine of conspiring with Chapuys to urge the emperor to invade. She sends Cromwell to Kimbolton to root out any treason.

Cromwell takes Christophe. On the road, they stop at an inn where he, Cromwell, sleeps with the landlord’s wife. At Kimbolton, he enters the church and asks a priest to pray for Thomas Wolsey.

Katherine asks about Anne and requests visits from Chapuys and her daughter Mary. She remembers her first son, who lived fifty-two days. He tells her to make Mary reconcile with the king. But while Anne is queen, Katherine will have no mercy.

Anne is pregnant again, says a reliably informed Lady Rochford. So now is Jane Seymour’s chance to become the king’s mistress and her brothers prepare her for the task. Meanwhile, Anne shrinks in her clothes, holding within herself her future, the future of England, and the future of Master Secretary Thomas Cromwell.

Week 21: Angels

It’s Christmas, 1535, and a festive mood descends on the Cromwell household and the Tudor court. But he, Cromwell, has never been busier: buried under an avalanche of paperwork. ‘Sometimes he would give a king’s ransom to see the sun.’

At court, he sits on the low table for functionaries like himself, and the king’s friends who are not of noble birth: Nicholas Carew, William Fitzwilliam, and William Paulet. He ‘is an easy man to get along with,’ so he eases into a more amicable relationship with Nicholas Carew, Katherine’s old partisan.

The queen’s dog Purkoy falls from a window. Why? No one knows. Cromwell offers words of comfort, but Anne’s knives are out for Katherine, Mary and Jane Seymour. She turns her wrath on Cromwell: ‘Those who are made can be unmade.’

Cromwell’s house at Stepney. The Christmas star goes up and he takes in a jester called Anthony. Anthony does impressions: his King Henry is rather good. Cromwell’s friends visit and ask what he will do for William Tyndale, in prison and likely to be killed. He can do nothing and the conversation leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

Chapuys comes to Stepney. Katherine is dying and the imperial ambassador wants permission to see her at Kimbolton. Cromwell and Chapuys go together to Greenwich to ask the king. The courtiers are dressing for a masque when Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk barges in, accusing Anne of adultery.

He, Cromwell, is needled by Brandon’s comments: ‘Get back to your abacus, Cromwell.’ In Stepney, he puts his man Vaughan on the road to keep an eye of Katherine’s people. In the new year, the old queen dies. Henry and Anne rejoice in yellow and the king parades Princess Elizabeth about court.

Anne makes a peace offering to Lady Mary, one she knows Henry’s bastard will refuse. She does. Cromwell commiserates with Chapuys, hopeful that Katherine’s death removes an obstacle preventing amicable relations with the Empire. And Christophe says the word on the street is that he, Cromwell, and the king murdered Katherine, once Queen of England, and no more.

Week 22: The Black Book (Part 1)

January 1536. The chapter begins with the Queen of England on fire. Cromwell investigates why it was allowed to happen and consults the Black Book. ‘It orders the household: orders everything.’ Jane Rochford is on hand to fill in the gaps concerning the comings and goings in the queen’s chambers.

Cromwell considers the borderlands between truth and lies. He surveys this territory with a helpful example: What happened to Anthony’s teeth? There are many ‘twisted tales’ but surely only one reality? Perhaps, but it makes people happy when Gregory believes tall tales. Cromwell’s son pretends to be the king, and Master Secretary hides a smile with his hand.

On the day of the tournament, he makes his excuses so as not to see Gregory in danger. He remembers the advice of an old knight he knew in Venice: ‘Look, he said: there are three ways to fail. Horse can fail. Boys can fail. Nerve can fail.’

But it is not Gregory who fails in the lists. It is the king. He lies dead in a tent when Cromwell enters. Later, he remembers the Boleyns shouting their name and Norfolk bellowing, ‘Anne cannot rule. Me, me, me.’ He, Cromwell, bats the duke away and raises the king from the dead. Afterwards, they will say this never happened.

‘It was a bad moment for me,’ he tells Richard Cromwell that night, ‘I have everything, you would think. And yet take Henry away and I have nothing.’

Now the contest is sharper: the stakes clearer, the risks laid bare. News arrives that Anne has miscarried again, and the king makes it clear that she is to blame. He consults Cromwell and Cranmer: How can I be rid of her? In an antechamber, the two councillors talk things over as Cromwell eases Cranmer into the idea of a future world without Anne Boleyn.

Week 23: The Black Book (Part 2)

As proposed, Cranmer invites the Duke of Norfolk to dinner. It is Cromwell’s peace offering with jellies. But Thomas Howard’s peculiar son, the Earl of Surrey, comes too. He doesn’t like base men like Cranmer and Cromwell, and he lets them know it.

At home, Cromwell listens to Gregory’s stories and then shuts himself in his room with a piece of paper. He lists the combatants in this war: the Boleyns and their foes. In his mind’s eye, he sits the Boleyns’ enemies down to talk.

In the real world, he talks to the Seymours. He must manage their expectations but make sure they don’t sell Jane cheap. ‘You must not give in to the king,’ Edward tells his sister.

Chapuys interrogates Cromwell about Jane Seymour at Austin Friars: currently a building site. The ambassador wants to know who she is and whether Cromwell will turn on the queen. ‘Anne is desperate and dangerous,’ he says. ‘Strike first, before she strikes you.’

When Anne appears at court, she is much changed. She is ‘light, starved,’ and doleful. Cromwell believes it is a ruse. ‘She is on the offensive,’ he thinks.

In Parliament, the nation’s business goes forward. The Commons rejects his poor law despite the king’s support. And a Court of Augmentations is set up to manage the dissolution of the monasteries. Meanwhile, Cromwell’s income is augmented by bribes and fees. ‘It’s the way business has always been done.’

He gets Anne’s cousin Francis Bryan drunk. One-eyed Francis has fallen out with George Boleyn and seems ready to dish the dirt on Anne. But for now, the only name he gives Cromwell is the one he doesn’t want to hear: Thomas Wyatt.

Promotions. Edward Seymour to the Privy Chamber. Rafe Sadler to the king’s side. Helen his wife is bereft, but Cromwell is delighted. He need not prep Rafe for the job: ‘All his life has been training for this.’

