Often portrayed as dour and colourless, the Booker-winning novel, 'Wolf Hall', shines a light on Thomas Cromwell, and the real story of the man behind Henry VIII
EVER THE pragmatist, Thomas Cromwell, chief advisor to Henry VIII, would be more interested in the £50,000 Hilary Mantel's lively, flamboyant Man Booker winning Wolf Hallwon earlier this week, than in the contents of the novel - at the close of which, he is still alive. He was a practical man and although given to conversing in Latin - and swearing in Spanish - he saw himself as a problem solver, not a dreamer.
History suggests that the man who succeeded in relieving the king of wife number one, Katherine of Aragon, and releasing England from the Pope, was dour and colourless - but detached is more accurate. He dealt with his enemies efficiently rather than vindictively. Those who knew him always commented that Thomas Cromwell missed little, but Hilary Mantel, in writing her vivid tale, appears to have missed even less - and invented more.
Cromwell, who apparently did have a sense of humour, may have been amused at the idea of a fiction being based on his life. After all, his mentor, Cardinal Wosley, outrageous and larger than life, is a far more likely candidate to attract a novelist in search of a three-dimensional character. Wosley and Cromwell has something in common, they both rose from lowly origins - and this would prove important.
Cromwell was born about the year 1485 in Putney, then a village on the Thames. His father was a blacksmith and, according to Mantel, so vicious that the horses he shod trembled at his touch. Young Thomas may well have run away from vicious parental beatings. He set off to Europe when he was 15 to become a soldier of fortune, serving in the Italian wars and later, became a merchant in Antwerp, acquiring various languages en route. Some of this may have been embellished by Mantel, yet Cromwell did reveal details of his wild youth to a relatively reliable source, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury and Cromwell's colleague in the creation of the Church of England.
Devoted to the notion of the crown, Cromwell was a natural bureaucrat with an early flair for business. While he was abroad, he developed an interest in the law. On his return to England in 1512, he was sufficiently skilled in legal matters to become solicitor to none other than Wosley, then, with the exception of the preoccupied Henry, the most powerful man in the kingdom. According to J.J. Scarisbrick's classic biography of Henry VIII (1968), Wosley's household was, for about 15 years, from 1514 until his fall in 1529, "the true seat of royal government".
Wosley ruled with a cheeky abandon, the man of God who dressed in a sumptuous wardrobe of red silks hand sewn by nuns, he knew his wines and loved his food. The father of a daughter, it was Wosley who built Hampton Court and dominated every meeting he attended and every conversation he engaged in with his dangerously playful wit.
By contrast, the sturdy, dark and plain-faced Cromwell - who favoured black and didn't waste words - must have seemed dull. Yet, he could inspire confidence in his ability to solve whatever issue needed to be despatched. Cromwell sat in the House of Commons in 1523. His rise was, of course, assisted by Wosley's dramatic fall.
Does Mantel like Cromwell? It is difficult to tell, she keeps him at a remove, as if acknowledging that he was straightforward yet also an enigma. She clearly respects him and has some sympathy for the man who liked his wife, Elizabeth, the widow he married, and regarded her as an equal, not a mere brood mare. Her sudden death from a slight fever which killed her within hours, the same illness which later carried of both of their daughters, kept Cromwell in a quiet state of shock for years.
Although not given to personal extravagance, he knew how to spend money as well as he knew how to acquire it. He treated his servants well and was rewarded with loyalty. His tough early life and those years in Europe helped harden him and also provided him with a deep understanding of human psychology. If ever an individual was equipped to deal with a monarch as petulant and as dangerous as the volatile Henry VIII, it was Thomas Cromwell, who apparently tolerated the monarch's habit of beating him about the head.
In an age of religious fanaticism, Cromwell was decidedly secular, which must have helped him in his battles with Rome on Henry's behalf. His indifference made him fearless, though never reckless. Wosley's fate worried Cromwell, yet he weathered it.
By the close of 1531, he had become a leading royal councillor and within two years, was the king's chief minister. It was Cromwell who pulled England away from Rome, he carried out the dissolution of the monasteries with deadly efficiency and gave Henry what he most wanted, for a while, Anne Boleyn as his queen. Mantel ensures that Boleyn emerges as a calculating individual whose dislike of Cromwell matches his of her.
So what undid Thomas Cromwell? Was it the aging king's need to despatch Boleyn? Yes, but to a far greater extent Cromwell, as did Wosley before him, fell because of resentful aristocrats such as Gardiner and Norfolk who never forgave either Cromwell, or Wosley, a butcher's son, for being low-born.
The emerging English class system proved Cromwell's defining enemy. Made Earl of Essex in early 1540, by July 23rd he had been executed, hung by the neck. As he walked to the scaffold he announced he was dying a Catholic.
Cromwell was a natural administrator, with a flair for reforming administration. Under him, state supplanted church. History's answer is simple; he became a victim of the pre-Elizabethan England he created, an England ready to embrace politics, the politics he helped consolidate. Yet, his 16th century story continues its 21st century lease of life, at least until Hilary Mantel completes the sequel - and Wolf Hallwas six years in the writing."Those who knew him always commented that Thomas Cromwell missed little, but Hilary Mantel, in writing her vivid tale, appears to have missed even less - and invented more.