Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – ), King of England (1509 – ). Married to Jane Seymour. Father of Mary Tudor, Elizabeth and Henry FitzRoy.
“Let’s think of you astrologically, because your contemporaries did. You are a native of Cancer the Crab and so never walk a straight line. You go sideways to your target, but when you have reached it your claws take a grip. You are both callous and vulnerable, hard-shelled and inwardly soft.”
Hilary Mantel, notes on characters
The story so far…
Week 1: Across the Narrow Sea / Paternity
In 1527, Henry has been on the throne for almost twenty years with no legitimate male heir. He wishes to divorce his wife Catherine, who was previously married to his diseased brother Arthur.
Week 2: At Austin Friars / Visitation
In 1527, we learn from Liz Cromwell that the king may have bought an expensive ring for a lady who is definitely not the queen. She warns her husband that all women in England will be against him if he divorces Queen Katherine.
Week 3: An Occult History of Britain (Part 1)
In 1523, Henry has made Mary Boleyn his mistress. By 1527, he has charged his cardinal with finding fault with his marriage. By this time, he has taken Mary’s sister Anne as his mistress, but he has not taken her to bed. She desires to be his queen.
Week 4: An Occult History of Britain (Part 2)
1527, and the king is losing faith in his cardinal. He is convinced he is not married, but they are no closer to proving it. The king spends his days with Anne, ‘the gossip is that she allows him to undress her’, while she reads him scripture. He is sick with love, melancholy in the evenings, and full of hope by day.
Week 5: Make or Mar / Three-Card Trick
If Henry was going to try Wolsey with treason, the cardinal would be the Tower. So they reason. He will not talk about the cardinal, and maybe we get the sense he does not know what he will do next. Wolsey wonders who is in charge now. Henry, or the Boleyns?
Henry, Cromwell considers, is “a king who very much likes to be liked.” It is something to remember.
One morning before a hunt, Henry interviews Cromwell. The lawyer tells the king what he told Parliament in 1523: “No ruler in the history of the world has ever been able to afford a war.” The king is angry, but perhaps he admires the face this man has. Cromwell says a prince must have fortitude: “The strength to live with what constrains you.” Henry does not mince his words. “Master Cromwell, your reputation is bad.”
They talk about him at Antonio Bonvisi’s house, that Spring of 1530. He allows his companions to be so familiar with him, as though you can be a friend to a prince. Thomas More believes this is impossible:
‘Yes, but friendship should be less exhausting … it should be restorative. Not like …’ More turns to him, for the first time, as if inviting comment. ‘I sometimes feel it is like … like Jacob wrestling with the angel.’
Cromwell to Bonvisi: “The king likes me.” Bonvisi to Cromwell: “The king is an inconstant lover.”
Week 6: Entirely Beloved Cromwell (Part 1)
He has been quarrelling with Katherine and fighting with Anne. “One could pity him,” says Mary Boleyn, “For the dog’s life they lead him.”
Henry: “Every day I miss the Cardinal of York.” He gives Cromwell a thousand pounds to help Wolsey on the road. “Ask your master to pray for me. Tell him it is the best I can do.”
In Holy Week, Cromwell finds the king in a melancholy mood. He misses the cardinal and everything he wants he cannot have. He only wants Anne. No, that is not true. He wants conversation and distraction. Cromwell gives it to him and more. It is a critical moment between them that may alter both their lives and the history of England. “Our history…”, the king says.
Week 7: Entirely Beloved Cromwell (Part 2)
When Cromwell meets Henry “alone”, Cromwell thinks: “The King does not know what ‘alone’ means.” They are in the butts. Target practice. Henry is the “winter king”, and his mind is on his conscience and pride. Anne says she will leave him, and his advisers say he should just marry her. “I will be unmanned by it.” He, Henry, pictures himself in disguise, scrapping with the grocers, the butchers, and vinters on Moorfields. It is a foolish, idle wish from a lonely, impatient king.
When George Cavendish finds the king at Hampton Court, Henry says: “I would not for twenty thousand pounds that the cardinal had died.” When Cromwell closes his palm, he thinks: “Henry, I have your heart in my hands.”
At Hampton Court, as Anne laughs at the cardinal being dragged to hell, Cromwell thinks the king looks afraid.
