"The deaths of three men define England in the 1530s: Thomas Cardinal Wolsey, who died en route to trial and execution in 1530; Thomas More, executed after conviction in a carefully staged trial in 1535; and Thomas Cromwell, bundled to execution without trial by virtue of an act of attainder in 1540. 'If I had served God as diligently as I have done the king,' lamented Wolsey, 'He would not have given me over in my grey hairs.' And he went on to add a pointed warning to future royal councillors: 'Be well advised and assured what matter you put in his head: for you shall never pull it out again.' Thomas More weighed things up a little differently in his final account, saying that he died 'the king's faithful servant, but God's first.' He also protested that he died 'in and for the faith of the Holy Catholic Church'—and no one was in any doubt as to which church he meant. Cromwell was more guarded: 'I intend this day to die God's servant.' His protestation that he died 'in the Catholic faith,' and his avowals of loyalty to its laws and sacraments were, as MacCulloch remarks, a touch ambiguous."
Richard Rex at First Things reviews Diarmaid MacCulloch's Thomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life.
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