I was struck by Mantel’s description of Cromwell’s heart sensation and believe that she is beautifully describing takotsubo cardiomyopathy - otherwise known as broken heart syndrome. This is a ballooning of part of the left ventricle (with impaired cardiac function) in response to a surge in stress hormones, typically from strong negative emotions such as loss of a loved one. It can mimic a heart attack.
I continue to be in awe of her research and meticulous descriptions.
Crumb has lived in my head for so long, Simon- I can’t thank you enough for bringing him even more to life through this community and slow read. I shall definitely go back to the audio for this section as it comes so recommended. I shall- as before when finishing this trilogy- be devastated and moved by the writing, but I shall also be filled with the loss the company of the lively and committed readers who have shared the journey this time. Thank you all.
I felt less shocked this week and more in awe. Cromwell is handling his imprisonment well. He's feisty with Gardiner and the other men in the interrogation. He's trying to further his mind. Unlike Anne, I don't think he holds out any hope for the king to save him.
Does Wyatt even have a good reason for betraying Cromwell?
Does anyone have any resources on teaching on Cromwell in English schooling? I'm so curious at the portrait Mantel has painted of him that it's hard to see him as fully a traitor or a heretic.
My quote of the week: "The destruction goes beyond counting. It does beyond what the pen can record." It reminds me of the bill for Cromwell's death but also of Mantel, for recording the story we lost when Cromwell was branded a traitor in the world of history.
Diarmaid MacCulloch writes that there is far more evidence that he was a heretic than a traitor. As Mantel says, he believes exactly what Robert Barnes believes, what John Lambert believes, and both those men burn. He is included in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, but future Protestant found him difficult to categorise because of his proximity to Wolsey, his protection of Princess Mary etc.
His reputation for a long time was a greedy official who profited from the dissolution of the monasteries. The charges of treason were trumped up by his opponents and Henry regretting losing him very soon after his death. His reputation in Protestant England may have been much better had his opponents managed to get Henry to burn him.
Call-me, what a snake. I'd love to reach back through time and throttle him.
As for Wyatt, I haven't really believed he was anything but ambivalent towards Crumb, so I don't feel his potential betrayal as worse than Call-me's. Henry's behaviour is appalling and nothing can redeem him in my eyes, for either his treatment of Crumb or of Wolsey. He is a dangerous, murdering child.
I confess I've gone on and read to the end. I find this last part so hard to read so it has to be done quick. Maybe next time round I'll be able to take my time. We'll see. I keep hoping somehow it'll work out and he'll be alright - its probably a diagnosable condition...
Call-me is the worst. Second only to Henry. Ugh. Such baby monsters.
I'm not sure about Wyatt either. I agree with you - I think he didn't fully appreciate Crumb's promise to look after him or how much he admired him and his writing. Or how hard Crumb worked to save him. I think he maybe felt bad that his work in France made things worse, but I don't think he ever got over Anne B. and Cromwell's role in it. I imagine he talked - or at least didn't contradict the talk. Call-me's jealousy really makes it hard to tell - which is interesting. So much intrigue. Plus it's hard to look past Call-me simply being the worst.
I'm avoiding the end. He's not dead if I don't read it, right? Clearly I am suffering from the same condition.
I too have read ahead... I'll definitely check the chat next Wednesday but I knew I'd avoid the post-arrest chapter completely if I didn't go through it in one. And Christmas Day seems especially cruel for the finale! So I've finished the whole chapter/book today and already feel bereft. I watched the TV adaptation at the weekend and felt so much loss, not just or even primarily of Crumb, but also of the nuances Mantel brings in her written version. The absences, the absence of the ghosts, in rereading the book felt profound.
So I'm queuing up listening to the audio books for next year and heading to your podcast pieces Simon. I couldn't be in better company!
It was kinda difficult to read the interrogation. I hate how they twist everything around to suit their needs. I want to go back in time and give Crumb a hug.