Week 8: The Dead Complain of Their Burial / Arrange Your Face (Part 1)
“I am good at telling people’s ages.” “I know who to send for. I always know.” What it must be like to have this self-confidence! The “monster-king” putting on his furs, going off to Mass. He believes Arthur, his brother, has come back to make him feel ashamed. “When I come to judgment, my brother will plead against me.” But Henry is like a child. He is like Gregory with his Merlin stories. Tell him one he likes, about how he is the once and future king. The prophecy fulfilled. And he will go to bed a happy man. Or: a happy king of England. For “the dreams of kings are not like the dreams of other men.”
Henry Viii. When Bishop Fisher is almost poisoned, the king is beside himself. “Poison is what Henry fears worse than Hell itself.”
Week 9: Arrange Your Face (Part 2)
We see Henry supported by a young Francis Weston and an older Thomas Cromwell, after drinking too much after a long day of playing at being Robin Hood. He tries to get his two councillors to make peace. “You and Gardiner, you must learn to pull together.”
Week 10: 'Alas, What Shall I Do For Love?' (Part 1)
The king approves of his good councillor Cromwell, working in Parliament against the disloyal clergy. He would get rid of his Master Secretary, Stephen Gardiner, but Cromwell tells him there is more honour in reconciling Gardiner to the truth, than breaking him.
In April 1532, Henry appoints Cromwell Keeper of the Jewel House. “Why should I not, tell me why should I not, employ the son of an honest blacksmith.” Honest?
At Easter, a friar calls him Ahab, bewitched by Jezebel. In May, the bishops submit to the supreme authority of the king. Thomas More hands in his resignation, and Cromwell recommends Mr Speaker Audley.
Cromwell drags Harry Percy into the king’s council, where he swears he was never married or pledged to Anne Boleyn. The king says “matters have gone so far” that Percy must swear on the bible. And then seal his oath in Holy Communion with the king.
Archbishop Warham tells the king: “I have seen you promote within your own court and council person whose principles and morals will hardly bear scrutiny. I have seen you deify your own will and appetite, to the sorrow and scandal of Christian people.”
Week 11: 'Alas, What Shall I Do For Love?' (Part 2) / Early Mass
The king moves in a mist of melancholic love. He makes his queen-to-be a Marquess in her own right, singing “Alas, What Shall I Do For Love,” with two other men — Thomas Wyatt and Mark Smeaton — who also love the lovely Anne Boleyn.
Other men are less besotted, and the king throws out Charles Brandon when he insults Anne in his presence. The King of France doesn’t seem keen either, sending Henry into a fury by suggesting Anne is met in France by his own royal mistress.
At Canterbury, he meets the Holy Maid and allows himself to be shaken by her words. “You will not reign seven months,” she says, if you marry Anne Boleyn. He tries to laugh it off, but she has also seen Henry’s mother “surrounded by pale fires.” Cromwell comforts the king as he did at Greenwich, two years ago.
When Cromwell gives him the ruby from King Francis, he says that the blacksmith’s son and the goldsmith will “put a higher valuation on it” and split the profit. “But I shall be liberal in the matter.” It is the first suggestion that the king does not entirely trust Thomas Cromwell.
‘Oh, you are not disappointing,’ Henry says, ‘But the moment you are, I will let you know.’
After the great feast at Calais, he grows jealous of the time Francis spends with Anne. And when they retire for the night, the two of them fight. “They like quarrelling.” But now, according to Mary, “She is in his arms, naked as she was born. She can’t change her mind now.”
At early Mass, he comes out of the church and puts on his hat. “It is a big hat, a new hat. And in that hat, there is a feather.”
Week 12: Anna Regina (Part 1)
25 January, 1533. Anne and Henry take their vows at a chapel at Whitehall. It is secret for now, while proceedings continue to annul Henry’s marriage to Katherine. But Anne can’t keep a secret, and it isn’t long before all of Europe knows.
Chapuys makes the king cry, suggesting he may never have an heir. It’s not great diplomacy on the part of the Imperial ambassador. “Am I not a man like other men?” says the King of England.
Henry prefers the company of the French ambassador. But de Dinteville is exasperated by the king’s company: “Do you wonder why I shake? Do you wonder I tremble before him? My river. My city. My salvation, cut out and embroidered just for me. My personally tailored English god.”
