Tag: the mirror and the light

Wolf Hall 2: The Mirror and the Light – How Dinner with Stephen Gardiner Destroyed Thomas Cromwell

Published on by Caroline AngusLeave a comment
BBC/Playground Entertainment/Nick Briggs

In episode 5 of The Mirror and the Light, it is all coming part for Thomas Cromwell. After finally finding a woman willing to marry King Henry, Anne of Cleves is delayed as she gets to England, and is not stunned into undying love when she sees her sub-par new husband. Henry’s ego is hurt, and the year is off to a bad start.

In reality, Henry not liking Anna of Cleves was borne out of fear, not Anna’s appearance. Her brother was Wilhelm of Cleves, who had just declared war against Emperor Charles over the German duchy of Guelders. By marrying Anna, Henry was essentially making himself an ally against the Emperor in war. Trade with the Low Countries had already been halted, and Cromwell had traded Eustace Chapuys for Thomas Wriothesley, Stephen Vaughan and Edward Kerne, who were held hostage by the Emperor’s sister, Queen Mary of the Netherlands. Marrying and sleeping with Anna meant preparing to go to war against Emperor Charles, and after Anna had not been particularly chatty or enamoured with Henry, he was livid at having married the beautiful, young duchess. Henry was trying to make the best of it, Anna was well-liked by everyone but her husband, and Cromwell was busy infuriating the Duke of Norfolk by closing Thetford Priory, where the Howard ancestors were all buried.

Anna of Cleves, 16th century hottie. Hans Holbein, Louvre INV 1348

The English bible was out and it was the law to preach the reformed religion in England. Henry, Cromwell and Cranmer all graced the cover of the new bible. But getting everyone to obey the reforms was near impossible. In March 1540, Bishop Stephen Gardiner had been preaching the old doctrine at St Paul’s. Days later, Cromwell’s old friend Robert Barnes did the same, preaching the reformed doctrine. King Henry heard of these outbursts and ordered Gardiner and Barnes to appear before him to explain themselves. It was not simply two men forced to explain themselves, as the king was ‘scandalised’ by their words. It was Gardiner’s words against Cromwell’s words, Barnes simply the mouthpiece. Henry, unhappy with his German marriage, could turn his anger against the Reformation instead of its real target, bringing Cromwell and Gardiner’s long-running feud to its bitter end. Everyone needed to be silent to appease the king’s current mood, so Barnes recanted his words in late March, and Cromwell made a concession; he invited Stephen Gardiner to dinner at Austin Friars.

If the Lambeth Palace banquet with the Duke of Norfolk was a flashpoint in Cromwell’s fortune, the Austin Friars dinner party would go one step further. What should have been two men finding a truce, instead turned into a bitter dispute, free of the civility of court. Rumours were already flying; people believed Cromwell would lose the Vice-Gerent and Lord Privy Seal positions. With Henry turning from the Reformation due to his marital bed problems with Queen Anna, Cromwell needed to defend all he had done, just as Gardiner felt he needed to defend the papacy.

A withering and acrimonious shouting match ensued at Austin Friars, with Cromwell screaming at Gardiner, ‘if the King would turn (from the Reformation), yet I would not turn! And if the King did turn, and all his people, I would fight in the field in my person, with my sword in my hand, against him and all others’. Cromwell, holding a knife (claimed Gardiner), added, ‘if this dagger was not thrust into my heart in battle, and if I would not die in that quarrel against them all, and I live one year or two, it shall not be in the King’s power to resist me’.

Cromwell had made a huge mistake, not unlike several inappropriate outbursts over recent months. A man who could have his enemies cornered before they realised the hunt had begun, suddenly began making missteps for no apparent reason. Cromwell was discussing a theological battle, not an actual war, and if he had a knife, it would have been no more than a dinner knife. The lack of actual danger to Henry must have been apparent, as  Gardiner kept this treasonous argument quiet, and Cromwell needed to get ahead of him. Cromwell surrendered the position of Secretary of State to the king, a job he held in an official capacity for six years. Secretary Cromwell was no more. The position that gave so much power beside the throne slipped away, but only just. The position would be divided between two people, a plan used regularly in the future, separating the immense power of the position. Ralph Sadler and Thomas Wriothesley were both given the job.