I like that he recognizes it. They are doing all the things he did, so he knows how it goes. He wrote the road map and trained the henchmen. His only hope is that he can do the end well. It's funny that I'm more outraged (and perhaps more forgiving of his awful deeds) than he is.
This conflict of feeling over Cromwell is a constant for me throughout all three books. I love him, I am 100% Team Crumb, but he does do some pretty questionable things. This says things about me I think 😬
All the way through, I've marvelled at Ben Miles's performance on the audio-version. But in this section, he surpasses himself. The nuances he manages to inject into that interrogation -- the sneers, the cringes, the defiance, the pathos -- are just masterful. And so, we head into next week with a heavy heart...
It is so weird approaching the end, I really feel like I have been walking side by side with Cromwell for the past year. And all these betrayals, I know they are coming - and yet they hurt just as much. I cannot help but wonder how he truly felt and if Henry ever read that letter. He probably didn't, but maybe he did?
Mantel gives us her version of events with the letter next week. I suspect he didn't, he was probably too busy thinking about Katherine Howard. But how personally we take those betrayals after walking in Crumb's shoes for a year!
I also watched the final part of 'Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light' on BBC TV and just cried. Heck. So many emotions come to the fore towards the end of this Trilogy.
Oh Wriothesley. What a mess he is. What fragility! One of my favorite scenes is when Henry addresses him as “Call-Me” and I could just see the shock. And Chapuys calls him that as well and I just imagine him bristling. Rafe has his number for sure.
I love that Mantel has him studying Hebrew in the Tower. Do we know that he had the books she mentions?
Maybe burning would have been better for his reputation ultimately, but at this point I’m just hoping for a clean death for Crumb!
A great deal of info and useful direct quotes in that letter... for Mantel I mean.
Henry's such a brute. There was a good article in the London Review of Books a few weeks back about Margaret Tudor, which pleasingly interlocks with our history from a different angle. Henry doesn't come out well.
I posted today about my relationships seen through the lens of fragile vs. anti fragile. While i didn't delve into literature, the fragility of any relationship with Henry is astounding. back to Machiavelli––better to be feared than loved.
I loved the self-awareness at the end of this reading when Cromwell realizes that the May Day moment of sprezzatura, the display of his wealth and power, was the moment he sealed his own doom.
It is sad, Simon, to be coming to an end. I feel like my next long read will be a "rebound" book.
Coincidentally, Adam Roberts has just posted a long appreciation of the whole trilogy, with some caveats, on his Substack. I liked it a lot, partly because he disliked Mark Rylance as Cromwell for the same reasons I did, but also because it's interesting to see another look at this great piece.
FWIW, I've greatly enjoyed this trek through TMATL. This is my second time through, and while I still can't like it -- I find it baggy, a chronicle of a death foretold, foretold again, and a couple more times to boot -- this slow walk through it has made me see the many felicities within the book. (The first two are some of my favorite novels ever.) It's been very rewarding. Thank you, Magister.
Ah, I would have liked it to have been longer, and baggier, but we would have needed an extra year to read it.
It has been interesting seeing Mark Rylance getting so much praise for his performance. It's good, but lacks the breadth and depth of Ben Miles, who brings out the richness of the books. In the end, the BBC gutted the story by removing the eel boy, most of Walter, and nearly all of Christophe. It's a story about the mutability of memory, and that only partially came across on the screen.
This is so interesting to me, Mark Rylance is the reason I fell in love with Cromwell and picked up the books. It’s making me crazy to have to wait until the spring to watch here in the states.
I was ill this past week, so I fell behind. But I caught up and finished the book. Before I sat down, I made myself extra cozy in the hopes that it would make the ending a little easier, but it did not. I feel just as bereft as I did the first time I read it. January and 1526 feel so long ago. I also feel like I've forgotten Liz's face, and the girls', too.
