69 pages • 2 hours read
Hilary MantelA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“What is clear is his thought about Walter: I’ve had enough of this. If he gets after me again I’m going to kill him, and if I kill him they’ll hang me, and if they’re going to hang me I want a better reason.”
Cruelty is Thomas’ impetus to leave Putney and forge his own destiny. It is necessary for him to become a much stronger man than his father in order to survive. Remembrance of Walter’s abuse will make Thomas a better father.
“Spies, he means. To see how she will take the news. To see what Queen Catalina will say, in private and unleashed, when she has slipped the noose of diplomatic Latin in which it will be broken to her that the king would like to marry another lady. Any lady. Any well-connected princess whom he thinks might give him a son.”
Henry VIII married his deceased elder brother’s wife, Katherine of Aragon, partly to form an alliance with Spain, with which England had long been at odds. The cardinal has vested interest in both parties and consequently wants to know what will precipitate on both sides of the issue.
“It is said he knows by heart the entire New Testiment in Latin, and so as a servant of the cardinal is apt—ready with a text if abbots flounder. His speech is low and rapid, his manner assured; he is at home in courtroom or waterfront, bishop’s palace or inn yard. He can draft a contract, train a falcon, draw a map, stop a street fight, furnish a house and fix a jury. He will quote you a nice point in the old authors, from Plato to Plautus and back again. He knows poetry, and can say it in Italian. He works all hours, first up and last to bed. He makes money and he spends it. He will take a bet on anything.”
This passage provides an incredibly succinct portrait of Thomas, now that he has grown up. Mantel presents her protagonist as a Renaissance man, educated in the Bible, Latin, poetry, and politics. He is ideally suited to the life he lives.
“‘But what do they get by the change?’ Cavendish persists. “One dog sated with meat is replaced by a hungrier dog who bites nearer the bone. Out goes the man grown fat with honor, and in comes a hungry and a lean man.’”
George Cavendish, Wolsey’s servant, unwittingly hits upon the cycle of greed and grift that drives the rise and fall of Tudor courtiers. Stephen Gardiner’s rise is predicated upon the fall of Thomas and the Bishop.
“‘Mark and learn,’ he says. ‘You can never advance your own pedigree—and God knows, Tom, you were born in a more dishonorable estate than me—so the trick is to keep them scraped up to their own standards. They made the rules; they cannot complain if I am the strictest enforcer. Percys above Boleyns. Who does he think he is?’”
Both Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell have worked their way up in society through their own hard work and ingenuity. However, the caste system—the system of royalty and aristocracy—cannot be surmounted. One can be knighted, given a title; but one cannot become royalty.
“More, in his pamphlets against Luther, calls the German shit. He says that his mouth is like the world’s anus. You would not think that such words would proceed from More’s mouth, but they do. No one has rendered the Latin tongue more obscene.”
Thomas More, who will later become Henry’s chief counselor, archbishop, and a Catholic saint, worked actively against Protestants in England and Europe. A big part of what was at stake was the accessibility of the Bible: translating the Bible was forbidden by church law. Protestants like Martin Luther sought a more personal relationship with God, and consequently publishers like William Tyndale began illegally translating and publishing the Bible in common languages.
"They could have brought a doctor, who would have looked at her. She would have been frightened, she would have cried; but she would have complied. Perhaps now she wishes it had been so; that they had brought in a strange man with cold hands. But they never asked her to prove what she claimed; perhaps people were not so shameless in those days. The dispensations for her marriage to Henry were meant to cover either case: she was/was not a virgin."
Because Katherine of Aragon was married first to the deceased Prince Arthur, her marriage to Henry hinges largely on her virginity. However, to preserve her dignity, the issue was never officially investigated. This proves to be her undoing: Henry's case for divorce is based upon the supposition that she consummated her marriage with his brother.
“George almost bows. ‘Make or mar,’ he murmurs. ‘It was ever your common saying.’ Cavendish walks about the household, saying, Thomas Cromwell was reading a prayer book. Thomas Cromwell was crying. Only now does George realize how bad things are.”
This passage illustrates the extent to which Thomas is vital to the cardinal’s household. Though he is weeping over his family, he passes it off as if he is weeping over his and the cardinal’s fortunes. George Cavendish is much perturbed: Thomas is usually a pillar of support. “Make or mar” is the motto of Thomas’ life. He is not afraid to put everything on the line for a venture.
“He will remember it, the fatal placement: if it proves fatal. That soft hiss and whisper, of stone destroying itself; that distant sound of walls sliding, of plaster crumbling, of rubble crashing onto fragile human skulls? That is the sound of the roof of Christendom, falling on the people below.”
