This section about Mark Smeaton is downright masterful. According to the Spanish Cronicle he was tortured, according to Mantel he took a turn with Christmas. The truth is long buried, both these versions are only tales, and one of Mantel’s greatest achievements is how firmly she is in control of Cromwell’s unreliable narration. He spins his story and violence leaks from his carefully chosen words: he did merely speak to his victim, so he says, and “in a thicket of words [Mark] is stuck fast, and the more he fights the deeper the thorn rip his flesh.” They lock him with Christmas, which is such a Scooby-Doo shenanigan, so silly and out of place in this bloody book, and all night Cromwell doesn’t sleep, his boys don’t sleep, Mark screams, and he thinks of the armory before the joust, “the beating, the shaping, the wielding, the polishing in the polishing mill”, such clever, deliberate language, a new meaning the deeper you dig, and he “never had this problem before, the problem of having frightened someone so much.” Mark is a broken man, the joust has ended, and this “surely is the last day of knighthood.”
Because no matter what you believe: maybe Cromwell didn’t touch Mark, maybe he just didn’t look and let the boys do their worst, maybe he himself was the butcher. Even if it was just psychological torture, it was torture nonetheless and something in Cromwell’s soul is irremediably lost. “Do not make sinners of us all,” he tells Mark. He isn’t a sinner, he tells himself, just a lawyer, and a lawyer’s truth is different from God’s truth. Will God greet him as a lawyer, or as a bully? A torturer, a murderer? Moore had men “dragged to his house in Chelsea, so he could persecute them conveniently in the bosom of his family,” the cognitive dissonance! Not he, Cromwell, the public figure. And Wolsey is still looming, and all the people who wronged the cardinal, who wronged him, Cromwell, are falling one by one. Next is Anne Boleyn, the cannon at the tower booms and he is shaking. The toll is too much already.
Focus on home and family Simon. These latter pages of BUTB always tear into me: Smeaton's loose words, the Boleyns, Cromwell's efforts to set Wyatt safely aside...
I’m mostly listening to the audio version so forgive me I’m not sure which section I heard this in but it was a mention of a woman’s unused womb migrating around her body and my first thought was Hilary and her endometriosis.
Oh yes, I can't remember where this is, but someone mentioned this quote at the weekend. I think it is about Anne? And yes, definitely a resonance with Hilary and endometriosis.
Thank you, it was and only last week (24?). I thought it was just such a stand out moment... wombs anchored awaiting pregnancy and childbirth, or those with nothing better to do than wander around her body...it was Hilary’s own condition.
The slow read really gives you time to appreciate how Mantel begins to alienate Cromwell from you, the reader. The way he tortures Mark Smeaton by not torturing him, the way the memories of his father turn almost tender, the way he becomes indifferent to Anne, not caring if she is innocent or guilty, alive or dead, so long as the king is happy, and the way he watches and insinuates and twists the truth - his cleverness and ingenuity are no longer endearing. Reading at a normal pace this seems to happen so quickly, but at a slow pace you realise how well and carefully it's done.
The most beautiful scene in the whole trilogy so far for me and the one that really touched me and brought tears to my eyes was the one with little Grace and her peacock wings at Christmas. And now this, breaking Mark Smeaton and the wings make a return, but in the context of a horrible part of the story. "I shall have to burn the peacock wings." It is brilliantly done by Mantel showing this - I have to say it - appalling side of Cromwell that is so different to e.g. Cromwell as a father.
He always went after Mark Smeaton, whenever he saw him, but Smeaton is no more than a stupid boy, yes not a very likeable character but he is certainly not worse than e.g. Christophe. And now he uses Mark as the weakest, most vulnerable link in the chain and breaks him. And then the "Anne is dead to herself" what is this? I am sure Anne begs to differ. I am very upset about Cromwell right now!
Indeed! In Wolf Hall he asks himself why he doesn't like Mark Smeaton, and it is not a question he can answer. He just doesn't like him. He called Cromwell a murderer once, but Holbein painted him as one. I wonder whether he hates the way Smeaton's star rose with so little effort, compared to him. Then he has a sleepless night, but not because of Mark. There's something of his father in all of this, but it is partially hidden in a dark corner, where the smithy's cinders are still hot.
