The King's Commoner

Men rise and fall from power in Henry VIII’s treacherous court...

Tudor England Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Lord Chancellor of England and Archbishop of York owes his favoured status to the most volatile monarch that the nation has ever known.

In an age when a man can be a royal favourite one day, and consigned to an unspeakable death the next, Wolsey walks the tightrope above his many enemies.

Chief among these is the bullying Duke of Norfolk, scion of a noble family who bitterly resents the preferment of a butcher’s son to positions of power and influence that he regards as his by birth.

Norfolk sees his chance when Wolsey fails King Henry VIII in his attempt to secure the annulment of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon, so Anne Boleyn can be made Queen.

In the maelstrom of Tudor politics, Wolsey learns the hard way that loyalty and ability will not protect a fallen favourite from the sting of royal wrath…