When Owen Emmerson and Kate McCaffrey revealed their latest find I was gobsmacked. It seems almost unbelievable to think that Thomas Cromwell’s Book of Hours has just been sat on a shelf in the Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge, for so many years without really being examined. As Emmerson and McCaffrey explain in this book, it was one of two donated to the college, and the Book of Hours was thought to be the much less interesting.
The book goes through how the discovery was made, and the trail of evidence that links it to the Sadler family – Ralph Sadler was a close friend and protégé of Cromwell, and it was the wife of his grandson who donated it to the college. It also examines the evidence that the Wren Library book is in fact the one in the portrait of Cromwell and how it links to previous discoveries about Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon’s Books of Hours.
The book is well-written and engaging to read and admits that there are still so many unanswered questions with research ongoing. It’s important to admit what we don’t know, and it’s exciting to think about what may still be discovered. Emmerson and McCaffrey are redefining what we think we know with their new discoveries, and I am so excited to see what they do in the future!
Chapters:
- The Theory
- The Context: The Books of Hours
- The Evidence: Sixteenth Century
- The Evidence: Seventeenth Century
- Conundrums and Conclusions
Tudor Blogger 