I also thought that it is maybe because Mark had it easy in his opinion and he, Cromwell, had to endure so much on his way up (war, and I am not sure if Cromwell wasn't in his life the one who was tortured and there was something where I thought he might also have been on the other side too). Because otherwise I know no reason why, Mark was unimportant and normally Cromwell didn't bother and care about people like Mark. This coming back to the smithery and his father as things turn ugly, also brilliant of Mantel. She was so, so good.
Those wings, the repeated mentions of them throughout the books, keep Grace present in the story and remind us the Cromwell is a father and a father of daughters. Its another 'thorn' for our thoughts to snag on.
This bit of writing was exquisite. After Anne hears of Henry Norris's confession:
"Something happens to her then, which later he will not quite understand. She seems to dissolve and slip from their grasp, from Kingston's hands and his, she seems to liquefy and elude them. and when she resolves herself once more into woman's form she is on her hands and knees on the cobbles, her head thrown back, wailing."
I don't think it is accidental that Anne falls on the "cobbles" and it is Cromwell who gets her up. The mirror to the start of Wolf Hall: "One blow could kill her him now."
Poor Mark Smeaton. One of history’s great losers. I both love and shudder at the way Mantel has imagined his interrogation. It’s especially interesting that she brought some black humour into it with the scary Christmas cupboard. I found it emotionally true that Mark realises he has undone himself completely in a matter of moments. One of those sudden pivots in life that you can’t take back. And Cromwell as unforgiving and terrible to Mark as Henry is to Cromwell. One small thing I can’t resist mentioning as I laugh every time it happens - Norfolk continually refers to the king as Henry Tudor, as if he still doesn’t really see him as king. He’s still a random usurping Welshman in the old duke’s eyes. 😂 I hope all is soon well with you and yours Simon. 🙏
Oh, what the Cromwells are doing to Mark Smeaton is awful! I mean, I don't sympathise with him... but to drive him to his death like that ... that's really horrible ...
I put this on Andrea’s Substack, but I will put it here too, as I think it fits….
It is ugly stuff indeed, and so painstakingly imagined by Mantel. I remember waiting for the second volume, then supposed to be the last, and being intrigued when word came that she had decided that this period needed a volume of its own: and how right she was! Cromwell is doing so many things here. His public task is carrying out the king’s orders. He seizes the chance to at last avenge Wolsey (is this also a sop to his conscience?). He is making it clear to anyone who somehow had not yet noticed it that he is a dangerous man: do not mess. Perhaps it’s risky to draw attention to himself in this respect so blatantly—after all he is surrounded by dangerous men looking for an excuse for violence. And then there’s what I am inclined to think is his basic motive. It’s her or him…. Anne or Cremuel. He is fighting for his life. If he fails he is as dead as she will be if he succeeds: which was not clear at the start of his enquiries, when we see him hoping that Henry will be content merely to put Anne away somewhere. Anne was probably as hostile to that as Henry, but she probably didn’t think for a moment that he would kill her, not until it was too late. Cromwell, of course, was there before her, and had laid the traps. Poor Mark Smeaton.
Thanks for sharing here as well. Yes, I definitely don't think it is a sop to his conscience. He is driven by revenge and his love for the cardinal. That is something that defines him. But as you say, ultimately it is him or Anne now and both said they would do anything to survive.
The image of Anne on the cobbles of the tower, on her hands and knees, crying loudly, remains with me.
When she gets there, something strange happens. She seems to dissolve, to slip away from the hands that hold her, to become liquid. But the spell does not work anymore, she takes the form of a woman again. On her hands and knees. There is no escape.
The image of Anne crying won't let me go...
... while Cromwell reshapes heads that will soon be separated from their necks.
And Call-me, who realises: "It's not so much who is guilty as whose guilt serves you."
It seems fitting that this was the week that Simon wasn't able to flesh out his notes - Cromwell’s extended reflections on torture are enough to make anyone feel unwell. (I hope you are all now recovered!)
Even strong-stomached Cromwell himself seems out of his comfort zone, not wanting his supper and ending up "wretched with lack of sleep". I was fascinated by his repeated attempts to soothe his rightly-troubled conscience: Mark brought his fate on himself by being insolent (otherwise Cromwell would have taken him in and given him a better life); Mark doesn't deserve pity because Cromwell had endured and achieved so much by his age; Mark's boasting meant that by willingly lying about Anne he was "hardly innocent".
A few other moments that stood out for me:
- Cromwell, the master of arranging his face, having to put a hand up to cover it because he is so amazed by Mark's boasting. ("At least he can say he took Master Secretary by surprise: which few men can say, who are now living.")
