The origin of Thomas Cromwell's public career : service under cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII, 1524-30
In the early years of the 1520s Thomas Cromwell was simply a successful London merchant and lawyer. Yet by 1530 he had entered the service of Henry Vifi, rising thereafter to a position of power as chief minister. The aim of this study is to describe how Cromwell moved from an essentially private, to an increasingly public, world. The key to Cromwell's rise was his employment in the service of cardinal Wolsey. The first chapter of this study challenges the currently accepted view that it began as early as 1514 or 1516, suggesting instead that 1524 was the critical year. It was in this year that Cromwell was recruited to manage the dissolution of nearly thirty religious houses and oversee the establishment, out of their income, of colleges at Oxford and Ipswich. Chapters two to four demonstrate Cromwell's key role in the complicated and drawn out procedures necessary for the establishment of the colleges. Both the college project and Cromwell's association with it have been well known from the sixteenth century but until now never thoroughly examined, despite the survival of a large amount of documentary evidence at the Public Record Office. In particular, a large part of the inadequately listed record class,
Ward, Philip John
History
The origin of Thomas Cromwell's public career : service under cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII, 1524-30. In the early years of the 1520s Thomas Cromwell was simply a successful London merchant and lawyer. Yet by 1530 he had entered the service of Henry Vifi, rising thereafter to a position of power as chief minister. The aim of this study is to describe how Cromwell moved from an essentially private, to an increasingly public, world. The key to Cromwell's rise was his employment in the service of cardinal Wolsey. The first chapter of this study challenges the currently accepted view that it began as early as 1514 or 1516, suggesting instead that 1524 was the critical year. It was in this year that Cromwell was recruited to manage the dissolution of nearly thirty religious houses and oversee the establishment, out of their income, of colleges at Oxford and Ipswich. Chapters two to four demonstrate Cromwell's key role in the complicated and drawn out procedures necessary for the establishment of the colleges. Both the college project and Cromwell's association with it have been well known from the sixteenth century but until now never thoroughly examined, despite the survival of a large amount of documentary evidence at the Public Record Office. In particular, a large part of the inadequately listed record class,
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