The Cromwell Enigma

by Derek Wilson

  ‘Now can you see him in the tapestry design?’ ­Agostino asked.

  My answer was an immediate ‘Yes’. Among the twenty or so members of St Paul’s audience only one stared straight out of the picture with challenging inquisitiveness. While others discussed his words among themselves or were reflecting on what they were hearing, one young man with a crown of curling dark hair stood in the back row and returned the viewer’s gaze.

  Or did he? Closer inspection revealed ambiguity. St Paul, the main figure in the composition, was facing inwards. Raphael had obviously intended us to focus our attention on the varying reactions of the Athenian congregation. The young Cromwell, though farther ‘within’ the picture, had, in the two-dimensional reality of the artist’s canvas, been placed next to the apostle. Was the young man, therefore, returning the viewer’s gaze or was he locked in concentration on St Paul’s message?

  I pressed Agostino for more information. ‘Why do you think Raphael placed Cromwell in such a prominent position?’

  He shrugged. ‘Perhaps because they were close friends.’

  ‘It was not because the young Englishman was an ardent student of the New Testament, and of St Paul’s letters in particular?’

  ‘Tom Crom a zealous student of Holy Writ?’ ­Agostino laughed. ‘The only books he read were tales of bawdy priests. He had a large collection of them.’

  He must have read bewilderment in my face, for he continued, ‘You must appreciate, Signore, that we were all young and therefore thought we knew everything. We were here to have fun and to make mock of any who disapproved of our behaviour.’

  ‘Fra Giulio tells me that you and your friends were a wild band. Is that an apt description?’

  ‘You cannot understand what it was like.’ Agostino leaned against the table, eyes closed to aid memory. ­‘Florence was the centre of the world then, and we were the centre of Florence. There were wealthy patrons aplenty. So ­painters, sculptors, printmakers, writers, songsters came from all over Italy and beyond. We gathered admirers – young prentices, merchants, bankers, government officials. And yes, some of us were wild. Of course, we split into groups, gangs. We had our own versions of the world – political, religious, artistic—’

  ‘What was Tom Crom’s vision?’ I interjected.

  Once again mention of Cromwell made Agostino laugh. ‘Vision? He had no vision. How could he have? He came from the most backward country in Europe. Englishmen’s heads are full of English fog. When did any original ­thinker ever come from that island? As for Tom Crom, he was our jester.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He had a ready wit and mastered our language very quickly.’

  ‘He had many friends, then?’

  ‘He was very amusing and entertaining – unless you were on the wrong end of his barbs.’

  ‘He sounds like the kind of clever young man who makes enemies as easily as friends.’

  Agostino nodded in agreement. ‘Most of his pranks were harmless, but he became bolder as time passed. I recall one crazy scheme that almost got him banished. He brought over a girl from England, scarcely more than a child. I think she must have been a relative – niece, cousin or some such.’

  ‘Was she his mistress?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. Tom Crom never showed much interest in that kind of activity. His interest in the girl was more bizarre – and more dangerous. He started a rumour that she was an illegitimate daughter of King Henry who had been entrusted to his care. He claimed that he had brought her to Italy incognito as part of her education. Naturally, everyone wanted to meet her – some out of ­curiosity but others in the hope of establishing good relations with the English king.’

  ‘Surely, people were not taken in by such brazen folly,’ I objected.

  Agostino laughed. ‘On the contrary. Tom Crom got away with it for several weeks. He and his “protégée” received invitations from several leaders of Florentine society. They were feasted at some of the best tables, and pocketed several precious trinkets. The joke worked because everyone who was introduced to the “princess” was careful to keep her identity secret from his social rivals.’

  ‘Even so—’

  ‘My friend, you must understand the atmosphere in which such things happened. We were all divided among ourselves. As well as the dynastic competition among the top families, there were some who favoured the ­Medici and some who opposed them. Some sought amity with France while others looked to Spain for support. We had people who thought of themselves as scholars, open-­minded to the new religious ideas crossing the Alps, and those who cried “Heresy!” at any challenge to Pope Leo’s authority. Those were invigorating days – invigorating and dangerous.’

