“Gentlemen, that was the cardinal’s cat.”

In a recent post, I wrote an introduction to my Cromwell Cloke, with a view to sharing the “becoming” of a piece of my textile art. With that in mind, this series discusses some of the objects depicted on the Cloke, and the creative decisions behind each piece. It also gives me an opportunity to record sources and references both in and outside the text of Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell Trilogy.

Marlinspike

One night last week, I dreamt that someone handed me three kittens. They were all grey and white striped; two were about 5 weeks old, and one about 8 weeks. I woke up wondering whether the dream was telling me that it was time for a new cat in my life.

Over the last quarter century I have shared my life with four cats. In the early weeks of the Covid-19 Pandemic, I had to say goodbye to my last cat - the almost 21-year-old, entirely beloved Mr Valentino, and, since then, I have been catless. So the nearest I get is Hilary Mantel’s Marlinspike - a “black and hungry” kitten “with a coat like wool and yellow eyes”, given to Thomas Cromwell by his master, Cardinal Wolsey. I have read that Cardinal Wolsey was fond of cats, and that he kept a favoured feline on a cushion next to him while receiving important visitors. Whether this is true or not, the idea has stuck and modern statues of Wolsey in Ipswich and Marlborough show him accompanied by a small cat. And one of his cats walked into Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell Trilogy.

Of course the cardinal’s cat had to be included on the Cromwell Cloke. At Austin Friars:

Marlinspike goes down to the kitchen, to grow stout and live out his beastly nature. There is a summer ahead, though he cannot imagine its pleasures; sometimes when he’s walking in the garden he sees him, a half-grown cat, lolling watchful in an apple tree, or snoring on a wall in the sun (Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall - Three-Card Trick)

Marlinspike is an aid to memory; an explorer of smuggled goods; a greeter of archbishops, ambassadors, and chaplains; a bringer of gifts; a roamer and adventurer; a role model for those aspiring to be calm and “less like Uncle Norfolk, more like Marlinspike”. Once the cat has left kittenhood behind him, he is a fleeting presence in the Trilogy, roaming London and making his way to Southwark, all the way from Austin Friars:

The cardinal’s cat is feral now, ranging at will through London gardens, lured by the scent of carp from the ponds of city monasteries, tempted - for all he knows - across the river to be snuggled to the bosoms of whores […] lolling, purring, declining to come home again. (Wolf Hall - The Map of Christendom)

He is a “prodigy of nature”. Spotted by Thurston on a wall in the Autumn of 1539, the cook asks himself “Can any cat live that long?” (The Mirror and the Light - Twelfth Night) By my calculations, Marlinspike would have been ten. Does a Tudor cat stay alive for ten years roaming London and declining to come home? In Marlinspike’s case, I suspect so.

In Marlinspike, Hilary Mantel captured the essence of cat. And I decided to stitch him in outline only. I wanted him to be slightly ghostly, slightly unseen, like all good cats. And perhaps looking slightly sleeker than written.¹ I always think that Hilary understood cats. In her memoir, she remembered travelling to different houses with cats. On reaching their destination:

Released, squalling from their cage, they would race through the rooms, bellowing, feet thundering on the wooden stairs, driving out the devils only cats can see. (Giving Up the Ghost - A Second Home)

Cats can definitely see things that we can’t. They can sense all sorts of intangibilities.

Hodge, the Southwark Cathedral Cat

On 20 April 2023, I attended a service celebrating the life of Hilary Mantel at Southwark Cathedral. I didn’t see Marlinspike flitting around a corner, but I did see a feline from south of the river. Before the service, I was briefly in the cathedral’s conference centre and, as I left to go into the main body of the cathedral, I looked down to find Hodge the Cathedral Cat around my feet, determined to go out with me. I wasn’t sure if Hodge was supposed to go out that way - but I couldn’t find anyone to ask, and he seemed to know exactly what he wanted, so he came out with me, keen to get on with whatever feline errands were required. It was nice to be greeted by a cat on that day of all days, given that I had no cat waiting for me at home.

Entirely Beloved Mr Valentino, yellow eyes on show, knowing that he deserved the best of everything, and full attention at all times

1. I suspect that the shape of my stitched Marlinspike owes a debt to my friend’s cat Sirius, who often joins in our video calls.