The Ebbs and Flows of Fortune is the first comprehensive biography of Norfolk. In this study David M. Head confronts the central paradox of Norfolk's career - one that lies in his unpleasant personality, marked by vain and tyrannical behavior. Ultimately these flaws prohibited him from achieving the social position he believed was owed to him, mainly because of his family's status and wealth.

Essentially a conservative, socially and religiously, Norfolk was uncomfortable with reformation ideology and the "low-brow" men of the court. The duke sought a primary position within the court on the model of that earned by Cromwell and Wolsey but was unwilling to perform the sustained hard work required to achieve that stature. By the 1540s Norfolk was probably the richest man in England, but nonetheless, at the hands of Cromwell and Wolsey, he was repeatedly exiled from the court for emotional excesses.

He found himself assigned to posts at considerable distances from the crown - military assignments in France and diplomatic appointments to Ireland and Scotland. While in France he illustrated the cruelty of his character by hanging dozens of men and lamenting his lack of authority to execute more.