{"product_id":"9780241952337","title":"Thomas Cromwell : A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch","description":"A SUNDAY TIMES, THE TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, SPECTATOR, FINANCIAL TIMES, GUARDIAN, BBC HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR'This is the biography we have been awaiting for 400 years' Hilary Mantel'A masterpiece' Dan Jones, Sunday TimesThomas  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, and by the end of 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. Cromwell was central to all this, but establishing his  role  with precision, at a distance of nearly five centuries and after  the  destruction of many of his papers at his own fall, has been  notoriously  difficult.   Diarmaid MacCulloch's biography is much  the most  complete and persuasive life ever written of this elusive  figure, a  masterclass in historical detective work, making connections  not  previously seen. It overturns  many received interpretations, for  example that Cromwell was a cynical,  'secular' politician without  deep-felt religious commitment, or that he  and Anne Boleyn were allies  because of their common religious sympathies  - in fact he destroyed  her. It introduces the many different  personalities of these  foundational years, all conscious of the  'terrifyingly unpredictable'  Henry VIII. MacCulloch allows readers to feel  that they are immersed in  all this, that it 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. MacCulloch's biography for the first  time reveals his  true place in the making of modern England and Ireland,  for good and  ill.\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback \/ softback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201708458162,"sku":"9780241952337","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/products\/9780241952337.jpg?v=1705408895","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/9780241952337","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}