If you've read Hilary Mantell's Wolf Hall, or perhaps some of the work of my guest today,

you'll have seen the Tudor Court through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, at least you'll

have seen a fictionalised version of it, albeit one rooted in the sources.

But who was the real Thomas Cromwell?

Sometimes Secretary and Vice-Gerent took Henry VIII.

Where did Cromwell come from?

What do we know of the shadowy 15 odd years of his early manhood?

Was he really was he servant above all else?

And how did one who seemed to shun promotion and advancement rise vertiginously to the

highest position in the land?

And why did he fall from that precarious height so swiftly and fatally?

Caroline Angus, my guest today, will tell us all.

Caroline Lives in New Zealand studied history at the University of Diverlencia in Spain

and at King's College London.

For the last decade she has written historical fiction about the Spanish Civil War and the

world of Thomas Cromwell.

But in the end her great knowledge of Cromwell's surviving papers which she has also edited

for publication under the title My Hearty Commendations, led her to write The Private

Life of Thomas Cromwell, her first nonfiction book which was published in August 2022.

Caroline, thank you so much for joining me.

I'm really excited to talk to you about your book.

And I suppose the first question to ask you is why you wrote it?

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