For a moment, things seemed to calm again but French Ambassador Marillac thought Cromwell was in trouble; Gardiner had not said anything, but Marillac, either listening to bad sources or simply sharing lies, wrote to King Francis, ‘Cromwell is tottering’. Marillac could not have been more wrong. On 17 April, King Henry astounded Cromwell and his friends and foes, telling him that he would become the 16th Earl of Essex (1st Earl, sixth creation), accompanied with a list of lands and manors five pages long. Henry Bouchier, whose family had held the Essex titles for eighty years, broke his neck after coming off his horse a month earlier, a sudden opportunity for Cromwell to be elevated. One day after this shock announcement, Cromwell was again bestowed with glory: the title of Lord Great Chamberlain, head of the royal household. The Earls of Oxford had held the role for the past 400 years, but John De Vere had died at home just a week after Henry Bouchier, leaving a vacancy at court.

But Gardiner had these words, spoken in anger at Austin Friars, coupled with the Duke of Norfolk’s French plan to remove Cromwell, were lying in wait, as the final traitor was about to reveal himself.

Wolf Hall 2: The Mirror and the Light – Did Thomas Cromwell attack the Duke of Norfolk over Cardinal Bainbridge’s Murder?

Published on by Caroline Angus2 Comments
Norfolk and Gardiner – BBC/Playground Entertainment/Nick Briggs

Welcome to another installment of the details behind Wolf Hall 2: The Mirror and the Light. Thomas Cromwell’s fall from grace has long been seen as a sudden act – one minute he is being made the Earl of Essex, next he is dead, all because King Henry thought Anna of Cleves was ugly. None of that is true, and The Mirror and the Light shows the pivotal moment where Cromwell’s fall began, a full year before his death. However, the truth of the event is very different to what is shown onscreen.

In The Mirror and the Light episode 4, we see Cromwell at a banquet dinner held at Lambeth Palace by Archbishop Cranmer. All of the Privy Council attend, and Bishop Stephen Gardiner decides to stir up trouble by discussing the murder of Cardinal Bainbridge, talking of how he was poisoned by a priest, but instead veers into fantasy land and suggests Cromwell was the killer. Cromwell lashes out at Norfolk, who is off on another tangent complaining about how Cromwell isn’t good enough to be a nobleman, and conspires against everyone. This scene is a good show of research on Cromwell’s life, but bears no resemblance to the truth.

In 1514, Thomas Cromwell went to Rome, one of several trips he took during the decade, working on behalf of a private legal client to argue the Stratford Langthorne tithe dispute. Having seen the ‘factions and manners’ of the Italians for years, and able to speak fluent Italian and Latin, Cromwell was perfect for the job. In Rome, Cromwell stayed at the English Hospice, San Tommaso di Canterbury. The English Hospice at via Monserrato 45 (now The Venerable English College), sat a block from the Tiber river, and a two-mile walk to the Apostolic Palace. The hostel had been catering to English pilgrims to Rome for almost 200  years, and after renovation and reorganisation by King Henry VII, became an important hub for English diplomats visiting the city.

On his May stay, Cromwell met Lancelot Collins, nephew to the hospice’s master Cardinal Christopher Bainbridge, Archbishop of York, and resident English cardinal in Rome. This meeting between Cromwell and Collins would spark another genuine lifelong friendship, with Collins  considered one of the kindest and most generous men in England by even cynical men. Collins valued his friendship with Cromwell for over twenty years, even when, in later life, it would threaten his safety. But Cromwell had already left Rome by 14 July 1514 when Cardinal Bainbridge was poisoned by Rinaldo de Modena, one of Bainbridge’s chaplains, and rumoured lover who had suffered a beating from the cardinal. When interrogated, Modena confessed to planning the murder with Silvester de Gigli of Lucca, Bishop of Worcester and English ambassador in Rome, however, Modena was soon murdered in prison. Bainbridge’s executors, Richard Pace and John Clerk, wanted Gigli arrested for his part in the death, but Gigli swore that Modena was insane, and no charges were brought in Rome or in England.  Either way, Gigli was not charged and he died himself a few years later. Absolutely nothing in the case had anything to do with Cromwell or Wolsey.