He, Cromwell, manages Henry’s courtship of Jane. He helps write Henry’s love letters, making sure they are not too subtle. And he tells Jane what to talk about with the king: Horses. Dogs. Cannon. ‘He feels irredeemably sad,’ and at the same time, has the impulse to ask Jane’s sister Bess to marry him. In a half-world of stories and myth, she alone seems to ‘understand his life.’

Week 24: The Black Book (Part 3)

William Fitzwilliam comes to see Crumb. He says Anne is harming the king. He implies it would be right to remove her. He accuses Crumb of dancing around the point. But in truth, they are both on their toes, one eye on the door.

Nicholas Carew has no such reticence or discretion. He is bristling with conspiracy. He represents the old families, and he wants to sign Cromwell up to the fight. The bargain is struck and sealed. Help us, and we might just let you live.

And so it begins. Fitz and Carew, the Courtenays and the Poles. They are all talking to each other, and they are all talking to him. And in his mind’s eye, he sets the table. All the guests are assembled and the meat is brought in, still yet unslaughtered. The Boleyns, laid at his hand to be carved.

Rafe is now in the privy chamber, so he hears all the gossip. It is sordid stuff that embarrasses Master Sadler. The gentlemen of the privy chamber speculate which one of them will sire the king’s heir. It is foolish talk, and he, Cromwell, hopes none of it will be needed.

But first, he must guide Henry into an alliance with the empire. He sets up a meeting with Chapuys and makes the ambassador endure an encounter with La Ana, and a dinner with her brother George. It is a carefully arranged humiliation to satisfy Henry that his marriage is recognised, before he may choose to discard it.

But Henry grows wise to the game. In return for an alliance, Chapuys wants Mary back in the line of succession. The king explodes with rage and demands an apology. He turns his anger on Cromwell. ‘I really believe, Cromwell, that you think you are king, and I am the blacksmith’s boy.’ He, Cromwell, protects himself, arms crossed, his father Walter at his side.

The next day, at the king’s council, they must talk their sovereign round to continue negotiations with the Emperor. Afterwards, he listens to the king’s humble words, his apology to his right hand. He needs Cromwell, and Cromwell will now go to work to free Henry from Anne.

So it is game on. The Seymours join the conspirators at Cromwell’s table. Anne, he knows, is plotting something. Something devious and dark. So he must pick up the pace, and break down the door, before it is too late.

Week 25: The Book of Phantoms (Part 1/5)

Inquiries have begun. His friend Fitz has asked him to fathom ‘what the devil is going on among the queen’s waiting-women’. So, he, Cromwell, has opened his own court of inquiry. With almond cakes. Lady Worcester is first up, keen to dispel speculation that the child she carries is Henry’s. In return for Cromwell’s support, she will swear on oath that ‘doors are often closed’ in the queen’s chambers.

On St George’s Day, the Garter Knights gather to fill a vacancy in their order. Brandon throws him a wink, but no one makes Master Secretary a knight. Anne’s brother George is also passed over in favour of Crumb’s new friend, Sir Nicholas Carew.

With Richard Sampson, Bishop of Chichester, Cromwell looks for a clean solution to the Boleyn matter: annulment. He talks to Thomas Boleyn, who, for the right price, seems ready to testify against his daughter. But George comes too, and he is disgusted. Thomas Wriosthesley minutes our Lord Rochford’s displeasure.

He, Cromwell, calls in Mary Shelton. She tells him about a quarrel between Anne and Lady Rochford. She reports what she has witnessed without understanding its full significance. In the queen’s chambers, they have envisaged the king’s death. And Harry Norris has spoken about his love for Anne, alluding to more secrets yet uncovered.

Bring in Lady Rochford. Anne’s sister-in-law has her knives out for the queen. And she hates Anne’s brother, George, her husband. But Cromwell wants particulars. So Rochford says sister and brother are lovers. Why? ‘The better to rule.’ Anne needs a boy who doesn’t look like a bastard. A prince that looks like a Boleyn.

Lady Rochford will testify against Anne. She will give evidence against her husband.

He says, ‘Be advised by me. Talk to no one.’
Jane Rochford says, ‘Be advised by me. Talk to Mark Smeaton.’

Week 26: The Book of Phantoms (Part 2/5)

Mark Smeaton comes to Cromwell’s house at Stepney. He brings his lute, but he does not play. ‘Five rash minutes of boasting’ is all it takes to undo him. He admits to sleeping with the queen. He, Master Secretary, wants a written confession and a list of names. When Smeaton falters, he threatens him with five minutes with Christophe, and more besides.

Christophe locks Mark in with Christmas, so the star in its sleeves can torture him. Grace’s angel wings can frighten him. He, Cromwell, does not sleep that night. And in the morning, names tumble from the musician: Norris, Weston, Brereton, Wyatt. ‘No, not Wyatt,’ Cromwell says. Call-Me queries why he protects Wyatt. He thinks Wriothesley would not understand.

‘1 May 1536: this surely, is the last day of knighthood.’ Smeaton to the Tower, Richard Cromwell to the jousts to whisper in the king’s ear. By night, Norris is in custody and the King of England is alone, with his demons and his doubts, and with Thomas Cromwell.

Now, they come for Anne. She is charged with adultery in the council chamber and arrested in her own rooms. The king’s councillors escort her by the river to the Tower. Her uncle Norfolk comes along to gloat and to taunt. He looks ready to drown his niece for a witch.

Outside the Tower, Anne collapses. He helps her up, but when she hears she will be lodged in her coronation chambers she cries, ‘It is too good for me.’ He recognises this not as a confession of guilt but of failure. She has lost the king, and ‘is dead to herself. We shall have no trouble with her now.’

Week 27: The Book of Phantoms (Part 3/5)

Now we are in dangerous days. We, Cromwell, must keep the king apart and keep him to his course. ‘Henry seems inclined to obey.’ A letter comes from Cromwell’s other self, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. Cran plays his part: ‘She cannot be guilty. But yet she must be guilty. We, her brethren, repudiate her.’

Down in Surrey, the Seymours are preparing Jane to be queen. She doesn’t know how to open doors, but Cromwell thinks it doesn’t matter. Soon she will have others to open all her doors. Her sister Bess eases her out of French headgear, and into the gable hood, she will make her own. At the door, Sir Nicholas Carew reminds the Putney clerk of his obligations to the old families of England.

