Thomas Cromwell: Servant to Henry VIII (2 page)

By this time he was in his very early twenties, and had already acquired the experience of a much older man, being skilled in several languages and in merchandising. He spoke French and Spanish as well as Italian, and had a good working knowledge of Latin, which he appears to have developed by memorising large chunks of the Erasmian version of the New Testament, a benefit which was to remain with him over the years.
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It was during his stay in Antwerp that Cromwell undertook the first of his two missions to Rome, when he was persuaded to accompany Geoffrey Chambers, who had been sent by the Guild of Our Lady in St Botolph’s church at Boston in Lincolnshire to the Pope to secure an indulgence for the guild. As far as we know he had no previous connection with Boston, unless it was through a trade link with Antwerp, but Chambers clearly identified him as a useful colleague for a mission of this kind, because of his skill in languages, which he himself lacked. He picked up Cromwell on his way through Antwerp, and he soon proved to be invaluable. Chambers himself had no idea how to approach the pontiff, and would have awaited his convenience alongside the innumerable other suitors who thronged the papal audience chamber. Cromwell, however, had other ideas, and having acquired some choice sweetmeats, lay in wait for Julius when he returned from a hunting trip. How he had learned of the Pope’s weakness for such delicacies we do not know, but the trick worked to perfection, and Julius granted the desired indulgence on the spot.
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It appears that the highly developed opportunism that became so manifest later in life had put in an early appearance. According to Foxe, from whom this story is derived, this episode took place in 1510, when Thomas would have been about twenty-five. At some point between 1512 and 1514, Cromwell returned to England, and added a legal practice to his established trade in cloth, although his existing commercial ties continued to take him back to the Netherlands from time to time. More than twenty years later a merchant named George Elyot reminded him of an encounter which they had had at the Syngsson Mart in Middleburgh in 1512, and although Elyot’s memory was not necessarily perfect, it does indicate that Thomas was present at the market in that year.
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However in November 1512 a legal instrument, endorsed in a hand that closely resembles that of Cromwell, records a title to the manor of Whityngham, which seems to suggest that he was practising as a lawyer in London by that date. Some such date for his return is also indicated by the fact that by 1514 he had married. His wife, whom Chapuys referred to many years later as the daughter of a shearman, was Elizabeth Wykys, who in fact came of an ancient gentry family, and was the niece of one who had been a gentleman usher to Henry VII. She was therefore his superior in status and probably in wealth.
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Cromwell appears to have entered into a business partnership with his father-in-law, and was marketing his produce as late as 1524, which might seem a strange occupation for a man who was by then primarily an attorney, but is a good example of his versatility, which enabled him to pursue several occupations simultaneously. This noticeably increased both his wealth and his standing. By 1522 he was being referred to as a gentleman, and had moved into the substantial house at Austin Friars in London that he was to occupy for many years.
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Elizabeth presented him with three children, Gregory, Anne and Grace, the first of whom must have been born not later than 1515. Gregory was later something of a disappointment to his father, and Anne and Grace both died during the plague outbreak of 1529. It seems likely from the will that Thomas drew up in that year that their mother died at the same time, but Cromwell’s private life remains very much in the shadows. It is possible that Elizabeth had been married before, and the fact that Mercy Prior is recorded in his will as his mother-in-law indicates that she too had married a second time. She was resident in his house at the time that his will was drawn up, which suggests that her second husband was also dead by then. Elizabeth’s father had clearly died at some point after 1524, but all these dates, except that of the will, are somewhat speculative.
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Meanwhile Cromwell appears to have undertaken a second trip to Rome on behalf of the Boston guild. This took place in 1517 or 1518, and was again in the company of Geoffrey Chambers, with whom by this time he could claim a good acquaintance. The story of what happened has become confused with the events of seven or eight years previously, but there is no reason to doubt that he made a second trip, or that he stayed in the English Hospice and took the opportunity to do a little sightseeing. Interestingly enough, the effect of this experience seems to have been much the same as that of a similar trip by Martin Luther a few years before. It alienated him from the whole apparatus of the Roman bureaucracy, and indirectly from the ritualism of the Roman Church. Nevertheless the mission was successful, and the Boston guild obtained its indulgences as before. At about this time also, Cromwell caught the eye of the powerful Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York from 1514, Cardinal and Lord Chancellor in 1515.
