He is also vengeful, manipulative and cleverer by far than almost anyone else he encounters, including and especially the high-born aristocrats who surround Henry and who despise Cromwell on the grounds - absurd to modern eyes, but the universally accepted wisdom in the early 16th Century - that he is an upstart of humble birth, and that only they are fit to govern.

BBC: Can Mantel's Bring Up The Bodies match Wolf Hall?