La carriera di Thomas Cromwell e lo sviluppo dello statualità in Inghilterra (1532-1540)

The objective of this chapter is to propose a reassessment of the career of Thomas Cromwell (1485 c.-1540), first earl of Essex, in order to cast new light on the relation between the choice of Henry VIII to entrust administrative tasks to a “technician” and the evolution of statehood in early modern England. In 1532, three years after the fall of Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIII chose Cromwell, a common lawyer coming from a middle-class family, as a chief minister because of his professional experience and his administrative abilities. Cromwell embodied the figure of the modern chief minister, equipped with a long and thorough practical experience in the legal field, which allowed him to manage the governmental tasks efficiently and professionally. Cromwell’s action has been interpreted by Geoffrey Elton as an essential contribution to the formation of the early modern English state. According to the well-known Eltonian thesis, thanks to the political and administrative reforms produced by the Cromwellian genius, the kingdom of England took the decisive step towards the modernization of the state apparatus in the 1530s. Although the most recent studies on the career of the Henrician statesman – which has recently been the subject of a historiographical revival – have reduced the importance that Elton has attributed to him, his career as a chief minister reveals useful details on the evolution of the structures of the early modern English state.