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It is possible that he was introduced by his cousin Robert Cromwell (John’s son), who was vicar of Battersea at this time and had business dealings with the archbishop, or perhaps the introduction was affected by Lord Henry Percy, who is alleged to have borrowed money from Cromwell and to have been impressed by his creditor’s attitude. We do not know the exact date or the circumstances of their connection. It may have come at any time between 1514 and 1519, and probably arose as a result of Wolsey’s decision to use Cromwell’s legal expertise as a client of his business. There are no records of his being paid a regular retainer for his services, nor do we know exactly what being ‘in Wolsey’s service’ would have meant in terms of commitment, or of his other business.
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It is perhaps safest to assume that the archbishop began to use him on an occasional basis in about 1516, and that mutual satisfaction caused the connection to develop. According to one version he became a member of Wolsey’s council in 1519, but it is not certain exactly what that would indicate, and he continued his private practice throughout the 1520s. He does, however, appear to have given up his wool business by about 1524, perhaps on the death of his father-in-law. It is not until 1520 that the records preserve the first undoubted sign of his activity on the cardinal’s behalf, when he was called upon to prepare an appeal to the papal Curia against a decision of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury involving Nicholas Cowper, the vicar, and the Prioress of Cheshunt, Margaret Chawry. The prioress wrote sending ‘information by the letters of Thomas Cromwell from which your Lordship will understand the merits of the case’. Cromwell apparently prepared the resulting brief, but the outcome is not known.
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The case does, however, indicate that he was thought to be well seen in the canon law as well as the common law, and familiar with the proceedings of the Curia. Wolsey had by this time been the king’s leading man of affairs for some six years, and it is entirely likely that Henry was aware of his use of Thomas Cromwell, but whether he employed him in any service involving contact with the court is not known. In August 1522 he was granted power of attorney in a suit involving two merchants of the Hanse, and in that, which describes him as ‘of London, gentleman’, it is clearly indicated that he was considered to be a member of Wolsey’s household, although most of the records which survive from this period could equally well have been generated by his private business.
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In January 1522 a certain William Popely wrote to him in terms which suggest familiar acquaintance, asking him to act as attorney in a suit which he had before the king’s council. The letter was written from Bristol, and indicates that Cromwell was using his commercial contacts to build his legal business, an impression confirmed by the fact that some months later John Creke wrote to him from Bilbao in Spain in the warmest terms, asking to be commended to his wife, and addressing his letter simply to ‘the worshipful Thomas Cromwell, London’.
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Any nobleman was likely to regard a commoner with whom he had regular dealings as being in his service, and the term is very imprecise. For example Cecily, the Dowager Marchioness of Dorset, wrote somewhat peremptorily to him in August 1522, requesting him to forward a ‘trussing bed’ and its equipment to her son Leonard, and endorsing the letter ‘to Cromwell, my son Marquis servant’. Thomas, the then marquis, had been Wolsey’s pupil at Magdalen College, Oxford, in the 1490s, and that may have created a relationship which caused his mother to presume in this fashion.
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There is no other indication that Cromwell ever considered himself to be the marquis’s servant, or that the nobleman saw him in that light. It seems to have been little more than a figure of speech. His legal business was varied, and no doubt profitable. It also took him out of London from time to time. Richard Cawffer wrote to him on 15 August about a dispute between himself and Lord Mountjoy, who was acting as an executor to Henry Kebyll, ‘late of London, Alderman’. The nature of the dispute is not known, but it presumably related to probate, because the failure of one of the arbitrators to turn up meant that the case stood referred to the bishop. Tunstall had ordered each party to name an ‘indifferent person’ to advise him, and Chawffer had chosen Cromwell. He asked the latter to let him know when he was next in London, that he might instruct him, which seems an odd request to make of one whose normal address was at the Austin Friars.