The establishment and power structure of the Catholic Church is reaching its end, and Thomas realizes it. Now that Henry seems apt to divide from the church based on the ruling of his annulment with Katherine, England is becoming part of the reason of its collapse. Due to his intimacy with Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas stands to fall with it.
“It is no use hoping to remember with the help of common objects, familiar faces. One needs startling juxtapositions, images that are more or less peculiar, ridiculous, even indecent. When you have the images, you place them about the world in locations you chose, each one with its parcel of words, of figures, which they will yield you on demand.”
This passage gives insight to the inner workings of Thomas Cromwell’s mind. This is the system of memory which Thomas learned in Italy. It is how he organizes the vast network of information that he manages: everything from political intrigue, to the entire New Testament.
“The cardinal replies: he is ‘mine own good, trusty and most assured refuge in this my calamity.’ He is ‘mine own entirely beloved Cromwell.’”
The relationship between Thomas and Wolsey is long-standing and one of deep trust and respect. As the cardinal’s health and political/social standing worsen, Thomas’ feelings for the cardinal come to the surface. He greatly admires Wolsey, and credits him with all the good in his life: it is a debt he will never be able to repay. Wolsey, in turn, views Cromwell as the last comfort in his life, though they are now separated.
“What was England, before Wolsey? A little offshore island, poor and cold.”
Despite the negative rumors circulating around him, Cardinal Wolsey greatly advanced the condition of the kingdom. He was a close friend and confidante to Henry, and even after his fall from grace, the king remembers this friendship. As Lord Chancellor, Wolsey’s shrewd mind and diplomatic skills elevated England to the international stage to compete with France and Spain.
“He puts his had upon the royal person, on his sleeve of russet velvet, on his arm, and he grasps it hard enough to make himself felt. ‘You know the lawyers’ saying ‘Le mort saisit le vif’? The dead grip the living. The prince dies but his power passes at the moment of his death, there is no lapse, no interregnum. If your brother visited you, it is not to make you ashamed, but to remind you that you are vested with the power of both the living and the dead. This is a sign to you to examine your kingship. And exert it.’”
Touching the king is a risky move for Thomas. The fact that he gets away with it shows both the extent of the king’s distraction and the trust he has begun to put in Thomas. The king himself interprets his dream as a sign of his own guilt over the way he has treated Queen Katherine. Thomas, however, diverts this line of thought to embolden and empower Henry.
“They say you intend to, what you intend, to break the bishops and make the king the head of the church and take away his revenues from the Holy Father and give them to Henry, then Henry can declare the law if he likes and put off his wife as he likes and marry Lady Anne and he will say what is a sin and what is not and who can be married. And the Princess Mary, God defend her, will be a bastard and after Henry the next king will be whatever child that lady gives him.”
Johane succinctly sums up the plan that will both break the relationship between Henry and Katherine as well as between England and the Catholic Church—the event known historically as the English Reformation. Significantly for Johane and Thomas, this could mean that Henry would be able to sanctify their relationship if John Williamson were to die. This also signifies a new tactic on the part of Henry’s supporters: rather than trying to appeal to Rome for an annulment, giving Henry supremacy would allow him to solve his problem himself.
“Time now to consider the compacts that hold the world together: the compact between ruler and ruled, and that between husband and wife. Both these arrangements rest on sedulous devotion, the one to the interests of the other. The master and husband protect and provide; the wife and servant obey. Above masters, God rules all.”
The Great Chain of Being was the order of the universe for pre-scientific Christian society. Order radiated from the top down, from God to the lowliest of society. Power vested in the king and the church was seen as natural, as was the dominant position a husband held over his wife. Henry’s growing schism with the pope threatens to upset this divine order and therefore carries a metaphysical danger in addition to its political importance.
“More says it does not matter if you lie to heretics, or trick them into a confession. They have no right to silence, even if they know speech will incriminate them; if they will not speak, then break their fingers, burn them with irons, hang them up by their wrists. It is legitimate, and indeed More goes further; it is blessed.”
More, a devout Catholic, is a vicious persecutor of suspected Protestants. This passage paints a stark picture of the author of Utopia. As Lord Chancellor, More is trusted greatly by King Henry. However, conflict will arise when the king’s desires run against More’s beliefs and allegiance to his religion.
“He would like to stop him but you can’t stop a king. His voice runs over naked Mary, chin to toes, and then flips her over like a griddle cake and does the other side, nape to heels. An attendant hands him a square of fine linen, and as he finishes he dabs the corner of his mouth: and hands the kerchief back.”