Bring in Bryan, one-eyed Vicar of Hell, stinking of cheap Gascon wine. He enjoys Sir Francis, who has one foot in the enemy camp. Prepare to be helpful, he says. Ready George Boleyn’s inlaws for what is coming. And tell Carew to get off my back.

In his dark chambers, the king gazes into his glass of truth. Cranmer and Cromwell are there to interpret what he sees. Fitzroy, Henry’s bastard, comes to comfort the king. And afterwards, to press his advantage with Cromwell. The king has no legitimate heirs now, and only one son.

Now to the Tower to put questions to guilty men. Harry Norris, oldest and wisest of the four, can see where this is headed and from whence it came. Gentle Norris says, ‘you cannot make my thoughts a crime.’ But Cromwell wonders out loud: why are you not married, Harry? Are you saving yourself for the queen?

William Brereton: ‘Turbulent, arrogant, hard-as-nails.’ We need not waste time with Brereton. He doesn’t care for justice in his own domain, so why should he expect justice in ours?

George Boleyn: guilty of ‘pride and elation.’ Guilty of crossing Cromwell and not bending with the times. Master Secretary thumbs his soul and finds him complacent. There will always be time for forgiveness. He wants his chaplains, but Crumb is his confessor now.

And Francis Weston. Contrite, ready with remorse. Ready with family money to buy his life. A young man who has not lived, who sees his future dissolve before him and he, Cromwell, has to walk out. He excuses himself. Not for a weak bladder, or to bring in the devices. But because he needs air for his stone heart and racing mind, for the nightmare he has dreamed into being and is now all too real, in the room.

Week 28: The Book of Phantoms (Part 4/5)

Cromwell brings May flowers for the women in the Tower and meets Anne in her coronation rooms. Her father, her bishops, her king; all England has abandoned her. She unnerves him, but a gesture to her heart tells him she is not innocent. ‘She can only mimic innocence.’

All ask him, where is Wyatt in this? So he, Cromwell, puts Wyatt in the Tower. ‘It is the only place you are safe.’ He assures Wyatt that his friends will not suffer. But Wyatt notes Cromwell has ‘strange and sudden friends’ this month.

When the indictments are drawn up, the King embellishes them with his lurid imagination. Cromwell checks the documents to ensure there is no way out while his new friends tell him this is the road back from heresy to Rome.

Wyatt in the Tower, playing dice with himself. ‘Who’s winning?’ he says. He wants evidence against Anne’s character but no admission of guilt. And after it is accomplished, he promises that everything will be destroyed.

Harry Percy at Stoke Newington. The Earl of Northumberland is dying, and he and the king will take everything owing after the earl is gone. For now, he wants Harry to swear he is married to Anne and take back his oath of four years back. He will not. So he will sit in judgment at the trial.

Chapuys in high spirits and his Christmas hat. He thinks Mark was tortured, but then, all of London thinks so too. He looks forward to more meals with Master Secretary in a world where Anne is not queen and England is at ease.

The king calls for Jane, and Jane is back in London: still hidden and often moved around. “The order goes to the Tower, ‘Bring Up the Bodies.’” Brereton, Weston, Norris and Smeaton are tried first. Bets are placed, but there is no doubt as to the verdict. The only uncertainties are the means and the date.

On the day of trial, Gregory comes to see him. His whole household is there. He gives them all the Cromwell line: This was not his doing. It was the king’s. This was ‘beyond grudge’, he says. ‘And I could not save them if I tried.’

Week 29: The Book of Phantoms (Part 5/5) / Spoils

Anne Boleyn is judged by her peers, the lords of the realm — but only her uncle Norfolk dares look at her now. He, plain Thomas Cromwell, presents the prosecution in a drowsy murmur designed to make adultery, incest, conspiracy, and treason seem yawn-achingly routine. She, the queen, sits there and denies everything.

Her brother, George, is suave and eloquent. He defends himself but cannot compete with the Master of the Rolls, who appears indifferent and untiring. He tricks Boleyn into speaking treason in court. The judges confer. Harry Percy faints.

The next day, the French ambassador comes to see him at the Tower. Jean de Dinteville appeals on behalf of young Sir Francis Weston. But he is too late. William Kingston is in the dark as to the manner of Anne’s death. But the ambassador says the king has called up the Calais headsman, with his sword.

Thomas Cranmer looks ill. He says Anne has not yet confessed, although she is asking everyone: Shall I go to Heaven? Cranmer doubts everything now. He tells Cromwell the rumours about him and Lady Worcester. He, Cromwell, thinks: I am afraid. Afraid of the times that are coming.

Henry, eighth of his name, minotaur in his labyrinth, prevaricates. So it is he, Cromwell, who must press the point and stand over his sovereign as he signs his name on the death warrants. He is at Lambeth when Anne’s lovers die, busy ending the queen’s marriage before they end her life.

He brings Gregory to the queen’s beheading. He tests the scaffold and holds the sword. Anne comes in Katherine’s furs, looking back in hope of reprieve. As she dies, Richmond and Suffolk stay standing. There’s no coffin, so she is laid in an arrow chest. Her head at her feet.

At Austin Friars, Call-Me wants to recollect the morning’s events. Cromwell wishes Rafe or Richard or Gregory were there. Wriothsley says, who’s next? ‘A gentleman’ asked him what Cromwell plans for Wolsey’s greatest enemy: Henry Tudor. He, Cromwell, thinks only one gentleman would dare pose that question. For how much longer can he keep Stephen Gardiner away from England?

Spoils: Jane Seymour is to be queen, her brother: a viscount. Francis Bryan enters the privy chamber and he, Thomas Cromwell, Putney boy, enters the House of Lords. Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon. It is summer, 1536. We have begun.

Week 30: Wreckage (I)

It is 20 May, and, already this year 1536, two queens are dead. Anne’s head is severed and put at her feet in an arrow chest. He, Cromwell, thinks of his second breakfast while he admires the headsman’s sword. We knelt when the queen died, but Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, did not. Neither did Richmond, one of the king’s three illegitimate children.

At breakfast, Master Secretary is bombarded with questions. He tells the assembled that Jane will take the motto, Bound to Obey and Serve. Brandon laughs. Norfolk declares his loyalty with a little too vigour for a man of sixty. He treats us like a comrade, but do not be deceived: Thomas Howard is not our friend.

