Summary

In “Augmentation,” England is in religious turmoil. The Pope threatens to excommunicate Henry—a move that would embolden all of Henry’s enemies. While Cromwell has Protestant sympathies himself, he is discomfited by the hardline beliefs of the priest Robert Barnes, an enemy of Cromwell’s beloved former master Cardinal Wolsey (but now working as Cromwell’s spy). His strongest Protestant loyalty is to the English-language Bible. He’s thus alarmed by rumors that Tyndale, the man responsible for the first such translation, is dead.

Meanwhile, the Court of Augmentations dissolves the monasteries and redistributes their property to the nobility. Cromwell sees this as a way of keeping a grip on the country: faith wavers, but people will fight for their land. Henry, meanwhile, is “augmented” in different ways, richer but also heavier, half-crippled by a festering wound in his leg.

In “The Five...