‘Where does the fellow spring from?’

Wandsworth Borough News - Friday 23 July 1909 (British Newspaper Archive)

On Tuesday 20 July 1909, a series of eleven open-air tableaux were presented in Putney, South West London. The tableaux began with Edward I arriving by ferry in Putney (the toll was recorded in his household accounts) and ended with a re-enactment of the first Oxford-Cambridge boat race, stopping along the way to depict the Council of War at St Peter’s Church involving another Cromwell (Oliver). The second scene went back further to the birth of an earlier Cromwell:

The second scene, organised by Miss G Shellshear, was entitled Thomas Cromwell’s birthplace - a blacksmith’s shop, and showed Water Cromwell in smith’s kit, bending over the tiny bundle who was to grow up into one of the most remarkable personalities that ever took a part in the history of England.

Scenes from Putney History - Striking Tableaux at North House, Wandsworth Borough News, 23 July 1909, p.2.

This representation of Cromwell’s birth was followed by a scene familiar to anyone who has read Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall: that of Cardinal Wolsey being overtaken by Harry Norris at Putney on his way to Esher (the newspaper report misnames them as Cardinal Wolseley and Sir John Norris). Perhaps Cromwell made another appearance in this scene - but if he did, the Wandsworth Borough News did not record it.

Reading about the Putney Tableaux reminds me that the date of Thomas Cromwell’s birth is unknown. Hilary Mantel made use of this in Wolf Hall to indicate that his life could be one of possibilities: ‘I don’t have a natal chart. So I don’t have a fate.’

It is thought that Cromwell was born in about 1485. His early life is not recorded, and much of the journey that took him from Putney to the service of Cardinal Wolsey is unknown. These gaps in the historical record cannot now be filled definitively. But, as a novelist rather than a historian, Hilary Mantel was free to create a plausible story. Her telling of Cromwell’s youth is convincing fiction.

In my Cromwell Narrative Cloth project, I have been wrestling for the past seven months with the sequence of events in the Trilogy and how these fit in with what we know from the historical record - or not. I have spreadsheets, index cards, endless notes. ‘If that happened then, this must have happened then…’

Hilary left us clues in her writing - snippets that can be followed up if one’s interest is piqued. For example, in her version, Cromwell must be in Venice in 1508. Fleeting references to the rebuilding of the Fondaco Venezia, and wall paintings by Giorgione give us that date. Other snippets are much easier to tie down. It’s easy enough to check the date of the Battle of Garigliano (29 December 1503) and it has been thought that Cromwell was there since versions of his life were first written in the sixteenth century.

But some events are less tangible. I have been trying to work out when Cromwell got his second knife. I have a theory - but it’s taken many hours of very close reading to work it out. And I might be wrong. And in any case it’s a fictional encounter. So does it matter? Well for the purposes of my Narrative Cloth, yes it does. And if I stitch it in the wrong place, I create a problem for myself that unpicking alone won’t solve.

When I started this project, back in November last year, I designed the first pieces direct on to cloth. As I get more and more entangled in the sequence of events, I now need to supplement my spreadsheets and index cards with something more visual. So my rough sketches and text references are now committed to paper as well as cloth. Not only does this provide a record of where I am up to, but it also shows my workings. And that’s always useful.

In my studio

At the end of the sketchbook shown in the video I wrote the following note:

Fitting the early lives of Thomas Cromwell together is a puzzle. We can start with Matteo Bandello’s Novelle, and consult John Foxe. We can compare two magnificent feats of research: history written by Diarmaid MacCulloch; and fiction written by Hilary Mantel. This Cromwell Narrative Project owes an enormous debt to their research and the gaps between history, biography and fiction.

In the studio, I have been reflecting on such gaps. Although I tend to think of my Cromwell work as being entirely separate from my earlier academic work, I am slowly realising that there are methodological links - links I hadn’t expected. I trained as a film historian and my PhD focused on a series of biographical films made by British director Maurice Elvey during the First World War - about Florence Nightingale, Horatio Nelson, and David Lloyd George. For Nelson in particular, Elvey and his screenwriter Elliot Stannard constructed a complex structure that knitted together narrative gaps.

I’m recognising that my work on both Thomas Cromwell and Maurice Elvey represent a longstanding interest in traces of material culture, the translation of life stories into other art forms, and the resulting tension between the historical record and fictionalised narratives.

I have written 100,000 words about one, and stitched yards and yards about the other. Both sets of work consider gaps in stories, and these gaps make up the threads of my tale.

What caught my eye?

I went to Tate Britain on Saturday to meet friends - we read together online for twenty months during the Covid-19 pandemic - for tea and lots of conversation. And art of course. I took the opportunity to visit some of the C16th collection, and bumped into George Boleyn.

Of course it isn’t really George Boleyn. No painting of George survives - but this is exactly how I imagine he looked.

The painting is by an unknown artist, dates from 1545-60, and, based on the ring he wears, is probably a gentleman of the West Family. According to the gallery, it could be William West, the nephew of the 9th Lord De La Warre, ‘whom,’ the card reads, ‘he tried to poison to gain the family estates’. I really mustn’t get distracted following up that reference…