👏👏👏 A very fitting round up to Wolf Hall. I have got so much from this and appreciated the times I have had sitting down listening to your weekly roundup. From this week, I had not realised it was Crowell who set up the registration of births, deaths and marriages in the parishes. There have been lots of interesting facts along the way and I look forward to more as we move into Bringing up the Bodies. I am resisting lifting it from my shelf until next week! Thank you.
I think it will be mentioned again in The Mirror and the Light. We do live in Cromwell's world, one of the reasons why the 1530s are so interesting! Onwards.
Such an emotional scene. When someone comes in near the end, I half expect it to be someone "important", "a person". But it is Dick Purser, the man with the lowest social position in the book. Reminding Cromwell where he came from, and they are both victims of violent men (while participating in a judicial murder). Cromwell: time to put all that into the past. Look to the future and don your livery.
Thank you once again Simon. I cannot tell you how long WH has been on my TBR - staring at me with intimidating eyes. The slow read and your weekly reflections have seen me finally successful.
Cromwell is cunning but fears Henry especially when the latter calls him out stating he is not here for his beauty or charm. I also particularly enjoyed More and Cromwell’s conversation about the prospects of improving this world. What do you make of Cromwell’s remarks of …. ‘I once had every hope …. The world corrupts me … it pulls me down, preserving one’s solitary soul’. I wonder about Cromwell’s motivation and would be interested to read of others thoughts. A fascinating (but unrelated correlation) comes with the LOTR Readalong here on Substack this week with the question being on individualism versus the collective good (Faramir versus Boromir)
Thoughts? Do people feel Cromwell is more for himself or the greater good?
Great question. I think Cromwell doesn't separate them in his mind: the greater good is a world where a Putney boy can be Master Secretary. What pulls them apart is when his position and life is threatened - he and Anne have both said they will do anything to live. So as we will see in the next book, this pushes them to act entirely in their own interests. I love that conversation between Cromwell and More, and his frustration that men like More have no thought for improving this world. In the battle of the living and the dead, More and the Carthusians are already in death's armies, caring only about past saints and a future afterlife.
He has said repeatedly to More ‘just say the words’ - self preservation clearly number one. I find this fascinating then that in this book I feel it’s the bigger picture for him (or my heart hopes it was). It will be interesting to now read on and see if I can feel the shift. Thank you for your gentle guidance as always.
Simon, what can I say? I've enjoyed this book in the past. This slow read however, has brought my appreciation ever so much higher. You're the most excellent guide to the court of Henry VIII and the world of Thomas Cromwell! For me, I like the final quote of the week. I'm also reminded, now that he's gone of the dinner party early on, where Thomas More calls Cromwell "no friend of the church but only of one priest, and he the most corrupt in Christendom!" Did More really go to the block believing such things? True, Wolsey was far from perfect, however I think he was probably rather typical in his vices. Pope Clement was a Medici! He, Clement, could have written quite a treatise on corruption from personal experience. Thank you again Simon. I look forward to journeying on
It's interesting isn't it. More was a Catholic humanist like Erasmus, so he abhorred the excesses and corruption of the church, but somehow had to reconcile that with the divine authority of the papacy. I think Cromwell thought that made More a hypocrite. It is certainly a difficult circle to square.
I just read Sophie Smith's piece in the London Review of Books, A Comet That Bodes Mischief, on the history of women in philosophy, where she quotes Erasmus saying how stupid all women are: "A woman is always a woman- that is, a fool." More, of course, is also depicted as a misogynist (apart from towards his daughter, a classic exception).
Mantel grapples with the problem of looking at history from a woman's perspective by making Cromwell exceptionally non-sexist for his time, with the broader context being his open-mindedness about the usefulness of everybody, including people others have scorned and mistreated. It's clever.
I can't decide what I have loved more - Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall or Simon Haisell's wonderful weekly summaries. I'm sad for the ending of Part I but looking forward to Parts II and III. Can't get enough of Cromwell.
Thanks to everyone who has made comments, and for clearing up a lot of points that were missed by me, and things that are confusing to an American not raised with British history. Thank you, Simon, for all your footnotes and tangents, the artwork, and the recommendation to listen to the audio version to help keep the speakers from getting muddled in my mind. So many Thomases! 😜 This has been a great experience, and I look forward to the next two books.