He takes his nephew, Richard Williams alias Cromwell, to see Thomas Wyatt – the prisoner-poet in the Tower. Everyone loves Wyatt, and Martin, the gaoler, has fallen under his spell. Wyatt’s evidence was not needed in court and he, Cromwell, gives it to Wyatt to destroy. Going out, Richard asks whether it is over. ‘Over?’ he says. ‘Oh, no.’

At home, Rafe Sadler greets him. His wife, Helen, wonders who will protect the gospel in England now the queen is gone. ‘I can protect it better,’ he says; he, Thomas Cromwell. On his desk, an ambassador’s letter to decipher. Chapuys rejoices with his master, Emperor Charles, as the heretic concubine lives her last hours.

Thomas Wriothesley, Call-Me Risley, comes in. He tells him to move against Norfolk, while he still can. He tells him the old families will expect the king’s daughter, Mary, to be made heir. He says people are asking which of the cardinal’s enemies, Thomas Cromwell will next destroy.

Outside, his household hunts a Damamascene cat, loose in the garden. Inside, he and his nephew drink to his health and the confusion of their enemies. At night, he relives the three heartbeats that finished Anne Boleyn. It is 20 May 1536.

Week 31: Salvage (Part 1/3)

It is the last day of May. He puts on an orange coat he has not worn since the cardinal came down, and goes to court to congratulate the newlywed royal couple of England.

The king shows his gratitude: he is to be Lord Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon and Lord Privy Seal. It is the morning of a new world; Henry Tudor has ‘come out of Hell into Heaven, and all in one night.’ Jane Seymour is mobbed by her family and keeps them guessing.

Power is reshaping itself at court: Boleyns out; Howards, twitching. Chapuys takes notes; Nicholas Carew reminds Cromwell of their bargain, and he, Cromwell, touches his hand to his heart and to the coat pocket that conceals the knife.

In the king’s privy chamber, Henry is doubting what he’s done. ‘Did I do right?’ he asks Master Secretary. Cromwell listens to the king talk of curses, his own death and the rule of queens; all things Henry Tudor fears. The king asks him whether he sleeps at night, and where he comes from. ‘Putney, Majesty,’ he replies, usefully.

Outside, Charles Brandon thrusts out his vast hand. Suffolk wants to be friends. He wants his king to sleep easy at night. We all want that: to press on, move forward and never look back.

At Austin Friars, he removes his orange coat and goes to see the cook. Thurston is laying into Matthew of Wolf Hall, who has come to learn accounts and not to kill eels. He, Cromwell, can do both. Thurston gives him the gossip. It’s nothing he doesn’t already know.

Supper with Chapuys. Eel served two ways. If Cromwell helps Mary back into the line of succession, it will be for a German alliance and his own neck, not for Nicholas Carew and the old families. The two men remember Italy and the ravioli.

He will send Call-Me and Rafe to Lady Mary to prepare her for a reconciliation with the king. Call-Me is jittery – when is he not? – and spooked by the whispers and stares at court. He, Lord Cromwell, retires to his rooms, with Christophe and then with his thoughts.

At night, he cannot sleep: he counts money in and money out. He counts clerks and Howards, bodies and heads, and Anne’s four waiting women about his bed. He remembers her brother George in the Tower, rehearsing the fear he will hide from the world on the scaffold. He remembers his wife and her last stitch in a cushion cover, a deer running away.

Week 32: Salvage (Part 2/3)

In the Tower, Thomas Wyatt is reading Petrarch. He wants to be free and put on the road, but the mood at court is still carnivorous, and he, Cromwell, wants Wyatt to live. Wyatt says he is in love with Bess Darrell, Katherine’s former maid of honour, and she is carrying his child.

At St James’s palace, the king’s bastard, Henry Fitzroy, is ailing. They are removing all memory of Anne from the architecture; not fast enough for the Duke of Richmond. ‘With every breath he commits treason’: he imagines his father’s death and himself as king. These are the fantasies of his friend, the Earl of Surrey, Norfolk’s headstrong son.

Rafe and Call-Me return from their interview with Lady Mary. ‘Never send me there again,’ Wriothesley pleads. He looks like he has been mauled by a lioness.

Parliament convenes at Westminster. Richard Riche honours the king with biblical allusions, and he, Lord Cromwell, Vicegerent in Spirituals, sits above the bishops in convocation. The bishops are in a reforming mood, while he, Baron Wimbledon, has his eyes on the manor houses of the archbishop.

He glides past a brace of Howards into the royal presence. A book has come out of Italy, from the king’s cousin, Reginald Pole. ‘Three hundred leaves, each leaf veined with treason.’ Henry believes the plot is to marry Pole to his daughter Mary and lead England back to Rome.

Now, it is clear why Cromwell did not fear his debt to the old families. The king sends him to question Reginald’s kin, where he explains that he is all that stands between them and Henry’s displeasure. At council, the king talks of bringing his daughter to trial, and Crum throws Fitz out the door for raising an objection.

The king tells him to ‘bring this matter to a conclusion.’ But what does he mean?

‘I think,’ says Edward Seymour, ‘he wants you to kill her.’

Week 33: Salvage (Part 3/3)

He visits Francis Bryan in the Tower. He needs Francis to exert his influence on his in-laws, the Carews. Sir Nicholas must write to Lady Mary to make it clear that neither he nor the old families will help her now. Their support would kill her. He remembers the day in 1531 when the king left Katherine, and he, Cromwell, gave Mary a stool. Her eyes have not left him since.

He meets with Chapuys at dusk in a garden tower at Smithfield. He sends the ambassador to Mary with an offer: obey the king, and you may be restored to the succession. It’s a good job that no one is eavesdropping below.

Together, the Cromwells sit down to ghostwrite Mary’s letter to Henry. Rafe takes it to her to be signed, and once this is done: Lord Cromwell rides out with our lords Norfolk and Suffolk to return Mary to the fold.

At Hunsdon, he interviews Lady Shelton and notes the presence of his spy, Matthew of Wolf Hall. He talks alone with Mary. He offers her a horse and her freedom, and she breaks down in tears. The lords take a look at Eliza Tudor before they leave, and then we are all back on the road to London.