He makes Cromwell his new chancellor of the exchequer, following the death of Lord Berners. And in his state chambers, he tells Cromwell to go secretly to Katherine to make sure “she springs no surprises” over the matter of the annulment. He also tells Cromwell that Mary Boleyn will not marry Richard Cromwell. The implication is he wants her for himself. Cromwell can read between the lines.
“Sometimes it is a solace to me,” Henry says, “not to have to talk and talk. You were born to understand me, perhaps.”
Week 13: Anna Regina (Part 2)
‘Cromwell, did not my wife look well, did she not look beautiful?’ The king is enjoying his wife’s coronation. He sends Cromwell to her with a ring and a kiss, but his councillor chooses to deliver just the ring.
Later with the ambassadors, the king can’t quite get his head around the theatre of memory. Which is fair enough. It sounds like witchcraft, and aren’t there enough books already? He tells Cromwell that Gardiner has been sent to France and he, Cromwell, will take his place as Master Secretary.
The day Frith burns at Smithfield, Henry is writing love letters to Anne, without the hearts. Things are serious now. The sweating sickness is back and the king, “who embodies all his people, has all the symptoms every day.”
The king has two bodies. The first exists within the limits of his physical being; you can measure it, and often Henry does, his wasit, his calf, his other parts. The second is his princely double, free-floating, untethered, weightless, which may be in more than one place at a time. Henry may be hunting in the forest, while his princely double make laws. One fights, one prays for peace. One is wreathed in the mystery of his kingship: one is eating a duckling with sweet green peas.
Week 14: Devil’s Spit / A Painter’s Eye
After hearing the news of the birth of his daughter, the king picks himself up like Lazarus and parrots his archbishop: “Believe me, God intends some peculiar blessing by this princess.”
Does the king know about his archbishop’s wife? “That is perfectly possible. He is a prince of very large capacities.” The king’s leg pains him. Lady Rochford says the flame has died already between he and Anne. He craves novelty. His eye is wandering.
The king struggles to believe his boyhood friend Henry Courtenay has betrayed him. He blames the wife. “She is fickle and weak like all her sex.” He and Brandon reminisce of happier days and snowball fights.
Henry wishes the pope dead. And Katherine also. “Is that wrong?” He hugs Thomas Cromwell, “shining like a star.” He hopes to have another child soon. And this time: a son.
Cromwell advises mercy and clemency towards the traitors in the old families. He counsels the king that he leaves Mary in the style of princess. “Do not give her cousin the Emperor a reason to make war.”
The king says he will not tell the queen this. It will put her in a passion and if she miscarries, he will blame Cromwell. “And I shall not incline to mercy!”
Last week, I was his brother-in-arms, this week he is threatening me with a bloody end.
Week 15: Supremacy
Henry is thinking about England’s treasure in the hands of the church. Cromwell has planted the idea that he, Henry, can get that treasure back.
In 1534 the only person who spends more time with Henry than Cromwell is Anne. So naturally, Henry is having ill-feelings towards Anne’s enemies and nay-sayers: Stephen Gardiner, John Fisher and Thomas More.
More’s name goes on to the Bill of Attainder and the king’s councillors have to beg the king to take him off. Meanwhile, Henry officially removes Gardiner from the position of Master Secretary and gives the role to Thomas Cromwell.
Week 16: The Map of Christendom (Part 1)
Henry tells him, “Cranmer bids me, listen to Cromwell, and if he needs a post, a tax, an impost, a measure in Parliament or a royal proclamation, give it to him.”
He makes Cromwell Master of the Rolls and Vice-Gerent in Spirituals.
The king loves to see Richard Cromwell in the lists. But he is increasingly in pain. “When he is in pain he is panicked, you can see it in his eyes, and when he is recovering he is restless.” He is a paranoid king and he sees death and Katherine’s cousin everywhere.
Anne accuses the king of giving her sister a baby. “Not me! Not me!” he yelps.
When Cromwell falls ill, the king visits. He talks about how he used to be afraid of his grandmother. He leaves a good impression on the household. Johane: “I had not thought him so tender.” But she also says: “Henry is frightened of you… You should have seen his face, when you said you would take your sword in your hand.”
Week 17: The Map of Christendom (Part 2) / To Wolf Hall
The king has cropped his hair to hide his baldness. It doesn’t help. But everyone else follows suit until half of England has barely any hair at all.
