Read Thomas Cromwell: The Rise And Fall Of Henry VIII's Most Notorious Minister for Free Online

More, A Biography , London, 1984.
    Merriman, Roger, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell , 2 vols., Oxford, 1902.
    Moorhouse, Geoffrey, The Pilgrimage of Grace: The Rebellion that Shook Henry VIII’s Throne , London, 2002.
    Mori, Thomas and Ludovic Vivis, Epistolae Philipi Melanchthonis , London, 1652.
    Mottram, Stewart, ‘Reading the Rhetoric of Nationhood by Richard Morison and Nicholas Bodrugan’, Renaissance Studies , vol. 19, pt iv (September 2005), pp. 523–40.
    Muller, James Arthur, ‘Reaction’ – Stephen Gardiner and the Tudor Reaction , London, 1926.
    Paul, John E., Catherine of Aragon and her Friends , London, 1966.
    Phillips, John, ‘The Cromwell Family’, The Antiquary , vol. II (1880), pp. 164–9.
    Pollard, A. F., Wolsey , London, 1929.
    Raine, James, St Cuthbert, with an Account of the … Opening of his Tomb , Durham, 1828.
    Rex, Richard, ‘The Crisis of Obedience: God’s Word and Henry’s Reformation’, Historical Journal , vol. 39 (1996), pp. 863–94.
    Ribier, Guillaume, Lettres et Mémoires d’Estat des Roys, Princes et Ambassadeurs sous les Regnes de François Ier, Henri II et François II 1537–59 , 2 vols., Blois, 1666.
    Ridley, Jasper, Henry VIII , London, 1984.
    Robinson, John Martin, The Dukes of Norfolk, Chichester , 1995.
    Sandeman, John Glas, The Spears of Honour and the Gentlemen Pensioners , Hayling Island, Hampshire, 1912.
    Scarisbrook, J. J., ‘Henry’ – Henry VIII , New Haven and London, 1997.
    ———, ‘Pardon’ – ‘The Pardon of the Clergy, 1531’, Historical Journal , vol. 12 (1956), Cambridge, pp. 25ff.
    Shagan, Ethan, Popular Politics in the English Reformation , Cambridge, 2003.
    Smith, Lacey B., A Tudor Tragedy: The Life and Times of Catherine Howard , London, 1961.
    Smith, R. B., Land and Politics in the England of Henry VIII: The West Riding of Yorkshire , 1530–46, Oxford, 1970.
    Starkey, David (ed.), The Inventory of King Henry VIII: The Transcript , London, 1998.
    Strickland, Agnes, Lives of the Queens of England from the Norman Conquest , 8 vols., reprinted London, 1972.
    Sylvester, Richard S. and Davis P. Harding (eds.), Two Early Tudor Lives , New Haven and London, 1962.
    Tanner, J. R., Tudor Constitutional Documents , Cambridge, 1951.
    Taylor, Rupert, The Political Prophecy in England , New York, 1911.
    Thiselton, William Matthew, Regal Insignia or an Account of the King’s Honourable Band of Gentlemen Pensioners , London, 1819.
    Weir, Alison, Henry VIII: King and Court , London, 2002.
    Whatmore, L. E., ‘The Sermon Against the Holy Maid of Kent and her Adherents, Delivered at Paul’s Cross, 23 November 1533 and at Canterbury 7 December’, English Historical Review , vol. 58 (1943), pp. 463–75.
    Wilding, Peter, Thomas Cromwell , London and Toronto, 1935.
    Williams, Neville, ‘Henry VIII’ – Henry VIII and his Court , London, 1973.
    ———, ‘Cardinal’ – The Cardinal and the Secretary , New York, 1975.
    Wilson, Derek, In the Lion’s Court: Power, Ambition and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII , London, 2002.

Thomas Cromwell, 1533–4, after Hans Holbein the Younger. His corpulence increased, as the years of good food and wine and the sedentary hours spent pouring over voluminous paperwork began to tell.

A contemporary view of the opening of Parliament at Blackfriars on 15 April 1523. On Henry VIII’s right is Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York, indicated by his Cardinal’s hat. At upper left, Sir Thomas More, Speaker of the Commons with 13 more MPs behind him. Is Cromwell one of them? He was returned to this Parliament, representing an unnamed constituency – his first step on the ladder to fortune. From The Wriothesley Garter Book , purchased by Queen Victoria.

Henry VIII, by Hans Holbein the Younger. A propaganda portrait painted c . 1534–6, showing Henry in all his imperial splendour. In reality, in the words of one of Cromwell’s victims, Sir Edward Nevill, the King was ‘a beast and worse than a