I don't think I'd ever quite twigged to Crumb being an unreliable narrator in his own story before, but you're right. Early on, he is all light and learning. He is the jovial Tom Cromwell who can fix all your problems for you, for a bit of gold. But once we hit 1536, with all that darkness in May, and then that interview with Dorothea, it starts to slowly unravel, doesn't it?
I was reading the section and became so engrossed, I read past the stopping point and just like that, a year of reading Crumb came to an end. Thank you, Simon. I wouldn’t have done it without you.
I'm taking these betrayals personally, even if they've been on the record for hundreds of years, and I've read this book before.
I am too. I am more like Christophe than I'd care to admit, I think.
Christophe was a genius creation, so believable I wish he could really have been with Crumb in the Tower.
He really was a smart add on. Crumb really needed him there at the end. :(
I keep thinking there should be some fun revenge fan fic featuring Christophe.
I am 100% for this idea!
Same!
Absolutely. I could mop the floor with Call-me.
I was struck by Mantel’s description of Cromwell’s heart sensation and believe that she is beautifully describing takotsubo cardiomyopathy - otherwise known as broken heart syndrome. This is a ballooning of part of the left ventricle (with impaired cardiac function) in response to a surge in stress hormones, typically from strong negative emotions such as loss of a loved one. It can mimic a heart attack.
I continue to be in awe of her research and meticulous descriptions.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/takotsubo-cardiomyopathy-broken-heart-syndrome
Oh my, thank you for this tangent! Definitely including this detail next year. Fascinating!
Crumb has lived in my head for so long, Simon- I can’t thank you enough for bringing him even more to life through this community and slow read. I shall definitely go back to the audio for this section as it comes so recommended. I shall- as before when finishing this trilogy- be devastated and moved by the writing, but I shall also be filled with the loss the company of the lively and committed readers who have shared the journey this time. Thank you all.
I wonder: if I don't publish the final week, maybe it will never end...!
Maybe we should 'fan fiction' an alterative ending...
Ha! I just commented above that we needed some revenge fan fic featuring Christophe. We're thinking alike, Nicola. :)
Please! I’d buy that 🙏🏼
I felt less shocked this week and more in awe. Cromwell is handling his imprisonment well. He's feisty with Gardiner and the other men in the interrogation. He's trying to further his mind. Unlike Anne, I don't think he holds out any hope for the king to save him.
Does Wyatt even have a good reason for betraying Cromwell?
Does anyone have any resources on teaching on Cromwell in English schooling? I'm so curious at the portrait Mantel has painted of him that it's hard to see him as fully a traitor or a heretic.
My quote of the week: "The destruction goes beyond counting. It does beyond what the pen can record." It reminds me of the bill for Cromwell's death but also of Mantel, for recording the story we lost when Cromwell was branded a traitor in the world of history.
Diarmaid MacCulloch writes that there is far more evidence that he was a heretic than a traitor. As Mantel says, he believes exactly what Robert Barnes believes, what John Lambert believes, and both those men burn. He is included in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, but future Protestant found him difficult to categorise because of his proximity to Wolsey, his protection of Princess Mary etc.
His reputation for a long time was a greedy official who profited from the dissolution of the monasteries. The charges of treason were trumped up by his opponents and Henry regretting losing him very soon after his death. His reputation in Protestant England may have been much better had his opponents managed to get Henry to burn him.
That's really helpful!
Call-me, what a snake. I'd love to reach back through time and throttle him.
As for Wyatt, I haven't really believed he was anything but ambivalent towards Crumb, so I don't feel his potential betrayal as worse than Call-me's. Henry's behaviour is appalling and nothing can redeem him in my eyes, for either his treatment of Crumb or of Wolsey. He is a dangerous, murdering child.
I confess I've gone on and read to the end. I find this last part so hard to read so it has to be done quick. Maybe next time round I'll be able to take my time. We'll see. I keep hoping somehow it'll work out and he'll be alright - its probably a diagnosable condition...
Call-me is the worst. Second only to Henry. Ugh. Such baby monsters.