Thomas, a man of low birth, now finds himself in audience with a second king, and he even plays an important role in the negotiations between Henry and Francois. Though this should be an important moment for him, it is marred somewhat by Francis’ vulgarity in his description of Mary Boleyn. Thomas’ reaction hints at his feelings for Mary.
“You could watch Henry every day for a decade and not see the same thing. Choose your prince: he admires Henry more and more. Sometimes he sees hapless, sometimes feckless, sometimes a child, sometimes master of his trade. Sometimes he seems an artist, in the way his eye ranges over his work; sometimes his hand moves and he doesn’t seem to see it move. If he had been called to a lower station in life, he could have been a traveling player, and leader of his troupe.”
King Henry is a deeply complex character, making it hard for his courtiers to negotiate their interactions with him. This passage depicts the stations of life as a role one plays, much like an actor. Thomas theorizes Henry could excel at any station in which fate put him, because he is adaptable and multi-faceted. Despite his initial misgivings, Thomas’ respect for the king grows.
“Have you ever observed that when a man gets a son he takes all the credit, and when he gets a daughter he blames his wife? And if they do not breed at all, we say it is because her womb is barren. We do not say it is because his seed is bad.”
Jane Rochford’s observations about the nature of conception, rooted in the gospels, describe the fundamental problem with Henry VIII’s obsession with having a male heir. Katherine, and now Anne, have failed to give birth to a male. The common denominator is Henry himself; but no blame will be placed on the supreme patriarch of England.
“He thinks, Gregory is all he should be. He is everything I have a right to hope for: his openness, his gentleness, his reserve and consideration with which he holds back his thoughts till he has framed them. He feels such tenderness for him he thinks he might cry.”
Thomas and Gregory have not always held a close relationship. The two of them are dissimilar in many ways. However, these differences indicate that Thomas has succeeded in his goals as a father. He has been an entirely different father to Gregory than Walter was to him. This has allowed Gregory to bloom into the gentleman that Thomas could never have been.
“You call history to your aid, but what is history to you? It is a mirror that flatters Thomas More. But I have another mirror, I hold it up and it shows a vain and dangerous man, and when I turn it about, it shows a killer, for you will drag down with you God knows how many, who will only have the suffering, and not your martyr’s gratification.”
Thomas tries a new tactic with More: equating his devotion to the Catholic Church with personal vanity. More does not expect his own children to refuse to take the oath. As per Thomas’ argument, his refusal promises to set More up as a martyr in the eyes of the public. Indeed, More was later canonized as a Catholic saint for dying for the faith.
“Henry says, only tell me what you deem best. Abased, like a lover, he cannot think of the best presents. He says, Cranmer bids me listen to Cromwell, and if he needs a post, a tax, an impost, a measure in Parliament or a royal proclamation, give it to him.”
This passage illustrates the heights to which Thomas Cromwell has risen. From the lowly son of an abusive drunk, he has used his wits to become the most intimate councilor of the King of England. His closeness with Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, means that Thomas holds not only vast political power, but also power within the church.
“More is now required to swear the Act of Supremacy, an act which draws together all the powers and dignities assumed by the king in the last two years. It doesn’t, as some say, make the king head of the church. It states that he is the head of the church and always has been. If people don’t like new ideas, let them have old ones. If they want precedents, he has precedents.”
The Act of Supremacy is the final stage of Thomas’ bill, shoring up the “new” power of the king. Thomas uses new interpretations of history and biblical law to justify this act. Its main power comes in the act’s new definitions of treason. The second Act of Supremacy essentially makes it treasonous to deny the powers enumerated in the first. To fail to take the Oath of Supremacy not only bars anyone from public office; it condemns them to death as a traitor to the crown.
“The fate of people is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of phrase, a woman’s sigh as she passes, and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discrete sigh of flesh against flesh.”
Thomas is privy to the inner workings of the political world. While kings and popes rule in show, the majority of the work that changes the world is done in small conferences, between ambassadors or financers, such as in his meeting with Chapuys. Cardinal Wolsey knew this; this is why he built up a wide network of close personal connections.
“Early September. Five days. Wolf Hall.”
The concluding line of the novel offers a segue into Mantel’s sequel, Bring up the Bodies, as well as cementing Thomas’ intentions. Throughout the whole novel, it has been hinted that Thomas is interested in Jane Seymour, either for himself or for one of his wards. Thomas has previously had no interaction with Old John Seymour, the master of Wolf Hall. The fact that he specifically plans to go there,even planning his trip with the king around it, indicates the importance Jane holds to him.
By Hilary Mantel