Thomas Cromwell has captured the imagination for centuries, including recently in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and its stage and television adaptations. Long reviled as a Machiavellian schemer who stopped at nothing in his quest for power, in Thomas Cromwell, Tracy Borman reveals a different side of one of the most notorious figures in history: that of a caring husband and father, a fiercely loyal servant and friend, and a revolutionary who helped make medieval England into a modern state. Born in the mid-1480s to a lowly blacksmith, Cromwell left home to make his fortune abroad, serving in the French army, and working in Florence at the height of the Renaissance. Back in England, Cromwell built a flourishing legal practice, became the protégé of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, and went on to become Henry VIII's top aide, where he was at the heart of the most momentous events of his time, from the Reformation to the downfall of Anne Boleyn. His seismic political, religious, and social reforms can still be felt today.