In Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell’s sister-in-law, Johane, comments on the material goods enjoyed by the Cromwell household: “all these things, these things we have now”. She cites mirrors, clocks, portraits, chests, lutes, an ivory comb, luxury items that she never had as a girl. The Cromwell trilogy is full of objects just beyond our reach. I can go to a museum or a cathedral, see something and think “Ah. That is Cromwell’s.” Sometimes I see something in a collection and feel convinced that it found its way into Mantel’s writing.
When I visit archives, I like to look at inventories and account books, to see “these things we have now”. Records of Thomas Wolsey’s goods at Cawood. A list of Thomas Cromwell’s horses - too faded and damaged to read easily. Thomas Avery’s account books with their references to artichokes and silver bells. Lists of New Year gifts given to Henry VIII. Anna of Cleves signing Anne the Quene at the bottom of the pages of her household books. Cromwell’s will. These lists and papers conjure textures, smells and sounds.
The items themselves are mostly long gone. I can turn some of them into stitch as a substitute for actually touching the things themselves.
The object with which I am most intrigued is Cromwell’s “Quylte of yelow Turquye Saten”. I want to know what happened to the original quylte. In his will, Cromwell left it to his son Gregory, but this will was rendered invalid by the act of attainder against him in 1540. I keep hoping to come across a reference to this particular quilt in an inventory, but so far, there’s no sign. I used to dream about it regularly. I still think about it. In 2022, I bought yards of yellow silk satin and silk wadding in order to try to recreate it. The last email I had from Hilary ended with the words “I look forward to hearing about the yellow satin”. But I’ve never been able to make the piece. It now feels too painful, and I don’t know what it looks like any more: this quilt has retreated just beyond my grasp.
In my studio
I finished listening to Wolf Hall in the studio earlier today. The audiobook has been playing in various iterations since 2009. The Trilogy is always with me - at different points on different devices. I still hear new things in the text - it is so rich. Sometimes I feel that I am reading a different book each time. Inside every book, there is another book.
This week I have been thinking about material culture a great deal. My Cromwell Narrative Cloth has finally found its form and there are empty spaces that could be filled with items that belonged to Cromwell and those about him. But with all those lists and inventories, what to choose? I’m not sure yet.
So instead, I have been adding other elements to the first six feet of the Cromwell Narrative Cloth. These details take far longer than the main figures themselves. A figure can be sketched, stitched and painted in less than a day. I have figures queuing up to join the cloth. Katherine and Arthur are waiting. Young Thomas is jostling. Stephen Gardiner has to wait his turn. But the background seed stitching, the edging motifs, the text take far more time so these figures will have to pause a while. Not what I had expected when I started. But it’s worth the extra time - the piece is starting to have its own identity and a life of its own.
The Cromwell Narrative Cloth is a very personal piece and I have decided to include information about when and why it was made. I have started to stitch in my own narrative along the bottom of the piece. I don’t know exactly where that will take me, but I am looking forward to finding out.
What caught my eye?
Pomegranates.
Earlier in January I went to Peterborough to see Katherine/Katharine/Catalina of Aragon’s tomb, and was moved to see that people still leave pomegranates there. Even after all this time. It’s a tribute to a woman who was abandoned and humiliated in her lifetime, but is remembered and respected today.
I shall write more about Katherine another time, but today, at the end of January 2024, I wish to mark that January 1536 was the month of her death, on the 7th; and her burial at Peterborough on the 29th. I believe that pomegranates appear on her tomb throughout the year, but it seems particularly poignant to see them in January.
Perhaps Hilary will bring the yellow quilt to you one day 💛
Your writing about the yellow quilt and Hilary’s last message to you about it has really touched me ❤️