  As I meandered on my way that balmy afternoon, I fell to wondering whether much had changed since Cromwell’s sojourn in the city two decades earlier.

  As far as I could gauge from casual conversations and eavesdropping in trattorias, Florentines were as divided over politics as they were over religion. It was three years since Cosimo de’ Medici had grasped supreme power and left fresh bloodstains on the stones of Piazza della ­Signoria to remind his fellow citizens of his mastery. But that was only one episode in the city’s long history of conflict between Medici ambitions and republican aspirations.

  Trans-alpines like myself had long since ceased to be surprised by the conflicts between Florence’s most powerful family and its enemies. News reached us of Medici mil­itary victories and sudden overthrows; of expulsions and vendettas; of triumphal entry and abject flight; of assassin­ations and bloody reprisals. Cosimo, the latest incarnation of Medici hauteur, was a man in his prime who seemed to have opened a new, confident chapter in Florence’s turbulent, ever-changing history. But would it be the last? That was certainly a topic of dinner conversation at Francesco Frescobaldi’s villa the following Sunday.

  ‘I think your Thomas Cromwell would have approved of our current master.’

  The speaker, a lean, soberly dressed man of middle years, had been introduced to me as Luigi Calloni, husband of one of Francesco’s sisters. We were strolling in the formal ­garden, awaiting the summons to table and watching a clutch of children playing hide-and-go-seek among the box hedges and statues.

  ‘He is not my Thomas Cromwell,’ I replied with a laugh.

  ‘Really? That is what everyone in Florence is calling him.’

  ‘Everyone in Florence! I cannot believe I have achieved such notoriety.’

  ‘Then you underestimate the insatiable appetite of my ­fellow citizens for gossip and intrigue. Tomasso, come away from the fountain! You will get wet!’ The last remark was addressed to a tousle-haired boy of some six or seven years, who looked up with a grimace, then ran off in search of a drier place of concealment. ‘The King of England has his chief minister beheaded. Nothing remarkable about that. On this side of the Alps such events are a political commonplace. But when a confidant of the sister of the King of France is sent into Italy to garner reactions in our cities, that is interesting.’

  I scanned Signor Calloni’s face, assuming that he was jesting, but could detect no trace of humour. I decided to divert the conversation. ‘How happy are you with your “new master”, Cosimo de’ Medici?’

  ‘Some say one thing. Some another. The wise keep their counsel.’ We turned to climb steps leading to the terrace, where other guests were assembling. ‘But, as I suggest,’ Calloni continued, ‘our Cosimo seems to have much in common with your Cromwell.’

  ‘How so?’

  My companion paused on the top step and turned, looking down from his slightly higher position. ‘Hatred of monks.’

  The words, delivered in a nonchalant manner, took me by surprise. And while I was groping for a reply, Calloni continued. ‘Cosimo has turned out the Dominicans from St Mark’s – something that should have happened long ago. I suspect he was encouraged by the purge Crom
well carried out over the last few years.’

  ‘You think that what he did in England is noticed elsewhere?’

  ‘Do you not? For generations men have exposed the corruption and lasciviousness of the religious orders in songs and stories, but they have rarely done any more than pass on the bawdy tales and sly jests. The Church is too powerful. She protects her own and her knives are sharp.’

  My mind went immediately to Queen Marguerite’s ­salon and intimate gatherings where no more than four or five of us told tales after the manner of Boccaccio’s Decam­eron. The queen kept an ever-growing collection of such stories and sometimes spoke of publishing them, but I doubted that even she would be so bold. Ecclesiastical weapons were indeed long and sharp.

