Wolf Crawl #36: Matters that corrupt

‘About my fallen state, I have no choice but agree. I must meddle with matters that corrupt – it is my office. In the golden age the earth yielded all we required, but now we must dig for it, quarry it, blast it, we must drive the world, we must gear and grind it, roll and hammer and pulp it. There must be dinners cooked, Rob.'

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further resources: Hilary Mantel | Wolf Hall

Welcome to Week 36 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 are reading Part Two. Chapter I. Augmentation. London, Autumn 1536.

In the UK Fourth Estate edition, this section runs from pages 255 to 277. In the US Picador edition, it runs from pages 217 to 236. It begins, “The dead man comes out of the Well with Two Buckets…” It ends, “when they fall into bed at night they are tired beyond all temptation; and when they die, they go to Heaven.”

This summary is followed by a few footnotes of interest. This week, we are augmented as the good doctor Barnes comes back from the dead to ask us what we really believe. We visit Ultima Thule, receive an invitation to Yorkshire from a future queen, and tell Anthony to add his bells to the account. In the archive with

Bea Stitches

, Mary writes to her new mother, and Cromwell lists his accomplishments.

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.

Norfolk: “By the gridiron of St Lawrence.” The Martyrdom of St Lawrence by Palma il Giovane. Source.