So towards the end, my feelings towards Cromwell in this story get very ambivalent. I wish Wolsey was there now, he would have made this phase of transformation more relaxed. If Cromwell makes everyone swear and everything else is treason and you go up in flames or end up in Tyburn, he's going the full confrontation route, isn't he? My Wolsey would have given people a bit of time to get used to the completely changed circumstances. Maybe overheard something etc.
Cromwell's "words are just words" isn't true, because that's not the way it is. Just the opposite, swear or you're dead, swear and if you say anything against these words afterwards, you risk your life now. I can't understand or relate to these deep faith of those days, but many of them were deeply religious in the old ways (and many also probably did not care) and for some of them the oath must have been a big deal. When Cromwell says to More that the monks are going to their deaths because of More`s example, I don't think so. Cromwell might like to tell himself that.
I think the growing ambivalence is the point of this book, as we are squeezed down into the year of 1536, where everything will change. I agree also about Wolsey. In my Lucifer Stinks post I have Wolsey's ghost turn to Cromwell and say "What are you made of, Thomas? Because you are not made of me." There is something dangerous about Cromwell. Was it the snake in Italy? Or the devil that got in to him at some point, as says Reginald Pole? Or is it the Court, where wolf is wolf to man, and only the carnivorous survive?
I don't think Cromwell said "words are just words", he's repeating what More once said. And they both disagree with that statement, but possibly for different reasons. Cromwell has created a blue print for a totalitarian state, where thoughts are policed. More wants to take away Bilney's death, but Cromwell wants to deny everyone the privacy of their own mind. Except, of course, his own, which he protects to the end.
I'm really excited about starting the second book, how everything will develop and how Cromwell will act! (I thought I'd read all the books a long time ago before I started the readalong, but then I realized it was only the first one, haha). And let's just blame the snake.
(I quoted the quote badly, don't have my book here, yes meant the "words, just words" and actually originally from More)
Cromwell wants to avoid any unnecessary violence or death. The prospect of More's death is painful to him. So he confronts that pain by reminding himself of the violence and death caused by More. Perhaps it's Cromwell's childhood memory and adoration of More that makes the prospect of a world without More a worse world for Cromwell.
Thank you, both for this week’s post (that King Cromwell report card was brilliant) and for the whole journey so far - I can’t believe we have made it to the end of the first book!!
I really enjoyed the contrast between Cromwell’s relationships with Norfolk (barely-convincing politeness on both sides) and Chapuys (officially opponents but with a strong mutual respect). I wish I could share Cromwell’s unworried delight at the “bliss” of having “two dukes on the run” though…
The way that More still sneered at the clerks for making slips in their Latin, even with his life on the line, reminded me of his more dangerous days when, ever-alert for heresy, “He would chain you up, for a mistranslation. He would, for a difference in your Greek, kill you.”
I was intrigued by how many “we” sentences there were towards the end, particularly the one that makes us complicit in rejoicing at More’s death: “Monmouth is too good a man to rejoice in the reversal of fortune. But perhaps we can rejoice for him?”
I can see why you didn’t restrict yourself to a single quote this week! I was also struck by the passage about the creation of historical narratives (“It’s the living that turn and chase the dead” - is this how the author saw her own work?) The one that captivated me most was Cromwell’s rare heartfelt outburst to More on how hard it is to believe in improving the present world, admonishing More for believing “that one should shrink inside, down and down to a little point of light, preserving one’s solitary soul like a flame under glass” and bemoaning “the spectacles of pain and disgrace I see around me, the ignorance, the unthinking vice, the poverty and the lack of hope, and oh, the rain”.
Ah thanks for reminding me of the quote about killing you for your Greek, tying in with the snigger. And that quote about improving the world as well. Sometimes I feel I am in danger of just quoting the whole chapter!
As always a wonderful post, thank you Simon! So much to discover, think about again etc. where I'm totally impressed now for example is the quote from the first week and then the listing of skills as they are then shown throughout the book. I could read the book 10 times and I would never have noticed that.
Also want to mention the “Man for all Seasons” clip—I saw that in 1966 and it definitely influenced how I pictured More. Looking at the clip, I was surprised and amused to see Leo McKern as Cromwell! Especially since he went on to famously play another lawyer, Rumpole of the Bailey!
It's so odd watching these clips after reading Wolf Hall! Cromwell is just a cardboard villain here and More keeps his cool. Which is what happens in Mantel's book, but we get to see that coolness through Cromwell's eyes. Onwards!
