ABSTRACT
The long-dominant royal minister Cardinal Wolsey was in disgrace, brought down by his inability to solve an apparently insoluble problem: the king’s project to argue the Pope into declaring two decades of marriage to Katherine of Aragon annulled, in order that Henry might marry his current passion, Anne Boleyn. Thomas Cromwell’s entry into the king’s service was initially a similar job of organisation, but in Henry’s interest: transferring both the unfinished tomb and the body of former monastic lands into the king’s hands. The Cardinal’s death in late 1530 ended Cromwell’s self-imposed task of defending his old master from final catastrophe, focusing all his formidable talents on royal service. From 1532 Cromwell became the unrivalled chief minister, to the frustration and fury of noblemen who had combined to bring down the Cardinal with the aim of regaining what they regarded as their natural place in royal government.