Back to 1539, on 2 July, King Henry, already off on progress, commanded Archbishop Cranmer to host a banquet at Lambeth Palace, with both sides of the religious divide ordered to attend, as everyone remained in London. Henry did not attend, but Cromwell, starting to return to health after three full months, could attend his first public occasion. The banquet would go down in infamy. As a man freshly recovered from a torturous illness, Cromwell was far from the calculating, charming man he portrayed at court. Cranmer’s secretary Ralph Morice recorded the evening, which formed the basis of John Foxe’s later book detailing the event. Cromwell and Cranmer were warmest friends and allies, two leaders of the Reformation in England. Morice recalled a rarely recorded argument between the pair. Cromwell muttered to Cranmer:

‘you were born at a happy hour, for do or say what you, the King will always take it well at your hand. And I must needs confess that in some things I have complained of you unto His Majesty, but all in vain, for he will never give credit against you, whatsoever is laid to your charge, but let me or any other of the Council be complained of, his Grace will most seriously chide and fall out with us.’

Whether this uncommon, disrespectful, and candid complaint came before or after the main fireworks is unknown, as Cromwell again made a scene, publicly fighting with the ever-present, ever-meddling, Duke of Norfolk. Norfolk gave a speech about King Henry’s love for Cranmer, and compared Cranmer to Wolsey, calling Wolsey ‘a churlish prelate … who could never abide a nobleman … you know well enough Lord Crumwell, for he was your master …’ Morice then put down his quill, unwilling to record the awful things Norfolk insinuated about Wolsey and Cromwell. Cromwell, only just out of his sickbed, and already surrounded by enemies and a tense meeting of religious views, stood up to defend Wolsey. Cromwell told the room he did not regret his time with Wolsey, well-paid and well-provided for during their six-year friendship. Cromwell then roundly turned against Norfolk, giving him a caustic sixteenth-century dressing down, among other things, saying:

‘I was never so far in love with (Wolsey) as to have waited upon him in Rome if he had been chosen Pope, as I understand (Norfolk) would have done’.

The exchange does not sound hostile now, but it implied Norfolk was prepared to serve the Catholic faith and the Pope over his king, which would be treason. Norfolk bellowed a denial to the claim. Cromwell, through a lack of manners and a vast memory, told everyone Norfolk received 50,000 florins to transport Wolsey to Rome in 1523 when Wolsey was in place to become the Pope. The florins were proof of Norfolk’s plan to go to Rome with Wolsey. While Cranmer and others at the banquet diffused the screaming match, which was unquestionably complemented by bountiful wine and strong egos, the match had been lit between the men. Neither needed to wear the mask of courtesy again, as the peers of the realm had seen and heard all. Cromwell did not know it, but this banquet was the beginning of his ultimate downfall. The illness he suffered that caused him to miss the parliamentary session and the passing of the Six Articles would cause Cromwell to make numerous mistakes

All sources come from The Private Life of Thomas Cromwell. My publisher might come for you if you plagiarise.

Wolf Hall 2: The Mirror and the Light – Thomas Cromwell Quick Q+A

Published on by Caroline AngusLeave a comment
BBC/Nick Briggs

Welcome to part 4 of Wolf Hall 2: The Mirror and the Light facts about moments seen in Thomas Cromwell’s life at court. Today is a quick round-up of questions asked that don’t require a whole post of explanation on their own. So let’s start –

Wolf Hall is Jane Seymour’s home. What is The Mirror and the Light?

On 28 November 1538, Cromwell wrote a letter to Sir Thomas Wyatt (Harl. MSS. 282, f. 217), who was King Henry’s ambassador to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and travelling Europe with the Emperor’s court. Wyatt was not a good ambassador, and relations between the countries were started to deteriorate. Cromwell updated Wyatt on Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter and Henry Pole, Lord Montagu, the Catholics traitors,  and asked Wyatt to get the Emperor  to intervene on several subjects were making trouble for London merchants. In the letter, Cromwell wrote of King Henry exercising his right as the supreme head of the church by burning Sacramentarian John Lambert a week earlier:

‘…undoubtedly [Emperor Charles] should have much marvelled at [King Henry’s] most high wisdom and judgement, and reputed him none otherwise, after the same, than in manner of the mirror and light of all other kings and princes in Christendom.’

King Henry is the mirror, and everyone and everything should reflect his brilliance. Henry is the shining light of princely splendour all should look up to. Being out of Henry’s light/favour is like being in the darkness. The letter is extremely flattering of Henry, since it would be read and repeated at the Emperor’s court, and could reveal nothing of reality, only a glowing picture of praise and perfection.

Was Thomas Cromwell the Lord Chancellor of England?