Yeah, it's the classic 'More good, Cromwell bad' narrative that Mantel turned upside down. However, I do think Leo McKern resembles the Holbein Cromwell more than Mark Rylance does.
Wonderful read along, thank you so much. I can’t wait for book 2 as it is my favorite. I think the difference between Wolsey’s world and Cromwell’s is that in Wolsey’s time the king was young, married to Katherine who tempered his desires. Now he’s older and impatient and Anne just fans the flames. Things are happening FAST now, there’s no time to prevaricate.
I do think Cromwell is becoming a monster. I love that monster but…I see it.
I love the futility of the ending. TC meticulously planning his journey across England when we have just been told in no uncertain terms: “England is always remaking herself, her cliffs eroding, her sandbanks drifting, springs bubbling up in dead ground. They regroup themselves while we sleep, the landscapes through which we move, and even the histories that trail us; the faces of the dead fade into other faces, as a spine of hills into the mist”. The hubris to think that just because he sleeps so little and remembers and plans so well, he will survive…
What a pleasure these first four months of the Wolf Crawl have been! Being inside Cromwell’s head, feeling amazed, entertained, and educated by Mantel’s superb writing, loving every bit of Simon’s leadership and commentary, and enjoying the lively discussion of our slow-read group. I’ve never done a reading like this before, I’m so eager for the next section with Bring Up the Bodies, and I’m sure I’ll want to join in next year’s project, too. A tip of the jar to you, Simon, and huge thanks for how much fun it’s been so far!
Well, that’s that then. *slaps knees gets up puts Wolf Hall on the shelf-side eyes Bring Up the Bodies*. Pub??
👏👏👏 A very fitting round up to Wolf Hall. I have got so much from this and appreciated the times I have had sitting down listening to your weekly roundup. From this week, I had not realised it was Crowell who set up the registration of births, deaths and marriages in the parishes. There have been lots of interesting facts along the way and I look forward to more as we move into Bringing up the Bodies. I am resisting lifting it from my shelf until next week! Thank you.
I think it will be mentioned again in The Mirror and the Light. We do live in Cromwell's world, one of the reasons why the 1530s are so interesting! Onwards.
Just as I have pity for More's condition, Mantel brings back Dick Purser. His story is so visceral and human and I'm back with the rigged jury.
I'm right there with you. The cruelty is in every corner, but what a moment when Cromwell holds the boy as he cries on his shoulder.
Such an emotional scene. When someone comes in near the end, I half expect it to be someone "important", "a person". But it is Dick Purser, the man with the lowest social position in the book. Reminding Cromwell where he came from, and they are both victims of violent men (while participating in a judicial murder). Cromwell: time to put all that into the past. Look to the future and don your livery.
I tried to find out if Dick is real or just a character from Mantel’s head. Could not confirm! But gosh - he feels like a real boy, doesn’t he?
Wolf Hall done!
Thank you once again Simon. I cannot tell you how long WH has been on my TBR - staring at me with intimidating eyes. The slow read and your weekly reflections have seen me finally successful.
Cromwell is cunning but fears Henry especially when the latter calls him out stating he is not here for his beauty or charm. I also particularly enjoyed More and Cromwell’s conversation about the prospects of improving this world. What do you make of Cromwell’s remarks of …. ‘I once had every hope …. The world corrupts me … it pulls me down, preserving one’s solitary soul’. I wonder about Cromwell’s motivation and would be interested to read of others thoughts. A fascinating (but unrelated correlation) comes with the LOTR Readalong here on Substack this week with the question being on individualism versus the collective good (Faramir versus Boromir)
Thoughts? Do people feel Cromwell is more for himself or the greater good?
Great question. I think Cromwell doesn't separate them in his mind: the greater good is a world where a Putney boy can be Master Secretary. What pulls them apart is when his position and life is threatened - he and Anne have both said they will do anything to live. So as we will see in the next book, this pushes them to act entirely in their own interests. I love that conversation between Cromwell and More, and his frustration that men like More have no thought for improving this world. In the battle of the living and the dead, More and the Carthusians are already in death's armies, caring only about past saints and a future afterlife.
He has said repeatedly to More ‘just say the words’ - self preservation clearly number one. I find this fascinating then that in this book I feel it’s the bigger picture for him (or my heart hopes it was). It will be interesting to now read on and see if I can feel the shift. Thank you for your gentle guidance as always.
