Walter Cromwell grew up as a brewer, smith, and fuller in Putney. He had an elder brother named John, who moved to Lambeth and settled down there to a quiet and prosperous life as a brewer, later, according to Chapuys, becoming cook to the Archbishop of Canterbury[7]. Walter, however, remained in Wimbledon, and appears to have been a most quarrelsome and riotous character. Most of the entries in the Court Rolls concerning him are records of small fines incurred for petty offences. Forty-eight times between 1475 and 1501 was he forced to pay sixpence for breaking the assize of ale. In order to prevent the sale of bad beer in those days, an ale-taster was appointed to pass, or condemn as unfit, all brewing in the parish. Walter Cromwell did not go to the ale-taster before he drew and sold his beer, and for failing so to do was fined as aforesaid. There is also record that he was not seldom drunk. In 1477 a penalty of twenty pence was inflicted on him for assaulting and drawing blood from William Michell, and he and his father were very often brought before the court on the charge of ‘overburthening’ the public land in Putney with their cattle, and cutting more than their share of the furze and thorns there[8]. But in spite of all these petty misdemeanours, Walter Cromwell appears to have been a man of property and influence in Wimbledon, and the Court Rolls in 1480 show that he then possessed two virgates of land in Putney parish. To these were added six more virgates in 1500 by grant of Archbishop Morton[9]. Walter Cromwell was also made Constable of Putney in 1495[10], and his name constantly occurs in the Court Rolls as decenarius and juryman[11]. Towards the end of his life, however, his character appears to have become so bad that he forfeited all his position and property in Wimbledon. In 1514 he ‘falsely and fraudulently erased the evidences and terrures of the lord,’ so that the bedell was commanded ‘to seize into the lord’s hands all his copyholds held of the lord and to answer the lord of the issue[12].’ This is the last mention of the name of Walter Cromwell in the Wimbledon Manor Rolls.
Walter Cromwell’s wife was the aunt of a man named Nicholas Glossop, of Wirksworth in Derbyshire[13]. Mr. Phillips gives no reference for his statements that she was the daughter of a yeoman named Glossop, and that she was residing in Putney at the house of an attorney named John Welbeck, at the time of her marriage with Walter Cromwell in 1474[14]; but we have no evidence that these assertions are incorrect. At least two daughters and one son were born to Walter Cromwell. He may have had other children, but as there was no registration of births, marriages, or deaths in England until 1538, we can only be certain of these three, of whom there are mentions in the Court Rolls and in other contemporary records. The eldest daughter Katherine, who was probably born about the year 1477, grew up and married a young Welshman named Morgan Williams[15], whose family had come to Putney from Llanishen in Glamorganshire. The Williamses were a very important family in Putney, and John, the eldest of them, was a successful lawyer and accountant, and steward to Lord Scales, who was then in possession of a residence and some land in Putney parish. The youngest daughter of Walter Cromwell was named Elizabeth. She married a sheep-farmer named Wellyfed, who later joined his business to that of his father-in-law[16]. Christopher, the son of Elizabeth Cromwell and Wellyfed, grew up and was later sent to school with his cousin Gregory, son of his mother’s brother Thomas[17]. We are now in a position to examine the many conflicting statements concerning the son of Walter Cromwell, the subject of this essay.