Thomas Cromwell [Paperback]

Robert Hutchinson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 21, 2008

The son of a brewer, Cromwell rose from obscurity to become Earl of Essex, Vice-Regent and High Chamberlain of England, Keep of the Privy Seal and Chancellor of the Exchequer. He manoeuvred his way to the top by intrigue, bribery and sheer force of personality in a court dominated by the malevolent King Henry. Cromwell pursued the interests of the king with single-minded energy and little subtlety. Tasked with engineering the judicial murder of Anne Boleyn when she had worn out her welcome in the royal chamber, he tortured her servants and relations, then organised a 'show trial' of Stalinist efficiency. He orchestrated the 'greatest act of privatisation in English history': the seizure of the monasteries. Their enormous wealth was used to cement the loyalty of the English nobility, and to enrich the crown. Cromwell made himself a fortune too, soliciting colossal bribes and binding the noble families to him with easy loans. He came home from court literally weighed down with gold.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Rising to power with Anne Boleyn's decapitation and losing his own head over the Anne of Cleves debacle, Thomas Cromwell (1485–1540) was Henry VIII's loyal hatchet man—dissolving Catholic monasteries, breaking with the pope and finding ever more loopholes to justify Henry's marital and financial whims. Hutchinson (The Last Days of Henry VIII) effortlessly explains the business side of the Tudor court in which Cromwell's legal mind excelled while giving a one-sided portrait of controversial Anne Boleyn. Of the five royal wives Cromwell knew, the pockmarked and sadly malodorous Anne of Cleves receives most of Hutchinson's meager sympathy. In spite of considerable research, the focus on Cromwell's professional life means that the man from humble beginnings still eludes readers as anything more than a petty and rapacious loan shark. Unlike contemporaries More and Cranmer, Cromwell seems uninterested in religion, friends or family. But those more interested in the nuts and bolts of Henry's court rather than the monarch's soap opera antics will find this a welcome respite from fictionalized Tudor drama. 8 pages illus., 8 pages of color photos. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Anyone who sees history as boring should be given Robert Hutchinson's book post haste. Without sacrificing facts and research, he has the ability to construct and absolutely compelling narrative and, though I never thought I'd say this of a book on Thomas Cromwell, one that is impossible to put down. He is one of the few authors who keep you up till 3am. -- Sue Baker THE BOOKSELLER

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Phoenix (February 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0753823616
• ISBN-13: 978-0753823613
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.9 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,505,237 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Hutchinson was Defence Correspondent for the UK national news agency, the Press Association in Fleet Street from 1978-83 before moving to Jane's Information Group to launch Jane's Defence Weekly and becoming Publishing Director, responsible for books, magazines, journals and digital titles. From 1997-2008, he was chairman of the media side of the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee, the unique British system that protects national security in the reporting of military or intelligence issues.
He is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, an associate tutor in church archaeology at the University of Sussex, and an expert in the arcaheology of the Reformation. He was appointed OBE in the 2008 New Year's Honours list.
A keen historian and archaeologist, Hutchinson believes that Britain's history provides stories of more drama and passion than could ever be made up for any television or film screenplay. He uses as much original documents as possible in researching his highly-acclaimed books because 'it's good to read the character's own words written at the time'.
He writes a strong narrative, with additional information on people, places and events, provided in the endnotes, so that any questions the reader might have can be quickly answered. 'The narrative is stand alone - it's up to the reader to decide whether to pause in the story to discover extra information'

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Henry VIII's most notorious minister?, December 27, 2008

By 

Rachel (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thomas Cromwell (Paperback)

Thomas Cromwell is a fascinating, though often seriously scary, figure, who generally appears as a bit player in studies of Henry VIII and/or his Queens; therefore I was ridiculously excited to find a study focusing on his life. Robert Hutchinson's biography of, as the subtitle puts it, "Henry VIII's most notorious minister" does not really break much new ground historically, but is written in an entertaining, accessible style and generally quite well researched.

Much of this study focuses on Cromwell's role in the dissolution of the monasteries during the mid-1530s. These sections are fascinating and detailed: my primary interest being in Anne Boleyn's years as Queen, I didn't know as much about the process of the dissolution as I probably should.

His early life and rise to power is dealt with in relatively short compass, but Hutchinson conveys his subject's ruthlessness, ambition, intelligence and ability to manipulate people and events for his own benefit well.

Rather disappointingly, the coup that brought down Anne Boleyn - arguably Cromwell's most audacious, if not most significant, political "achievement" - is dealt with in a comparatively cursory way. The events of April-May 1536 cover a mere handful of pages, which surprised me: this was an unprecedented strike against a reigning Queen Consort, who herself wielded more political power than most, if not all, previous Queens of England. It would have been more satisfying if Hutchinson had explored Cromwell's and Anne Boleyn's relationship - which went from one of allies to bitter enmity - in more detail, and engaged in greater analysis of Cromwell's orchestration of her fall, and perhaps, why Henry VIII allowed it to happen. The common assumption that he had just tired of her and was looking for a replacement is too superficial an analysis.

