Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII’s Most Faithful Servant

Borman, CEO of the U.K. Heritage Education Trust and joint chief curator of the British historic royal palaces, commendably delves into primary and secondary sources in piecing together the remarkable life of a “commoner who had risen far beyond his rightful station in life” to become the king’s chief minister. Best known for engineering the fall of Anne Boleyn and easing the way for the Protestant Reformation in England, Thomas Cromwell remains in these pages just as enigmatic as he has always been to historians. Some of Borman’s conclusions are based on flimsy evidence, and she relies too much on accounts written by those with obvious political agendas. However, she makes a strong argument that Cromwell’s fall from power was engineered by elites who despised him for being a commoner upstart, especially when she points out an incident often overlooked by historians: Cromwell arranged for his son to marry Queen Jane Seymour’s sister. Considering the brutality the Tudors inflicted on those whom they perceived as overstepping their bounds, the perception that Cromwell did not know his place, compounded by his arranging Henry’s short-lived marriage with Anne of Cleves, sealed his fate. [em]Agent: Jason Bartholomew, Hodder & Stoughton (U.K.). (Jan.) [/em]