NO. Thomas Cromwell was never the Lord Chancellor. Thomas Wolsey was Lord Chancellor, followed by Thomas More, and then Thomas Audley. Cromwell assumed the role without title between more’s resignation in May 1532, and Audley’s appointment in January 1533, and was not always in a good mood about the position or workload. Audley was a puppet; he would do anything the king wanted, and he was easily intimidated, so Cromwell could yell at Audley whenever he made an error  and Audley would beg and grovel for forgiveness (Audley complained a lot, especially about his yearly salary of 800l or £350,000 today, plus bonuses. Cromwell always told him to shut it because it annoyed the king). Audley and his protégé Richard Rich really ran with Henry’s plan to dissolve monasteries when Cromwell didn’t want to move forward, but other than that, Cromwell had total control and authority over all matters. Audley never intervened in Cromwell’s business, despite technically being higher ranked until 1536. (Lord Chancellor was ranked second in the realm after the archbishops. In 1536, Cromwell became the Vicegerent of England, the new number one in order of precedence, putting Lord Chancellor down to third).

Thomas Cromwell was, in 1539, Lord Cromwell, Baron of Wimbledon the Vicegerent of England, Lord Privy Seal, Vicar-general of England, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Principal Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer, the first-ever layman Dean of Wells, and Commissioner for the Peace in seven counties, Chancellor and High Steward of Cambridge University, Master of the Jewel House, Clerk of the Hanaper, and Steward of the Duchy of Lancaster, Essex, Hertfordshire and Middlesex, the Receiver of Petitions in the House of Lords, highest ranked man in the House of Lords, Warden and Chief Justice in Eyre, Prebendary of Salisbury, Steward of Westminster Abbey and Savoy Manor, Constable of Hertford Castle, Berkeley Castle and Gloucestershire Castle, Recorder of Bristol, Commissioner for the Subsidy to print the Bible, Lordship of Edmonton, Sainsbury, Hovering and Writtle, and  master of every single powerful man in the country of Ireland. By 1540, Cromwell was also the Earl of Essex and Lord Great Chamberlain. At that point that was basically nothing left for Cromwell to control, other than being the Lord Treasurer, but Norfolk held that role and seemed to live forever.

Sometimes people write Cromwell as Lord Chancellor because it is easier to understand in modern terms. Cromwell was the only person to ever be England’s Vicegerent, and no one person will ever receive that much power again.

Did Cromwell feel guilt over Anne Boleyn?

Certainly not that he ever mentioned where it would be recorded. It would have been insanity to have expressed guilt or sympathy. Archbishop Cranmer wrote to King Henry to make sure he didn’t go down with her, and so the Reformation would be safe without Anne on the throne. Cranmer was frozen out by the king for a while for this, and had his prime lands and manors confiscated, and given to Cromwell after Anne’s death. Mortlake Manor was the traditional home of the Archbishop of Canterbury since its construction 500 years earlier, and Crowmell relatives had worked there as servants. Cromwell then owned the property and made it grander than ever.

Cromwell did say to Ambassador Eustace Chapuys that Anne Boleyn handled herself well through her trial. Everyone knew she was innocent, but no one was stupid enough to say anything. I cover the whole period about Anne’s death in my book on the subject.

Did King Henry actually say he could make Cromwell the king after himself if he wanted at the Privy Council meeting?

No, that was just an imagined scene of the king flexing his power over all the nobles. Likewise, Cromwell and Fitzwilliam never came to blows like that at a meeting. It is another piece of fiction laid out to be reflected in later episodes. I will do a separate post about Cromwell and Fitzwilliam, as their relationship was very interesting.

BBC/Playground Entertainment/Nick Briggs

Did Cromwell spend time with Dorothea Wolsey?

There is no evidence of this; ‘Dorothea’ is a just a plot-point for Cromwell’s guilt. There are letters between Cardinal Wolsey’s three children and Cromwell. Most of the letters come from Thomas Wynter, Wolsey’s eldest son, born 1510 to Joan Larke, was always travelling in Europe, and always looking for money. Cromwell was one of Wynter’s financial babysitters, and felt sorry for Wynter after his father’s death. There are extensive papers showing Wolsey’s favour towards Wynter, and Cromwell got him set up in a comfortable life in the North in the 1530s, and he later became the Dean of Wells.

