I think I was on an ‘I need to read more serious books’ kind of kick when I originally picked up the first volume of this trilogy, Wolf Hall. I had no idea what to expect, but it had won the Man Booker Prize, so I figured I would at least find out what all the fuss was about. I raced through that volume, devoured the second volume, Bring Up The Bodies, and couldn’t wait to get into the final volume of the trilogy, The Mirror and The Light.
If the first two books were about Thomas Cromwell, a common man, first avenging himself on those who betrayed his master, Cardinal Wolsey, and then finding the King’s favor and rising to power himself, the last book of the trilogy is, of course, the inevitable fall of Thomas Cromwell.
At the start of the novel, Cromwell is at the height of his power and riches. The dissolution of the monasteries is underway. The King has asked him to rid him of Anne Boleyn and he has done so. He has been asked to find The King a new wife and he has done so: Jane Seymour. He is Lord Privy Seal, his riches have never been greater and his power has never been greater and so, with power, comes the inevitable hubris.
Cromwell’s hubris is subtle though and I think that’s what’s incredible about Mantel’s trilogy overall. In our current age of democracies and parliaments and Congresses, it’s probably pretty hard to imagine what politics was like in the age of absolute monarchy, but if anyone out there has come close to capturing the reality of it, I’m willing to bet it’s probably Hilary Mantel. This is the kind of subtle politics where the wrong remark, made in passing to someone can be used against you in fatal ways.
The characters are- with a couple of exceptions (Anselma, Cromwell’s love from Antwerp before his first marriage, and the illegitimate daughter that resulted from that relationship, Jenneke— though Mantel does note that it is thought that Cromwell did have an illegitimate daughter named Jane.) real, historical people- so that’s a level of detail you have to respect. (The Author’s Note is a nice touch because it reveals that despite Cromwell’s fall from grace, his friends/associates did not do too badly in the end. Sadler, Richard Cromwell, and Gregory Cromwell bounced back quite nicely— and from Richard Cromwell’s branch of the family a century or so later, came a much more famous Cromwell: Oliver.)
Cromwell is riding high, but the King’s health is not good. His leg injury is bothering him and there is concern throughout the book that it could be the end of the King. (Turns out the King had seven more years and two more marriages to get through after Cromwell’s execution.) The health of the King is kind of the first sign of Cromwell’s hubris as at one point, he silently wishes for the King to name him Vice-Regent— which seems uncharacteristic of him, given what we know from the previous two books, but it’s also such a quick moment, you almost miss it. He likes the power. He likes the influence. He’s getting comfortable with it. This is a man who has been a bare-knuckle type of a brawler in the court of Henry VIII and now that he’s at the top of the circus, he’s getting comfortable.
Too comfortable as it turns out: the first sign of trouble is getting Henry’s daughter, Mary back in line. Henry wants to be reconciled to his daughter and Cromwell gets that done, but offers gifts to Mary that get interpreted as a desire to marry her to put himself in line for the throne. That’s not actually the truth from Cromwell’s point of view he goes out of his way to make sure nothing can be misinterpreted by either Mary or Henry for just that reason, but his enemies mark that down in their notebooks and it’s used against him later.
Throughout the book, abbeys and monasteries are being dissolved, their contents tallied up and their assets given to the Crown. Various people are angling for certain abbies/monasteries that are close to the government, Cromwell included— he seems to have a special interest in various relics and when the time comes to tally up Canterbury Cathedral, he removes the bones of Thomas Becket— something else that’s used against him later.
He makes mistakes, Thomas Cromwell. People are urging him to marry and he rather impulsively proposes marriage to Wolsey’s daughter, Dorothea— who has been residing in a convent, and she turns him down angrily, believing he is the one responsible for her father’s death. When he arranges a marriage for his son Gregory, the lady in question, Bess, thinks that he meant to marry her and not Gregory, which leads to some awkward family moments.
Ultimately though, it’s the death of Jane Seymour that brings him down. The King wants another wife and after some persuasion and negotiations, they settle on Anne of Cleves from Germany. She gets shipped in, everything is arranged and boy howdy does the King not like her. (Weirdly enough, in real life, they got on quite well as friends, but the marriage thing did not fly at all. Anne of Cleves got a generous settlement and wound up being known as ‘The King’s Beloved Sister’ and outlived the rest of his wives, Edward VI and the coronation of Mary I.) The failed marriage is such as disaster that it’s enough for Cromwell’s enemies to move against him and he’s taken to the Tower, a bill of attainder is brought against him in Parliament (so, no trial for him) and he’s executed.
I don’t know how best to describe just how beautiful Mantel’s writing is, so I’m going to offer you a quote:
He is far from England now, far from these islands, from the waters salt and fresh. He has vanished: he is the slippery stones underfoot, he is the last faint ripple in the wake of himself. He feels for an opening, blinded, looking for a door: tracking the light along the wall.
These are the last lines of the book, but it’s a good representation of how Mantel handles POV— it’s not quite second person, but to me, it’s almost borderline as Cromwell is referred to as ‘he’ throughout the trilogy more or less. It puts the reader squarely in his head and lets you read these events through his eyes. Everyone else is the typical third-person POV.
I haven’t dug into Mantel’s writing enough to figure out whether this was a deliberate choice on her part- I’m assuming, given the level of research that it was, but it’s a brilliant choice. It does take a little getting used to, but if the art of politics in the court of Henry VIII is down to subtle glances, passed notes, passing remarks, that kind of thing, what she does is capture that perfectly. That’s the contrast in these books: everything is so polite, everything is subtle, everything seems so royal right up until the moment your head is on the block. The King says something and the meaning of it is clear: I want a new wife. The implication is: You better take care of this for me.
In real life, Henry came to regret the execution of Cromwell.
Overall: You know how read the blurbs on the back of a book and wonder if it’s going to live up to the hype? This entire trilogy does. Also, if you’re a fan of period pieces, skip The Tudors and look up the Masterpiece Theater adaptation of Wolf Hall (which covers the first two novels of the trilogy). Amazing cast- Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell, Damian Lewis as Henry VII, Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn— it gets better from there. It sounds like they’re planning to do a second series covering this volume of the trilogy and I hope that happens because it captures the books just about perfectly.
Amazing trilogy, with amazing writing, I want to say that these might be the best novels about medieval politics I’ve ever read- in fact, let me just amend that: they are. My Grade: **** out of ****