Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Yes, I know: I've seen the television series based upon this novel and its sequels, and I usually arrange to read the novel first. But it matters little here- this is well-trodden history and spoilers hardly apply. Moreover, the two are not particularly alike. Plot is one thing; interiority is another. Yes, this novel may be a truly magnificent feat of making us truly feel the England of the 1520s and '30s, but it is more than that.

The novel is told entirely through the thoughts and impressions of Thomas Cromwell. The various familiar figures from the reign of Henry VIII very much appear, but we see all of them as Cromwell does. And we come to understand him- his kindness to children, his hard-headed bruiser side, his workaholism, his deeply cultured nature.

The novel truly communicates the nuances and paradoxes of its age, an age in which the line between Catholic and Protestant is blurred in ways which would soon not be true, and an age in which judicial murder coexists with the primacy of legal propriety, in which a famously tyrannical king nonetheless respects that he is constrained by Parliament.

The novel takes a notably sympathetic approach to Cromwell himself, as well as to the future Queen Mary I and the seemingly kindly Cardinal Wolsey. Others, notably Thomas More, the king himself, and Anne Boleyn, get damning portraits, particularly More, a torturing zealot and abusive husband. Others, such as the Duke of Norfolk and the young Christophe, are simply fun.

This is a novel that's all about the nuance, the texture, the reimagined history. It's a truly dizzying experience.

Wolf Hall- The Mirror and the Light: Light

 "The King of France gave me gloves. He didn't want to marry me..."

Wow. And with that... I'm broken.

The genius of this real piece of televisual splendour is that... well, wew know what happens. This is documented histoiry. We know how and when Thomas Cromwell dies. There's no suspense here, but suspense is not the point. There is only character, and emotion.

There is Cromnwell's true stoicism, as he runs rings round his interlocutors while knowing he is nevertheless doomed. Oh, he's accused of arrogance, getting above himself, wanting to marry Mary, othersuch absurdities... and heresy, of which he is guilty by the standards of the age, rejecting the Pope only for a very Enflish Catholicism. Yet above all, I think, it's his impatience for the grinding of due process, his manipulation of events, that he is damned. And so, as he says, he will be followed by slower men, and England will suffer.]

He is clear-minded, cautioning his friends to stay apart and not seem to be plotting. He insists that Gregory denounce him for his own safety, as would any father in his position. Yet his calm does not mean absence of feeling, as Mark Rylance shows us with sublime subtlety. Some peoople are vlatile, but those of us whonare calm and composed have feelings too, and Cromwell has his demons... and yet one, at least, is healed. He feels himself reconciled with Wolsey's ghost, and his final plrea for forgiveness before his beheading, are clearly aimed at his former master, a lovely touch. And, as a parallel, his own protege Rafe has the most love for his own master.

And so it ends, and so does he. The ending is devatating. Liuke Anne Boleyn, he finds dignity before the blade takes his life, all as the king prepares to wed yet again...

Sublime television.

Wolf Hall- The Mirror and the Light: The Mirror

 "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.

Wolf Hall- The Mirror and the Light: Jenneke

 "You're going to bring them down? The oldest and richest familes in the land?"

"Like skittles!"

It's redundant, by now, for me to point out that any given episode of Wolf Hall, this one most certainly included, is a televisual masterpiece. But I seem to have done so anyway. Yes, big things are happening- the birth of a son for the king, the tragic, negligent death of Jane, the peace between King Francis and Charles V and the dangers posed to England. And yet this series ais about Thomas Cromwell, and this is where his position starts to slip.

Oh, he finds happiness in Jenneke, the lovely daughter of whom he's just learned... yet he is loving, good, tender and fatherly, a good man. In stark contrast to the things which Dorothea said to him, things that have truly shaken to him and, as we often see, haunt his nightmares. He doubts himself, wonders if he betrayed Wolsey after all, knowingly or not, and confesses himself "undone".

Jane's death upsets him deeply, more so than his tyrant king, play-acting at mourning. And Stephen Gardiner is back, with the ear of the king, pushing him against "heresy". Cromwell, baring his soul to Archbishop Cranmer, begins to despair that all he's done to bring Protestantism to England may perhaps be for naught. And Gardiner (Alex Jennings a worthy successor to Mark Gatiss) is an insidious foe, one in the ascendant.

He is getting nowhere with the Poles. He clashes with the Duke of Norfolk, ironically in defence of Wolsey and the old ways. His influence with Mary is diminished. 

All hope rests in an alliance with the German princes, and a new bride from Cleves. We know the history here, of course. Yet this episode gives us a much deeper context in which Cromwell is already losing ground.

As Cromwell's vaunted ambassador to Charles V, Thomas Wyatt, would say... circa regna tonat.

Wolf Hall- The Mirror and the Light: Defiance

 "In the north parts, they use your name to terrify their children..."

Oh my. There's soooo much going on here. Yet the overall trajectory is clear: Henry's court is always a place of peril, both geographically and conceptually, and for Cromwell, this may be the beginning of his slow end.

