all kinds of writing

all kinds of writing
‘Thomas Cromwell?’ people say. [...] He’s the very man if an
argument about God breaks out; he’s the very man for telling your
tenants twelve good reasons why their rents are fair. He’s the man
to cut through some legal entanglement that’s ensnared you for
three generations, or talk your sniffling little daughter into the
marriage she swears she will never make. With animals, women
and timid litigants, his manner is gentle and easy; but he makes
your creditors weep. He can converse with you about the Caesars
or get you Venetian glassware at a very reasonable rate. Nobody
can out-talk him, if he wants to talk. Nobody can better keep their
head when markets are falling and weeping men are standing on
the street tearing up letters of credit. (p 91)
I first became aware of Thomas Cromwell in 1968, when I was working for the British Council in Algiers and had set up a play-reading group among the British community.
London was very generous about providing plays and I was delighted when they sent over a set of Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons, the first film version of which had come out two years before. I immediately thought of someone who would be perfect in the main role, that of Thomas More: the British Ambassador. He was, indeed, an excellent choice; and an added bonus was that he suggested we do the rehearsal readings and the actual performance at the Residence, with copious food and drink provided (the latter a special treat in a Muslim country, albeit one where alcohol was not yet forbidden).
One of our English teachers, a rather portly professional actor, was perfect for Cardinal Wolsey, and I reserved for myself what I considered to be the juiciest role, that of Cromwell, the villain of the piece, in opposition to Thomas More whom Bolt depicted as all sweetness and light.
I would much prefer to play Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell, I must say; a real man for all seasons. As we saw in the previous posting, he can deal with people from the lowest to the highest, knowing what motivates them, their strengths and potential, their greed and weaknesses. He appreciates excellence and can tell the difference between the good and the best, the fake and the genuine. And these are lessons he started learning early on.
CROMWELL THE BOY
When he was a child, [harvest]was the time for the boys who
had been living wild on the heath all summer to come home and
make their peace with their fathers [..] Since before Whitsun they
had lived by scavenging and beggars’ tricks, snaring birds and
rabbits and cooking them in their iron pot [..] and on wet and
cold nights sneaking into outhouses and barns, to keep warm by
singing and telling riddles and jokes. When the season was over
it was time for him to sell the cauldron, taking it door-to-door
and talking up its merits. ‘This pot is never empty,’ he would
claim. ‘If you’ve only some fish-heads, throw them in and a
halibut will swim up.’
‘Is it holed?’
‘This pot is sound, and if you don’t believe me , madam, you
can piss in it. Come, tell me what you will give me. There is no
pot to equal this since Merlin was a boy. Toss in a mouse from
your trap and the next thing you know it’s a spiced boar’s head
with the apple ready in its mouth’. (p 318)
The following year, he manages to make some money before leaving England.
Surprisingly, he finds he will leave Dover richer than he
arrived He’d watched a man doing the three-card trick, and
when he learned it he set up for himself. Because he’s a boy,
people stop to have a go. It’s their loss. (p 14)
On a rare occasion he tells some of the young ones about what he got up to when he was their age, in Italy.
‘Once I myself, with Giovannino – well with some boys I knew –
Well, we had a statue made, a smirking little god with wings,
and then we beat it with hammers and chains to make it antique,
and we hired a muleteer and drove it to Rome and sold it to a
cardinal.’ I remember he had tears in his eyes when he paid
us. “To think that on these charming little feet and these sweet
pinions, the gaze of the Emperor Augustus may have rested.”
When the Portinari boys set off for Florence they were staggering
under the weight of their purses.’
‘And you?’
‘I took my cut and stayed on to sell the mules.’ (p 292)
CROMWELL THE WHEELER DEALER
The Duke of Norfolk asks him what he did after fighting on the French side
‘I went north. Got into …’ He’s going to say money, but the duke
wouldn’t understand trading in money. ‘Cloth’, he says. Silk
mostly.’ (p 164)
His success comes from two things: knowing people and knowing everything about what he will be dealing in.
Knowing people.
The time we find out how important it is to pick and train the right people is when he goes over to Antwerp to sort out his father-in-law’s business affairs.
“I’ve seen your stock,’ he said to Wykys. ‘I’ve seen your
accounts. Now show me your clerks.’
That was the key, of course, the key that would unlock profit.
People are always the key, and if you can look them in the face
you can be pretty sure if they’re honest and up to the job. He
tossed out the dubious chief clerk – saying, you go, or we go to
law – and replaced him with a stammering junior, a boy he’d
been told was stupid. Timid was all he was; he looked over his
work each night, mildly and wordlessly indicating each error
and omission, and in four weeks the boy was both competent
and keen. ….Four weeks invested, and a few days down at the
docks, checking who was on the take; by the year end, Wykys
was back in profit. (p 43)
And here is the best example of how he knows the way people operate and can be manipulated. It is when Cardinal Wolsey is proposing to send Stephen Gardiner over to Rome to put the King’s case.
