"You have few friends, Cromwell..."
This episode, as are so many others, is a materpiece in how it shows us the slow bursting of Cromwell's bubble, power and favour slipping away from him. Yes, the final couple of minutes are enormously shocking, even if you know your history, but the whole thing is masterfully structured.
There are, of course, big events swirling outside of Cromwell's control. The events of Henry meeting, and didliking, Anne of Cleves are just as we know from history, but the wider European context is emphasised, with its ironies. An alliance with the German princes is necessary precisely because the alliance between France and Charles V threatens England- yet, as soon as the king is married, England's ambassador to Spain (none other than Sir Thomas Wyatt, whose greatest poem is, of course, about Henry's terrifying, bloody and murderous capricioiusness) drives a wedge between them. The German alliance, and Henry's unhappy marriage, is no longer needed.
Worse, Cromwell's feud with the Duke of Norfolk is deepened, as the chancery which prays for Norfolk's ancestors is dissolved. And Norfolk, it seems, has been hiding conciliatory messages from France. And then there are the ongoing rumours about Cromwell and Mary, Cromwell yet again preventing her marriage...
And the king grows ever colder. And ever closer to Norfolk's niece.
There's so much nuance here. Cromwell's demons appear in flashback, and he now speaks to Wolsey's absent ghost. This is an episode of wonder. We really shouldn't be shocked by the ending, which really should be predictable. It says so much that we are.
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