For the king, he keeps failing to get Reginald Pole. Those rumours about him wanting to marry the Lady Mary just won't go away. And the schemes he is forced to use, because of the king, are beginning to affect others' opinions of him. Most obviously, the Lincolnshire rebels, who see him as a literal antichrist... but there is mistrust and misunderstanding everywhere. The ending of last episode sort of broke Cromwell emotionally, and suddenly he is alive to how he is seen.

Those jibes from Lady Rochford (possibly my favourite character) hit harder. Bess mistakenly believes she is to marry the father, not the son, and even Gregory suspects Thomas of designs on his wife. Ouch.

The King continues to be scary and volatile. Chapuys continues to be a fun character, the ultimate player of ten dimensional chess. But the atmosphere is, if such a thing were possible, all the more dangerous. Even Jane, in the things she begs for, risks angering the king. If she were not with child, well... it's clear that her reputation as Henry's favourite wife owes not to any real affection on his part but what she gave him in her death. Poor woman. But I get ahead of myself.

We end with a bombshell: Cromwell has an illegitimate daughter. Yet the peril seems so much more...

Superlative telly. As if it needed saying.

Wolf Hall- The Mirror and the Light: Obedience

 "I created him..."

And the second episode turns out to be even better than the first, which is saying a lot. In fact, let us not mince words: yes, it looks fantastic and the acting is first rate. But this is an absolute masterpiece of televisual scriptwriting- and makes it clear that I need to read the original novels as it seems likely that Hilary Mantel may indeed be a genius.

This is a masterpiece of form and feeling. In showing us the deadly danger of Henry's court, where anyone can sudenly be judicially murdered at the whim of a capricious tyrant, we have a series of examples. Firstly, there is Lady Margaret and her affair and, indeed, marriage (without the king's permission) to Thomas, one of the younger, pooer Howards. Meg is soon made by Cromwell and her friend, in an extraordinary scene, to realise just how much trouble she's in... but Thomas stands to lose everything.

For this is a world in which it is treason to imagine the death of the king. To marry the king's niece is to maneouvre oneself closer to the throne, and this smacks of dangerous ambition.

Yet soon Cromwell himself faces the same danger, as absurd yet potentially damaging rumours start to spead of his wishing to marry the Lady Mary. The aggression with which he treats Chapuys here leaves us in no doubt that he realises fully the dangers of his situation.

And then we have poor Jane Seymour, having to endure the sexual attentions of that bloated, smelly man. She confesses to not enjoying said attentions, and worries that, without taking sexual pleasure, she will not conceive a son. What lies unspoken, horribly, is that, without a son, she will be yet another Anne Boleyn, fated for the block.

Finally, we have the devastating conclusion, as Cromwell shakily says all the wrong things to Wolsey's daughter, slowly realising exactly how he is seen... and may have been seen, at the end, by his beloved Wolsey himself.

Oh, the things one must sacrifice for the king. And he will always demand more and more...

Wolf Hall- The Mirror and the Light: Wreckage

 "I do not understand you, Cromwell. Why are you not afraid? You should be afraid."

It's been... yeah, many, many years. Use the search function if you'd like to see my reviews of the earlier series, adapting Hilary Mantel's first two novels- I did; I certainly needed my memory refreshing. So much life has happened for me since then....

This first episode is extraordinarily powerful. Story, stript, acting, look, direction- all are superb in depicting the sheer peril of politics where the tyrant at the centre of it all is a highly intelligent, scarily volatile and utterly caprucious monster such as Henry VIII, a tyrant of truly terrifying proportions.

As per The Private Life of Henry VIII, a film which, oddly enough, I saw only weeks ago, we begin with the horrifying juxtaposition of Anne Boleyn walking to the scaffold as Henry prepares to marry Jane Seymour the same day. This sequence alone, beautifully shot, says everything. Horrifyingly, Anne keeps looking up, to the windows of the Tower, imagining that there may be hope...

Yet much of the episode concerns the fascinating and deadly games of power. Cromwell may be at the centte of all yet, as Chapuys amusedly pointds out, he is utterly dependent on the King, with no one to save him should he falter. No wonder he is carefully writing a book on how to handle the King.

The King, at this point, seems even worse than before, seemingly contemplating the execution of his own daughter for refusing to sign the oath, yet turning on a sixpence at the end to embrace his cowed child. As for Cromwell himself... he plays such a dangerous game. At one point, when Henry seems to turn fully against Mary, he himself even acknowledges that things certainly appear bleak.

I'm going to enjoy this series so very much- telly at its best.

Wolf Hall: Episode 3- Anna Regina

"This is Master Cromwell. He used to be a moneylender. Now he writes all the laws."

It's 1531. The Pope still says no. The King has therefore made himself the head of the Church of England, and Cromwell is front and centre. He's a powerful man, but his religious policies and, especially, his humble origins, have made him enemies. His response is to stick close to Anne, but will she stick close to him?