Dorothy was born in 1513, her mother also Joan Larke. Her surname was Clancey, the name of her adoptive family in Dorset. She was placed in Shaftesbury Abbey for her education and upbringing where many nobles sent their daughters, and just fell under Cromwell’s ban of no one being allowed to take holy orders from age 24 or younger in 1535. Cromwell soon changed the laws, so no one under 20 could enter the church, and Dorothy could technically  become a nun. The rich and well-appointed Shaftesbury Abbey was closed in 1539, and Dorothy Clancey was given a pension. She was never heard from again, and she certainly never met Thomas Cromwell.

Wolsey’s third child was Thomas Minterne (though his mother is uncertain), born in about 1516. Minterne grew up in Sherborne, ten miles from his sister Dorothy. Wolsey sent Minterne to New Oxford College and Cromwell ensured he was made a fellow at only 17 years old in 1533. Cromwell then sent Minterne to study in Europe in 1538, and when he returned to England broke in 1542, King Henry gave Minterne a cozy job at Salisbury Cathedral, which he kept for the next 20 years or so.

(Joan Larke married George Legh and had another four children, and then married Sir George Paulet in 1530, but died giving birth two years later, though her son William survived. Joan must have been quite young when having Wolsey’s children, maximum no more than 20 years old. Joan’s baby William Paulet was cousin of John Paulet, 2nd Marquess of Winchester, who married Elizabeth Cromwell, widow of Gregory Cromwell. These people really never moved around much).

All sources come from The Private Life of Thomas Cromwell and The Letters and Remembrances of Thomas Cromwell. My publisher might come for you if you plagiarise.

Wolf Hall 2: The Mirror and the Light – Did Thomas Cromwell have feelings for Jane Seymour?

Published on by Caroline AngusLeave a comment

Screenshot from The Mirror and Light episode 4

Welcome to part 3 of Wolf Hall 2: The Mirror and the Light recap of the facts around Thomas Cromwell and the events in season 2, where Jane has given birth to Prince Edward.

Did Thomas Cromwell have feelings for Jane Seymour? This is a question that is impossible to answer. There is absolutely no evidence of any link between Thomas Cromwell and Jane Seymour, and (in my opinion) is a delightful fictional addition to Cromwell’s life story to add drama to a book/show. Those of us who work in Cromwell fiction need to add romantic details, because simply, Cromwell had none in his own life. I’m working on another Cromwell fiction myself at the moment, and there is again zero source evidence to work with. Nothing in Italy, nothing in the Low Countries, and then a marriage to Elizabeth Wyckes which was simply a convenience when she became a widow and they met through Morgan Williams (Richard Cromwell’s father). By all accounts, Cromwell and his wife were happy enough, but after she died, (apart from the quick grief rebound he had with ‘Elizabeth Gregory’), Cromwell never looked to any woman again. He was not a man into women at all.

At no stage was Cromwell ever rumoured to be in negotiations for a wife at any stage, and there were never any mistresses whispered about either. The lies about him being interested in Princess Mary and Margaret Douglas (I will do a sperate post on those rumours) bore no evidence, and if Cromwell ever muttered anything about Jane Seymour or anyone else, we simply don’t know. It does make for convenient fiction, though.

As for Jane Seymour, she was very limited in her options as well. Only one mention of a match comes up in Cromwell’s records, as a possible match for her, when Cromwell wrote (italics mine), ‘To speak with the King for Mr. Seymour’s daughter (Jane?) for (Sir Richard?) Elderton’ on 16 November 1532. Sir Richard Elrington, (often misspelled Elderton, and sometimes listed as Ralph) was the brother Edward Elrington, who had married one of the distant Seymour cousins, Grace (surname unknown), the illegitimate wealthy heiress of London Lord Mayor Thomas Seymour. Sir Richard/Ralph was twenty years older than Jane Seymour, which tracks with the astonishingly bad marriage made for Jane’s sister Elizabeth. Luckily for Jane, the marriage was never mentioned again.

Rumours of a marriage negotiations between Jane and Sir William Dormer came up in 1534, which the Dormer family quickly quashed. Sir William Dormer worked for Cromwell and went on work in royal service and parliament, and was married to Lady Mary Sidney in 1534, putting an end to overtures made by the Seymour family. Sir William’s sister Lady Jane Dormer recounted the negotiations in her autobiography that the Dormers did not wish to be linked to a scandalous family like the Seymours (meaning the scandal of Edward Seymour’s first wife cuckolding her husband twice with sons of unknown parentage).

