'Wolf Hall', our BOTM for November, which is a larger book in size and scale, we had set of milestones, using which we can gauge our reading progress.
Part 1- 19/10
Part 2 & 3 - 26/10
Part 4 & 5 - 2/11
Part 6 - 9/11
Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, Wolf Hall is a sympathetic fictionalised biography documenting the rapid rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII through to the death of Sir Thomas More. The novel won both the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
As much as I love Tudor history and have read a lot of historical fiction, this book requires strict attention to detail or you keep going backwards to try and understand what is going and who is saying what. ROB It can be a difficult read. Having a reasonable working knowledge of Tudor history does help.
The Tudor period occurred between 1485 and 1603, including the Elizabethan era during the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603).
Why were the Tudors called “the Tudors”? Because it was their name. The House of Tudor were descended from the Welsh Tudor family of Penmynydd in Anglesey in North Wales. The Welsh Tudors included Owain Glyndŵr, who was presented as a rather comic figure in Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 1, Owen Glendower.
In 1500, the teenage Thomas Cromwell ran away from home to flee his abusive father and sought his fortune as a soldier in France.
By 1527, the well-travelled Cromwell had returned to England and was now a lawyer, a married father of three, and highly respected as the right-hand man of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, with a reputation for successful deal-making. His life takes a tragic turn when his wife and two daughters abruptly die of the sweating sickness, leaving him a widower. His sister-in-law, Johane, comes to keep house for him.
Cromwell is still in Wolsey's service in 1529 when the Cardinal falls out of favour with King Henry VIII because he failed to arrange an annulment of the King's marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Cromwell manages to buy the Cardinal a little time before everything the Cardinal owns is repossessed and given to Henry's mistress, Anne Boleyn. Cromwell subsequently decides to relocate the Cardinal and his entourage to a second home in Esher, and the Cardinal moves on to York.
Though he knows the Cardinal is doomed, Cromwell begins negotiations on his behalf with the King. During his visits, he meets the recently widowed Mary Boleyn, Anne's elder sister, and is intrigued by her. Cromwell is eventually summoned to meet Anne and finds Henry's loyalty to her unfathomable.
Continuing to gain favour with both the King and Anne, Cromwell is disturbed by Wolsey's activities in York but is shocked when he learns that the Cardinal has been recalled to London to face treason charges and has died on the way. Cromwell mourns his death and vows to take vengeance on those involved in his downfall. Despite his known loyalty to Wolsey, Cromwell retains his favoured status with the King and is sworn into the King's council after interpreting one of Henry's nightmares about his deceased elder brother as a symbol that Henry should govern with the blessing of his late father and brother.
Cromwell continues to advise Anne and works towards her ascent to Queen, hoping he will rise too. Just as the wedding appears imminent, Henry Percy, a former lover of Anne's, declares that he is her legal husband and still loves her. Cromwell visits Percy on Anne's behalf and threatens him into silence, securing his position as a favourite in the Howard household.
King Henry travels to France for a successful conference with the French. Finally, secure in her position, Anne can marry Henry privately and consummate their relationship. She quickly becomes pregnant, and Henry has her crowned Queen in a ceremony that Cromwell perfectly organises.
The title comes from the name of the Seymour family seat at Wolfhall or Wulfhall in Wiltshire; the title's allusion to the old Latin saying Homo homini lupus ("Man is wolf to man") serves as a constant reminder of the dangerously opportunistic nature of the world through which Cromwell navigates.
The family seat of Jane Seymour is called 'Wolf Hall. ' Not a single scene is set there, but we are directed, ironically, to Anne Boleyn's downfall even at the time of her greatest triumph.
‐-----‐------------
"There are moments when a memory moves right through you. You shy, you duck, you run; or else the past takes your fist and actuates it, without the intervention of will. Suppose you have a knife in your fist? That's how murder happens." (65)
‐----------------
Chapter 2 Part 2 : Occult History
“Beneath every history, another history.” The ancient history of England is narrated in mythical form and ties in with the characters of the novel, which underscores the idea that they, too, are characters as much as people. While history is being narrated in the novel, Mantel suggests that all history is, in essence, a story—not objective truth, but a version of events.
When Wolsey was a powerful man in court, he even controlled the marriages between the courtiers to ensure that matches were made between equals. Ironically, he considered Anne Boleyn to be too inferior to marry even an earl, which explains why he never considered her a threat to his plans of marrying King Henry off to a princess.
According to legend, the Tudors are said to descend from a Trojan named Brutus who fought and killed a race of giants. Prince Arthur, a Tudor, married Katherine of Aragon but soon died. Because he died, his brother Henry became king of England.
Twenty-year-old Anne Boleyn comes to court at Christmas of 1521. Rumors say she has pledged herself to marry Harry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland's heir. However, Cardinal Wolsey has plans to have her marry Butler of Ireland, and Harry Percy is supposed to marry Mary Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury's daughter. Wolsey pressures Thomas Boleyn, Anne's father, to force her and Percy apart, rudely noting the Boleyn family is not noble enough to marry into the Percy family.
Thomas Cromwell, now one of Wolsey's lawyers, tells Wolsey about a rumor that is passing among the women at court: Mary Boleyn, Anne's older sister, is having a secret affair with the king. Cromwell wonders aloud what the Boleyn family will want to get out of the affair, especially if Mary bears the king's child. Later, George Cavendish tells Cromwell that Wolsey argued with Percy about the match and convinced the young lover to give up Anne in favor of Mary Talbot. Cavendish also implies that King Henry had his eye on Anne, even as he was having an affair with her sister, Mary.
In May 1527 Wolsey opens a "secret" court of inquiry "to look into the validity of the king's marriage." Wolsey tells Cromwell about the many pregnancies Katherine has endured, without producing a male heir. King Henry seems to think the lack of male heirs is because of some sin of his or of Katherine's, though Wolsey detects a hint of something "not entirely sincere" when the king speaks of this. For her part Katherine blames Wolsey for escalating the matter. Cromwell admires Katherine's loyalty to Henry. Lady Anne Boleyn, meanwhile, is clearly the object of the king's affections, perhaps lending urgency to the king's desire to set Katherine aside.
The Holy Roman Emperor's troops have ransacked the Holy City and taken the pope prisoner. Emperor Charles is Katherine's nephew, which means King Henry's annulment is stalled. Wolsey considers how to leverage the situation to Henry's advantage. He plans a diplomatic trip to France, hoping for a treaty with King Francis that will help further the king's divorce case.
The sweating sickness sweeps London, and Cromwell's wife, Liz, becomes sick while he is away. By the time he gets home, she is dead. She is buried quickly, and the house is under quarantine because of fears about the contagious illness. Eventually the family is able to have a funeral Mass. Meanwhile, Wolsey returns to England, having had mixed results with the French. Thomas More attempts to befriend Cromwell, and persecutions of heretics continue under More. The king is crazy with desire for Anne Boleyn and will not be content until the divorce occurs.
In 1528 and 1529 the sweating sickness sweeps through again. Cromwell strikes up a friendship with Mary Boleyn. She is a wealth of information about her sister Anne and obviously thinks taking Cromwell as a husband would give her family a shock—a prospect she finds appealing. Cromwell decides he needs to put some distance between himself and the Boleyns. When he learns that Mary is pregnant, he realizes how close he came to raising the king's bastard child as his own. Cromwell's daughters, Anne and Grace, die of the sweating sickness.
The king attempts to prove Katherine was not a virgin when she married him; she makes a statement at her trial. Katherine is sincere and believable, and the trial concludes without a clear win for the king. Having failed, Wolsey falls out of favor with the king, and predators in the court swoop in. He is charged with various crimes and cast from his high office.
This chapter opens with a retelling of a legend that begins with women killing their husbands and ends with Henry VIII ascending the English throne. The use of myth and legend—seen here and in other places in the novel—stresses the importance of history and ancestry to both personal and national identity. It is important to English identity that England has a history dating back to prehistory and rooted in mythology. It is important to the personal identity of the Tudor king, Henry VIII, that he is part of this sweeping narrative of English history. And the genealogy of any individual—how it fits into this sweeping history—affects the person's status in society. That the myth is fantastical is a reminder that fabrication—or at least finesse—is part of establishing social status. A person may build a family tree that looks clear on paper, but the reality of ancestry is far messier. For example, there are plenty of children born out of wedlock—some acknowledged and some unacknowledged. The noble and royal families are all related, so the actual distance between cousins, for example, might be difficult to pin down.
The mythological, or "occult" (as the title of the chapter says), history of England is also set forth as an alternate history to the one imposed by the Church: "There were no priests, no churches and no laws. There was also no way of telling the time." Of course, the Church's history of English royalty does not include murderesses and giants; it includes leaders lifted up or given by God as part of his providence. The novel presents history as if it were stories layered upon one another: "Beneath every history, another history." As time moves forward, new narratives are layered over old ones.
The theme of identity surfaces in this chapter in the most literal of ways. When Thomas Boleyn meets with Cardinal Wolsey, Cromwell is present but not fully visible. Boleyn asks "Who's that?" and the cardinal replies "Just one of my legal people" and refers to him as Thomas. Boleyn muses, "Half the world is called Thomas." Both the description of Cromwell being hidden in a shadowy corner and the fact that his first name is among the commonest suggest Cromwell lacks outward defining features. He is hidden from view physically and hidden in a sea of Thomases because his name provides no clues to his identity. This inability of others to see Cromwell clearly is contrasted with Cromwell's own keen sight: "The light is dim, but he, Cromwell, is of very strong sight." So while he can hide in dim light and shadows, he sees clearly in the same conditions. This sharp eye is a metaphor for his ability to "see" what others cannot generally.
WOLF HALL - The reason my bar for historical fiction will forever be high from now on.
Constantly challenging yet thoroughly rewarding, this book is one of my top reads of 2024. As someone who wasn't sufficiently proficient in Tudor history, I found myself scampering down one internet rabbit hole after another while reading this brick of a book.
This book demanded the kind of discipline and attention from me that I had believed I had lost to social media reels long ago. I came out of Wolf Hall better knowledged. I came out of Wolf Hall, a better reader. I am grateful to have had the good sense to finally pick up my copy.
The sheer audacity of some of the narrative choices Mantel employed in Wolf Hall left me gaping. She is a genius. I'm not the first to say it. And I won't be the last. She won the Booker Prize. Twice. And not without good reason.
In Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell and Anne Boleyn have been generously bestowed upon with untold shades of gray unlike the many previous historical retellings that chose a dull black and white approach. Don't get me wrong, Cromwell hasn't been pardoned. There's no whitewashing here.
Only the dilution of an earlier blackness.
Only the defiling of a maiden whiteness.
The sinless have no place in Wolf Hall.
It's occupied only by ones who dream of survival.
And sometimes surviving means willing to be the last one standing.