I'm not sure about Wyatt either. I agree with you - I think he didn't fully appreciate Crumb's promise to look after him or how much he admired him and his writing. Or how hard Crumb worked to save him. I think he maybe felt bad that his work in France made things worse, but I don't think he ever got over Anne B. and Cromwell's role in it. I imagine he talked - or at least didn't contradict the talk. Call-me's jealousy really makes it hard to tell - which is interesting. So much intrigue. Plus it's hard to look past Call-me simply being the worst.
I'm avoiding the end. He's not dead if I don't read it, right? Clearly I am suffering from the same condition.
I recommend having Wolf Hall on stand-by so you can resurrect him immediately 😊
I too have read ahead... I'll definitely check the chat next Wednesday but I knew I'd avoid the post-arrest chapter completely if I didn't go through it in one. And Christmas Day seems especially cruel for the finale! So I've finished the whole chapter/book today and already feel bereft. I watched the TV adaptation at the weekend and felt so much loss, not just or even primarily of Crumb, but also of the nuances Mantel brings in her written version. The absences, the absence of the ghosts, in rereading the book felt profound.
So I'm queuing up listening to the audio books for next year and heading to your podcast pieces Simon. I couldn't be in better company!
I really should have realised that the finale was going to fall on Christmas Day. Here's me, ruining everyone's Christmas.
Don't be too hard on yourself - you can't help the ending! Or that post day is Wednesday... 🤷🏻♀️😁
It was kinda difficult to read the interrogation. I hate how they twist everything around to suit their needs. I want to go back in time and give Crumb a hug.
I felt the same. It seems like someone should give him a hug.
It's karma man
I like that he recognizes it. They are doing all the things he did, so he knows how it goes. He wrote the road map and trained the henchmen. His only hope is that he can do the end well. It's funny that I'm more outraged (and perhaps more forgiving of his awful deeds) than he is.
This conflict of feeling over Cromwell is a constant for me throughout all three books. I love him, I am 100% Team Crumb, but he does do some pretty questionable things. This says things about me I think 😬
All the way through, I've marvelled at Ben Miles's performance on the audio-version. But in this section, he surpasses himself. The nuances he manages to inject into that interrogation -- the sneers, the cringes, the defiance, the pathos -- are just masterful. And so, we head into next week with a heavy heart...
Agreed! Miles is so good through this section.
I literally don't understand how anyone can bear to listen to this last part. I have to speed read it.
It is so weird approaching the end, I really feel like I have been walking side by side with Cromwell for the past year. And all these betrayals, I know they are coming - and yet they hurt just as much. I cannot help but wonder how he truly felt and if Henry ever read that letter. He probably didn't, but maybe he did?
Mantel gives us her version of events with the letter next week. I suspect he didn't, he was probably too busy thinking about Katherine Howard. But how personally we take those betrayals after walking in Crumb's shoes for a year!
Henry oh Henry...
And poor Katherine Howard!
Wonderful. Just wonderful. Thank you Simon!
I also watched the final part of 'Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light' on BBC TV and just cried. Heck. So many emotions come to the fore towards the end of this Trilogy.
Oof. Maybe it's good I'm in the states and won't be able to watch for a few months. I'm not sure I could do this read and watch at the same time.
I think, having spent a year in his company, we’ve become very invested in Cromwell.
We pretty much are Cromwell by this point.
😂😂😂
Why does the ending of "Spartacus" come to mind?? 🤔😬😂
I genuinely can't watch it. Mark Rylance is my preferred Cromwell actor but I can't face watching the end.
It's so sad, Nicola. They portrayed it very well, though, on the programme, so it's not too grisly.
Maybe I'll be brave enough one day!
I'm not in England any more so I can't see it! Argh
I’m in Australia and wonder when I’ll get to see it! 🤔
Me too Pina 🤔
Oh Wriothesley. What a mess he is. What fragility! One of my favorite scenes is when Henry addresses him as “Call-Me” and I could just see the shock. And Chapuys calls him that as well and I just imagine him bristling. Rafe has his number for sure.