Jane came to King Henry’s attention in late 1535 after the death of her father, who Henry had visited only months earlier on progress to Wolf Hall (his death is mistakenly listed as 1536). Edward Seymour was in the royal privy chambers by this stage, and the single Seymour sister was suddenly thrust into the royal marriage spotlight when Anne Boleyn lost her third child in January 1536.

Much like Thomas Cromwell, Jane Seymour’s romantic interests, or lack thereof, were never recorded. Marriages were rarely made in the interests of attraction to one another, making the king rare in his rash choices of some of his wives. Any kind of romantic overtures, those from men towards certain women were mentioned in letters from time to time, but women’s feelings generally go unnoticed. The people of the Tudor court were human, they would have had feelings of romance, lust, romance, affection like everyone else. But many didn’t have the financial security of being able to act on their feelings, and women’s feelings, to the men of court, didn’t seem to exist or matter at all.

As for whether Jane Seymour discussed having to handle sex with King Henry with Cromwell is entirely conjecture (but Cromwell did have an uncomfortable conversation with Anne of Cleves, so it’s not impossible). Jane’s sex life was unfortunately a public topic, as an heir meant everything to the court. Jane didn’t get pregnant until January 1537, a long time to wait with a king who was desperate for a son but no good in bed. Poor Jane indeed.

Cromwell was writing to discuss new brides for King Henry on 27 October, three days after her death. For all Henry’s kind words for Jane, and admiration for Prince Edward, there were mere days between Jane’s death and handling the security of the realm. By Christmas 1537, Cromwell had a suitable lists of brides from French princess to Dutch and German duchesses, and ready to discuss negotiations. King Henry did not need to be cajoled into these negotiations, he initiated them at every stage.

All sources from The Private life of Thomas Cromwell, The Letters and Remembrances of Thomas Cromwell, and Planning the Murder of Anne Boleyn

Wolf Hall 2: The Mirror and the Light – Did Thomas Cromwell really have an illegitimate daughter?

Published on by Caroline Angus1 Comment

BBC/Playground Entertainment/Nick Briggs

Welcome to part 2 on The Mirror and the Light, checking out the details behind some of the major plot points in Wolf Hall’s second installment. Today is Jane Cromwell, Thomas Cromwell surviving daughter. In the book trilogy and the tv series, Thomas Cromwell is confronted with Janneke, an adult daughter born in Antwerp, to a woman Cromwell once loved and left behind to return to England. But the truth about the real Jane Cromwell is significantly different.

Cromwell had made (at least) one slip-up in his otherwise reserved, virtuous, and quiet private life, as his daughter Jane was born in late 1530. Some scholars have suggested Jane was born before Gregory, a way of suggesting Cromwell never cheated on his wife, but this is unlikely. Cromwell did not cheat on his wife, at least, no suggestion ever came of this, and Jane was likely conceived after Elizabeth Cromwell’s death in October 1528.

But in 1530, Mistress Jane was born into a household of a man about to be propelled into a position of power no commoner, or layman, could ever expect to achieve in England. An illegitimate child was usually paid for and squirrelled away, but Cromwell took in his daughter, suggesting she was a soothing presence after years of distress, as Anne and Grace Cromwell had died in September 1529. Another other theory for Jane’s parentage is that she was the illegitimate daughter of twenty-year-old Richard Cromwell, and she was taken into the Cromwell household, as Richard had no household of his own. But Jane believed herself Thomas Cromwell’s daughter (and her judgemental father-in-law later believed the same). Had Jane been a daughter of a Cromwell relative, she would have been recorded as such, but perhaps the lack of detail on her birth was beneficial for all involved.

Mistress Jane Cromwell took her father’s surname, suggesting her mother never featured in her life, or because her mother wanted the girl to bear her father’s name as proof. In Cromwell’s will appears a most curious name; an Elizabeth Gregory listed as ‘sometime my servant’. Elizabeth’s role is undefined, is not connected to any family member or other servant. She bore the first name of Cromwell’s wife, and her surname is the name of Cromwell’s son, which, if a coincidence, is remarkable. Elizabeth was listed  at the bottom of the list of relatives given something in the will, just above the list of friends and servants. Elizabeth Gregory’s inheritance higher was than all other Austin Friars servants, with 20l (£about 10,000) and a household’s worth of items. Given that  Cromwell’s illegitimate daughter Jane was born around 1530, Elizabeth Gregory is perhaps Jane’s mother, who officially remains unknown to this day. Sadly, Elizabeth Gregory’s entire paragraph is crossed out, meaning she died after the 1529 will but before the new draft was created in 1532.

