Wolf Hall - The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel

Apparently Hilary Mantel put off completing this final book of the Wolf Hall trilogy because she was understandably reluctant to write the final scenes leading up to the execution of Thomas Cromwell. However, even though we know how the story will end, there is much enjoyment to be had with the journey of how we get there.

This book (and the TV adaptation which I have been watching at the same time as reading) opens as the previous one concluded, with the beheading of Anne Boleyn. Cromwell watches this, knowing that he is complicit in this dreadful scene by having orchestrated the Queen's downfall at Henry's behest and that forces that will shake the story of England to its core are at play.

Cromwell’s power as the eminence gris behind the throne grows as he becomes the Lord Privy Seal in place of Thomas Boleyn, Anne’s father. He is charged with dissolving the monasteries and forging a new direction for England as it diverges from the Catholic faith and the authority of the Pope. This is a dangerous path to walk and accusations of heresy will come back to haunt him, and he must also face down a looming rebellion in the north and protect the interests of the king’s daughter Mary who could easily become a figurehead for the rebels.

He is also responsible for the negotiations to secure King Henry a fourth wife after the untimely death of Jane Seymour shortly after giving birth to Edward, the prince that the king had so desperately wanted. This led to the marriage of Henry to Anne of Cleves, a union that was doomed from the start for reasons that verge on the tragic and comical.

The machinations of the Tudor court are superbly detailed as Cromwell tries to placate an ever more mercurial monarch who is suffering from a morbid leg wound and gross obesity, and he is faced with an array of enemies looking for any opportunity to bring him down. The end, when it comes, is shocking but inevitable.

How much Mantel has invented is something for history scholars to argue, but many of the words are clearly drawn from letters and contemporary accounts. Cromwell’s inner life is of necessity, a work of imagination, but it feels believable as an account of someone with consummate political nous living through some of the most turbulent times in English history.