m instalment in your thomas cromwell trilogy. so how was it going? it is going well.ap forward, and just last week i could email my editor and say, since i emailed you last week, i have done 12,000 words, and they are good words. 12,000 words is nothing, but you suddenly inc, now, this project, it is pulling away from its moorings, you know? it really wa nts from its moorings, you know? it really wants to be written. and i think i am probably entering into the most frenzied but also, in a way, the most pleasurable days of the rioting, where it seems to have taken charge and it is doing it itself. can you envisage a writing life aeons thomas cromwell now? there is so much i want to do. and not just there is so much i want to do. and notjust in there is so much i want to do. and not just in prose there is so much i want to do. and notjust in prose but maybe in the theatre as well. and it is just a question of how much stamina have i got, what time have i got left? each project ta kes got, what time have i got left? each project takes years to realise. so i have to have

thomas cromwell, people say, that's an ingenious man. knows the whole of the new testament by heart? he is the very man of an argument about god breaks out. he's the very man for telling your tenants 12 good reasons their rents are fair. he's man to cut through some legal entanglement that has ensnared you for three generations. or talk your sniffling little daughter into the marriage she swears she will never make. with animals, women, and timid little ones, his manner is gentle and easy. but he makes your creditors weep. he can converse with you about the caesars, or get you venetian glassware at a very reasonable rate. nobody can out talk him. if he wants to talk. nobody can better keep their head when markets are falling and weeping men are standing in the street tearing up letters of credit. "liz", he says to his wife, one night, "i believe in a year or two, we'll be rich." thank you. in the novels you challenge the traditional view of cromwell. he was always depicted as a villain, but you make a much more sympathetic character, eve