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I'm J. Slay Cobb, and you're listening to Masterpiece Studio.

July 1540, the Tower of London.

Thomas Cromwell might not have been a prisoner in the tower before,

but he is no stranger to the room in which he is being kept,

for it is the same room that Anne Boleyn was kept in,

where she pleaded to Cromwell for her life shortly before her execution. The irony that Cromwell himself commissioned these

very rooms where Anne spent her final days is not lost on him. As Cromwell awaits his fate,

many thoughts occupy the once powerful man's mind, thoughts of his past, thoughts of

Anne, and a memory of his daughter, Jenica, who offered him an escape from Henry's dangerous

court.

If I'd known, I would have come.

Then come with me now.

Father, to Arpa that you were homesick for.

But you will not.

But Cromwell chose to stay, to bask in the reflected glow of Henry's power.

Now Cromwell's ever-faithful ward, Rave Sadler, pays him a visit to share what few details he has about his master's imprisonment.

How did Parliament take it?

In silence.

...