- the hilarious phrasing of Cromwell worrying that "Hans would insist on committing another portrait against me" if he grew a beard
- the poignancy of Anne with her affectations stripped away: "'I do not know how to be ready,' she says simply."
You are making me want to get back to this and fill in my notes! Cromwell's sleepless night is so interesting. He thinks he is thinking about Anne, but isn't he thinking about Mark? Then the boat scenes and melting on the cobbles, the cannon that shakes the bones. It's got real.
Oh this section has so much going on, so many uncomfortable moments. Christophe remains one of my favourite characters in this story. Giving Christmas a physical presence, and a malign one at that. It lends humour to something that in reality is quite grim. Genius. Henry doesn't come off well here (when does he ever), turning his back while others do his dirty work and ghosting his wife, again.
I haven't read Diarmaid MacCulloch's biography of Crumb yet but I'm curious about how much of his concern for Wyatt is based on fact.
The paragraph on page 338 that starts, “He nods”, is really interesting. Why does Cromwell like Wyatt so much? It can’t just be his oath. It feels like a little bit of hero worship or at least strong admiration in there.
I think he explains very well. Wyatt 'does not sleepwalk through life.' It is clear enough that Wyatt's poetry and way of seeing the world has moved Cromwell. Killing Wyatt would be like killing Shakespeare. Cromwell can price a man by his clothes, but he also has the measure of them: their true value. Like Wolsey, Wyatt is a man beyond price. And interestingly that is something Call-Me would never understand.
I think he sees a beautiful mind and a good person. He's surrounded by wolves and he must become one to survive, so yes perhaps he sees in Wyatt that he cannot be.
This section about Mark Smeaton is downright masterful. According to the Spanish Cronicle he was tortured, according to Mantel he took a turn with Christmas. The truth is long buried, both these versions are only tales, and one of Mantel’s greatest achievements is how firmly she is in control of Cromwell’s unreliable narration. He spins his story and violence leaks from his carefully chosen words: he did merely speak to his victim, so he says, and “in a thicket of words [Mark] is stuck fast, and the more he fights the deeper the thorn rip his flesh.” They lock him with Christmas, which is such a Scooby-Doo shenanigan, so silly and out of place in this bloody book, and all night Cromwell doesn’t sleep, his boys don’t sleep, Mark screams, and he thinks of the armory before the joust, “the beating, the shaping, the wielding, the polishing in the polishing mill”, such clever, deliberate language, a new meaning the deeper you dig, and he “never had this problem before, the problem of having frightened someone so much.” Mark is a broken man, the joust has ended, and this “surely is the last day of knighthood.”
Because no matter what you believe: maybe Cromwell didn’t touch Mark, maybe he just didn’t look and let the boys do their worst, maybe he himself was the butcher. Even if it was just psychological torture, it was torture nonetheless and something in Cromwell’s soul is irremediably lost. “Do not make sinners of us all,” he tells Mark. He isn’t a sinner, he tells himself, just a lawyer, and a lawyer’s truth is different from God’s truth. Will God greet him as a lawyer, or as a bully? A torturer, a murderer? Moore had men “dragged to his house in Chelsea, so he could persecute them conveniently in the bosom of his family,” the cognitive dissonance! Not he, Cromwell, the public figure. And Wolsey is still looming, and all the people who wronged the cardinal, who wronged him, Cromwell, are falling one by one. Next is Anne Boleyn, the cannon at the tower booms and he is shaking. The toll is too much already.
Christmas has never been so terrifying!
Not even Dickens could do better!
Simon, you lost a golden chance to say, “And now no more, for lack of time.” 😉 My warmest wishes to your family and the little ones!
Not even enough time to make the obvious joke!
Great comment, thank you! So true, we will never know
Focus on home and family Simon. These latter pages of BUTB always tear into me: Smeaton's loose words, the Boleyns, Cromwell's efforts to set Wyatt safely aside...
The Wyatt storyline cuts me deeper each time.
You mention Hilary and pain.
I’m mostly listening to the audio version so forgive me I’m not sure which section I heard this in but it was a mention of a woman’s unused womb migrating around her body and my first thought was Hilary and her endometriosis.
Oh yes, I can't remember where this is, but someone mentioned this quote at the weekend. I think it is about Anne? And yes, definitely a resonance with Hilary and endometriosis.