Simon, what can I say? I've enjoyed this book in the past. This slow read however, has brought my appreciation ever so much higher. You're the most excellent guide to the court of Henry VIII and the world of Thomas Cromwell! For me, I like the final quote of the week. I'm also reminded, now that he's gone of the dinner party early on, where Thomas More calls Cromwell "no friend of the church but only of one priest, and he the most corrupt in Christendom!" Did More really go to the block believing such things? True, Wolsey was far from perfect, however I think he was probably rather typical in his vices. Pope Clement was a Medici! He, Clement, could have written quite a treatise on corruption from personal experience. Thank you again Simon. I look forward to journeying on
It's interesting isn't it. More was a Catholic humanist like Erasmus, so he abhorred the excesses and corruption of the church, but somehow had to reconcile that with the divine authority of the papacy. I think Cromwell thought that made More a hypocrite. It is certainly a difficult circle to square.
I just read Sophie Smith's piece in the London Review of Books, A Comet That Bodes Mischief, on the history of women in philosophy, where she quotes Erasmus saying how stupid all women are: "A woman is always a woman- that is, a fool." More, of course, is also depicted as a misogynist (apart from towards his daughter, a classic exception).
Mantel grapples with the problem of looking at history from a woman's perspective by making Cromwell exceptionally non-sexist for his time, with the broader context being his open-mindedness about the usefulness of everybody, including people others have scorned and mistreated. It's clever.
Here's Smith's piece: it may or may not be paywalled. (I think they give a free article before the paywall.)
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n08/sophie-smith/a-comet-that-bodes-mischief
I can't decide what I have loved more - Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall or Simon Haisell's wonderful weekly summaries. I'm sad for the ending of Part I but looking forward to Parts II and III. Can't get enough of Cromwell.
Thank you! I am relieved this isn't the end and we have two whole books ahead of us!
Thanks to everyone who has made comments, and for clearing up a lot of points that were missed by me, and things that are confusing to an American not raised with British history. Thank you, Simon, for all your footnotes and tangents, the artwork, and the recommendation to listen to the audio version to help keep the speakers from getting muddled in my mind. So many Thomases! 😜 This has been a great experience, and I look forward to the next two books.
So towards the end, my feelings towards Cromwell in this story get very ambivalent. I wish Wolsey was there now, he would have made this phase of transformation more relaxed. If Cromwell makes everyone swear and everything else is treason and you go up in flames or end up in Tyburn, he's going the full confrontation route, isn't he? My Wolsey would have given people a bit of time to get used to the completely changed circumstances. Maybe overheard something etc.
Cromwell's "words are just words" isn't true, because that's not the way it is. Just the opposite, swear or you're dead, swear and if you say anything against these words afterwards, you risk your life now. I can't understand or relate to these deep faith of those days, but many of them were deeply religious in the old ways (and many also probably did not care) and for some of them the oath must have been a big deal. When Cromwell says to More that the monks are going to their deaths because of More`s example, I don't think so. Cromwell might like to tell himself that.
I think the growing ambivalence is the point of this book, as we are squeezed down into the year of 1536, where everything will change. I agree also about Wolsey. In my Lucifer Stinks post I have Wolsey's ghost turn to Cromwell and say "What are you made of, Thomas? Because you are not made of me." There is something dangerous about Cromwell. Was it the snake in Italy? Or the devil that got in to him at some point, as says Reginald Pole? Or is it the Court, where wolf is wolf to man, and only the carnivorous survive?
I don't think Cromwell said "words are just words", he's repeating what More once said. And they both disagree with that statement, but possibly for different reasons. Cromwell has created a blue print for a totalitarian state, where thoughts are policed. More wants to take away Bilney's death, but Cromwell wants to deny everyone the privacy of their own mind. Except, of course, his own, which he protects to the end.
I'm really excited about starting the second book, how everything will develop and how Cromwell will act! (I thought I'd read all the books a long time ago before I started the readalong, but then I realized it was only the first one, haha). And let's just blame the snake.
(I quoted the quote badly, don't have my book here, yes meant the "words, just words" and actually originally from More)
Simon, kudos.
Cromwell wants to avoid any unnecessary violence or death. The prospect of More's death is painful to him. So he confronts that pain by reminding himself of the violence and death caused by More. Perhaps it's Cromwell's childhood memory and adoration of More that makes the prospect of a world without More a worse world for Cromwell.
