Special Guest Blogger: Thomas Cromwell

Being friends with Henry VIII could be a double edged sword. I was his most adept henchman and the ruthless engineer of the English king’s divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, his split from Rome, and the destruction of his second wife, Anne Boleyn.
But as a matchmaker, I turned out to be a dismal failure a shortcoming that would cost me my head.
Henry had married three times but after the death of his third queen, Jane Seymour, I determined a political match was in order to help shore up England’s Protestant alliances in Germany and i settled on Anne, a princess from the duchy of Cleves.
Henry agreed to the match based on the glowing reports of her beauty and grace i gave him as well as a somewhat alluring portrait of the princess i commissioned by the court painter Hans Holbein.
Having successfully set up the political alliance with Cleves, I awaited my master’s romantic response and he eagerly set to to the coast to meet his intended but upon first seeing Anne, he stormed 'I like her not!' which isn't a great start to a marraige but nothing he could do about it without imperiling the vital alliance.
Henry blamed me personally for placing his neck into the yoke and at his wedding speech he said 'if it were not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do this day what I must do this day' but i hoped that his mood might improve after he actually bedded Anne.
Nope, the morning after the wedding night he declared: 'I liked her before not well but now I like her much worse'.
I felt bad for Anne but even worse for me because six months after this Henry had the marriage annulled on the grounds on non-consummation and but I wasn’t so lucky.
I was arrested on a false charge of heresy, and with Henry saying that he was putting to death the most faithful servant he ever had which gave me little comfort as I was then beheaded and impaled on a spike on top London Bridge.