  A certain Grey Friar staying in a gentleman’s house resolved to abduct his host’s wife. As soon as the master was away on business, the villain lured the lady’s three servants into the courtyard, one at a time, and stabbed them to death. Now, alone in the house, he came to the lady and told her that he had long been in love with her, and that the hour was now come when she must yield him obedience. The lady, who had never suspected aught of this, indignantly rejected his advances.

  ‘Come out into the courtyard,’ returned the monk, ‘and you will see what I have done.’

  When she beheld the two women and the man lying dead, she was so terrified that she stood like a statue, without uttering a word. The villain, who did not seek merely an hour’s delight, would not take her by force, but forthwith said to her, ‘Mistress, be not afraid; you are in the hands of him who, of all living men, loves you the most.’

  So saying, he produced a short friar’s robe and told her to put it on, telling her that if she did not take it, she should be numbered with those whom she saw lying lifeless before her eyes. He made her take off all her clothes except her chemise, and dressed her in the small robe. Then he departed thence with all imaginable speed, taking with him the little ‘friar’ he had coveted so long.

  But God, who pities the innocent in affliction, beheld the tears of this unhappy lady, and it so happened that her husband, having arranged matters more speedily than he had expected, was now returning home by the same road by which she herself was departing. However, when the friar perceived him in the distance, he said to the lady, ‘I see your husband coming this way. I know that if you look at him he will try to take you out of my hands. Go, then, before he can deliver you.’

  As he was speaking, the gentleman came up, and asked him whence he was coming.

  ‘From your house,’ replied the other, ‘where I left my lady in good health, and waiting for you.’

  The gentleman passed on without observing his wife, but a servant who was with him, suspecting something amiss, alerted his master to his misgivings. The gentleman gave him leave to investigate . . . When the friar suspected that the lady had been recognized, with a great, iron-bound stick that he carried, he dealt the servant so hard a blow in the side that he knocked him off his horse. Then, leaping upon his body, he cut his throat.

  The gentleman, seeing his servant fall in the distance, hastened back to assist him. As soon as the friar saw him, he struck him also with the iron-bound stick, just as he had struck the servant, and, flinging him to the ground, threw himself upon him. But the gentleman, being strong and powerful, hugged the friar so closely that he was unable to do any mischief, and was forced to let his dagger fall. The lady picked it up, and, giving it to her husband, held the friar with all her strength by the hood. Then her husband dealt the friar several blows with the dagger, so that at last he cried for mercy and confessed his wickedness. The gentleman was not minded to kill him, but begged his wife to go home and fetch their people and a cart, in which to carry the friar away.

  The gentleman’s men forthwith hastened to assist their master to bring away the wolf that he had captured. They bound and took him to the house of the gentleman, who afterwards had him brought before the Emperor’s Court in Flanders, when he confessed his evil deeds.

  And by his confession and by proofs procured by commissioners on the spot, it was found that a great number of gentlewomen and handsome wenches had been brought into the monastery in the same fashion as the friar of my story had sought to carry off this lady; and he would have succeeded but for the mercy of Our Lord, who ever assists those that put their trust in Him. And the said monastery was stripped of its spoils and of the handsome maidens that were found within it, and the monks were shut up in the building and burned with it, as an everlasting memorial of this crime.

  (From The Heptaméron of Marguerite of Navarre)

  ‘So this attack on the Dominicans was a protest against corruption, was it?’ I asked.

  ‘Of a certainty ’twas more to do with politics than ­ethics. For years, the Dominicans have taken it on themselves to be the champions of orthodoxy, to examine heretics and present them to the Signoria for punishment. It was an ­unwritten agreement with Rome. What Cosimo has done is a warning to the Pope that he is in charge of all law and order in Florence – religious as well as secular. If His Holiness wants a crusade against heresy it will only happen on Cosimo’s terms.’

