A Man for All Tasks and Times
Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2009
By Martin Rubin
Although less famous than his great-great-grandnephew Oliver, Thomas Cromwell is well-known, thanks to the enduring fascination of Henry VIII and the Tudor court. Cromwell is of course a memorable villain in the play and movie “A Man for All Seasons”—the royal minister who, cruelly advancing Henry’s break with Rome, hounds Thomas More for a loyalty oath that he will not give. Cromwell naturally figured in “King Henry VIII and His Six Wives” (1972), the popular Masterpiece Theater version of these events, and he reappears these days, as dry and determined as ever, in the over-heated HBO series “The Tudors.” But for all the portraits of this 16th-century power broker in print and on screen—not to mention in the history books, where he is a central figure in the history of Protestant triumphalism—Cromwell has never before appeared as he does in Hilary Mantel’s dense, finely wrought “Wolf Hall,” the winner of this year’s Man Booker Prize in Britain. . . .
For Martin’s full review, click here or visit www.wsj.com.