Thomas Wriothesley

Call Me Risley

Thomas Wriothesley (1505 – ), a politician sometimes in the employ of Stephen Gardiner, often at Austin Friars, always out for his own advantage.

The story so far…

Week 6: Entirely Beloved Cromwell (Part 1)

He’s the son of York Herald, nephew to Garter King-at-Arms. His name is Wriothesley, but you can call him Risley. Gardiner calls him ‘you’. He went to work for Gardiner after working under Cromwell in the cardinal’s household. So Richard and Rafe say he must be Stephen’s spy.

At Chelsea, over dinner with the More family, Gardiner asks Cromwell who Call-Me is working for, me or you? Call-Me is now Clerk of the Signet, assistant to Master Secretary, so it would appear he is rising under Gardiner. But he spends a lot of time at Cromwell’s house. “Master Wriosthesley has his eye on his advantage,” says Gardiner. “I hope we all have that. Or why did God give us eyes?” says Cromwell.

Week 7: Entirely Beloved Cromwell (Part 2)

Wriothesley, we learn, has married. A relation, of some sort, to Gardiner. He asks Cromwell whether Cramner has mentioned “the barmaid."

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

Wriothesley is useful. He gives away secrets without knowing he is doing so. Secrets from Master Secretary Gardiner. But he is scared of Cromwell, says Gregory. “He thinks you would do anything.”

Week 9: Arrange Your Face (Part 2)

Rafe says: we cannot trust Wriothesley.

“I know where I am with Call-Me.” He was in Wolsey’s household, and Gardiner was his master at Trinity Hall. He cannot decide who to put his money on: Gardiner or Cromwell. “Two fighting dogs,” who have put on muscle since their Wolsey days.

“He has no fear of Wriosthesley, or anyone like him. You can calculate the actions of unprincipled men.”

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

Call-Me has been keeping tabs on Harry Percy’s men. So he can take Cromwell to where the young Earl is drinking, in the Mark and the Lion.

Week 13: Anna Regina (Part 2)

Call-Me is from a family of heralds, so coronation day is a big day for him. “Fat fees coming their way,” says Cromwell. “Fat fees coming your way,” Call-Me replies. He confirms the news that Gardiner is out and Cromwell is in as Master Secretary. Christophe waits in the wings. “One tells me to impart nothing of confidence in the hearing of Call-Me, as Rafe says he go trit-trot to Gardineur with anything he can get.”

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

Call-Me Risley is at Austin Friars when they talk about Cranmer’s wife. It is a little secret that everyone seems to know, except the king. Call-Me has a habit of passing information on to Stephen Gardiner, so we may be uneasy to see him laughing here at Cromwell’s table.

Week 15: Supremacy

Stephen Gardiner is back from France. Which means Call-Me has two masters again and looks flustered running between the two. Cromwell offers him Clerk of the Signet when he, Cromwell, is Master Secretary. He ends Call-Me off to Gardiner to make a better offer. “Hedge your bets,” he says. “Run, boy.”

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

Everyone has copied the king’s cropped hair. Wriothesley: By God, sir, if I wasn’t frightened of you before, I would be now.”

“But Call-Me,” he says, “you were frightened of me before.”

Week 19: Crows (Part 1)

Gregory admires Call-Me, so doesn’t hear the note of condescension.

Like everyone else, he seems happy to see Gardiner on the road and out of the realm. Cromwell tells him to keep a watch on him.

‘I should not laugh. You have the right of it, Gregory. All our labours, our sophistry, all our learning both acquired or pretended; the stratagems of state, the lawyer’s decrees, the churchmen’s curses, and the grave resolutions of judges, sacred and secular: all and each can be defeated by a woman’s body, can they not? God should have made their bellies transparent, and saved us the hope and fear. But perhaps what grows in there has to grow in the dark.’

Week 21: Angels

Call-Me tells Gregory tall tales. Like the fact that tress can ambulate in the Indies. The stories please Gregory and it pleases Call-Me that Gregory believes them.

At Christmas, he is dressed as a virgin. ‘Go and change,’ says Cromwell. ‘I don’t like it.’ There is a worm costume left and a striped rose. ‘The worm in the bud,’ offers Anthony helpfully.

Cromwell picks up Call-Me’s daughter Elizabeth.

