‘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.