‘Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII’s Most Faithful Servant’, by Tracy Borman

Hilary Mantel’s fictional accounts of the life of Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies have inevitably raised interest in the reality of Henry VIII’s right-hand man, and so Tracy Borman’s “untold story” follows fairly fast on the heels of David Loades’ Thomas Cromwell: Servant to Henry VIII, published last year by Amberley.

That the epithet of “servant” should be attached to biographies of Cromwell is no mere coincidence. The word reminds us of his lowly position in society – the son of a fuller and brewery-owner, he rose through native wit, intelligence and sheer hard work to occupy a string of impressive jobs (vicegerent in spirituals being only the most abstruse, and most frequently misspelt). But more than that, the extent of Cromwell’s subjugation to Henry is central to any interpretation of him, and is a question over which historians continue to disagree. How much was he indeed the consummate servant, concerned only to do his monarch’s bidding, and how much was he really in control himself?

Borman plumps for Cromwell the manipulator, attributing to him the bulk of the responsibility for most of the controversial deeds of the 1530s, from resolving the king’s “great matter” so that he could marry Anne Boleyn, through to the framing of Anne for adultery and her beheading, via the imposition of the Royal Supremacy, the execution of Thomas More and the destruction of the monasteries.

This was certainly what many of Cromwell’s contemporaries thought. Borman writes of “the depth of popular anger and hatred for the king’s chief minister”, and that people believed “He, not Henry, was responsible for destroying the very fabric of England.” But this is hardly unusual for people living under an authoritarian regime in times of upheaval. One has only to think of letters written to Stalin by his victims.

There is no getting away from the fact that Henry VIII was a tyrant and, in the mould of later tyrants, grew increasingly paranoid as he aged. Not that he can have been much fun to work for as a young man either. John Matusiak, the author of another new Tudor biography, this one of Cromwell’s early mentor – Wolsey: The Life of King Henry VIII’s Cardinal (The History Press) – provides a trenchant summing up of Henry at the time of his accession in 1509: “Glittering, massive, puffed up and impressionable, his excessive heartiness and exhibitionism were merely the tip of a much more ominous emotional iceberg.”

Borman identifies Cromwell’s low-born status and the resultant antagonism of noble courtiers as the chief reason for his downfall in 1540, particularly after he was made Earl of Essex. She also suggests that the speed with which Henry abandoned “the man who had been his mainstay for more than a decade” indicates that their relationship had been “fundamentally fragile”. But executing people once they had served their turn was what Henry did (all his relationships were “fragile” in that sense). While Cromwell was no doubt dismayed when he was arrested for high treason and conveyed to the Tower, he can hardly have been astonished.

Borman’s is a highly readable account, and will add to the debate surrounding this ultimately elusive character. One aspect of that debate concerns Cromwell’s religion – whether he was a true “reformer”, an adherent of the “new learning”, or whether his ecclesiastical reforms were merely designed to please the king. His final words could have been spoken with sincerity by any type of Christian: “For since the time that I have had years of discretion, I have lived a sinner, and offended my Lord God, for the which I ask him heartily forgiveness.”

Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII’s Most Faithful Servant, by Tracy Borman, Hodder & Stoughton, RRP£25, 464 pages