It's interesting to see Cromwell rejecting superstition; to show this makes him seem modern to the contemporary viewer and reveals how sympathetic we're intended to find the character. And we largely do, mainly because of Mark Rylance's extraordinary acting. We really feel for him when he gets dumped by his lover, especially as said lover is his late wife's sister, and thus a heavy hint that he's still haunted and defined by that awful tragedy.

Less sympathetic is More, happy to torture people in order to "save their souls". I'm happy to see this historically accurate portrayal of him as a dangerous fanatic, sadist and murderer, but I'm still unconvinced by the way Anton Lesser has chosen to play him, as something close to a thug. This sits wrongly, especially in the episode where Anne and Cromwell look down as he resigns as Lord Chancellor. Still, this scene is a nice depiction of how More is moving away from the centres of power as Cromwell moves ever closer, now being a confidant of the King's lover and future Queen. Even a drunken King now seems fond of Cromwell, a man who does his bidding, who came from nothing, who owes all to Henry.

We have a bit of comic relief with Mary Boleyn, whose attraction turns out not to be for Cromwell alone, but the episode ends on an ominous note as Cromwell sees a friend burned at the stake. He is living very, very dangerously.

Once again an excellent piece of telly, and I'm halfway through already.

Wolf Hall: Episode 2- Entirely Beloved

"The Pope will learn his place"

It's December 1529. Cromwell is stubbornly loyal to the doomed Wolsey in spite of the total lack of hope. Wolsey is a tragic, declining figure, and his metaphorical death inevitably translates into a real death before the end of the episode. It's interesting to see how Cromwell re-aligns his allegiances- to his co-religionist Anne Boleyn- without betraying his principles. This is also a sign, of course, of the growing impact of the Reformation in England. More may still be burning heretics, but the King's desire for a divorce that the Pope will never give is a huge opportunity for the Protestant cause, and they know it.

Rylance continues to give us a masterclass in acting, with every gesture and every expression suggesting a depth and interiority. Thomas Cromwell is a fascinating and multi-layered character. Awkward but loving with his son, bold (but not too bold) with his admiring King, this is a man who is humble in his personal life and yet bold, if not foolhardy, when it comes to his beliefs. 

Mark Gatiss' Gardiner is deliciously slimy, although I'm not sure that Anton Lesser gives us a sufficiently principled More. This is the episode where he resigns as Lord Chancellor out of deep principle; I'm not sure that Lesser's playing the part as a blustering hard man quite works.

The episode climaxes with Cromwell's being summoned into the Royal presence in the dead of life. This is the court of Henry VIII, and such a summons can mean death, but no: this is opportunity. Cromwell's interpretation of the King's dream to mean that he, not the Pope, should be head of the Church manages to further both Cromwell's own interests and those of this cause.

Wolf Hall: Episode 1- Three Card Trick

"Never mind who that is. It's nobody."

So, how many different TV series am I blogging at the moment? Anyway, here's another one.

It's somewhat odd watching this so relatively soon after I blogged The Tudors, covering roughly the same historical period and therefore consisting of much the same event and the same characters portrayed by a different cast. There are significant differences, though. This is no melodrama but a serious adaptation of two works of literary fiction, and there's a more realistic attitude to sets and costume, and a. much artier directorial style. The use of candlelight for the indoor scenes is particularly superb.

This episode, centred on the beginning of Wolsey's fall but using extensively non-linear storytelling to make heavy use of flashbacks, introduces us to both Thomas Cronwell the fascinatingly nuanced character and to Mark Rylance, an actor of the very first rank who rarely deigns to appear on screen. He's every bit as good here as his theatrical reputation. Other stand-outs are a world-weary Jonathan Pryce as Wolsey and a delightfully sinister Mark Gatiss as Stephen Gardiner.

There's a lot of emphasis on class, Cromwell's humble beginnings and his lack of nobility- we even meet his abusive and very working class father. Indeed, it is Wolsey's earlier snobbery towards the Boleyn family that ultimately causes his downfall, or so it is strongly implied, although on the other hand we also get a rather handy bit of exposition from Gardiner about Charles V's Habsburg hordes marching on Rome to make the Pope their bitch, ensuring Henry VIII has sod all chance of divorcing Charles' aunt.

I'm sure this theme will continue to develop, as well as the obvious theme of the upcoming English Reformation. Cromwell's Protestant leanings are hidden for now; the irony of his being so loyal to the Cardinal is, I'm sure, not lost on a single viewer.

The main "event" of the episode is, of course, the sudden and horrible death of Cromwell's wife and two daughters from the sweating sickness. This is shot and acted in order to give us maximum sympathy for Cromwell. I hope none of us ever have to imagine such suffering. It's a superb sequence of scenes.

Things end on an uncertain note. Wolsey is, of course, finished, but has Cromwrll somehow saved his career by impressing the King by some intelligent cheekines? We shall see how it happens. But what is certain is that this promises to be a very impressive little series.