Wolf Crawl #25: Hunting dogs

He remembers it: an evening of feral stench, as the flower of chivalry became hunting dogs, baying for blood, the whole court hissing and jeering as the figure of the cardinal was dragged and bounced across the floor. Then a voice called out from the hall: 'Shame on you!' He asks Wriothesley, 'That was not you who spoke?'
   'No.' Call-Me will not lie. 'I think perhaps it was Thomas Wyatt.'
   'I believe it was. I have thought about it these many years.'

last week | home page | reading schedule
further resources: Hilary Mantel | Wolf Hall

Welcome to Week 25 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 and 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 of five sections from Part Two. Chapter II. Master of Phantoms. London, April–May 1536.

In the UK Fourth Estate edition, this section runs from pages 288 to 323. In the US Picador edition, it runs from pages 242 to 271. It begins, “Come and sit with me a while.” It ends, “And lock it in your strongbox.”

This summary is followed by a few footnotes of interest.

This week, we must speak about the unspeakable, as the Garter knights gather and the king composes verse.

Bea Stitches

looks at Lady Worcester’s debts before we dive into the darkest part of the book. I finish with one of my favourite quotes from 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.

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.