I will win Call-Me, he thinks. I will win him away from Stephen Gardiner completely, and he will see where his true interests lie, and be loyal only to me and the to his king.

Week 22: The Black Book (Part 1)

When Cromwell asks Gregory whether he believes the tall tales about Anthony’s teeth, Gregory says no, but Mr Wriothesley likes it when he says he believes them.

Week 24: The Black Book (Part 3)

After Cromwell tells Henry to begin proceedings against Anne, Call-Me corners him: ‘So do you have instructions, sir?’

Call-Me says he has heard the king will seek to marry his daughter to a subject. Cromwell dismisses the idea and shrugs.

   He shrugs. The young man gives him a glassy look. It will be some years before he understands why.

Week 25: Master of Phantoms (Part 1/5)

Call-Me minutes Cromwell’s meeting with the Boleyns, so George’s disgust can be duly noted, and Rochford’s threats to ‘help you to the Tower.’

After, Call-Me remembers the play where Wolsey was carried into hell. Yes, Cromwell says. George was one of the devils. ‘Right forepaw.’ Wriothesley confesses that he did not follow Cromwell behind the curtain because he feared Cromwell would confuse him with the players, and be forever tainted in his mind.

When Anne and Norris fight, Call-Me comes with Rafe to tell Cromwell that the king wishes discreet inquiries to begin. To test the case, Cromwell gets Call-Me to play at being a lady of the queen’s bedchamber. Rafe interrogates.

Week 26: Master of Phantoms (Part 2/5)

At Stepney, Call-Me threatens Mark with the rack, and Cromwell has to take him aside to advise: ‘The mind is its own best torturer.’

The next day, their roles are reversed. Call-Me takes him aside to say he cannot continue to protect Wyatt. Cromwell doesn’t think Wriothesley will understand why he loves Thomas Wyatt. So he tells him that it is because Wyatt is not in Cromwell’s way. Call-Me says he admires him. ‘You are deft in these matters, and without false compunction.’ He, Cromwell, is not sure he wants Call-Me to admire him on those grounds.

He knows that Call-Me spies for Gardiner. But he likes him nonetheless.

   He thinks, let's see if that gets back. It is his contention that Call-Me forgets for weeks at a time that he is the bishop's servant. He is an edgy young man, tense, and Gardiner's bellowing makes him ill; Cromwell is a congenial master, and easy day-to-day. He has said to Rafe, I quite like Call-Me, you know. I am interested in his career. I like watching him. If I ever broke with him, Gardiner would send another spy, who might be worse.

Later, he notes that Wriothesley does not understand Anne. He thinks she is confessing guilt when he knows she is admitting failure. In her eyes, this is far worse.

Week 27: Master of Phantoms (3/5)

Riche and Call-Me meet Cromwell at the Tower. Master Secretary has just spoken with Francis Weston. Call-Me offers to ‘get’ the confessions out of the prisoners and Cromwell’s look makes Wriothesley step back onto Riche’s foot. They think Cromwell ‘has gone out to piss’, but really he needs air. It has all got too real too fast.

Week 28: Master of Phantoms (Part 4/5)

Call-Me tells Cromwell, ‘I learn much daily, from mere proximity’ to the cleverest man in England, Thomas Cromwell. But he, Cromwell, thinks Wyatt is far superior.

Call-Me is with Cromwell at Stoke Newington to see Harry Percy. Cromwell considers ascending a ladder to view the roof; he intends to have Percy’s houses for himself. But it would be an affront to Master Wriothesley’s dignity to make him hold the ladder.

Afterwards, Call-Me asks Cromwell whether he has ever slept with two sisters, like the king supposedly has done with the Boleyns. Cromwell discloses Mary’s advances to him and Call-Me is shocked. ‘God strike me. You would have been the king’s brother-in-law.’

When Cromwell idling thinks of Bess Seymour, he checks: ‘Master Wriothesley, can you read my mind.’ He is reassured that Call-Me cannot.

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

Wriothesley wants to learn from Thomas Cromwell, but he cannot. Cromwell thinks it is like his three-card trick. ‘See the queen. Look well at her. Now … where is she?’

After Anne’s beheading, Call-Me says he sees a ‘burning plain’ and ‘wreckage’. He says men are asking what Cromwell will do next and what he will do to Wolsey’s living enemies, the greatest of which was the king.

