Rising from a Lincolnshire family of limited political influence, Ralph Cromwell became one of the most significant figures of the mid-fifteenth century. Linking structure to biography, the personality of a man on the rise from Lord of the Manor to Lord Treasurer of England is reflected in the power statements of his castles, great houses and ecclesiastical buildings. This can be contrasted with glimpses of the vulnerabilities and status anxieties bound up in his social identity with emphatic, yet revealing architectural statements revolving around his motto, heraldry, livery badges and repeated architectural devices. Those structures which he commissioned then went on to have an extraordinarily powerful legacy which lasted for over 150 years of English architecture.
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