Research Catalog

Title

Thomas Cromwell : a life / Diarmaid MacCulloch.

Author

MacCulloch, Diarmaid

Publication

[London] : Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2018.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxiii, 728 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps, portraits; 25 cm

Summary

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.

Subject

• Cromwell, Thomas, Earl of Essex, 1485?-1540
• 1509-1547
• Statesmen > England > Biography
• Statesmen
• Great Britain > History > Henry VIII, 1509-1547
• England
• Great Britain

Genre/Form

• Biographies.
• Biography.
• History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Call Number

JFE 19-1755

ISBN

• 9781846144295
• 1846144299
• 9780241952337
• 0241952336

LCCN

2018410838

OCLC

1055684132

Author

MacCulloch, Diarmaid, author.

Title

Thomas Cromwell : a life / Diarmaid MacCulloch.

Publisher

[London] : Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2018.

Type of Content

text

still image

cartographic image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chronological Term

1509-1547

Other Form:

ebook version : 9780141967660

Research Call Number

JFE 19-1755