“You don’t understand Rome. […] Put simply, the Pope’s spies
will guess what Stephen’s about while he is still packing his
vestments, and the cardinals and the secretaries will have time
to fix their prices. If you must send him, give him a great deal of
ready money. Those cardinals don’t take promises; what they
really like is a bag of gold to placate their bankers, because
they’re mostly run out of credit.’ He shrugs. ‘I know this.’ (p 26)
Knowing quality
He spent enough time in his youth peddling inferior goods not to recognise a con when he sees it. This is his reaction when someone is aghast that Wolsey has given away his reliquary.
‘To part with it like this! It is a piece of the true Cross!’
‘We’ll get him another. I know a man in Pisa makes them ten for
five florins and a round dozen for cash up front. And you get a
certificate with St Peter’s thumbprint, to say they’re genuine.’
But his main area of expertise is, as he told the Duke of Norfolk, cloth; not just silk, but every type of cloth: where it comes from, how it is spun, woven, dyed, and how much it is worth.
Here he is advising his wife, Liz.
Liz does a bit of silk-work. Tags for the seals on documents; fine
net cauls for ladies at court. She has two girl apprentices in the
house, and an eye on fashion; but she complains, as always
about the middlemen, and the price of thread. ‘We should go to
Genoa,’ he says. ‘I’ll teach you to look the suppliers in the eye.’
(p 35)
And here he is advising her father, Wykys.
He was still sending broadcloth to the north German market,
when – in his opinion, with wool so long in the fleece these days,
and good broadcloth hard to weave theses days – he ought to be
getting into kerseys, lighter cloth like that, exporting through
Antwerp to Italy. (p 41)
He can calculate the cost of a person’s clothing practically at a glance. When he comes home after his first meeting with Anne Boleyn, his family are all agog to know what she is like, his little niece, Alice, asking what she was wearing. ‘Ah, I can tell you that,’
he says
He prices and sources her, hood to hem foot to fingertip. (p 207)
His master, Wolsey, is aware of his expertise in this area.
In public the cardinal wears red, just red, but in various weights,
various weaves, various degrees of pigment and dye, but all of
them the best of their kind, the best reds to be got for money.
There have been days when, swaggering out, he would say,
‘Right, Master Cromwell, price me by the yard.’
And he would say, ‘Let me see,’ and walk slowly around the
cardinal; and saying ‘May I?’ he would pinch a sleeve between
an expert forefinger and thumb; and standing back, he would
view him, to estimate his girth – year on year, the cardinal
expands - and so come up with a figure.
A lovely passage; but even better - and possibly my favourite in the whole book - is when he is invited to dine by Thomas More, who is keen to show off his latest acquisition:
The new carpet, for their inspection, is stretched out on two
trestle tables. The ground is not crimson but a blush colour: not
rose madder, he thinks, but a red dye mixed with whey. ‘My lord
cardinal liked turkey carpets,’ he murmurs. ‘The Doge once sent
him sixty.’ The wool is soft wool from mountain sheep, but none
of them were black sheep; where the pattern is darkest the
surface already has a brittle feel, from patchy dyeing, and with
time and use it may flake away. He turns up the corner, runs his
fingertips over the knots, counting them by the inch, in an easy
accustomed action, ‘This is the Ghiordes knot’ he says, ‘but the
pattern is from Pergamon – you see there within the octagons,
the eight-pointed star?’ He smooths down the corner, and walks
away from it, turns back, says ‘there’ – he walks forward, puts a
tender hand on the flaw, the interruption in the weave, the
lozenge slightly distorted, warped out of true. At worst, the
carpet is two carpets, patched together. At best it has been
woven by the village Pattinson, or patched together last year
by Venetian slaves in a backstreet workshop. To be sure, he
needs to turn the whole thing over. His host says, ‘Not a good
buy?’
It’s beautiful, he says, not wanting to spoil his pleasure. But next
time, he thinks, take me with you. (p 226)
*****************************************************************************
Wolf Hall is a breath-takingly good novel, one worth several readings. I first read it aloud to Jane, as is my custom, then re-read it to myself. Recently we have been listening to it as an audio-book (by Clipper audio) beautifully read by actor and composer Simon Slater.
When that is finished - which should be within the next few days - we have the sequel to Wolf Hall waiting. I’ve been careful not to read any notices, but I gather that people are not disappointed with Bring Up The Bodies. I wonder how much there is left to know about Thomas Cromwell.
Sunday, 22 July 2012