Thomas Cromwell : The Rise and Fall of Henry VIII's Most Notorious Minister

"Thomas Cromwell" by Robert Hutchinson. St. Martin's Press, New York 2007. Subtitled: "The Rise And Fall Of Henry VIII's Most Notorious Minister." It seems to me, (old reader that I am), that in all the books, plays and movies about Henry VIII, the character of Thomas Cromwell is always maligned. This present book, "Thomas Crowell" by Robert Hutchinson, follows the pattern. In fact, the book's subtitle calls Thomas Cromwell, "notorious minister". The book portrays Cromwell as ruthlessly ambitious, jealous of any person who appears more successful, and ever aware of his own low-born condition. Robert Hutchinson, the author, must have been looking at the contemporary portrait of Cromwell by Hans Holbein (c. 1498-1543), when he describes Cromwell as having "pudgy hands". When I was working on an MA in History, professors would have chastised me for getting "...too personal"... if I said that someone had pudgy hands. I get the feeling that Hutchinson does not like Cromwell. Page 3: " 'Scruples' was a word unaccountably missing from his vocabulary" and the end always justified his means. Page 138: "Yes, in truth, Cromwell was as guilty of corruption as sin itself". The dissolution of the monasteries presented Thomas Cromwell with an opportunity to serve his king, while securing great wealth for himself and ennobling his own condition. On page 102, Hutchinson writes one of the most condemning sentences in the book: "Greed spread like a contagion". He further writes that the Duke of Norfolk, "...anxious not to appear too grasping...", coveted the monasteries at Bungay and at Woodbridge in Suffolk. Other English nobles are treated in a similar fashion. Thomas Cromwell, however, was just the right man for the job at hand, and happy to take a little here or a little there to be certain that certain nobles would obtain the property nearby and convenient for them. And, then, the author is not too happy with King Henry VIII. On the same Page 3, the author claims that "Henry's nation "... was transformed "...into what we would recognize as a totalitarian Stalinist state". In my opinion, I would suggest that the author makes a case for a comparison of Henry VIII's English nation with Germany under Adolf Hitler. As with Hitler, Henry could do no wrong. If you did something that either Henry or Hitler did not like, you lost your position and, often enough, your life. Henry and Cromwell developed a secret police that presaged the Gestapo. Henry's police would enter homes to see if there were relics (literally) of the old Religion. Hitler's Gestapo went into homes to count the number of pairs of leather shoes a woman possessed. In old England and in more modern Germany, you had best not speak ill of the ruling party, whether Henry's group or Germany's Nazis. By the way, there are eight pages of color photographs of the protraits of many of the individuals involved. Anne of Cleves doesn't look too bad in her protrait ju

This is an excellent introduction to one of Henry VIII's top minister who played an important role in the downfall of Anne Boleyn, It is an excellent compantion to the excellent new novel, Wolf Hall unless you don't want to know what ultimately happens in this royal soap opera.

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 sus