I found some of Hutchinson's conclusions a bit simplistic, and there are some lapses into cliché and hyperbole, not to mention the odd bit of disconcerting purple prose: for example, Cromwell's legislation "transformed [England] into a totalitarian, Stalinist state"? Good grief. Also, there was far more to Anne Boleyn than her exercising "sensual feminine power over a doting Henry" (this is a biography, not a Mills and Boon or Harlequin novel!) and the (unreferenced) comment that she "mercilessly taunted Henry over his prospects of ever marrying her" was a bit much.

Further, I was irritated by the following description of Mark Smeaton, the musician from whom Cromwell forced, or at least induced, a bogus confession: "a groom of the chamber and a musician and dancer who was probably a covert homosexual." There is absolutely no evidence for the latter portion of this statement, which also is unreferenced, and I was at a loss to see what this man's sexual preference had to do with the fact of his arrest, coerced confession and execution. Hutchinson is not the first historian to make such a throwaway comment with respect to Smeaton, and I suspect that he will not be the last: Retha Warnicke propounded a theory that the five men accused with Anne Boleyn may have been part of some "homosexual circle" and therefore more vulnerable, and while most other historians (eg. Ives, Starkey, Weir, among others) do not accept this, it nonetheless still resurfaces every now and then - for instance, a similar off the cuff, unreferenced suggestion appears in Derek Wilson's "In the Lion's Court" YAWN. Frankly, I could not care less about what the sexual preferences of Anne Boleyn's co-accused might have been; my objection is to a historian stating this as fact, or probable fact, on the basis of no evidence, and failing to establish the relevance of (usually) Smeaton's purported sexual preference to the events being examined. Please, biographers - give it a rest. Write fiction about it by all means - I admit upfront I'd almost certainly read it! - but I don't think unsupported, irrelevant asides like that belong in a scholarly work.

Overall, however, this was an interesting and readable study, though I would have liked to have seen more detail in certain areas as noted above, and a little less superficiality in some of the conclusions reached. I would recommend it more to those who already have an interest in and some knowledge of the major events and personalities of the era. Unfortunately the five-star system is a bit of a blunt instrument: it's not quite a 4-star book, but falls somewhere between that and 3.5. Not the definitive biography, but worth a read.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The definitive bigraphy of Thomas Cromwell, March 21, 2010

By 

Katherine LeSueur (Somewhere over the rainbow) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thomas Cromwell: The Rise and Fall of Henry VIII's Most Notorious Minister (Hardcover)

This is one of the best Tudor time period biographies I have read and the one to read if you want to know more about Thomas Cromwell. The book is not dry at all, an easy read which is a bonus as far as non-fiction biographies go, The book goes into great detail about Cromwell's early life before Henry VIII and describes his determined rise to power and his downfall at the hands of the hateful Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. I learned a lot about Cromwell and even sympathized with him as I read about his motives and his never mentioned kind acts of charity to the poor. From his childhood to his botched execution Hutchinson guides the reader through the life and death of one of Henry VIII's most talked about and disliked minister's.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important tale told very well, June 17, 2010

By 

Israel Drazin (Boca Raton, Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Thomas Cromwell: The Rise and Fall of Henry VIII's Most Notorious Minister (Hardcover)

This book offers readers interesting information about an important period of world history, a time when Papal power was reduced and England moved the world toward the Reformation.
Henry Tudor lived from 1491 to 1547. He served as King Henry VIII from 1509, from age 17, when he married his brother's widow, Catherine, against biblical law. He grew increasingly dissatisfied with her and wanted to divorce her against her will and the will of the Pope and many of his own ministers. He later married a total of five women one after another. The conflicts produced by his behavior resulted in the murders of many of his ministers, such as Sir Thomas More, who Henry felt opposed him. It also caused England to break with the Catholic Church which later canonized Thomas More.
Henry's marital misadventures also caused the elevation of the conniving frequently unscrupulous and cruel minister Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell rose to the second highest position in England, just lower than Henry. He supported Henry's matrimonial interests with "Stalinist efficiency." He also aided his master's second desire, the accumulation of wealth, with efficiency, stealing money from ministers and from the church.
The corpulent Cromwell was born around 1485, and by 1520 he became an advisor to Cardinal Wolsey, the Lord Chancellor who was arrested for treason in 1530, and who Cromwell abandoned at that time to pursue his own interests. Ten years later, after Henry granted him appointment after appointment, higher and higher, and becoming Lord Great Chamberlain in April 1540, Cromwell was arrested in June and executed in July. Cromwell had involved himself unwisely in Henry's affair with his fourth wife.
During his short period of absolute power, Cromwell was able to make the Bible available to the common people in their own language. He "destroyed some of the superstitious flummery that pervaded much of the Catholic Church of the time through his attack on images, pilgrimages and shrines." He also reformed the machinery of administration in England laying the foundation for the creation of a civil service.
Hutchinson's history is filled with interesting details such as the bizarre story of the "Holy Maid of Kent" who fell into trances and rolled helplessly on the ground in animal dung while foolish superstitious people looked on, marveled, and said they were hearing pious words uttered by an angel.