Wolf Crawl #23: The cutting wind

London Meet-Up – Sunday 21 September 2025

Before I start this week, I’d like to invite you to our first gathering of Wolf Crawlers, in London on Sunday, 21 September 2025.

Matt Brown

,

Bea Stitches

and I will explore Cromwell’s London, from Smithfields to Tower Hill. This will be a lovely opportunity to meet our fellow readers and see some of the sites mentioned in the books.

The meetup will be a walk via Crumb’s old haunts and a few historic pubs, followed by lunch near Tower Hill. You’ll need to buy your own refreshments, but the meetup itself is free.

For practical purposes, we must limit the walk to 15 people, so let me know as soon as possible if you can come. We can accommodate more people for lunch at the end of our walk, so if you miss out, you can still meet us there. Email or message me to book your place. I look forward to seeing some of you there.

Still, he knew how to act when the chance presented itself, how to set his family climbing, climbing, to the highest branches of the tree. It's cold up there when the wind blows, the cutting wind of 1536.

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

Welcome to Week 23 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 second third of Part Two. Chapter I. The Black Book. London, January–April 1536. In the UK Fourth Estate edition, this section runs from pages 223 to 255. In the US Picador edition, it runs from pages 187 to 214.

It begins, “So here’s the Duke of Norfolk…” It ends, “ One day he will give in and invite it to stand by the hearth.”

This summary is followed by a few footnotes of interest.

This week, we sup with the devil, and his son, the Earl of Surrey. There is a cobnut conspiracy and a fishing invitation, a poem of Wyatt’s and a song of the King’s. A valiant Bea rises from her sickbed to bring us prophesies from the archive. The ghosts hold off their hauntings for another week, and we end 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.