Thomas Cromwell (1485?-1540), English statesman and adviser to Henry VIII, who helped direct the Church of England. Cromwell was born of humble parentage in Putney, near London. After leaving England as a youth, he visited Italy and the Netherlands and then served as a soldier in the French army, as a trader, and as a messenger. Returning to England about 1510, he engaged in the businesses of dressing cloth and moneylending. Soon he became a confidential agent of several notables, including King Henry VIII's lord chancellor, Thomas Cardinal Wolsey, who helped him become a member of the House of Commons in 1523. For the next six years, until Wolsey fell from power, Cromwell was one of his principal agents.

Thereafter Cromwell was a loyal adviser and agent of Henry VIII, quickly attaining a position of great power. He was privy councillor in 1531, chancellor of the Exchequer in 1533, secretary to the king in 1534, vicar general in 1535, lord privy seal in 1536, and lord great chamberlain in 1539. He was created a baron in 1536 and earl of Essex in 1540. Cromwell was chiefly responsible for the execution of royal policies in dissolving the monasteries and in reforming the Church of England in the direction of Protestantism. He lost favor with the king, partly because the king's marriage to Anne of Cleves, which Cromwell had arranged, proved unsuccessful. After that Cromwell's enemies accused him of treason, and his fall was swift. Shortly after being named earl of Essex in the spring of 1540, he was arrested and executed without trial by Henry's order.