I love that Mantel has him studying Hebrew in the Tower. Do we know that he had the books she mentions?
Maybe burning would have been better for his reputation ultimately, but at this point I’m just hoping for a clean death for Crumb!
I doubt we know what he read in the Tower. I'd love to know how Mantel chose those books. Oh, to have her here to talk to!
She would have loved this place.
In the second paragraph I mean him, Essex/Cromwell, of course 😆
A great deal of info and useful direct quotes in that letter... for Mantel I mean.
Henry's such a brute. There was a good article in the London Review of Books a few weeks back about Margaret Tudor, which pleasingly interlocks with our history from a different angle. Henry doesn't come out well.
I went looking. Is this the article? https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n23/diarmaid-macculloch/magnificent-progress
Henry is the worst.
That's the one. Paywalled though. I read it in print
Ooh, this is available from my library - thank you!
I can’t believe there’s only one more of these. Will it appear on Christmas Day?
Yeah, I feel like that was poorly timed on my part! Merry Christmas everyone...
Haha yes! Nothing like an execution to add to the Christmas spirit!
What would we say to a ghostly visitation from Crumb a la A Christmas Carol?
😂
Ha, I just noticed this. Wow 😂
I posted today about my relationships seen through the lens of fragile vs. anti fragile. While i didn't delve into literature, the fragility of any relationship with Henry is astounding. back to Machiavelli––better to be feared than loved.
I loved the self-awareness at the end of this reading when Cromwell realizes that the May Day moment of sprezzatura, the display of his wealth and power, was the moment he sealed his own doom.
It is sad, Simon, to be coming to an end. I feel like my next long read will be a "rebound" book.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And thank you for joining us David. It has been a real pleasure.
Coincidentally, Adam Roberts has just posted a long appreciation of the whole trilogy, with some caveats, on his Substack. I liked it a lot, partly because he disliked Mark Rylance as Cromwell for the same reasons I did, but also because it's interesting to see another look at this great piece.
FWIW, I've greatly enjoyed this trek through TMATL. This is my second time through, and while I still can't like it -- I find it baggy, a chronicle of a death foretold, foretold again, and a couple more times to boot -- this slow walk through it has made me see the many felicities within the book. (The first two are some of my favorite novels ever.) It's been very rewarding. Thank you, Magister.
Ah, I would have liked it to have been longer, and baggier, but we would have needed an extra year to read it.
It has been interesting seeing Mark Rylance getting so much praise for his performance. It's good, but lacks the breadth and depth of Ben Miles, who brings out the richness of the books. In the end, the BBC gutted the story by removing the eel boy, most of Walter, and nearly all of Christophe. It's a story about the mutability of memory, and that only partially came across on the screen.
This is so interesting to me, Mark Rylance is the reason I fell in love with Cromwell and picked up the books. It’s making me crazy to have to wait until the spring to watch here in the states.
Many people fell in love with the story through Mark Rylance, you're not alone!
I was ill this past week, so I fell behind. But I caught up and finished the book. Before I sat down, I made myself extra cozy in the hopes that it would make the ending a little easier, but it did not. I feel just as bereft as I did the first time I read it. January and 1526 feel so long ago. I also feel like I've forgotten Liz's face, and the girls', too.
I don't think I'd ever quite twigged to Crumb being an unreliable narrator in his own story before, but you're right. Early on, he is all light and learning. He is the jovial Tom Cromwell who can fix all your problems for you, for a bit of gold. But once we hit 1536, with all that darkness in May, and then that interview with Dorothea, it starts to slowly unravel, doesn't it?
That's been my biggest takeaway from the slow read. And it makes me read Wolf Hall in a very different way.
I was reading the section and became so engrossed, I read past the stopping point and just like that, a year of reading Crumb came to an end. Thank you, Simon. I wouldn’t have done it without you.
Well done Kathryn at reaching journey's end.