Mistress Cromwell

by Carol McGrath

First published 2017

Amazon

4.2(4,102)

Widowed in Tudor London, Elizabeth Wyckes—known in the novel as Elizabeth Williams—is determined to preserve the commercial independence she inherited from her family. Her marriage to the ambitious lawyer Thomas Cromwell draws her into the household of a man whose talents will eventually carry him to the centre of Henry VIII’s government.

The novel looks at Cromwell’s rise from the domestic side of his life, before the familiar heights and catastrophe of his political career. Trade, marriage, household management and the insecurity faced by an independent woman provide the counterweight to court ambition. By making Elizabeth the viewpoint character, McGrath reconstructs the largely hidden family world behind one of the most consequential figures of Henry VIII’s reign.