Ebook: Thomas Cromwell: a life

Part One Journeys -- Ruffian -- The return of the native -- In the Cardinal's service: 1524 -- 1528 -- Managing failure: 1528-1529 -- Serving two masters: 1530 -- Part Two New wine -- Council and parliament: 1531 -- New Year's gifts: 1532 -- Making a difference: 1532 -- A royal marriage: 1532 -- 1533 -- Part Three Touching pitch -- Treason in prospect: 1533 -- 1534 -- Spirituals: 1534-1535 -- Deaths for religion: 1535 -- Progresses and scrutinies: 1535-1536 -- Surrenders and the scaffold: 1536 -- Part Four Power and its reward -- Summer opportunities: 1536 -- Grace for the Commonwealth: 1536 -- The reckoning: 1537 -- The King's Uncle? 1537-1538 -- Cutting down trees: 1538 -- Part five Nemesis -- Shifting dynasties: 1538 -- 1539 -- Stumbling blocks: 1539 -- Downfall: 1539-1540 -- Futures.;Thomas Cromwell is one of the most famous or notorious figures in English history. Born in obscurity in Putney, he became a fixer for Cardinal Wolsey in the 1520s. After Wolsey's fall, Henry VIII promoted him to a series of ever greater offices, such that in the 1530s he was effectively running the country for the King. That decade was one of the most momentous in English history- it saw a religious break with the Pope, unprecedented use of parliament, the dissolution of all monasteries, and the coming of the Protestantism. Cromwell was central to all this, but establishing his role with precision has been notoriously difficult. Diarmaid MacCulloch's biography is the most complete life ever written of this elusive figure, making connections not previously seen and revealing the channels through which power in early Tudor England flowed. It overturns many received interpretations, for example that Cromwell and Anne Boleyn were allies because of their common religious sympathies, showing how he in fact destroyed her. It introduces the many different personalities contributing to these foundational years, all worrying about the 'terrifyingly unpredictable' Henry VIII, and allows readers to feel that all this is going on around them. For a time, the self-made 'ruffian', as he described himself ruthless, adept in the exercise of power, quietly determined in religious revolution was master of events.