Reviews

I don't have the words to adequately describe a 2000 page experience in the life of this perfectly realised character. Knowing his fate I read this with a building sense of doom and apprehension which was surely conspired by the author as well as being driven by my knowledge of the history. In this edition we see plenty of Cromwell's greatness but more of his weakness. The events seem to be on more of a tightrope, the outcomes always less certain for Cromwell. There's also a sense that his personal relationships have been handled less deftly than his professional. And perhaps in the denouement, he pays a heavy price for this.

In the end I was left with such a brilliantly conflicted bundle of feelings towards Cromwell. This genius, wry (almost) all-conquering renaissance man, but ruthless, violent and single-minded with it. I will miss this human embodiment of Marlinspike enormously, less so the leopard - certainly the least likable of the big cats we find in this story.

A note on the final pages of this book. Beautifully written. The final lines are such poetry, I'm still re-reading them in my thoughts two weeks later.

nigellicus's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense

5.0

Beginning and ending with beheadings, and packed in between with the minutiae of royal government, from international intrigues with France and the Holy Roman Empire to noticing the boy who brings in the candles when the king's chambers get dark. This is a magesterial work, never flagging in its exhaustive drive through the mind and soul and heart of Thomas Cromwell, and, through him, the world of Tudor England and the whims and desires of a monarch with absolute power.