The “king is in his killing vein”, but in person, he is quiet and subdued. Only once he stirs into life:
‘Do I retain you for what is easy? Jesus pity my simplicity, I have promoted you to a place in this kingdom that no one, no one of your breeding has ever held in the whole history of this realm… I keep you, Master Cromwell, because you are as cunning as a bag of serpents. But do not be a viper in my bosom. You know my decision. Execute it.’
We leave Cromwell, plotting the king’s summer progress. “The object is to get the king back to Windsor for early October.”
Week 18: Falcons
On progress through England, Henry stops at Wolf Hall to visit the Seymours. On a day of hunting, he loses his hat and refuses to take another. At supper, he talks to Jane Seymour and when he falls asleep, it is Jane who wakes him. He defends his servant Cromwell and speaks fondly of Wolsey, until he says: “I should never have been in awe of him.”
The king looks down the table at him, Thomas Cromwell. He loved the cardinal. Everyone here knows it. His expression is as carefully blank as a freshly painted wall.
The next day, Henry walks with Jane in the gardens. Afterwards, he hardly pays attention to Cromwell’s news from the continent. “He looks stunned, like a veal calf knocked on the head by the butcher.”
Week 19: Crows (Part 1)
You cannot see Henry and not be amazed. Each time you see him you are struck afresh by him, as if it were the first time: a massive man, bull-necked, his hair receding, face fleshing out; blue eyes, and a small mouth that is almost coy.
The king sees Jane Seymour again at Elvetham. And that night he asks Cromwell how he can free himself from Anne.
Meanwhile, the king charges Cromwell with cleaning out the monasteries and bringing him the spoils. “It’s not a future, not for a king: not a king’s ransom.”
Week 20: Crows (Part 2)
He asks Cromwell to go to Kimbolton and when Crumb leaves Rafe behind in his stead, the king complains: ‘No escape from your big lists?’
When Cromwell returns, the king is hoping for Katherine’s death: ‘She were better to join the saints and holy martyrs.’ He says she needs forgiveness for ‘her blighted womb’ and ‘poisoning my children before they were born.’
Anne is pregnant, and the king asks Jane to be his ‘good mistress.’
Week 21: Angels
At Greenwich, the king is with the French ambassador. He brags about the gifts and offers France has made, and Chapuys says Emperor Charles will surpass them. He asks the king for permission for him and Mary to see Katherine. Chapuys and Henry disappear behind closed doors.
Charles Brandon barges in and Cromwell follows. Brandon tells the king that Katherine is dying and soon he will be able to marry into France. ‘Think what you are saying,’ says a pale Henry. ‘My wife is carrying a child. I am lawfully married.’
It must be the king’s plan, as Brandon has none of his own. It looks as if Henry is carrying on two foreign policies: one he knows about and one he doesn’t.
The king gives Chapuys permission to go to Kimbolton.
When news of Katherine’s death reaches court, Henry celebrates. He shows off his princess. ‘She looks forward to seeing her little brother.’
Lady Rochford says, 'Henry has a tender heart, does he not? Of course, he is pleased with any child. I have seen him kiss a stranger's baby in much the same way.'
Katherine sent Henry a letter. ‘I don’t want it. Here, Cromwell, take it away.’ But Henry does want Katherine’s furs, even though he has no legal right to them.
One day Henry seizes Jane as she is passing and sits her on his knee. It is a sportive gesture, boyish, impetuous, no harm in it; so he says later, excusing himself sheepishly. Jane does not smile or speak. She sits calmly till she is released, as if the king were any joint-stool.
Week 22: The Black Book (Part 1)
When Anne escapes a fire in her chambers, Cromwell sees ‘in a flash, how Henry irritates her; his solicitude, his doting, his clinging.’
On the day of the tournament, Cromwell asks the king not to unhorse Gregory. ‘If you can help it?’ Henry concedes that he is past his best and should spectate. ‘But you see, Crumb, it is hard to give up what you have worked at since you were a boy.’
Later, Rafe brings him the news: ‘It is Henry, he is dead.’ Fallen from his horse, two hours unconscious in a tent surrounded by Boleyns and Howards. Cromwell is there when he comes to: ‘I felt myself borne through the air. I did not see God. Or angels.’
'I hope you were not disappointed when you woke. Only to see Thomas Cromwell. 'You were never more welcome,' Henry says. 'Your own mother on the day you were born was no gladder to see you than I was today.'
