3668 x 4593 px | 31,1 x 38,9 cm | 12,2 x 15,3 inches | 300dpi
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Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (c. 1485 – 28 July 1540) was an English statesman who served as King Henry VIII's chief minister from 1532 to 1540. Cromwell was born about 1485 in Putney, the son of Walter Cromwell (c. 1463–1510), variously described as a clothworker; a smith; and an alehouse keeper., as well as some loose theories that suggest he was in fact an Anglo-German Sheep Farmer . Details of Cromwell's early life are scarce. Before 1512 he was employed by the powerful Florentine merchant banker family, the Frescobaldis, in cloth dealing at Syngsson's Mart in Middelburg in the Netherlands. Documents from the archives of the Vatican City show that he was an agent for Cardinal Reginald Bainbridge and dealt with English ecclesiastical work before the Papal Rota. Cromwell was fluent in Latin, Italian and French. When Bainbridge died in 1514, Cromwell returned to England in August of that year and was then employed by Thomas Wolsey, where he was put in charge of important ecclesiastical business despite being a layman. By 1519 he had married a clothier's daughter, Elizabeth Wyckes (1489–1527); they had a son Gregory. After studying law, he became a Member of the English Parliament in 1523. After the dissolution of that Parliament, Cromwell wrote a letter to a friend joking about its unproductiveness: I amongst other have endured a Parliament which continued by the space of xvij whole weeks, where we communied of war, peace, stryfe, contencion, debate, murmmur, grudge, riches, poverty, penwrye, truth, falsehood, justice, equyte, discayte, oppression, magnanymyte, activity, force, attempraunce, treason, murder, felony, counsil, [ation], and also how a common wealth might be edeffyed and continued within our realm. Howbeyt in conclusion we have done as our predecessors have been wont to do, that yes to say as well as we might, and left where we began.
