Because biographies are now largely lodged in the domain of popular history, academic biographical works tend to be more microhistorical in nature. Some use the lives of their subjects to tell a larger story about a time and culture, and others bypass the lives of their famous figures to examine their legacies in the public consciousness. J. Patrick Hornbeck's new book, in many respects, does both. As a work of “mnemohistory,” it engages with how the historical and popular representation of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (1473–1530, chancellor of England between 1515 and 1529), changed over time and in different artistic and historiographical traditions. Likewise, as a biography of the many biographies, big and small, written or otherwise, of Wolsey, Hornbeck's book also functions as a larger examination of the cultural production of memory. It explores Wolsey's legacy in a variety of different media (biographies, pamphlets, polemical works, films, plays, novels, academic monographs, portraiture, and statuary), since the time of the (in)famous cardinal's death to the twenty-first century, ending with Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize–winning novel, Wolf Hall (2009). Hornbeck's insightful analysis of the multiple and often competing representations of Wolsey paints a broader picture of how the Reformation, anxieties about Catholic practice and foreign influence, and the expansion of state power were used to comment on contemporary issues. Despite Wolsey's reputation as a cunning statesman who, it is often argued, met his end on account of his own hubris and royal caprice, Hornbeck expertly shows how his legacy was a flexible instrument in the hands of theologians, writers, and artists. In reflecting particular religious and political concerns as they manifested over the centuries, Hornbeck demonstrates how Wolsey's afterlife opens up new ways in understanding the effects of the Henrician Reformation on English identities long after the last Tudor monarch reigned.

How should Wolsey be remembered? It is a question impossible to answer fully but one that generates a propulsive narrative force as Hornbeck takes us through the history of Wolsey's many afterlives. From George Cavendish's sympathetic portrayal of Wolsey published in the sixteenth century to Orson Welles's corpulent, scheming incarnation in A Man for All Seasons (1966), the many portrayals of the cardinal highlight a central issue in historical biography: even the lives of very famous historical figures, no matter what is known about them, can stimulate considerable debate and controversy when their roles in well-known historical events are highly contested. This issue becomes amplified when the subject is heavily featured in artistic or literary works that have mass appeal and thus an overwhelming power to shape public memory. In the case of Wolsey, his contested role as one of the agents of the Henrician Reformation even goes so far as presenting certain challenges when attempting to determine the extent of the cardinal's obesity (if he ever was in the first place). In fact, in his introductory chapter, Hornbeck uses Wolsey's fatness as a type of case study to explore how representations of the cardinal could evolve and reflect particular prejudices over time.

Hornbeck argues that the various discourses about Wolsey as one of the primary players in the politically turbulent Henrician Reformation fall into three major categories. The first—Wolsey as one the main architects of the schism—represents the worldly statesman who ensured the English church's break from Rome. The second—Wolsey as the corrupt papist—embodies the man whose loyalty to Rome and its traditions brought about his downfall (and one of the hallmarks of the evangelical tradition, exemplified by John Foxe). Third, there is Cavendish's Wolsey, the flawed but ultimately redemptive figure, which is the portrayal most generous to the maligned cardinal. These prototypes (the “basic ingredients,” as Hornbeck calls them, and the title and focus of the first chapter) are rooted in the moralizing and polemical literature that reformers and theologians produced almost immediately after Wolsey's death. And though these early representations were influential, the particularities of their political contexts have a tendency to recede to the background when new writers and historians begin to tell Wolsey's story in ways significant for their own times. The religious and political imperatives that fueled the numerous depictions of Wolsey are the subjects of the subsequent chapters of the book, which are organized into the early Stuart period (chapter 2, ca. 1580–1641), the period between the Restoration and Catholic Emancipation (chapter 3, 1641–ca. 1860), the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century (chapter 4, ca. 1850–ca. 1960), and the early 1960s to the present (chapter 5). Overall, the breakdown of this chronology has a clear logic and supports Hornbeck's narrative, which is highly engaging and informative, though the high points of the book are undoubtedly when Hornbeck is able to connect Wolsey's story to larger cultural currents. For example, his discussion of the availability of state papers for Henry VIII's reign and the newly rigorous standards that were set for academic historians serves as an excellent primer for those unfamiliar with the way that history writing changed and became professionalized in the nineteenth century.

Beyond illuminating Wolsey and his legacy, as a work that critically engages with the history of popular culture, this book is also an outstanding contribution to the fairly new study of “Tudorism” or “early modernism.” In a similar fashion to how “medievalism” allows us to understand popular conceptions of the Middle Ages, “Tudorism” has formally carved out a space in recent years for scholars of the early modern period to analyze how contemporary artists and writers have represented the Tudor period and its cast of characters. This type of academic work has become especially urgent given that television shows, films, and novels about the age of the Tudors only seem to be getting more popular as media become increasingly more accessible to consumers and able to shape their perceptions of history, Wolsey's included.