Volume 55, Number 13 · August 14, 2008
Cromwell & Wolsey: From 'Wolf Hall'
By Hilary Mantel
Thomas Cromwell was born in Putney, just outside London, around 1485. His father was a brewer and blacksmith. Details of his education are unknown. Aged about fifteen, Cromwell ran away from home, and seems to have joined the French army, fighting as a mercenary in Italy. Lost to sight for some years, he is thought to have worked for a Florentine banking house and was glimpsed in Rome, Venice, and Antwerp, where he traded in wool. In his late twenties he returned to London, married well, took to the law at Gray's Inn, and went to work for Cardinal Wolsey, soon becoming one of his closest advisers; his enemies suggested he had achieved this by sorcery. This extract from my novel Wolf Hall finds the Cardinal at the height of his power in church and state: papal legate and Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor.
Feature, 5983 words
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