Wolf Crawl #19: Between England and Hell

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Bea Stitches

and myself at the

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by the Tower of London on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th June 2026. Expert panels and keynote talks from Tracy Borman, Diarmaid MacCullouch and Ben Miles. An exclusive performance of the stage adaptation of The Mirror and the Light. Great food, guided walks, and pastime with good company. We would love to see you there. Find out more and buy tickets here..

‘They say the road between England and Hell is worn bare from treading feet, and runs downhill all the way.’
   Daily he ponders the mystery of his countrymen. He has seen killers, yes; but he has seen a hungry soldier give away a loaf to a woman, a woman who is nothing to him, and turn away with a shrug. It is better not to try people, not to force them to desperation. Make them prosper; out of superfluity, they will be generous. Full bellies breed gentle manners. The pinch of famine makes monsters.

Last Week | Home Page | Reading Schedule
Further Resources: Hilary Mantel | Wolf Hall

Welcome to Week 19 of Wolf Crawl. I am your guide,

Simon Haisell

, 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

Bea Stitches

, 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, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, 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 first half of Part One. Chapter II. Crows. London and Kimbolton, Autumn 1535.

In the UK Fourth Estate edition, this section runs from pages 36 to 75. In the US Picador edition, it runs from pages 31 to 62. It begins, “Stephen Gardiner! Coming in as he’s going out…” It ends, “If she should die within the year, I wonder what world would be then?’

This summary is followed by a few footnotes of interest.

This week, we meet again the noon-day devil, Stephen Gardiner. We discuss heads on spikes, the king of limbs and a fateful change in our route back to London. In the archive,

Bea Stitches

examines our Intray to find letters from Thomas Boleyn, Richard Riche, and (yes, alas) Stephen Gardiner. There are no hauntings this week (Is Stephen not enough?), and we end, as usual, with one of my favourite quotes.

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.

To get these posts in your inbox or the Substack app, subscribe to Footnotes and Tangents and turn on notifications for ‘2025 Wolf Crawl’ in your subscription settings.