Lock Cromwell in a deep dungeon in the morning, says Thomas More, and when you come back that night hell be sitting on a plush cushion eating larks tongues, and all the gaolers will owe him money.England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolseys clerk, and later his successor.Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and events.