Cromwell makes a note for The Book Called Henry: ‘knock him down and he bounces.’
When Anne miscarries, Henry blames her. He limps away and leaves her. He speaks to Cromwell and Cranmer: ‘It seems to me I was somehow dishonestly led into this marriage.’
Week 23: The Black Book (Part 2)
You can be merry with the king, you can share a joke with him. But as Thomas More used to say, it's like sporting with a tamed lion. You tousle its mane and pull its ears, but all the time you're thinking, those claws, those claws, those claws.
He is smitten with Jane: ‘Her little hands, Crumb. Her little paws, like a child’s.’ He writes her a love letter, Master Secretary suggesting ‘a few reinforcing phrases’. But Jane says the king wants her to treat him like a ‘humble suitor’ even though he is not any ordinary man.
What do Henry and Cromwell talk about?
‘Horses… Henry likes to know about trades and crafts, simple things… he likes to know about that, the right shoe for the job, so he can confound his own smiths with secret knowledge… Dogs… Fortresses… Artillery… Cannon foundries… We sometimes say, we will have a day out together, ride down to Kent, to the weald, to see the ironmasters there, study their operations, and propose them new ways to casting cannon. But we never do it. Something is always in our way.’
When the king hears that Jane has not opened his letter, he says: ‘I see I was wrong to send it. Cromwell here has spoken to me of her innocence and her virtue, and with good reason, at it appears. From this point I will do nothing that will offend her honour. In fact, I shall only speak to her in the presence of her kin.’
At court, Henry banishes her jester Master Sexton for calling Anne a ribald.
Week 24: The Black Book (Part 3)
At Greenwich, the king is ‘blazing with solemn triumph’ when the imperial ambassador is forced to recognise Anne. But when they talk about treaties and alliances, Henry blows his top: ‘You agree to bow to my wife the queen, and then you send me a bill?’
The king is furious: ‘The Emperor treats me like an infant. First he whips me, then he pets me, then it is the whip again… I require a profound and public apology.’
Next, he comes for Cromwell: ‘I really believe, Cromwell, that you think you are king, and I am the blacksmith’s boy.’
Cromwell puts up his hands, crossed in subjugation and Henry stops ranting. The next day at the council, they talk Henry around. Afterwards, Henry is humble to Master Secretary, and Cromwell lets him grovel. Henry says: ‘I cannot live as I have lived, Cromwell.’ They begin to talk of annulment and divorce. He gives Cromwell his instructions.
Week 25: The Book of Phantoms (Part 1/5)
After interviewing the Boleyns, he goes to Henry. Thomas is amenable, he says, but George is obstructive. The king looks irritated that he might have to manage this. ‘His business is more kingly: praying for the success of his enterprises, and writing songs for Jane.’ While his councillor is plotting against the queen on his behalf, Henry is trying to find a word that rhymes with blue.
When Henry hears about the argument between Anne, Harry Norris and Lady Rochford he demands an inquiry. Call-Me says, ‘Utmost discretion, but all possible speed. He can no longer ignore the talk, after the incident.’
Week 26: The Book of Phantoms (Part 2/5)
May morning and Richard Cromwell goes to Henry at the jousts and tells him of Mark Smeaton’s confession. The king rides back to Whitehall with Norris, confronting him with the allegations. He tells him to confess if he desires mercy.
In the evening, he talks to Cromwell about Anne’s apparent sexual experience in bed. He tells Cromwell to arrest Anne tomorrow, but demands him to be discreet over the allegations of incest with her brother.
Week 27: The Book of Phantoms (Part 3/5)
Cromwell keeps the king in his privy chamber to avoid contaminating the king’s judgement. Henry reads a letter from Cranmer that repudiates Anne. Cromwell tells him of ballads sung against Jane and he says the authors must be punished. He sends Cromwell to Surrey with a letter and gift for Jane. The gift is a girdle book. It was a present to Anne before Jane, and Katherine before Anne. ‘Three presents, three wives, and only one jeweller’s bill.’
In his dark chamber, Henry consults his glass of truth with Cromwell and Cranmer. ‘I think I am to blame, as what I suspected I did not own.’ He runs through some theological points on marriage with Cranmer. His secretly married archbishop looks like he wants to die right there. Henry shows them a play he is writing. ‘It is a tragedy. It is my own case.’