In July, the king is ready to meet his daughter. He, Cromwell, tells his mother-in-law, Mercy Prior, that they will use their new house in Hackney. Mercy wants to know what he will do for Tyndale, awaiting death in an imperial prison. At Hackney, Helen Sadler takes charge of things. Thurston lays on the refreshments.

The reconciliation of father and daughter is carefully arranged. Jane, in white and silver, gives Mary a vast diamond, and Henry sweeps his daughter up in his arms. Mary calls Jane ‘my own lady mother’, but she has re-named Cromwell’s horse Pomegranate, so Katherine is with us still.

The victorious Cromwell and his lost boys retire to the Sadlers’ garden. Here, he explains himself: he tells them of his solemn promise to Katherine to protect her daughter. It is a confession to be kept in this arbour. Their new friend, Chapuys, picks his way across the lawn to congratulate the Lord Privy Seal.

It is midsummer, 1536. We are in Arcadia. At last, or for now, it is over.

Week 34: Wreckage (II) (Part 1/2)

It is July, and love is in the air. Or, if not love, then its performance and pagent. A triple marriage between old families, combining and conserving the ancient blood. The king considers the potential marriages of his kinswomen. He, Lord Cromwell, designs a token for Lady Mary to remind her who brought her back from the brink.

Henry’s son, Fitzroy Earl of Richmond, is ailing. Dr Butts says his patient talks of poison. He, Cromwell, takes this opportunity to ask the good doctor for his opinion on Wolsey’s death. His mind runs over his master’s last months, and he asks himself some troubling questions.

Call-Me has uncovered a secret liaison between Margaret Douglas and Tom Truth. He exposes this truth to broad summer light, and our lord Privy Seal. The king’s men interrogate the Princess of Scotland, who says she is married to Thomas Howard. They warn her that they will make her folly a treason. They put her in the Tower.

Tom Truth is to join her, although in separate rooms. The good Gospeller Martin will look after him – he likes poets. Kingston’s wife will spy on Meg for Crumb, as she did before. They remember the headsman’s sword, and he, Cromwell, recalls what was written on the blade.

The king is informed, and Truth is charged with treason: the devil is his accomplice. Call-Me and Cromwell take the prisoner his poems to extract a confession. The rhymes are diabolical. “When he gets home he says to Gregory, ‘Never write verse.’”

He goes to the Pole house to see Wyatt’s secret mistress, Bess Darrell. He has arranged for her to spy on the Courtenays. Margaret Pole disowns her son Reginald, but Bess Darrell shows Master Secretary some treasonous embroidery.

The queen is with her kinswomen, who do their best not to speak ill of the dead. The king is dressed as a Turk, and when he sees Cromwell’s present for Lady Mary, he claims it for himself.

Anne’s women return to court. Mary Shelton, always helpful, corroborates the story of Lady Meg and Tom Truth. Jane Rochford swans in looking for trouble, saying she knows a few things about Queen Jane. ‘I know her method,’ she says. ‘I witnessed everything that she worked against Anne, maid against mistress.’

Week 35: Wreckage (II) (Part 2/2)

The Austin Friars waifs and strays are in the garden: word has got out that the king means to wed Lady Mary to Thomas Cromwell. It is nonsense, but they recommend he marry someone – anyone – now before his enemies take the rumour seriously.

He brings it up with the ambassadors. Chapuys has the grace not to lie; he is wearing a cap badge from the Poles that shows he is not our friend. Jean de Dinteville is shivering by a summer fire. Give us Calais, he says, or one day soon we will take it from you.

Tom Truth is attainted, a dead man walking. The king delays and across the sea, Erasmus dies. He, Cromwell, needs spectacles now to inspect and augment The Book Called Henry.

Wyatt has been writing verse about the men who died in May. ‘It changes nothing,’ he says. ‘It is only one man’s opinion.’ But at his new home at Mortlake his mind slips into memory’s inkblot and drops into another memory where the eel boy was whipped because he, Cromwell, said it must be so.

Back in the present: Richmond is dead. More summer wreckage. He goes to the Tower to tell Meg Douglas to stop writing verse; she chose an evil hour to fall in love. And to St James’s Palace, where the Earl of Surrey is claiming his dead friend’s horse and wishing he, Lord Cromwell, were dead.

He finds Jane with Anne’s Book of Hours and the king in no mood for mercy. He talks Henry out of killing his niece and turns the king’s murderous mind to Reginald Pole. He recalls exchanging threats with Pole’s mother, the Countess of Salisbury.

But who will kill Pole? Francis Bryan? Thomas Wyatt? Wyatt has written another poem, this time about Anne. Around the throne thunder rolls. The king summons him at dawn: Henry’s morale is at its lowest ebb. He tells the king not to look back, but he is drawn into his past, to Esher, 1529, and the last time he served a master with a broken heart.

Week 36: Augmentation

It is Autumn, 1536. Robert Barnes visits him at Austin Friars. Barnes was once an Augustinian friar, brought before the cardinal under suspicion of heresy. He was once a fugitive, a drowned man. Times have changed, and in this new England, Barnes is chaplain to the king, and he, Cromwell, Wolsey’s ruffian heretic, is Lord Privy Seal.

Barnes mediates between England and the German Lutheran princes. Cromwell remembers Wolsey’s foreign policy and his magnificent treaties of peace and pan-European harmony. Barnes is rattled by the mixed messages from England: are we for religious reform, or are we not?

Meanwhile, there is the question of Uncle Norfolk, out of favour with the king. If we ease him back into Henry’s graces, he must know who he owes. This summer, Gregory is sent to hunt with the Howards. And he asks his father when he will have a stepmother.

Gregory is thinking of Katherine Parr, now Lady Latimer, with whom his father flirted so very recently. She had come to ask for a position at court for her sister Anne. But in a quiet moment, she surprised the king’s heretic secretary by asking after William Tyndale, languishing in an Imperial prison.

To Kent with Christophe to see an ageing Henry Wyatt, concerned as always for his wayward son. As he moves, he redistributes land and titles from the dead to the living. The survivors of the summer are augmented. The deceased are forgotten.

Gregory returns from Howard hunting with stories of a surly Surrey and a choleric Duke of Norfolk. The Court of Augmentations is busy turning monks into money, and he, Cromwell, works on Chapuys to augment Norfolk’s purse with imperial coin. ‘You have done me service,’ Norfolk admits. ‘I acknowledge it.’