Week 30: Wreckage (I)

Call-Me is nervous after Anne’s beheading. While the Cromwells toast their good health and chase cats in the garden, he is worrying about all the enemies set against his master. He advises Cromwell to move against Norfolk and appease the old families.

Week 31: Salvage (Part 1/3)

Call-Me is startled by Cromwell’s orange coat. He fears it will remind the king of the late cardinal. Later, he ‘sails into Austin Friars’ to suggest Cromwell take ‘a fresh look at your provenance.’ He thinks the king would be more comfortable with Cromwell if he had a more noble lineage.

Call-Me talks about the rumours abroad and the whispers at home. Cromwell sends him and Rafe to Hunsdon to ‘try and talk sense Mary into sense.’ He warns Call-Me not to talk to her like a little girl, or to try and frighten her. Call-Me is haunted by the atmosphere at court.

Week 32: Salvage (Part 2/3)

They return from Mary: ‘Sir, never send me there again… I did not think a young girl could be so cruel, or one person of the female sex so hate another. I could have spewed, so help me. She has a black heart, and she showed it.’

Wriothelsey is a haunted man. Rafe has to gently reassure him that Cromwell did not torture anyone in the Tower. ‘It only happened in your imagination.’

Week 33: Salvage (Part 3/3)

When Cromwell and Chapuys descend the garden tower, Call-Me is there with a sheaf of peonies.

At Hackney, he arrives arm in arm with Richard Riche.

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

Call-Me joins Cromwell at St James’s Palace to see the Duke of Richmond. Dr Butts advises him to wear his hat in the heat and not to jump into rivers. This is not something Call-Me would do.

Call-Me reveals to Cromwell the secret marriage of Margaret Douglas and Tom Truth. He attends Baron Cromwell in his interview with the Princess of Scotland and his interrogation of Tom Truth.

At Austin Friars, they admire Mr Wriothesley: his tenacity, his willingness to back his belief that there’s no smoke without fire.

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

In the garden at Austin Friars: ‘Every household has traitors.’ He tells Cromwell that we, ‘your friends’, warned you of the consequences of a promise made to Katherine.

When Richmond dies, Call-Me talks of poisoning and plots. He wonders whether Mary’s people could be implicated.

Week 36: Augmentation

Call-Me on Lady Latimer: ‘I think… she would have kissed him, if we had not been right behind them gaping and nudging each other, and grinning and mincing like apes.’ Call-Me suggests Mary Fitzroy as a potential match for Gregory to secure the duke’s friendship.

Cromwell: ‘That’s a turnabout, from you. You and I should destroy him.’
Call-Me: ‘I did not understand your methods.’

Week 37: The Five Wounds

Call-Me is Cromwell’s master of ciphers and notes in admiration that in Venice men work on the task all day. ‘The more they do it, the better they get.’

At the king’s council, Call-Me attempts to reassure Archbishop Cranmer that the rebels will not threaten him or his secret wife. Call-Me comes with Cromwell to see Norfolk: to tell Norfolk to stay put. When Cromwell says ‘who hasn’t’ killed men, he feels ‘Call-Me stiffen in alarm.’

Week 38: Vile Blood (1/2)

Wriothesley, from a family of heralds, is impressed by the king’s knowledge of family ties. They make fun of the fact that the rebels are not chanting against Call-Me. ‘They will hate you once they know you, Call-Me,’ says Gregory encouragingly.

Call-Me helps Cromwell prepare Jane to petition the king about Lady Mary. But someone appears to have amended the ‘pretty speech’ with popery. Call-Me guess it is Carew or the Courtenays.

Wriothesley complains to Cromwell about the time the king is spending with Gregory instead of the affairs of his realm. When Riche puts his foot in it, Call-Me butters up the king. ‘Stand further off, Call-Me,’ the king snaps. Mr Wriothesley is aghast. ‘How has this private joke rolled into the public sphere?’

Week 39: Vile Blood (Part 2/2)

When Cromwell stays silent in front of a melancholy king, Call-Me says, ‘You were at a loss there, I think. You did not utter, sir.’

   He says, 'Leave the king long enough, and he will start to cheer himself up. You must not crowd him, Call-Me. Did he not tell you so?'

