Hello, I'm Lucy Worsley, chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces. You're listening to our podcast

that explores the history and stories of our six palaces. These talks are a collection of

some of our best live events. I really hope you enjoy listening. In the 1500s, the Tudor Court was the place to be seen.

This series of talks looks into court life in the 16th century during the reign of King

Henry VIII. In this episode, Historic Royal Palace's chief curator, Tracy Borman, explores

one of her favorite topics, the turbulent life of Thomas Cromwell

and his relationship with the English Reformation. Well, it's always a pleasure to give talks to

fans of historic royal palaces. Now, I'm hoping you are all fans here this evening because

you've made the effort you've come over here to Hampton Court on a pretty

miserable evening and I know some of you have traveled quite some distance to be

here so thank you and I'm here as Dan says to talk about a seismic event that

separated us from Europe.

There may be some parallels during the course of my talk.

This evening, I will try and keep it non-political,

but you kind of can't help but come to the conclusion

that history just goes on repeating itself.

Now, I'm talking about the man at the centre of it all, of course, Thomas Cromwell.

And I would like to just ask how many of you have read or watched Wolf Hall? Yep. I won't ask how many of you have read or watched Wolf Hall.

I won't ask how many have read my book Thomas Cromwell because it will depress me actually compared to that. However, yes, the incredible phenomenon that is

Wolf Hall first appeared in 2009 and then its sequel,

bring up the bodies a couple of years later. And if anybody knows when the third and final

volume is coming out, please tell me. Because it is probably the most hotly anticipated

...