The Scarlet Peacock

He was the son of an Ipswich butcher, but he was no ordinary boy.

His precocious intellect earned him a degree from Oxford at the unheard of age of fifteen, and his assumption of holy orders was to have an indelible impact on the status of the Church of Rome in England.

Thomas Wolsey first entered the royal service as chaplain to the ageing Henry VII, and stayed on as the first choice counsellor of his heir, Henry VIII.

Under royal patronage he rose to be Chancellor of England, Archbishop of York, and Papal legate for life.

But his love of flamboyant display, and his acquisition of ostentatious wealth, were anathema to the old nobility who resented such success by a mere commoner. Chief among these was his old boyhood enemy Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who had a potent weapon in his arsenal.

Her name was Anne Boleyn.

Wolsey’s inability to secure the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon was the breach in the wall through which Norfolk and his faction poured poison into Henry’s ear.

Wolsey was stripped of most of his offices and retreated in disgrace on a northern pilgrimage from which he was destined not to return alive.

No-one was left to mourn his passing other than his loyal protégé Thomas Cromwell, who vowed revenge on the woman who had been the primary cause of the downfall of one of the most able clergymen and ambassadors that England would ever know.

This is his story – the highs, the lows, and the treacheries of life at the court of one of England’s most colourful monarchs, seen through the eyes of one of its most tragic victims.

Praise for David Field

"Recommended for fans of The Tudors and Wolf Hall " - Richard Foreman

David Field was born and educated in Nottingham, and it was at Nottingham High School that he first acquired his love of the history, and language, of England, which he has over the years combined in a series of historical novels. He currently resides with his wife in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia.