Wolf Crawl #40: A list of his sins

'Your wife, what was she like?'
   What can he tell her? ... She was a maker of lists, a tabulator of stores: servants careless as they are, a woman must always be taking stock. She kept a list of his sins, in the pocket of her apron: took it out and checked it from time to time.

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further resources: Hilary Mantel | Wolf Hall

Welcome to Week 40 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 delve into the details 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 The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald.

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 Three. Chapter I. The Bleach Fields. Spring 1537.

In the UK Fourth Estate edition, this section runs from pages 399 to 435. In the US Picador edition, it runs from pages 341 to 373. It begins, “When you become a great man, you meet kinsfolk you never knew you had.” It ends, “…and somewhere it is written that Cromwell is his name.”

This summary is followed by a few footnotes of interest. This week, we eat the forbidden fruit and count our sins. We discuss war machines and tenterhooks, Cromwell’s progeny and a crane called Thomas. In the archive with Bea Stitches, we hear from Robert Aske and Uncle Norfolk, and interrogate a rebel in the Tower.

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.