Henry VIII of England significant buildings, including Nonsuch Palace, King's College Chapel, Cambridge and Westminster Abbey in London. Many of the existing buildings Henry improved were properties confiscated from Wolsey, such as Christ Church, Oxford; Hampton Court Palace; the Palace of Whitehall; and Trinity College, Cambridge. Henry was an intellectual. The first English king with a modern humanist education, he read and wrote English, French and Latin, and was thoroughly at home in his well-stocked library. He personally annotated many books and wrote and published one of his own. To promote the public support for the reformation of the church, Henry had numerous pamphlets
Thomas Cromwell plays, feature films, and television miniseries, usually as a villainous character. More recently, however, Hilary Mantel's two Man Booker Prize-winning novels "Wolf Hall" (2009) and "Bring up the Bodies" (2012) have sought to show him in a more sympathetic light, stressing his family affections, genuine respect for Cardinal Wolsey, zeal for the Reformation, and support for a limited degree of social reform. Thomas Cromwell Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, (; 1485 – 28 July 1540) was an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540, when he was