Thomas Cromwell

Hilary Mantel is the author of Wolf Hall (2009), the Man Booker Prize winner of 2009. The novel traces the period of English history in which Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The king’s quest for freedom destroys his advisor, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and creates a years-long power struggle between the Church and the Crown.

Into this impasse sets Thomas Cromwell (The Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell was Thomas’ great-great-grandnephew), a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, an idealist and an opportunist, astute is reading people: Cromwell is a consummate politician, hardened by years abroad and his personal losses. In a passage, Cromwell is counseling Henry on war with France:

“No ruler in the history of the world has ever been able to afford a war. They’re not affordable things. No prince ever says, “This is my budget, so this is the kind of war I can have.” You enter into one and it uses up all the money you’re got, and then it breaks you and bankrupts you.”

To which Henry replies:

“When I went into France in the year 1513 I captured the town of Therouanne, which in your speech you called – “

“A doghole, Majesty.”

“A doghole,” the king repeats. “How would you say so?”

He shrugs. “I’ve been there.”

A flash of anger. “And so have I, at the head of my army. Listen to me master – you said I should not fight because the taxes would break the country. What is the country for, but to support its prince in his enterprise?”

“I believe I said – saving Your Majesty – we didn’t have the gold to see you through a year’s campaign. All the bullion in the country would be swallowed by war. I have read there was a time when people exchanged leather tokens, for want of metal coins. I said we would be back to those days.”