I think it’s about Mary …
Thank you, it was and only last week (24?). I thought it was just such a stand out moment... wombs anchored awaiting pregnancy and childbirth, or those with nothing better to do than wander around her body...it was Hilary’s own condition.
Ah of course!
The slow read really gives you time to appreciate how Mantel begins to alienate Cromwell from you, the reader. The way he tortures Mark Smeaton by not torturing him, the way the memories of his father turn almost tender, the way he becomes indifferent to Anne, not caring if she is innocent or guilty, alive or dead, so long as the king is happy, and the way he watches and insinuates and twists the truth - his cleverness and ingenuity are no longer endearing. Reading at a normal pace this seems to happen so quickly, but at a slow pace you realise how well and carefully it's done.
The most beautiful scene in the whole trilogy so far for me and the one that really touched me and brought tears to my eyes was the one with little Grace and her peacock wings at Christmas. And now this, breaking Mark Smeaton and the wings make a return, but in the context of a horrible part of the story. "I shall have to burn the peacock wings." It is brilliantly done by Mantel showing this - I have to say it - appalling side of Cromwell that is so different to e.g. Cromwell as a father.
He always went after Mark Smeaton, whenever he saw him, but Smeaton is no more than a stupid boy, yes not a very likeable character but he is certainly not worse than e.g. Christophe. And now he uses Mark as the weakest, most vulnerable link in the chain and breaks him. And then the "Anne is dead to herself" what is this? I am sure Anne begs to differ. I am very upset about Cromwell right now!
Indeed! In Wolf Hall he asks himself why he doesn't like Mark Smeaton, and it is not a question he can answer. He just doesn't like him. He called Cromwell a murderer once, but Holbein painted him as one. I wonder whether he hates the way Smeaton's star rose with so little effort, compared to him. Then he has a sleepless night, but not because of Mark. There's something of his father in all of this, but it is partially hidden in a dark corner, where the smithy's cinders are still hot.
I also thought that it is maybe because Mark had it easy in his opinion and he, Cromwell, had to endure so much on his way up (war, and I am not sure if Cromwell wasn't in his life the one who was tortured and there was something where I thought he might also have been on the other side too). Because otherwise I know no reason why, Mark was unimportant and normally Cromwell didn't bother and care about people like Mark. This coming back to the smithery and his father as things turn ugly, also brilliant of Mantel. She was so, so good.
Those wings, the repeated mentions of them throughout the books, keep Grace present in the story and remind us the Cromwell is a father and a father of daughters. Its another 'thorn' for our thoughts to snag on.
Simon, feel better.
This bit of writing was exquisite. After Anne hears of Henry Norris's confession:
"Something happens to her then, which later he will not quite understand. She seems to dissolve and slip from their grasp, from Kingston's hands and his, she seems to liquefy and elude them. and when she resolves herself once more into woman's form she is on her hands and knees on the cobbles, her head thrown back, wailing."
Thanks David.
I don't think it is accidental that Anne falls on the "cobbles" and it is Cromwell who gets her up. The mirror to the start of Wolf Hall: "One blow could kill her him now."
I never thought of the cobble connection. Thanks!
Poor Mark Smeaton. One of history’s great losers. I both love and shudder at the way Mantel has imagined his interrogation. It’s especially interesting that she brought some black humour into it with the scary Christmas cupboard. I found it emotionally true that Mark realises he has undone himself completely in a matter of moments. One of those sudden pivots in life that you can’t take back. And Cromwell as unforgiving and terrible to Mark as Henry is to Cromwell. One small thing I can’t resist mentioning as I laugh every time it happens - Norfolk continually refers to the king as Henry Tudor, as if he still doesn’t really see him as king. He’s still a random usurping Welshman in the old duke’s eyes. 😂 I hope all is soon well with you and yours Simon. 🙏
Feel better soon! Summer illnesses just hit differently.
Oh, what the Cromwells are doing to Mark Smeaton is awful! I mean, I don't sympathise with him... but to drive him to his death like that ... that's really horrible ...
Christmas is a scary place. And Mark's definitely the weak link, easy to exploit.
I put this on Andrea’s Substack, but I will put it here too, as I think it fits….
