Letters to Master Thomas Cromwell

Letters from friends, letters from enemies, letters from servants, letters from clerks. Letters from widows, wives, sons and nephews. Letters from tutors, letters from priests, letters from dukes, letters from kings. Letters accompanying gifts - a horse here, a greyhound there, a pair of gloves, a ring. Short letters, long letters, undated letters, mysterious letters. Legible, illegible, mutilated, overwritten, crossed out, coded, deciphered. What is left of Thomas Cromwell’s correspondence extends far and wide, and provides a fleeting glimpse of a man long passed.

I have long been fascinated by Diarmaid MacCulloch’s observation that when looking at Thomas Cromwell’s surviving papers, there is a “vast absence” of much of his outgoing correspondence: “From his muniment room, we have virtually exclusively the in-tray.” (Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cromwell, A life: Introduction). He goes on to note that:

after a day spent with Cromwell’s papers, I have often felt alarmingly like Master Secretary, listening with increasing exhaustion to the cacophony of voices crackling out of the pages, wheedling, complaining, flattering, decorously demanding: bringing news of crisis, catastrophe or sometimes even good fortune.

I spend a lot of time with Cromwell’s letters. It’s a favourite pastime to call them up from the archives and see if I can read between the lines. I don’t feel like Master Secretary though; I feel like I am trying to catch an elusive something between my fingers, but I never can.

A letter from Thomas Cannar, January 1528. To the Rygthe Worshypfull Master Thomas Crumwell dwelling in London this letter be delyvered. Letters were folded, sealed and addressed on the reverse - no need for a separate covering.

Over the past week I have been trying to get into my studio. It’s about six minutes’ walk from home, but in the midst of migraine, that six minutes is too much. I am worried about my plants. They need watering. I’m worried about the Cromwell Cloke, which needs attention. I’m worried about dust, about tidying up, about paying the rent on a space I am not using. But mostly I’m worried about the plants.

In the magnificent Giving Up the Ghost, Hilary Mantel described her migraines (‘ten thousand painkillers’) as

a psychic adornment or flourish, an art form, a secret talent I have never managed to make money from […] Late in the afternoon, a migrainous sleep steals up on me. It plants on my forehead a clammy ogre’s kiss. ‘Don’t worry,’ I say, as the ogre sucks me into sleep. ‘If the phone wakes, it will ring us.’

I find comfort in these words. I don’t wish migraine on anyone, but it’s helpful to have someone use their words to articulate how they manifest. I’ve been reading a lot of Han Kang’s work recently, and was interested to read in a recent Guardian profile that she, too, is a migraineur. I feel I knew this already though her writing. As the article noted, ‘Han credits her migraines with giving her the humility and empathy necessary to become a writer. “Humans are fragile,” she says.’ (Lisa Allardice interview with Han Kang, The Guardian, 1 February 2025)

My most recent migraine attack has been a long one. Attacks have become more frequent over the last year or so - now approximately every ten days - and sometimes they last for days. This latest one was a six-day affair, and it’s still lurking a little, my face still hurts. I used to be able to say that once the pain passes from the right eye socket to the left temple, the migraine is on its way out, but this time the pain bounced back and forth, returning to the right eye socket with renewed vigour on day four. It’s been a week of sleeping as much as possible, of lying down drifting in and out of audiobooks, of getting up to try to get something - anything - done in between bouts of pain. How can I keep up with Master Cromwell if I am knocked out so often? If six minutes to the studio is too much?

Cromwell’s in-tray came to my rescue. Scraps of time and scraps of fabric started to come together in the idea of a visual representation of his letters received. I have this idea of representing the sheer volume of letters, as they grew and grew over the years, showing the range and variety of his influence. In between bouts of pain, I sat down with my notes of his letters. And with what I had to hand, and in little clusters of energy, put together the fifteen recorded surviving letters to him sent to him in 1527 as small fabric pieces. From whom, about what, and how addressed - to be presented as what? Little booklets? Rolls? Hanging strips? Time will tell.

This is manageable in increments. Between bouts of pain. Cromwell’s in-tray will assist me when I can’t get to my studio. Can I represent all his correspondence up to 1540? There’s so much of it, year on year it grows and grows. Right now that doesn’t matter. All I need to look at is a few fabric scraps, some Doomesday Ink, a bit of thread, and the next piece of correspondence.

Sir John Vere writes to Cromwell in June 1527 about a dispute between neighbours. Vere hopes that Cromwell will grant Edmond Horsely a farm in return for his co-operation.