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Perhaps he was in attendance upon the cardinal, who seems to have been at Esher at the time. Another indication of his connection with Wolsey comes over the administration of the Privy Seal loan for which he was primarily responsible in the autumn of 1522. Henry Lacy, acting on the cardinal’s behalf, sent him a draft Privy Seal with a covering letter to a Mr Ellderton, instructing him to take the mayor’s advice and to ‘order it as he thinks fit’. Exactly what he was supposed to do is not clear, because a draft Privy Seal would have had no legal standing; perhaps Lacy was canvassing opinion as to whom in London it would be appropriate to send such demands.
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This would seem to be a good example of the kind of semi-official way in which Cromwell operated, because in the same letter was enclosed a draft of Sir James Turberville’s account, which he was asked to put in due form, a task that would seem to be more appropriate to his private practice. Other letters of the same time give a similar impression. In 1521 he acted for Charles Knyvett, who had resigned the offices which he held under the Duke of Buckingham shortly before that nobleman was executed for high treason on 17 May. Knyvett had a powerful sense of grievance, having been forced to incur over £3,000 worth of debt on his master’s behalf. This debt he now sought to annul, and to recover the receiverships which he had been compelled to resign, on the grounds that all Buckingham’s property was now in the hands of the Crown. This suit might well appear a forlorn hope were it not for the fact that Knyvett had provided useful testimony against the duke at his trial, and was looking for his reward. That he chose Thomas Cromwell to represent him is indicative of the fact that the latter’s favour with the cardinal was well known, and Cromwell would not have taken him on if he had not judged the chances of success to be reasonable.
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In the event their suit failed, but this did not reflect adversely on Cromwell’s reputation, as he seems to have won golden opinions for his efforts on Knyvett’s behalf. Perhaps the suggestion of a trade-off was a little too obvious for the council to stomach.

William Popely was obviously satisfied with his legal advice, because he wrote again in August with an odd request from a certain ‘poor man’, who may well have been Popely himself. He wanted to know where one Glaskerton had been on Our Lady’s Eve. The reason for this request is not explained, nor why Cromwell should have been expected to know the answer. The suggestion that he was running a private detective agency among his numerous other preoccupations is not supported by any other evidence. The letter continues with the apparently inconsequential news that Popely was to be married on ‘the Sunday after St Bartholomew’ (31 August), and he wanted his brother’s writs sent down ‘by the first’.
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This ragbag of a letter suggests a man who is completely at ease with his solicitor, and that impression is confirmed by another letter, written on 27 September referring to a case which was obviously well known between them, asking Cromwell to ensure that ‘Mr Elliot may answer by his counsel’, and informing him that the ship, which was presumably to bear his letter, waited only for the wind to serve.
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Similarly Richard Chawffer followed up his letter of August with another on 22 September, expressing complete satisfaction with the advice that Cromwell had given him in response to his earlier communication, and requesting a commission (presumably from Wolsey), in the strictest form ‘according to the bill I received from you’. He wants to know what action, if any, he can take against Lord Mountjoy, or whether such a course would damage his cause. His Lordship’s goods in Calais are vulnerable, or he could try a suit in Chancery.
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It is a very routine sort of letter, and one wonders why it has survived when so much of Cromwell’s correspondence from these years has obviously perished. Not every letter was from a satisfied customer, and the indications are that his legal business was taking priority, because a communication from a certain Thomas Twesell in October 1522 about the cloth business ‘takes it unkindly’ that he has not been sent the velvet pouch which had been requested. How long the item had been outstanding is not clear, but it appears that Cromwell was allowing his merchandising to slide rather, perhaps in anticipation of giving it up a couple of years later.
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