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Books

Thomas Cromwell: more Tony Soprano than Richard Dawkins

A review of Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most faithful Servant, by Tracy Borman. More conviction is needed from this otherwise engaging new biography

23 August 2014

9:00 AM

23 August 2014

9:00 AM

Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII’s Most Faithful Servant Tracy Borman

Hodder, pp.464, £25, ISBN: 9781444782851

The travel writer Colin Thubron once told me that to understand a country and its people he first asks, ‘What do they believe?’ This is also a good place to begin when writing about the past, not least when your subject is Thomas Cromwell, a key figure in the English Reformation. 

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Available from the Spectator Bookshop, £20. Tel: 08430 600033. Leanda de Lisle’s books include Tudor: the Family Story, The Sisters Who Would be Queen, and After Elizabeth.

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