Cromwell thinks he will not leave The Book Called Henry to Call Me or Richard Riche. ‘I doubt if there is much I can teach them. Or much they can learn.’

Week 40: The Bleach Fields

Call-Me encourages Cromwell to distract the king from ruinous purchases. When Cromwell himself takes a fancy to some mulberry satin, Call-Me warns him, ‘Be careful, sir.’

Week 41: The Image of the King (Part 1/2)

Call-Me comes for supper, but his mind is too focused on events in Calais to notice the good news about Queen Jane. Christophe lets slip something about Cromwell’s The Book Called Henry. 'Call-Me turns a curious glance on him. But he does not ask.’

Wriothesley attends the interrogations of the Pilgrim rebels. He is a poor pupil.

   Wriothesley has not his patience: but then, he is young, and he has a family he would like to see sometimes. He will touch his elbow: 'Sir, this is a mild pain, and we have a stubborn rebel before us, and it is late. I believe he can stand more.'
   But he thinks, no, none of us can stand anything. Scrape our skin, and beneath it there is an infant, howling.

Note, Mr Wriothesley’s ‘neat red boots’ as he stands on the cardinal’s carpet for the king’s second drawing. Henry wants a sort of altar to stand between him and his wife in the painting. Call-Me gets to work thinking of the inscription on the stone.

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

In August, Call-Me’s son dies. When the king makes new earls, he asks Cromwell whether he is disappointed. ‘If your services were properly requited, you would be a duke.’ Later Rafe and Cromwell comment on Call-Me’s loss.

   Wriothesley has entered into public duties, where you cannot let your private sorrows show, not even by an increased hauteur with petitioners, or impatience with women and underlings: still less with the Lord Privy Seal.

Week 43: Nonsuch

Call-Me appears to know Cromwell’s list of potential brides for the king. ‘But he has more reverence than to produce it, my lord,’ he tells Norfolk. Alone, he asks Cromwell about news from Cleves.

Week 44: Corpus Christi (Part 1/2)

Call-Me is sent to replace their envoy Hutton in Brussels. He must ‘get himself into the confidence of the Emperor’s regent, the Queen of Hungary. The regent likes a handsome man, and Mr Wriothesley is both handsome and eloquent.’ Call-Me passes through Antwerp and delivers a letter to Jenneke.

Week 46: Ascension Day (Part 1/2)

Thomas Wriothesley asks for a portrait of the king to show Christina. In Brussels, they treat him as lowborn because he is Cromwell’s servant. He meets the spy Harry Phillips, who steals his money. His envoys write to Cromwell, begging him to comfort Wriothesley. Rafe hopes it will teach him a lesson, ‘not to think he has the most penetrating wit in Europe: to realise he can be as big a fool as the rest of us.’

As international tensions rise, the ambassadors are recalled. They fear for Call-Me, that he might be thrown in prison. The Cromwells consider whether they would try to rescue him. ‘Probably not.’ Call-Me writes to inform him of a rumour that the Duke of Cleves has been poisoned. He tells Cromwell to be careful.

They plan for Call-Me and Chapuys to pass through Calais at the same time. A prisoner exchange. Wriothesley is given a seat in the new Parliament and he arrives home to friendly embraces.

‘Sir, I cannot tell you how glad I am to see your face. Twice or thrice I made sure I was dead.’

The ostrich feather in his hat catches fire in one of Cromwell’s candles. Riche puts it out with his ‘digits of iron’.

Wriothesley sets to work on Wyatt’s letters and a plan to sow discord in Italy.

Week 47: Ascension Day (Part 2/2)

Call-Me comes to visit Cromwell after his altercation with Gardiner and Norfolk at Lambeth Palace. Cromwell tells him he will destroy Gardiner. ‘I believe you,’ says Call-Me. Mathew brings in plums. ‘The fruits of success … I congratulate you, sir,’ says Call-Me.

Week 48: Twelfth Night

When Gardiner is kicked off the King’s Council, he calls Thomas Wriothesley a ‘damned traitor.’ Later, Call-Me warns Cromwell about mentioning his low birth a little too often. Cromwell promises to amend his ways. Wriothesley is outside the door when Cromwell and Henry reminisce about old times. ‘He is tired of me,’ Cromwell tells Call-Me. ‘He told me so. I am bested by the cardinal’s ghost.’