When his bastard son comes in, he hugs Fitzroy and cries. ‘My little son,’ he says to the boy edging six foot. ‘My only son.’ He dismisses them all, too tired to confess, and picks up his little book to read his story.
Week 28: Master of Phantoms (Part 4/5)
Henry has been busy adding to the indictments, pouring ‘his outrage, jealousy, fear’ onto the page.
Wyatt: ‘Wishing is not doing it.’
Cromwell: ‘It is, if you are Henry.’
The king walks around ‘like an illustration from the Book of Job’; by night he visits Jane down the river.
Week 29: The Book of Phantoms (Part 5/5) / Spoils
The king prevaricates in his labyrinth. Cromwell stands over him while he signs the death warrants. But meanwhile, without informing his secretary, he summons the Calais executioner to behead his queen. Wyatt, he agrees, will not be killed.
Jane takes a new motto: ‘Bound to Obey and Serve.’ When they inform the king, he smiles and nods: ‘Perfect contentment. The king’s blue eyes are serene.’
Week 31: Salvage (Part 1/3)
Henry VIII, the morning after the night before: ‘I have come out of Hell into Heaven, and all in one night.’ He promotes his secretary to the House of Lords.
Later, the king summons Cromwell. He is with Charles Brandon. He is full of doubt about what he has done and talks about the succession and his illegitimate children. He gives Cromwell the position of Lord Privy Seal, Thomas Boleyn’s old job.
Week 32: Salvage (Part 2/3)
The king receives Reginald Pole’s big book of treason and summons his Lord Privy Seal. He is outraged by the Poles and the Courtenays, and throws the Marquess of Exeter out of his council. He sends Cromwell to the Poles to see what they know of Reginald’s book. He makes Richard Riche a councillor.
At the council meeting, he limps in with his bad leg. He says he wants Mary brought to trial, and William Fitzwilliam objects: ‘You will make yourself a monster in the sight of all.’ He tells Cromwell to bring the matter to a conclusion. He seems to want them to kill his daughter.
Week 33: Salvage (Part 3/3)
In July, the king consents to meeting his daughter. She has sent him a letter, penned by Master Secretary.
The physicians are in daily consultation. The king's good humour is soured by the nagging pain of his injured leg. I have feared for some time, Butts says, there is residual foulness in the bone. What is in the flesh, we can wash out – cut out, if we have to. But the bone must mend itself. Or not. Young Richmond was right. Decay runs deep. Next year the king might be here.
The king meets his daughter. He tells Rafe that ‘Lord Cromwell has behaved to my lady daughter with such tenderness and care that he could not have done more if he were my kinsman. Which of course… he could not be. But I mean to reward him, and all his house.’
Week 34: Wreckage (II) (Part 1/2)
When Henry hears of Margaret Douglas’ marriage to Tom Truth, he says ‘I want no repeat of what happened in May, a royal lady before a public court… Choose some neater way.’
He has taken to dressing as a Turk. Cromwell finds him in his turban. Cromwell shows him the token he means to give to Mary. The king likes it so much he decides to give it to her himself.
Week 35: Wreckage (II) (Part 2/2)
Tom Truth is attainted, but the king says ‘he can wait’ for his punishment. The king knights Cromwell and asks for him to send Gregory.
The king is down in Dover when news of his son’s death reaches Cromwell at Mortlake. He makes Thomas Howard the chief mourner and then is enraged when Norfolk does not follow his instructions. He tells Cromwell to send him to the Tower, and Cromwell admits that it is not a message he dares to deliver. It is a ‘useful lie.’
Cromwell persuades him to be merciful with Thomas Howard and Margaret Douglas. The king directs his rage at Reginald Pole, and Cromwell promises to have him killed.
In Kent, the king falls into a deep depression. He talks about his death and how he has no heirs. Cromwell tells him not to look back, only forward.
Week 36: Augmentation
The king has offered his services as a mediator between the Emperor and the King of France. ‘He must seize his advantage,’ Cromwell admits to Chapuys.
Week 37: The Five Wounds
Henry is restless; as if trying to prolong the summer.
When the dauphin dies, Henry feels sympathy, and the English court go into black. Then, news comes from Lincolnshire that the people think the king is dead. Rebellion spreads across northern and eastern England.
