Graven with diamonds : the many lives of Thomas Wyatt: poet, lover, statesman, and spy in the court of Henry VIII

Summary: "In this thrillingly entertaining book, Nicola Shuman interweaves the bloody events of Henry VIII's reign with the story of English love poetry and the life of its first master, Henry VIII's most glamorous and enigmatic subject: Sir Thomas Wyatt. Learned divines despised it, sober heads ignored it, but for Henry, the beau ideal of chivalry, poetry made things happen. It affected his wars, his diplomacy and his many marriages. It was at the root of his fatal attraction to Anne Boleyn a source of her power and a means of her destruction. Poet, statesman, spy, lover of Ann Boleyn and favorite both of Henry VIII and his sinister minister Thomas Cromwell, the brilliant Wyatt was admired and envied in equal measure. His love peotry began a risqué entertainment for ambitious men and women at the slippery top of the court. But when the axe began to fall and Henry VIII's laws made his subjects go silent in terror, Wyatt's poetic skills became a way to survive. He saw that a love poem was a place where secrets could hide" -- Publisher's description.