He summons Hans Holbein to present plans for a whole wall of portraits. ‘The past kings of England.’ Hans wants to paint the living Henry. He, Cromwell, wishes Hans had painted his wife. He tries to picture his daughters’ faces, but he cannot.

It is Autumn, 1536. We were once hunters, but now the days are shortening. And a fat king with a gammy leg stands against a tree and shoots the harts driven to him for a clean kill.

Week 37: The Five Wounds

News of the dead arrives in England from across the narrow sea. William Tyndale may be burned, but reports contradict one another. In France, the Dauphin is poisoned and the English court goes into black. He, Cromwell, knows no other colour.

He goes to Shaftesbury Abbey to see Wolsey’s daughter, Dorothea. He brings gifts, but she rejects them. Against his better judgment, he makes her a proposal. She rejects that, too. She tells him that there is no faith or truth in Cromwell, the man who betrayed her father. Outside, he cries for the first time since Esher.

Rumours circulate. The king is dead, a puppet lies in his bed and wears his crown’, and he, Lord Cromwell, is king. Chapuys talks marriage alliances with Cromwell, and the king considers when to bring Mary back to court. Not yet.

Then, the trouble begins. In Louth, the rebels rise, and the world turns upside down. The king calls his council at Windsor. Henry the Well-Beloved inclines to mercy, but it is his councillors who the rebels want removed. ‘Lord Cromwell’s head is their chief demand.’ The king says he made his minister, and he’ll make Cromwell king if it so pleases him.

The rebellion spreads north. London musters its men and arms. Chapuys crows, and Norfolk paces in his Lambeth armoury. He wants war; he wants to show his loyalty. But the king sends Suffolk instead and orders Norfolk to stay and keep his own country calm. Norfolk spits blood, and Rafe threatens to strike him.

‘That was ill-considered,’ he tells Rafe on the barge. He wants Uncle Norfolk alive and comfortable. ‘He wants him grateful.’ Gregory asks to go fight rebels, but his father sends Richard. They keep their king from the field, full of bombast and bold words. For now, they will negotiate.

Week 38: Vile Blood (1/2)

The north is rising, a rebellion led by Robert Aske and calling itself the Pilgrimage of Grace. They want the king’s council drained of vile blood, by which they mean Thomas Cromwell. He leads the response from Windsor, while beyond London, versions of him become stranger and more ghoulish.

The queen asks him how to petition the king to bring Lady Mary to court. In private, she looks for advice on the nature of the king’s dreams. The king’s dead brother, she says, has returned again to haunt him.

Jane’s request to Henry is made at court. She starts well enough, but soon strays into dangerous territory: she asks for the return of popery and an easing of the tax burden. Her family rescue her as Henry’s blood boils. He thinks, who has had access to her?

England is collapsing. As the rebels move on York, the king’s body grows sicker. Henry idles away his hours with Gregory, past jousts and talk of Merlin. The king feels betrayed but trusts his vile blood, his mushroom men, his Thomas Cromwell.

Norfolk and Surrey are sent north. He writes to his nephew to warn Richard to stay out of their way. He remembers being a boy when the Cornish came with the rebel giant Bolster, who no one ever saw. He remembers how his uncle John helped him escape Putney and learn a trade.

York falls. The king goes to St George’s Chapel and demands a feast. The overworked Lord Privy Seal is late to the banquet, where the jester Patch is the lord of misrule. Master Sexton warns him that ‘the pilgrims will crumb you’ and advises: ‘Keep walking. Trot on till you get to Putney.’

Week 39: Vile Blood (2/2)

He catches up with his spy among the Poles and the Courtenays, Bess Darrell. The old families have been discreet, abusing Lord Cromwell always, but the king, never. He, Cromwell, is summoned at a late hour to see Lady Mary. The king’s daughter is keeping her distance, from the rebels and from the vile blood of Thomas Cromwell.

A memory from forty years back: how to make sweet treats from summer berries ‘to tempt the jaded palate’ of the winter king. He, Henry Tudor, is melancholy and lonely. He accompanies himself on the lute. It is the Cromwells’ job, father and son, not to laugh.

The Pilgrims take Hull. Lord Darcy surrenders Pontefract Castle. Norfolk hurries north to negotiate, to buy time before winter. Down in the kitchens at Windsor, Cromwell finds Patch playing with a ball. ‘Your head,’ he says, as he sends it over the wall.

He is studying his Greek, he is sleepless. In November, Robert Packington is shot in the mist on his way to Mass. A gospeller is gunned down in London, and Robert Barnes gives the eulogy. Cromwell has no choice but to lock Barnes up for his own safety. While at the Tower, he drops in on Tom Truth to read him some poetry.

Cromwell plants an idea in the king’s mind to invite the Pilgrims to Christmas. He, vile blood, makes himself scarce at Stepney. There, he admires his apple trees while the gardeners warn him off climbing any ladders. Alone, he amends The Book Called Henry. 'Do not turn your back on the king,’ he advises. And try and keep cheerful.

Week 40: The Bleach Fields

Spring, 1537. A woman appears at his gates. She says she is from Stephen Vaughan’s household in Antwerp. Once inside, she recognises the woman in the weave on Cromwell’s wall. It is her mother, and she is Jenneke. Cromwell’s daughter.

When she leaves him, he speaks to Thomas Avery. He tells his accountant where his money is hidden, against the day his luck runs out and the dukes come to call.

Aske has written a little book. But while he, Lord Privy Seal, reads it, and the king talks of pardons, rebellion renews itself in the north. Rafe Sadler heads to Scotland on the king’s business, dodging Yorkshiremen as he goes.

Jenneke strips back her father’s memories. He remembers being the Italian in Antwerp and moving in with Anselma. In the present, he interviews the vicar of Louth in the Tower, while in Rome, Reginald Pole receives the cardinal’s hat.

His daughter unearths another Cromwell, lowering him into himself: back to a time when Lizzie lived. He remembers Walter before he died and his daughter Anne learning to read. Gregory’s bad dreams and Grace’s peacock wings.

Back in 1537, he must rescue his king from vanity as French merchants try to divert the royal war chest to a spending spree for Henry’s wardrobe. Aske goes north, where the rebels say, ‘Now forward on pain of death, forward now or else never.’

