The author examines a set of relationships which illustrate just how dangerous life was in the court of the Tudor lion, Henry VIII. Wilson tells the interlocking stories of six men (all, curiously, named Thomas) whose ambitions and principles brought them face to face with violent death. They were: Cardinal Thomas Wolsey; Lord Chancellor Thomas More; Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex; Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk; Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton; and Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury;