Have just read Diarmaid MacCulloch, ‘Thomas Cromwell: A Life’ (after watching the Mirror and the Light on telly.
It’s a very long book, not for the faint-hearted, very detailed. and an astonishing amount of research mostly based on original archive material (as far as I can tell).
Having read Mantel, and watched the TV adaptations as well as several programmes ‘investigating’ the Tudor period, there is much in this book to balance some of the more simplified representations of his life and character. He was a hard man for sure and used his power and influence for ends that in today’s world we cannot sanction. But his rise from relative ordinariness to become a of pivot of Tudor power as well a driver of religious Reformation is extraordinary.
Takeaways:
His father was not the brute he is made out to be in Mantel. That is a Victorian story and his family were, in today’s terms, successful middle-class people. He was, nevertheless, something of a wild kid!
He created several political and governmental practices we use today – the ‘division’ (handy, if you think about it, for identifying those who oppose a government line); the by-election to replace defunct of unwilling parliamentary participants); and he developed the role of printing as a tool for disseminating government policies and statutes, until then much more dependent on scribed documents. He was a Nicodemite (i.e. a covert Protestant; this likely played a significant role in his downfall along with the political mess created by the Cleves marriage), and was responsible for printing and the compulsory distribution of the first English language bible (known as the Matthew bible because it was published under the false name of ‘Thomas Matthew’ whereas it was in fact a reprint of Tyndale’s bible!).
Perhaps one of his more interesting concerns (aside from the transformation-by-closure-and-requisition of the English church system) was to do with the state of rivers and the damage done by the uncontrolled use of weirs for a variety of purposes. For example, the River Itchen once provided navigable access from Winchester to the sea of Southampton but had become impassable and degraded as a result of the many weirs and mill ponds established along its course leading to silting, loss of flow. and navigation. Cromwell spent a lot of time removing many weirs and improving the quality of rivers.
See the section in the book on the ‘Commissions of sewers’. “In many ways, the work of these commissions over several centuries from 1532 created the modern geography of rural England: less spectacularly or rapidly than the Industrial Revolution, but cumulatively just as important in effect.”
The idea that Cromwell was a ‘rewilder’ is suggsted here https://www.inkcapjournal.co.uk/was-thomas-cromwell-the-first-rewilder/ and refers to Mantel’s story in the Mirror and the Light that he looked upon beavers as a necessary and useful animal for the maintenance of river health. This biography implies there was much more to than that. A useful study indeed for historians of environmentalism!
There is much more in the book that offers many, many hours of follow up though the sources that are cited are mostly original documents, so follow-up would be quite challenging. It’s a long read, lots of names, hard work if you want the details!
During 1530 to 1540 as the pace of reformation increased, the removal and destruction of shrines, tombs and religious artefacts grew more wanton. For example, by about 1537 scavengers were digging up wayside crosses in search of (non-existent) treasure that popular belief said lay buried beneath them! Cromwell’s ow cellars At Austin Friars were, apparently, stuffed with all kinds of seized holy objects (most eventually burned or otherwise destroyed).