His daughter tells him of Tyndale’s death. He says, ‘It all goes back to More.’ Nothing ended when they killed More. ‘It only began.’ Pole’s treason. Tyndale’s burning. The north in rebellion. He ponders whether he can kill Pole with the same man More paid to capture Tyndale. Even in Utopia, someone has to shovel shit. ‘And somewhere it is written that Cromwell is his name.’

Week 42: The Image of the King (Part 2/2)

The lean days of Lent, 1537. Hans Holbein insists the king must wear crimson for his painting. Thurston maintains that an Englishman is carnivorous. Give him red meat, or watch him waste away. He, Lord Privy Seal, dreams of retirement at Launde Abbey and of throttling the Bishop of Rome.

The court attends the christening of Edward Seymour’s daughter. John Husee brings news and shopping lists from his mistress, Lady Lisle, across the Narrow Sea. Lady Rochford brings news from Jane’s private chambers. A child is now expected.

Reginald Pole wants to meet him, so in council, he threatens to kill Pole himself. Fresh insurrection breaks out in the north, led by an old ally of his: Francis Bigod. But these are end times for the rebels. Aske is in the Tower, implicating Eustace Chapuys.

He gives Thomas Wyatt a diplomatic mission and takes a day off to walk in his garden, and have supper with Richard Riche. He makes arrangements of land for Bess Oughtred, until a happy thought comes to him: he will make Jane’s sister his daughter-in-law.

Hans Holbein paints the living king of England and forgets to bring a lute. Garter knights are dropping like flies, so Call-Me looks coy and tells Cromwell to order his mantles. Jane augments and dines on fat quails sent fresh from Calais.

A new imperial ambassador arrives in a diplomatic push to marry Lady Mary to Luís of Portugal. Cromwell stands by to make sure nothing happens.

In June, the king stands for another session with Hans. Henry encourages himself in hearty tones, but the damage has been done. We cannot go back to the place we were before. He staggers, he falls. Cromwell mentally picks up his king and turns his head, his whole body, to face us in the painting.

Our invincible, indestructible sovereign. The image of the king.

Week 42: The Image of the King (Part 2/2) / Broken on the Body

July, 1537. The new Queen of Scots is dead, and in Calais, Lady Lisle’s unborn child has mysteriously failed to be born. These are not good omens.

In the queen’s privy gardens, Lady Oughtred walks out with her would-be husband, Lord Privy Seal, only to discover that there has been a misunderstanding: she is to wed Gregory and be plain Mistress Cromwell.

The Cromwells prepare for the wedding. The rebels are all dead, and so is Harry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. He, Cromwell, asks the king for mercy for one of the Pilgrims to save her from burning. At the Charterhouse, the monks are shut away and dying of the plague; Richard Riche, the good servant to the state, counts their worth and waits.

He goes to court with a greyhound for Lady Mary. There, he runs into the Earl of Surrey. Surrey curses the Cromwell name and spills vile blood – Mathew’s, the boy with many names. The ancient punishment is amputation, but the king is merciful.

At his son’s wedding, Gregory tells him to keep away from his new wife. It is the first time harsh words have come between them.

The king makes his councillor a Knight of the Order of the Garter. He, Honest Tom of Putney. He rehearses the rites, then goes to bed early to think. Are we ready for the fat years? Are we ready for our charmed life?

His new kinswoman, Jane Seymour, does battle in the bed chamber and gives the kingdom its future king. But after Edward is christened and Cromwell is passed over for an earldom, the queen falters and fades. Lucky to be queen, her sister says, but unlucky to die for England.

Mistress Cromwell is already pregnant. He is to be a grandfather. ‘I would rather be alive, Bess says, than have a great name: would not you, Lord Cromwell?’

Week 43: Nonsuch

Winter, 1537. A gravedigger brings Cromwell a wax doll dug up from the frozen soil: the image of the baby prince, Edward, impaled with nails of iron.

The court is in mourning for our sweet mistress Jane, but the king’s council are restless. It is Cromwell’s job to deliver the message to Henry: England wants him to remarry. Norfolk favours a French princess; Cromwell considers Anna of Cleves and a Protestant alliance.

There is an Imperial proposal: Chistina, Duchess of Milan, the exiled queen of Denmark. But Henry is thinking of fellow red-haired Mary of Guise, nevermind that she is already betrothed to Scotland.

Meanwhile, the new French ambassador, Castillon, does not ingratiate himself with the king or his minister. Lewes Priory is to be blown up. And he, Cromwell, is a grandfather, with a little Henry to one day be councillor and friend to his first cousin, Edward Tudor.

Spring comes in: the hunting season; the doctors counsel the king against too many days in the saddle. Two men must be burned: a wooden saint from Wales and an unrepentant monk called Forrest. Oh, and Stephen Gardiner is coming home. But first:-

The king has taken a tumble. He lives, but once again Cromwell sees his future flicker before him. Henry must make him, Lord Cromwell, regent. ‘Set it down and seal it: multiple copies.’ But the king is talking to Norfolk and dreaming of a dynasty with Madame de Longueville. He, Cromwell, thinks: ‘What’s Henry up to?’

The Welsh idol Derfel is reduced to firewood to burn Father Forrest at Smithfield. He, Lord Privy Seal, watches dry-eyed and remembers his first burning, the Lollards and the dogs. He was never the same again.

Summer approaches. Henry’s future wives fade from view: Madame de Longueville arrives in Scotland and the Emperor loses interest in an alliance with the apostate English king. Instead, Henry turns his mind to a fairytale palace near Hampton Court. It will have no equal in Christendom. ‘And the name of the palace is Nonsuch.’

Week 44: Corpus Christi (Part 1/2)

Early June. Thomas Wyatt is back from his embassy at the imperial court, complaining about Spain, his king’s lack of trust, and Cromwell’s little man, Edmund Bonner. He’s seen Pole close enough to kill him. He, Cromwell, opens a gift of beavers from Danzig and bids Wyatt stay for supper.

Spain and France have signed a Ten-Year Truce. Henry is furious with everyone. He feels deceived and betrayed. He threatens to invade France and marry into the House of Cleves. Cromwell puts Hans on the road to paint more prospective brides for the King of England.