Henry calls his councillors to Windsor. He inclines to mercy but he becomes angry when he learns the rebels want Cromwell’s head.
'By God, I am offended too.' Henry says. He has read all the news that comes in, but only now does he seem to take it in – flushed, his fist thumping the table. 'I take it ill to be instructed by the folk of Lincolnshire, which is one of the most brute and beastly shires in the realm. How do they presume to dictate what men I keep about me? Let them understand this. When I choose a humble man for my councillor, HE IS NO MORE HUMBLE. Who will advise me, when Lord Cromwell is put down? Will these rebeles do it? Colin Clump and Peter Pisspiddle, and old Grandpa Gaphead and his goat?'
‘I made my minister, and by God I will maintain him. If I say Cromwell is a lord, he is a lord. And if I say Cromwell’s heirs are to follow me and rule England, by God they will do it, or I shall come out of my grave and want to know why.’
The king sends Suffolk and demands that Norfolk be kept in his own country. As his hand falls on Lincolnshire, he strums hit lute at Windsor, picking out tunes from his Italian songbook. Cromwell helps him remember the words.
Week 38: Vile Blood (1/2)
According to the queen, the king is dreaming of his dead brother. ‘He thinks he killed him,’ she says, through his desire to be king. She asks Henry to bring Lady Mary back to court. Her petition to the king to allow popish customs and ease the burden of taxes angers Henry. He tells her he will listen to her complaints only after she has born him a son.
The king is putting on weight, and his leg continues to trouble him. He won’t listen to his doctors. He complains about his disloyal subjects and reaffirms his faith in ‘mushroom men’ like Cromwell, who sprout up overnight. He censures Richard Riche for believing in Parliament.
When York falls, the king goes to the chapel of St Geroge. He orders a feast where he will appear in ‘great glory.’ His best jewels are at Whitehall, so he wears a large diamond and is entertained by Master Sexton, who goads the king’s first minister, Thomas Cromwell.
Week 39: Vile Blood (Part 2/2)
The king is in a melancholy mood. He broods about how his father’s councillors lied about the hour of Henry VII’s death. He talks about how he is the only child left and about ‘the burden of kingship.’ He sings sad songs in Spanish with the lute. The news from the north is bad.
The king asks Cromwell about his Greek. Skill takes time and life is short.
The king remembers Wolf Hall. A gale of self-pity blows and he complains that nothing is better and everything is worse than it was before. Cromwell says nothing. The king puts his hand on Cromwell’s shoulder. ‘Once consecrated, a king can heal. So why does he not feel healed?’
The king invites Robert Aske to Christmas. It is Cromwell’s idea.
Week 40: The Bleach Fields
The king has commissioned Hans Holbein to paint him. Knowing that the outer man shows the world the inner man, he is doing some clothes shopping. He is too old for the cuts that catch his eye, and Cromwell steps in to prevent the king from ruining the commonwealth with his vanity. Lord Privy Seal haggles down the price and gets the best deal for our prince.
Week 41: The Image of the King (Part 1/2)
The king agrees to be painted in crimson by Hans Holbein. He attends the christening of Edward Seymour’s daughter at Chester Place.
Henry wants to be painted on his wall in his privy chamber, to awe his councillors and private guests, with his parents and Jane Seymour. He stands for Hans and talks to Cromwell. At the next session, in June, he looks visibly weak.
He thinks, the damage has been done since last October. It is cumulative, but we are only noticing now. The rebels have knocked him out of true. He will not be the same again.
He falls and Cromwell is there to catch him. News carries fast but they will not explain to anyone what happened. Instead, Cromwell changes the painting to tell a different story: ‘Turn the head. Turn it full on. Make him look at us.’
Week 42: The Image of the King (Part 2/2) / Broken on the Body
Cromwell asks the king to be merciful in the manner of execution of the rebels. Henry reminds him that he has failed to capture Reginald Pole.
Cromwell tells Henry about Lady Lisle’s child, which has mysteriously disappeared from her womb. ‘Always you, Cromwell, with the bad news.’
Henry sees the Whitehall Mural and ‘he glitters: not merely augmented, but enhanced.’ He says he wishes France and the Emperor could see it.
He goes again to Henry to ask for clemency for Surrey, condemned to amputation for drawing blood at court. Cromwell always begging and carrying bad news. So he tells his king about the Italian who is going to blow up Lewes Priory. The king ‘looks as excited as a child.’