I am sure Cromwell's world is never going to be the same again.
Thank you, both for this week’s post (that King Cromwell report card was brilliant) and for the whole journey so far - I can’t believe we have made it to the end of the first book!!
I really enjoyed the contrast between Cromwell’s relationships with Norfolk (barely-convincing politeness on both sides) and Chapuys (officially opponents but with a strong mutual respect). I wish I could share Cromwell’s unworried delight at the “bliss” of having “two dukes on the run” though…
The way that More still sneered at the clerks for making slips in their Latin, even with his life on the line, reminded me of his more dangerous days when, ever-alert for heresy, “He would chain you up, for a mistranslation. He would, for a difference in your Greek, kill you.”
I was intrigued by how many “we” sentences there were towards the end, particularly the one that makes us complicit in rejoicing at More’s death: “Monmouth is too good a man to rejoice in the reversal of fortune. But perhaps we can rejoice for him?”
I can see why you didn’t restrict yourself to a single quote this week! I was also struck by the passage about the creation of historical narratives (“It’s the living that turn and chase the dead” - is this how the author saw her own work?) The one that captivated me most was Cromwell’s rare heartfelt outburst to More on how hard it is to believe in improving the present world, admonishing More for believing “that one should shrink inside, down and down to a little point of light, preserving one’s solitary soul like a flame under glass” and bemoaning “the spectacles of pain and disgrace I see around me, the ignorance, the unthinking vice, the poverty and the lack of hope, and oh, the rain”.
Ah thanks for reminding me of the quote about killing you for your Greek, tying in with the snigger. And that quote about improving the world as well. Sometimes I feel I am in danger of just quoting the whole chapter!
I think that's one of the things I'm enjoying most about this slow read - I'm noticing so many little echoes that would normally pass me by.
As always a wonderful post, thank you Simon! So much to discover, think about again etc. where I'm totally impressed now for example is the quote from the first week and then the listing of skills as they are then shown throughout the book. I could read the book 10 times and I would never have noticed that.
I agree. I laughed out loud when I read that part. Brilliant!
The skills set analysis; yes, loved that!
Also want to mention the “Man for all Seasons” clip—I saw that in 1966 and it definitely influenced how I pictured More. Looking at the clip, I was surprised and amused to see Leo McKern as Cromwell! Especially since he went on to famously play another lawyer, Rumpole of the Bailey!
It's so odd watching these clips after reading Wolf Hall! Cromwell is just a cardboard villain here and More keeps his cool. Which is what happens in Mantel's book, but we get to see that coolness through Cromwell's eyes. Onwards!
I did rather love his response on bullying, “well how should I?” 😂
Yeah, it's the classic 'More good, Cromwell bad' narrative that Mantel turned upside down. However, I do think Leo McKern resembles the Holbein Cromwell more than Mark Rylance does.
Wonderful read along, thank you so much. I can’t wait for book 2 as it is my favorite. I think the difference between Wolsey’s world and Cromwell’s is that in Wolsey’s time the king was young, married to Katherine who tempered his desires. Now he’s older and impatient and Anne just fans the flames. Things are happening FAST now, there’s no time to prevaricate.
I do think Cromwell is becoming a monster. I love that monster but…I see it.
I love the futility of the ending. TC meticulously planning his journey across England when we have just been told in no uncertain terms: “England is always remaking herself, her cliffs eroding, her sandbanks drifting, springs bubbling up in dead ground. They regroup themselves while we sleep, the landscapes through which we move, and even the histories that trail us; the faces of the dead fade into other faces, as a spine of hills into the mist”. The hubris to think that just because he sleeps so little and remembers and plans so well, he will survive…
What a pleasure these first four months of the Wolf Crawl have been! Being inside Cromwell’s head, feeling amazed, entertained, and educated by Mantel’s superb writing, loving every bit of Simon’s leadership and commentary, and enjoying the lively discussion of our slow-read group. I’ve never done a reading like this before, I’m so eager for the next section with Bring Up the Bodies, and I’m sure I’ll want to join in next year’s project, too. A tip of the jar to you, Simon, and huge thanks for how much fun it’s been so far!
Thanks Sheri!
I feel fortunate that I can just pick up “Bring up the Bodies” and immediately plunge back into Cromwell’s world! No waiting for it to be written!
Magic!
And thanks for the tip!