Thomas Cromwell—Gregory Cromwell

Thomas Cromwell’s bond with his son Gregory develops from a relationship of guarded politeness into one of tenderness and trust. Gregory is not the business-minded heir his father once imagined, but Cromwell learns to value his gentleness and judgment, protect his future, and share with him memories that neither can quite recover. Their relationship gives private weight to the novel’s larger questions of inheritance, identity, and what a father can pass on beyond name and position.

A guarded father and a difficult future

When Gregory returns to his tutor in autumn, his reluctance is evident, but he will not explain it to Cromwell. With others he is sunny and lively; with his father he is guarded and formal. Cromwell wonders whether Gregory is frightened of him, and asks Johane Williamson what is wrong. Johane reassures him that he is a kind father, perhaps too kind, but her question—whether Gregory has any reason to feel otherwise—makes clear that Cromwell’s concern cannot itself erase the distance between them.

Cromwell first considers whether Gregory might be sent to Antwerp to study with Stephen Vaughan. He recognizes, however, that his son is unlikely to thrive in a world of financial bargaining and commercial calculation. Johane advises that Gregory is a gentleman and should, when ready, be married well. Cromwell is left asking what future will suit a boy whose qualities differ so markedly from his own practical strengths.

The unease runs both ways. Later, Gregory comes into his father’s room and tries to help with the papers, stacking them by size rather than by subject or date. At the counting board he gathers the counters into a neat pile. Cromwell, absorbed in an urgent letter, initially struggles to understand what his son is doing. When Gregory asks whether he can stop writing, Cromwell finishes and seals the letter before turning fully to him. The delay and the boy’s quiet effort frame a tentative approach rather than an easy conversation.

Memory as a shared language

Once they sit together by the hearth, Gregory recalls a Christmas pageant and the giant who announced, “I am a giant, my name is Marlinspike.” His question about the Cornhill maypole leads Cromwell to explain that it was taken down in the year of the riots known as Evil May Day, when Gregory was still a baby. The exchange joins a child’s recollection to the public history surrounding his father, but Gregory is more interested in the old festival and whether their family will have its star again.

The star belongs to a domestic tradition built by both parents. In earlier years Cromwell and Liz planned costumes for the Three Kings; Liz sewed new robes and crowns, while Cromwell chose the gifts for the kings’ boxes. Now, with the family in mourning and their circumstances altered by Cardinal Wolsey’s fall, the star is stored away, its rays protected by canvas sleeves. Gregory asks whether they will be poor, and whether the star will return. Cromwell assures him they will not be poor, and leaves open the possibility of better years.

Their memories make room for the children’s parts in the pageants. Gregory remembers being painted black and dressed in a black calfskin to play a devil. Cromwell recalls that Grace appeared as an angel in peacock-feather wings he had made for her, while Liz admired the result. He also remembers that Anne wanted to be dyed for a role, but her mother considered it unsuitable. Recalling these particular costumes turns family history into something Gregory and Cromwell can revisit together: not an explanation of their present difficulties, but a language of shared affection and loss.

Care expressed through work and family decisions

Cromwell’s care often takes practical form. As he plans Gregory’s education, he worries that the boy’s tutor is quarrelsome and recalls an episode in which one of the boys set fire to his room after reading by candlelight. Cromwell regrets his choice of tutor but feels unable to remove the boys at that point. For Gregory’s sister Anne, he is seeking a congenial Greek tutor who can live in the household. The contrast shows a father thinking about education as both opportunity and daily household responsibility, even while his political work fills his desk.

He also treats marriage as part of the future he must arrange for his children and dependants. When Richard Williams’s intended marriage is blocked because the king wants Mary Boleyn for himself, Cromwell explains the king’s wishes and then proposes Frances Murfyn, a match he has already discussed with her. Johane advises him not to leave Gregory’s own match too long, though he has not yet acted on it. The episodes place paternal care within the same world of patronage and dynastic pressure that shapes the court: a marriage can be a personal prospect, a family arrangement, and a political consequence at once.

Cromwell’s planning also reaches beyond the household. At Christmas he shows Gregory a map of the Scottish border and explains the precarious position of Henry Percy’s estates: Percy has no heir, is estranged from his brothers, and owes the king money. Cromwell considers how the king might become Percy’s heir while allowing him to retain his title and receive an income. Gregory reacts with distress at the thought of taking an earldom. His question about whether this is because of Wolsey shows that he connects present policy to his father’s former allegiance. Cromwell’s reply—that he must settle the kingdom’s bills—places Gregory close enough to hear the work, but not outside its hard calculations.

Recognition and the inheritance of character

The most direct change in their relationship comes when Gregory returns from Canterbury. Before the rest of the household can influence him, Cromwell takes him aside to see Hans Holbein’s portrait. He admits that he was surprised to discover his own vanity: the picture has made him think of himself as he was in Italy, twenty years earlier, before Gregory was born. Gregory does not immediately comment on the painting. Instead, Cromwell studies his son and recognizes that he is taller than his father, with fine skin, hazel eyes, and a gentleness unlike the young men around the household.

Cromwell’s private judgment is unusually unguarded: Gregory is “all he should be” and everything he has a right to hope for. He values his son’s openness, gentleness, and habit of holding back his thoughts until he has formed them. The recognition revises the earlier uncertainty about what to do with a boy unsuited to business. Gregory need not become a likeness of his father to represent a worthy future; his difference is itself a source of paternal pride.

That pride is accompanied by protective concern. Cromwell fears that Gregory may fall, be maimed, or be killed, and calls him and Richard the hope of his house. He threatens Gregory with being sent north with Rowland Lee, whose severity he warns the boy to expect, while allowing the warning to carry the familiar mixture of discipline and care. When Gregory teases him about being painted stout, Cromwell answers in the family’s conversational idiom, not as a distant official but as a father who can be teased and who can tease in return.

Intimacy, silence, and political foresight

The bond remains marked by things left unsaid. In a conversation about Mary Tudor, Gregory asks whether she likes Cromwell. He answers that his daughters liked him, then wonders whether Grace knew who he was. Gregory remembers that Grace loved the angel’s wings her father made and intended to keep them. His recollection gives Cromwell evidence of a child’s affection where his own memory is uncertain, and connects grief for the daughters to the living intimacy he is still building with his son.

Gregory also hears more about political danger than a son should necessarily have to carry. When he repeats Rafe Sadler’s prediction that Cromwell will soon be the second man in the kingdom, his father tells him not to speak of Mary Tudor to anyone, not even to Rafe. He tests Gregory’s understanding by asking who would rule if the king died: Parliament, an unborn child, a daughter still under a year old, Anne as regent, or Henry Fitzroy. Gregory’s attention turns to Mary. Their exchange makes the son a listener to the precarious succession behind courtly assurances, while Cromwell insists that plans for months ahead are useless without a plan for tomorrow.

By Christmas, Gregory can also bring his anxieties to his father in the form of a joke. He repeats what Rafe and Richard have told him: that he will be married to an old, wealthy widow who will rule him, spend his fortune, and leave him in danger from her children. Cromwell recognizes the teasing and plays along, saying he would marry such a woman himself. Gregory is only half-consoled, but the exchange shows the ease they have gained: fears about education, marriage, and adulthood can be spoken aloud, then met with affection rather than formal distance. Their relationship does not remove the pressures of inheritance and court politics; it gives Gregory a place within them where he can ask, remember, and be heard.