He approaches on the king’s left hand. Weston, who is young and lightly built, is showing signs of buckling at the knees. ‘Lean on me, sir,’ he advises. The king locks an arm around his neck, in a sort of wrestling hold. Bear-keeper’s a steady job. For a moment he thinks the king is crying.
Last Week | Home Page | Reading Schedule
Further Resources: Hilary Mantel | Wolf Hall
Welcome to week 9 of Wolf Crawl. I am your guide,
, and this is a year-long slow read of Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy: Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, and The Mirror & the Light.Each week, I dive into the detail with summaries, background, footnotes and tangents to enrich your reading. I am joined on this journey by
, who delves into the archive on our behalf, and Matt Brown, who makes maps to help us find our way through Cromwell’s world.You can find the reading schedule and plot summaries for the full cast of characters on my website, Footnotes and Tangents. There, you can join other slow reads, including Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell, and Hilary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety.
I start each post with a summary of the week’s story illustrated by a map created by Matt Brown. This week, we are reading the second half of Part Four. Chapter I. Arrange Your Face, 1531.
In the UK Fourth Estate edition, this section runs from pages 305–337. In the US Picador edition, it runs from pages 282–311. It begins, ‘Lent saps the spirits, as of course it is designed to do.’ It ends, ‘I’ll put it on the account.’
This summary is followed by a few footnotes of interest.
This week we arrange our face with Erasmus, we light a bonfire of the vanities in Florence. We look to the heavens for a sign, while keeping watch for lions, giants and bears. In the archives with Bea Stitches, we track the augmentation of Anne and the diminishment of Thomas Bilney. In the haunting of Wolf Hall, we consider who we, Thomas Cromwell, really are. We end with my favourite quote of the week.
And then it is over to you. In the comments, let us know what caught your eye and ask the group any questions you may have. And if you’ve tumbled down a rabbit hole or taken your reading off on a tangent, please share where you have been and what you have found.
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