Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton
Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton, KG was an English peer, secretary of state, Lord Chancellor and Lord High Admiral. A naturally skilled but unscrupulous and devious politician who changed with the times, Wriothesley served as a loyal instrument of King Henry VIII in the latter's break with the Catholic church. Richly rewarded with royal gains from the Dissolution of the Monasteries, he nevertheless prosecuted Calvinists and other Protestants when political winds changed.
Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton, miniature by Hans Holbein the Younger
Thomas Cromwell, briefly Earl of Essex, was an English statesman and lawyer who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king, who later blamed false charges for the execution.
Portrait of Thomas Cromwell, Hans Holbein the Younger (1532–1533)
Cardinal Thomas Wolsey
Thomas Cromwell, c. 1532–3, attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger
Anne Boleyn