The king announces two new Garter Knights: his unborn son, and his Lord Privy Seal. He hopes Cromwell will ‘live many years’ to enjoy his new state.
During the plague outbreak, he demands Cromwell stay near him, despite the restrictions. He starts to talk about his death and what Cromwell must do. His minister thinks he may be declared regent, but nothing is said or done.
Henry’s son is born and the king hands out earldoms. Cromwell is overlooked. He knows why: he failed to bring Reginald Pole to Henry.
Week 43: Nonsuch
The king goes into mourning. His minister coax him to consider a new wife and he considers Madame de Longueville. She is soon to be betrothed to James of Scotland.
The king chastises his minister: ‘You promised me you would put an end to Pole.’ When Cromwell says Pole is ‘too stupid to be killed,’ Henry says, ‘You’ll have to learn to be stupid too, won’t you, Crumb?’
Henry is torn between two potential brides: Duchess Christina and Mary of Guise. But negotiations with France go badly, and Ambassador Castillon tells him that ‘you kill your wives.’ In privacy, Henry tells Cromwell that he may speak roughly to him but it is just for show. Cromwell calls him ‘The mirror and the light of other kings.’
The king’s doctors approach Cromwell to persuade Henry not to hunt. ‘The King’s Majesty’s wound… We try to keep it open to keep it clean. But it tries to close.’ Henry doesn’t listen and he has another fall. He lives.
As summer approaches, Henry is no closer to being wed. He diverts his attention to the designs for a new palace near his hunting grounds in Surrey. The palace is called Nonsuch.
Week 44: Corpus Christi (Part 1/2)
France and the Empire make peace and Henry is furious. He complains that all his envoys have let him down and disappointed him. ‘Like you, Cromwell.’ He tells Gardiner to stay away from him when he returns.
He meets his uncle Arthur Plantagenet, Lord Lisle, at Dover. He meets with ambassadors on all sides. ‘The king says, let the ambassadors know I mean to talk to Cleves.’
At Canterbury in July he watches the new Bale play about Becket. He approves new injunctions on the practice of religion. There are changes. ‘But my lord Cromwell … do not make my church strange to the people … Do not outrage my subjects with new and alien practices.’
Week 45: Corpus Christi (Part 2/2) / Inheritance
Henry VIII debates with John Lambert at Westminster. ‘The day is dark but Henry is wearing white from head to foot. He looks like a mountain that one hears of in fables, made of solid ice.’
The king is magisterial. He is nimble, he is trenchant; he is, at times, humble. He does not want to kill Lambert, that is of no interest to him. He wants to out-reason him: so that in the end, Lambert will crumple and confess: ‘Sire, you are the better theologian: I am instructed, enlightened and saved by you.’
But ultimately Corpus Christi kills John Lambert. Henry gets Cromwell to read the death sentence. ‘I will not be a patron to heretics.’
In December, Cromwell brings him the death warrants for Montague and Exeter. He makes sure the king does not kill Gertrude.
Then Nicholas Carew is arrested. Henry says the cardinal always warned him about Carew. His mind turns to Carew’s wife. Cromwell leaves it to others to tell him he cannot kill a man and marry his widow.
‘These men, you know, Carew, Lord Exeter - they were the friends of my youth.’ He bows, waits, then begins to withdraw. The end of the Round Table, he thinks. Henry says, 'Reginald called me the enemy of the human race.'
Week 46: Ascension Day (Part 1/2)
Henry is excommunicated and ‘it feels like war.’ Through the winter he presides every day over his council. The King of Scotland asks him for a lion, and he tells Cromwell to deal with the request. His leg continues to dictate his temper.
Henry asks Cromwell how he prays. It is an earnest question and not a trap, even though the English church is divided over so many matters of doctrine. Cromwell brings him a book called The Solace and Consolation of Princes. ‘A wife would be a consolation.’ The doctors bleed him. When Cromwell suggests sending envoys to Cleves, he discovers with surprise that the king has already sent them.
Week 47: Ascension Day (Part 2/2)
The king calls for religious unity, and in Cromwell’s absence, Gardiner ensures that consensus is conservative. When Cromwell recovers, he goes to the king to negotiate the Cleves marriage contract. ‘I am known for generosity. Duke Wilhelm will find nothing to complain of.’