Thomas Cromwell

Reviews / Votes

Well-organized introductory work...Recommended. * CHOICE, January 2010 * Coby's work in contextualizing the rich and complicated story of Cromwell's life cannot be praised enough....Coby ably depicts how Cromwell worked with and against his fellow courtiers.... Thomas Cromwell: Machiavellian Statecraft and the English Reformation will revitalize the study of Cromwell. * The Journal Of The Review Of Politics, Volume 72, 2010 * This is at once a compelling, much needed biography and a massively well-informed intellectual history of the sixteenth century. J. Patrick Coby artfully tells the story of the man born to middling circumstances who helped transform England into a modern state. At the same time, he provides a lively account of the intellectual, religious, and political ideas and movements roiling the sixteenth century, showing how they influenced Cromwell and how Cromwell in turn helped to shape them. Coby focuses on events-biographical, historical, intellectual-of the 1530s, and students of the period will find particularly valuable his assessment of the seven sessions of the Reformation Parliament. -- Larry Carver, University of Texas at Austin A series of though-provoking points of reference as Coby recounts Cromwell's rise and maintenance of his position as chief minister to Henry VIII in the 1530s, as the king's 'great matter' made that transcendent leap into the jurisdictional phase of the English Reformation.... An engaging and enjoyable study, ideal for both undergraduates and more casual students of Tudor history in its succinct description of 1530s England. * Sixteenth Century Journal *