Thomas Cromwell (1485 – 1540): An Oral History

Um, we used to run right around London, it…

Got into all sorts of mischief, in and out of people’s houses borrowing some things, selling them on, um…

Father was a blacksmith. He used to go around branding people… Bit of a thug from the age of about 4 and a half months… I used to beat his father up… give him good kicking.

Very popular, very confident lad. Knew a lot about, uh, stuff, uh… They could see he was a child prodigy. He went to a public school in, uh, London he was a well educated little boy, uh… He went there from the age of three months.

Highly Educated. Latin. He was speaking fluent Latin from about the age of about seven weeks. In fact, he was speaking Latin the day he was born, so they knew then that this child is destined for bigger things.

Um, very kind lad um as I say, very, very intelligent so he went to Public School, uh, beat up the Headmaster there, stole some books from the Headmaster, took them home, read, read a few of them, burnt most of them on the fire, of course.

He was part of the Fire of London, actually.

It started a lot earlier than you realise. The Fire of London, people think it started in the 1660s, but it actually started a good Century before that. It took a long time – slow burning books – so the books that he got from school were slow burning books, um…

He married Mary, um, had trouble telling people he “married Mary” and his tongue twisted so he divorced her after I think it was four hours. 

Had four children, uh, one was Gary. It was Gary, was his son. He’s had a daughter, Sharon, um… 

He studied theology at Oxford. Very religious man. He actually rewrote the Bible but he only did that on a Thursday because that was his religious day, on a Thursday after 3 pm.

Mucking about in London a little bit. Bumped into the Pope who was over here at the time he, he, he got on well with the Pope – Pope Benedict Boverington – understood him very well. He was able to teach the Pope Theology and he loved wearing the Pope’s hat, um… 

Obviously Henry didn’t like it. Henry and the Pope didn’t really get on. The king and him worked in an underwear factory in London making underwear and socks and things like that.

Um, very humble man Henry, he… people think he was just a gallant man out in battles and very… you know, married six times. He didn’t marry six times, he only married three times.

He was a brilliant spaghetti maker. Absolutely fantastic at making the round spaghetti, not the long spaghetti.

So he managed to perfect a way of getting the curl into the spaghetti and that’s where spaghetti comes from today…

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