Jane lived in the Cromwell household during her early life, most likely in the care of Joan and John Williamson, who ran Austin Friars for their brother-in-law. When Gregory Cromwell married Elizabeth Seymour in 1537, Jane was approximately seven, old enough to leave home and start life in a new household, but stayed with Ralph and Ellen Sadler for a time. Ralph and Ellen Sadler needed all the help they could get. By 1539, they had three sons, Thomas, Edward and Henry, and a newborn daughter, Anne, all barely surviving a measles outbreak in Hackney. Jane left with Gregory in May 1539, moving to Leeds Castle when Gregory and Elizabeth reconciled in time for the birth of their second son, Edward. Gregory and Elizabeth Seymour has been estranged for a time in 1538 after the birth of their son Henry  after Gregory’s punishment for sexual crimes. Cromwell sent his daughter to Leeds with a new wardrobe worth 12l 14s 6d (almost £5,500 today), and soon after, Prioress Vernon, who had helped care for Gregory when he was still very young, wrote to Cromwell saying, ‘I hear there is a little gentlewoman with Master Sadler which I would very fain have the governance and bringing up, as it were to my comfort now in mine age.’ Having Prioress Vernon as a carer likely would have been the same care Anne and Grace Cromwell would have received had they survived their illnesses.

Jane Cromwell’s life after her father’s death remained quiet, not showing up in records until her marriage. She could stayed in the multiple homes of Gregory and Elizabeth, or with the Sadlers throughout the 1540s.  Jane Cromwell married William Hough, son of Richard Hough, a gentleman from Cheshire, and a lacklustre servant to Cromwell. Richard Hough was most upset his son had married the bastard child of Cromwell without his knowledge or blessing, and while Jane is listed as the ‘base daughter of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex,’ Hough tried to deny any association with Cromwell, which was impossible given that he had worked for Cromwell for years. William Hough had been to Oxford University, and studied under Nicholas Sander, who is now known as the man who tried his very best to blacken the name of any reformer, including all sorts of extra-fingered lies about Anne Boleyn. William Hough became a Catholic at Oxford, lived in Oxfordshire with his wife Jane, who also became a staunch Catholic, putting her at odds with the Cromwell/Sadler families.

William and Jane had a daughter, Alice in 1559. As late as 1574, Richard Hough was still mad at his son and daughter-in-law and their Catholic beliefs under Queen Elizabeth. In September 1578, Jane and William Hough, who had been threatened with excommunication from the church, were given absolution by the Archbishop of York in Neston, Chester, stating ‘It is ordered and decreed that the said Mr William Hough and his wife shall resort, once a month, to Mr Goodman or Mr Lane, preachers of the word for the better resolution in matters of religion (wherewith they are entangled), and if they be not, before Easter next, resolved in conscience by the travail, persuasion, and conference to be abided, such further order as shall be thought good to the Lord Archbishop of York and his associates.’ People who refused the Church of England and continued to be Catholic could be excommunicated, and suffer punishment from simple fines through to the death penalty under Queen Elizabeth, though Jane and William clearly saw no issue with flouting the law.

Jane died on 3 November 1580, and was buried at Neston, just months after being listed in the Hough family tree, as the uncontested daughter of Thomas Cromwell, the only document that confirms Jane’s parentage. William Hough died in 1585 after being called to be punished for his Catholic beliefs multiple times after Jane died, with his will showing that he and Jane had long left their Catholic Oxfordshire home to live permanently in Cheshire ten years earlier, living at Thorton Hough manor.

Their sole child Alice Hough was the heiress to Thorton manor and Leighton, with extensive lands and fisheries in 11 townships. Her date of birth was listed as 1550, rather than 1559 in the will. Alice married William Whitmore in 1585 and they soon had ten children – three sons, William (surviving son and heir), Richard, John (died young), and seven daughters, Jane, Elizabeth (died young), Christen, Katherine (died young), Eleanor (died young), Katherine, and Mary (died young).

Alice’s death is not recorded, though was in approximately 1600, and her husband died in 1620. Alice, like her mother Jane Cromwell, was a recusant, refusing the Church of England and continued to be Catholic despite the laws of Elizabethan England until her death. Ironic for the daughter of the man who created the English church in the first place.

All sources come from The Private Life of Thomas Cromwell. My publisher might come for you if you plagiarise.