Late summer at Lewes with Gregory and his grandson. The sky: like a mirror, light without shadow. August: Geoffrey Pole is arrested. He, Cromwell, ‘is preparing to bring down two of the richest and most noble families in England.’

In September he rides down to Canterbury to open the tomb of Thomas Becket. His dogs prowl and Becket’s two skulls are seized. He keeps them under lock and key in case his king changes his mind and makes the knave a saint again.

Bonner replaces Gardiner in France, and the Bishop of Winchester returns like a bad dream. He, Cromwell, writes to his daughter in Antwerp, but she does not write back.

All Souls and All Saints: Cromwell takes a hammer to Geoffrey’s cell wall, and Geoffrey takes a blade to himself. The prisoner helps Lord Privy Seal complete his grid, exposing a vast conspiracy against the Tudor regime.

Meanwhile, Gregory’s old tutor Margaret Vernon comes to see him. ‘You are stouter, Thomas,’ she tells him. ‘You look as if you don’t get any fresh air.’ He thinks he could make her his wife. Rafe is surprised he hasn’t already a thousand wives. But it’s not worth it. ‘Nobody’s worth it.’

Week 45: Corpus Christi (Part 2/2) / Inheritance

Early November, 1538. He arrests Henry Pole and Henry Courtenay, co-conspirators in a plot to put Reginald Pole on the throne of England. Pole’s mother, Margaret, packs her bags and knows it is all over. ‘They are down, the great families.’

Bess Darrell provides evidence. Cromwell will not send her back to the Courtenays because the Courtenays ‘will not exist’ for much longer. He, Cromwell, tells Bess he’d take up a sword to protect the new religion. ‘Against Henry?’ she asks.

Mid-November, John Lambert takes up weapons of straw against the mirror of all princes. ‘You will ruin us all,’ Robert Barnes tells him, as Lambert states plainly what all these bishops believe but cannot say: the bread of Christ is but bread. Corpus Christi is a puppet show.

Lambert will debate the king at Westminster. All the bishops assemble. Barnes excuses himself, Cranmer whispers, and Stephen Gardiner sweeps in, to talk, trip and goad the priest ‘into the flames where he will scream and bleed.’ He, Cromwell, says nothing.

Lambert’s death is slow. ‘An hour dying.’ Thomas Cranmer consoles his friend but Master Secretary knows there is no consolation. He failed Lambert and he failed himself. He writes to Wyatt, leaving out everything that matters. Leaving out the truth. ‘We shall prosper,’ he tells Rafe. ‘Never fear.’

December, 1538. His strongrooms and cellars are filling up with relics. The Thames is swollen and at Tower Hill, they bring up the bodies and lead the Marquis of Exeter and Lord Montague to the scaffold to die. The sons are locked away; the womenfolk spared. Nicholas Carew is arrested. In his cell, he reads the gospel and laments his life.

As the year goes out, the King of England is officially excommunicated from the mother church in Rome. ‘For a man doomed to Hell, Henry keeps a merry court.’ He, Cromwell, ‘keeps a waxen Henry in the corner of his imagination.’

He lives with it but he doesn’t talk to it. He is afraid it will answer back.

Week 46: Ascension Day (Part 1/2)

A cold winter. Dispatches from Call-Me in Brussels, holding out hope for Christina’s hand for England. Wyatt in Spain. ‘I am at the wall. I cannot endure till March.’ England excommunicated, France and Spain beat war drums and no Englishman abroad is safe. Home is now ‘more like a castle than a realm.’

Norfolk rides north, condescending to Cromwell to drop the formalities. But he, Milord Cromwell, pictures himself with Thomas Howard’s sword sunk into his heart. The king’s leg is bad and so is his. ‘Decrepit,’ he tells his nephew. ‘Lord Cromwell in his Later Years.’

He questions Gertrude in the Tower and coaxes the cardinal to speak from whatever lofty place he now resides. Wolsey will not be tempted, though his servant grows desperate. Cromwell intends to secure a German alliance and a German bride, with alum added to strengthen his case.

The ambassadors are recalled. Eustace Chapuys bids farewell and Call-Me returns to warm embraces, his feet muddy from the road, his cap’s feather catching fire in Cromwell’s candle.

Wriothesley gets to work on Wyatt’s letters, as Cromwell keeps an eye on Gardiner. He, the king’s Secretary, plans a new order of precedence, putting secretaries of state above lords of ancient and noble blood. He, the king’s Vicegerant, looks down on little bishop Gardiner, and eyeballs Norfolk, with his sword.

He watches the king’s daughter for any sign of treason. She says she does not ‘let anybody tell her anything.’ His own daughter, an avowed heretic, writes from Antwerp and asks to be received in England. ‘If she comes she will be in danger, and a source of danger.’ We are England at Easter, 1539.

Week 47: Ascension Day (Part 2/2)

After Easter, he falls sick. It is the Italian fever and he leaves his chair at council vacant, for other men to fill. It’s a good day for Gardiner when Cromwell retires early to his bed.

Stuck at St James’s, he is burned in the forge, frozen in the ice. His memories pull him back through snow at Lewes Priory to the eel boy at Putney, the boy’s body sliced in the dark, while Walter sings at home.

Back in 1539, the fever recedes to reveal the damage done. He must act fast to secure the Cleves marriage. But Gardiner has been busy unpicking his work and six articles pass in Parliament, the king cleaving to the old religion. Hugh Latimer resigns and Cranmer sends his wife home.

He, Cromwell, no longer trusts Fitzwilliam and he no longer trusts Audley. He vows to bring Stephen Gardiner down. In boiling June, he talks with the new French ambassador, and at supper, Gardiner accuses him of murder. He, Lord Privy Seal, close to punches Uncle Norfolk.

Now he cannot hold the memories back. They distract him from his business, as he remembers the morning after he killed the eel boy, his own body bloodied on the cobbles. ‘One blow, properly placed, could kill him now.’

Parliament rises and the king begins his summer progress. Cromwell over plums, the fruits of success, marks out the itinerary. He recalls the day the king lost his hat while hunting, and all his party went bare and burnt-headed. ‘Mid-August,’ he writes. ‘Five days. Wolf Hall.’ He pictures Henry’s cap badge winking from above, seeing ‘us as we are now: girth thickened, sins multiplied.’