Thomas Cromwell’s Tudor London mansion revealed in unprecedented detail and first-ever artist’s impression
[ad_1]
New insights come on the anniversary of Cromwell’s death and before the final installment of the Wolf Hall trilogy, which will be released in the West End later this year
Thomas Cromwell’s magnificent London mansion was revealed for the first time in an artistic impression, following a new study examining the building in unprecedented depth of detail.
Dr. Nick Holder, historian and research fellow at English Heritage and the University of Exeter, has explored an exceptionally rich source of information, including letters, leases, surveys and inventories, for the most in-depth look yet into “one of the” most spectacular private homes “in London in the 1530s.
His findings, published in the British Archaeological Association’s peer-reviewed journal – which shaped the artist’s impression through the illustrator Peter Urmston – include floor plans for the manor house with 58 rooms plus servants’ chambers and a large garden.
The plans have already been made public, but the evidence for them has not yet been presented.
Coupled with an accompanying room-by-room analysis of another of Cromwell’s London homes, it offers a fascinating new look at the life and personality of a man who was one of the architects of the English Reformation and the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine von Aragon, who allows him to marry Anne Boleyn.
Cromwell, who was Henry VIII’s henchman.
It cost Cromwell at least £ 1,600 to build the mansion next to Austin Friars Convent in the City of London, including around £ 550 in the countryside.
Cromwell had lived and spoken Italian in Italy, and it is “very likely” that the architecture contained fashionable new Italian Renaissance elements, says Dr. Holder.
Construction began in July 1535 and, as with many construction projects, problems arose, including a delay in October of the following year when the 80-strong team of workers was sent to Yorkshire to fight the rebels of the Pilgrimage of Grace uprising.
Cromwell also appears to have undertaken a “land grab” by confiscating a 22-foot strip of land to expand his garden, which may have had a bowling alley and tennis court.
The mansion, furnished with gold, damask, and velvet bedding, served as the family residence, administrative center, and event venue. It might even have been designed in anticipation, or perhaps fear, of a visit from the king.
Renowned visitors would have been led via the large stair tower into one of the splendid halls on the first floor, the parlor or the ladies’ parlor. The heated halls were decorated with tapestries and one had three prominent bay windows.
The mansion was also a shop for Cromwell’s personal armory – enough for a small army, in fact. This included several hundred sets of “almayne revettes” (German plate armor for the infantry), almost 100 sallet and bascinets (headgear and helmets) and weapons, including 759 bows, complete with hundreds of bundles of arrows.
However, Cromwell would have had little time to enjoy his spectacular new home before he was executed for treason in 1540.
He had moved into the villa from a neighboring 14-room townhouse for which he was probably paying £ 4 a year rent. Documents, including two inventories from Cromwell’s lease, provide a room-by-room description of this home and its contents, including 28 rings, three of which Cromwell wore at the time of the inventory. They also give a fascinating glimpse into his religious views.
Dr. Holder says: “We think of Cromwell as the henchman of Henry VIII who carried out his policies, including the closure of the monasteries, and we know that around 1530 Cromwell became one of the new evangelical Protestants.
“But if you look at the inventory of his house in the 1520s, he doesn’t seem so religiously radical, he looks more like a traditional English Catholic.
“He has various religious paintings on the wall, he has his own holy relic that is very much associated with traditional Catholics, not the new evangelicals, and he even has a home altar. In the 1520s he seems to be more of a conventional, early Tudor Catholic gentleman. “
Meanwhile, the coats of arms of his patron Cardinal Wolsey and former patron Thomas Gray on display in the townhouse show a sense of loyalty among Cromwell’s ruthless appearance, says Dr. Holder.
The exceptionally detailed analysis was made possible by a “treasury” of documents held in the archives of the Drapers’ Company, the trading group that bought Cromwell’s mansion after his death.
Dr. Holder adds: “These two houses were the home of this great man, the places where he lived with his wife and two daughters, where his son grew up. It was also the place he returned to at night after living with Henry VIII.
“No one has looked at these two houses in such detail and compared all the evidence available. This is about as close as you will walk down these 16th century corridors. “
[ad_2]
