Thomas Cromwell is one of the most famous - or notorious - figures in English history. Born in obscurity in Putney, he became a fixer for Cardinal Wolsey in the 1520s. After Wolsey's fall, Henry VIII promoted him to a series of ever higher offices, so by the 1530s he was effectively running the country. Diarmaid MacCulloch's biography is the most complete life ever written of this elusive figure.