It is ugly stuff indeed, and so painstakingly imagined by Mantel. I remember waiting for the second volume, then supposed to be the last, and being intrigued when word came that she had decided that this period needed a volume of its own: and how right she was! Cromwell is doing so many things here. His public task is carrying out the king’s orders. He seizes the chance to at last avenge Wolsey (is this also a sop to his conscience?). He is making it clear to anyone who somehow had not yet noticed it that he is a dangerous man: do not mess. Perhaps it’s risky to draw attention to himself in this respect so blatantly—after all he is surrounded by dangerous men looking for an excuse for violence. And then there’s what I am inclined to think is his basic motive. It’s her or him…. Anne or Cremuel. He is fighting for his life. If he fails he is as dead as she will be if he succeeds: which was not clear at the start of his enquiries, when we see him hoping that Henry will be content merely to put Anne away somewhere. Anne was probably as hostile to that as Henry, but she probably didn’t think for a moment that he would kill her, not until it was too late. Cromwell, of course, was there before her, and had laid the traps. Poor Mark Smeaton.
Thanks for sharing here as well. Yes, I definitely don't think it is a sop to his conscience. He is driven by revenge and his love for the cardinal. That is something that defines him. But as you say, ultimately it is him or Anne now and both said they would do anything to survive.
The image of Anne on the cobbles of the tower, on her hands and knees, crying loudly, remains with me.
When she gets there, something strange happens. She seems to dissolve, to slip away from the hands that hold her, to become liquid. But the spell does not work anymore, she takes the form of a woman again. On her hands and knees. There is no escape.
The image of Anne crying won't let me go...
... while Cromwell reshapes heads that will soon be separated from their necks.
And Call-me, who realises: "It's not so much who is guilty as whose guilt serves you."
It won't let me go...
It seems fitting that this was the week that Simon wasn't able to flesh out his notes - Cromwell’s extended reflections on torture are enough to make anyone feel unwell. (I hope you are all now recovered!)
Even strong-stomached Cromwell himself seems out of his comfort zone, not wanting his supper and ending up "wretched with lack of sleep". I was fascinated by his repeated attempts to soothe his rightly-troubled conscience: Mark brought his fate on himself by being insolent (otherwise Cromwell would have taken him in and given him a better life); Mark doesn't deserve pity because Cromwell had endured and achieved so much by his age; Mark's boasting meant that by willingly lying about Anne he was "hardly innocent".
A few other moments that stood out for me:
- Cromwell, the master of arranging his face, having to put a hand up to cover it because he is so amazed by Mark's boasting. ("At least he can say he took Master Secretary by surprise: which few men can say, who are now living.")
- the hilarious phrasing of Cromwell worrying that "Hans would insist on committing another portrait against me" if he grew a beard
- the poignancy of Anne with her affectations stripped away: "'I do not know how to be ready,' she says simply."
You are making me want to get back to this and fill in my notes! Cromwell's sleepless night is so interesting. He thinks he is thinking about Anne, but isn't he thinking about Mark? Then the boat scenes and melting on the cobbles, the cannon that shakes the bones. It's got real.
Oh this section has so much going on, so many uncomfortable moments. Christophe remains one of my favourite characters in this story. Giving Christmas a physical presence, and a malign one at that. It lends humour to something that in reality is quite grim. Genius. Henry doesn't come off well here (when does he ever), turning his back while others do his dirty work and ghosting his wife, again.
I haven't read Diarmaid MacCulloch's biography of Crumb yet but I'm curious about how much of his concern for Wyatt is based on fact.
The Wyatt-Cromwell connection is fascinating. I need to check what Diarmaid MacCulloch says.
The paragraph on page 338 that starts, “He nods”, is really interesting. Why does Cromwell like Wyatt so much? It can’t just be his oath. It feels like a little bit of hero worship or at least strong admiration in there.
I think he explains very well. Wyatt 'does not sleepwalk through life.' It is clear enough that Wyatt's poetry and way of seeing the world has moved Cromwell. Killing Wyatt would be like killing Shakespeare. Cromwell can price a man by his clothes, but he also has the measure of them: their true value. Like Wolsey, Wyatt is a man beyond price. And interestingly that is something Call-Me would never understand.
I suppose my question is why does that move him. Does he see himself in Wyatt? Or does he see everything that he, Cromwell, is not?
I think he sees a beautiful mind and a good person. He's surrounded by wolves and he must become one to survive, so yes perhaps he sees in Wyatt that he cannot be.
Speedy recovery to you and yours!!
Wishing you and your family a speedy recovery. Take care...
Hope everyone feels better.