Father of Thomas Cromwell, and sisters Kat and Bet.
The story so far…
Week 1: Across the Narrow Sea / Paternity
Walter is a violent drunk who has nearly killed his son Thomas.
Week 4: An Occult History of Britain (Part 2)
In 1527, we learn that Walter is dead, because Cromwell thinks it strange that Kat and Morgan Williams named their son Walter, ‘Did they need a reminder of their father, lurking around after his death, to remind them not to get too happy?”
Cromwell remembers visiting his father after he had returned from Europe. He seems less angry and more irritated with his son, who has married and given him another grandson. He is especially scathing of Thomas’s decision to learn law:
‘If it weren’t for the so-called law, we would be lords. Of the manor. And a whole lots of other manors round here.’
Walter believes he is entitled to the wealth of the Cromwells, now lost. However, it is not clear how he is related to them or how the wealth disappeared. ‘I think we pissed it away’, he admits.
We see him even further back, “on” Cromwell’s various stepmothers, who never stay very long and have no idea who he is. Were Cromwell’s parents married? No one seems to know when he was born.
Week 9: Arrange Your Face (Part 2)
Cromwell remembers what Walter said about his mother. How she prayed to a saint and turned it to the wall when she got into bed with him.
‘Dear God, Thomas, it was St fucking Felicity if I’m not mistaken, and her face was to the wall for sure the night I got you.’
When the Cornish came in 1497, Bet told Cromwell not to fight. “She hopes the Cornish will kill Walter. She doesn’t say so, but he knows it.”
When his mother gave birth to him, aged fifty-two, Walter and his friends were in the street. “Barren wives served here!”
Further reading
The Blacksmith, The Brewer or the Shearman: Who Was Thomas Cromwell’s Father?