Wolf Crawl #33: The dead do not negotiate

   'It is her mother ...' Chapuys says. He is afraid, as shadows gather, at having spoken ill of the dead. 'I believe she vowed to Katherine she would never give way. Vows to the living may be set aside, with their permission. But the dead do not negotiate.'

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further resources: Hilary Mantel | Wolf Hall

Welcome to Week 33 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 by Matt Brown. This week, we read the final part of Part One. Chapter II. Salvage. London, Summer 1536.

In the UK Fourth Estate edition, this section runs from pages 116 to 165. In the US Picador edition, it runs from pages 98 to 140. It begins, “At the Tower, Francis Bryan says, ‘Was this where you kept Tom Wyatt?'” It ends, “London, thou art the flower of cities all.”

This summary is followed by a few footnotes of interest. This week, we are in paradise, in our garden tower with Chapuys, in Arcadia with Christophe. We inspect Cromwell’s wings and his promise to the dead.

Then

Bea Stitches

brings us more documents from the archives and we consider Cromwell’s ghosts in the haunting of Wolf Hall.

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.