Poet, statesman, spy, lover of Anne Boleyn and favorite both of Henry VIII and his minister Thomas Cromwell, the brilliant Sir Thomas Wyatt was admired and envied in equal measure. His love poetry began as risqué entertainment for ambitious men and women at the very top of the royal court. But when disfavored courtiers began to be imprisoned and executed, and Henry VIII's new laws made his subjects keep silent in fear, Wyatt saw that a love poem was a place where political secrets could hide. Nicola Shulman gives us a "fluid, poised, quick-witted dance through the poetic and political career of one of the most elusive, glittering figures of Tudor England" (Hilary Mantel).