  I would have liked to hear more of Calloni’s opinions of the monastic orders, but at that moment a servant appeared calling us to dinner. The meal was laid out on a long ­table on the terrace. Francesco’s family and friends – men, ­women and children – all took their places in a mood of ­friendly ­informality. No one arranged the seating on the basis of rank. I found myself between Maria Traversi, a ­mature, widowed lady who was either a cousin or an aunt of my host, and Guido Vitelli, a senior official of the ­Frescobaldi bank, though still of quite tender years. After a corpulent ­cleric had pronounced a blessing, we fell to our viands. ­Lively conversation and laughter soon filled the air. After the initial politenesses had been negotiated, talk turned to Cosimo de’ Medici. Cautiously, I endeavoured to tease out the opinions of my neighbours about Florence’s new ruler.

  ‘Spanish cuckoo!’ Signora Traversi spat out the words with surprising venom.

  It was greeted with a ripple of laughter.

  ‘’Tis true.’ The lady glared around the table. ‘This foreign egg has been planted in our nest by a bird flown from Madrid.’

  ‘Come now, Aunt,’ someone protested. ‘Cosimo has his faults, but he is a Medici.’

  ‘Huh!’ my neighbour scoffed. ‘And I am the Pope’s daughter! Believe that and I will believe Cosimo is a true son of Florence. We know not from what stagnant pond he was dragged up, but be sure he is not one of us.’ She raised her voice above the murmur provoked by her accusation. ‘And even if that pond is a Medici pond, this Cosimo is a poor specimen. We all know he is controlled by his wife, the Spanish vixen Eleonora, put in place by the Emperor to make sure Florence remains in his power.’

  The awkward silence that followed was broken by ­Guido Vitelli, on my left. ‘Are you finding what you want in ­Florence, Signor Bourbon?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ I replied. ‘The city has much to offer a young businessman setting out on his career. ’Tis not difficult to imagine Thomas Cromwell learning here about banking and trade – and politics. Yet I would fain have some facts to buttress my imagination. It was, of course, a long time ago that he was here. Perhaps I was being too optimistic in hoping to find people who would remember him.’

  ‘We have been making enquiries among the senior members of the bank but, as you say, many years have passed – years of change, tumult. Frescobaldi’s, regrettably, is not what it was. The bank was in its heyday when your English friend was here. We were the most powerful trading house in ­Europe. Offices or agents in Constantinople, ­Venice, Rome, Brussels, Antwerp, London. Moneylenders to kings, popes and emperors. Such eminence is difficult to maintain.’

  ‘Indeed. It demands real talent.’

  ‘Not just talent, Signor Bourbon; genius. We have to control the market. That invol
ves movement of capital, transport of merchandise, negotiation of prices and so on. But where possible we also have to control the affairs of nations, run our own intelligence agents, bribe diplomats, discover who is plotting war. Where possible, prevent war.’ He took a long draught of Carmignano. ‘This is excellent. I must congratulate Francesco.’

  ‘Delicious,’ I said, but my mind was not on the wine. Something Vitelli had said resonated in my head. A single word: ‘power’. Why it should thump its significance I could not grasp, but thump it did – a drumbeat pounding over and again. I tried to concentrate my thoughts, but my ­efforts were sabotaged by the eruption of an argument. It was the outspoken lady on my right who, once again, had provoked protest.

  ‘You know, do you not, that Cosimo plans to bring a Spanish-type Inquisition here?’

  There were murmurs of dissent, to which she ­responded firmly, ‘’Tis true. Cosimo and Pope Paul are both depend­ent on the Emperor, and the Emperor will have the ­Spanish-style Inquisition installed everywhere.’

  ‘As I see it, he has no choice,’ Vitelli said. ‘Only by bringing princes and prelates together to enforce purity of doctrine can he stop the advance of Lutherans and the like, who are tearing his dominions apart. Rome by itself cannot stop them.’

  ‘Rome cannot be part of the solution,’ someone re­torted. ‘Rome is the main problem. Back in our ­grandfather’s time our great Florentine preacher, Savonarola, said, “One priest spends the night with his concubine, another with a ­little boy and in the morning they both go forth to celebrate mass.” And he was burned for it. Do we really think anything has changed?’