Waiting for the axe to fall
We know how Thomas Cromwell’s bleak end will come, but Wolf Hall remains compelling – and therein lies its genius, says historian Tracy Borman
BBC/Nick Briggs
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The Tower of London, 19 May 1536. The crowds begin to disperse as the bloodied remains of Queen Anne Boleyn are bundled into an old arrow chest that has been hastily brought over from the nearby armoury, no one having thought to arrange a coffin. A few hours later, the fallen queen is interred in the Tower chapel alongside other victims of Henry VIII’s increasingly brutal regime, her brother George and former nemesis Thomas More among them.
Cannons fire out from the Tower, proclaiming to the city that the king’s scandalous second wife is dead. Hearing them, Henry leaves his palace of Whitehall and boards the royal barge, which takes him upriver to Chelsea. Anne Boleyn’s former attendant, Jane Seymour, is waiting for him there. They are betrothed the next day.
Kosminsky with Mark Rylance. BBC
The four years that followed Anne’s demise, which have played out in the BBC drama Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, which ends this week, are among the most turbulent in English history. The kingdom was swept along by terrifyingly swift and seismic religious reform, its people looking on as the monasteries that had dominated English life for centuries were torn down, their riches diverted to the crown.
England faced the wrath not only of Rome but of the Catholic superpowers of France and Spain. For almost three decades, its king had basked in the unflinching loyalty of his adoring subjects. But Henry was no longer the Adonis of his early reign: a jousting accident early in 1536 had left him with such painful wounds that he was unable to exercise and rapidly gained weight. As he descended into tyranny, nobody at his court was safe: wives, favourites or ministers. Even his all-powerful henchman Thomas Cromwell was observed to be “tottering”.
Hilary Mantel’s first two novels were dramatised by the BBC in a lavish, six-part series directed by Peter Kosminsky in 2015. Five years later, Mantel released The Mirror and the Light. That it, too, would be adapted for the screen was a given: the author had sent a draft of each chapter to Kosminsky as soon as she had completed it. Mantel didn’t live to see the finished adaptation: she died in 2022. But as well as the book, she left a rich legacy of emails filled with insights and advice for Kosminsky’s team. Her voice can very much be felt in the sumptuous screen portrayal of what turned out to be her last book.
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex After Hans Holbein the Younger. Getty
Nearly ten years have passed since the first series, and the cast, naturally, have aged – something Kosminsky describes as “the elephant in the room”. But then, the two series combined cover the full ten years of Cromwell’s rise to power, so, if anything, this adds to the authenticity. The beleaguered minister, like his on-screen persona Mark Rylance, certainly had a few more grey hairs by the end of his service to Henry VIII than he had at the beginning.
Besides, the most significant change is not in the protagonist’s appearance but in his attitude. Gone is the swagger that characterised Cromwell’s inexorable rise from blacksmith’s boy to minister. The wry smiles and witty asides are replaced by furrowed brows and a fearful expression. Although painful to watch, this showcases Rylance’s brilliance even more. With a single look, a slight shifting of his posture, he can convey more than a thousand words.
We somehow set aside the horrors to come and live each moment with Cromwell
Henry, too, has changed – and not for the better. Youthful exuberance has hardened into petulance and irascibility, open-handedness into suspicion and paranoia. Damian Lewis is both magisterial and menacing in the role and gives the impression that he might embrace or execute those around him as the mood takes him. Other stand-out performances include Lilit Lesser, whose sensitive portrayal of Princess Mary excites the sympathy of the audience – and of Cromwell himself. Kate Phillips is a much more nuanced, wily Jane Seymour than the meek version pedalled by most history books.
The relationship between both women and Cromwell has been one of the major threads of the current series. As a devout Catholic opposed to her father’s reforms, Mary ought to have little in common with his chief minister. Yet there is a surprising sympathy, even intimacy, between them that will ultimately prove deadly for Cromwell. This is no dramatic licence: among numerous charges brought against him in 1540 was that he was plotting to marry the king’s eldest daughter and bolster his claim to the throne.
There is also a grain of truth in the closeness that exists between Cromwell and Henry’s new wife, Jane Seymour. Certainly, we know that he smoothed her path to the throne by clearing it of the greatest obstacle, Anne Boleyn. But there is no hint in the contemporary sources that Cromwell was ever acting for himself. Rather, it was rumoured that he was planning to marry Jane’s sister Elizabeth. In the end, he decided to match her with his son Gregory instead. This marked the zenith of Cromwell’s career. The Cromwells were now almost part of the royal family. When Jane gave birth to Henry’s longed-for son and heir Edward in 1537, the Seymours became invincible – as, apparently, did Cromwell. Nobody could have predicted that he too would soon be dispatched in as brutal a fashion as Anne Boleyn, Thomas More and the others he had brought down.
Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell and Kate Phillips as Jane Seymour. Playground Entertainment/Nick Briggs
Herein lies the genius of The Mirror and the Light. Even though we know how the story ends, Peter Straughan’s script is so skilfully written, the score so evocative and the scenes so intimately filmed, that we somehow set aside the certainty of the horrors to come and live each moment with Cromwell as if we, too, have no idea what lies ahead. Only the occasional reference to a character or event that will have profound consequences for him later in the narrative leaves us with what Mantel describes as “a chilly trickle of dismay, like water creeping into a cellar”. But there are touches of humour, too, which brings welcome relief from the sense of impending doom. This was something Cromwell was known for – he even made his enemies laugh, albeit reluctantly.
The meticulously researched costumes, sets and other authentic period details also enable the viewer to suspend disbelief and become immersed in the drama as it unfolds. I was one of many historians and experts consulted for the series and commented on everything from Tudor manners to where in Hampton Court Palace its chapel bells would have been heard. I remember arriving for work on one of the filming days to see the palace bustling with impeccably dressed Tudors. It was as if I had stepped into the court of Henry VIII. Numerous other locations were used, including Berkeley Castle and Wells Cathedral. In fact, it was filmed entirely on location, never in a fabricated set, over the course of more than 80 days. As costume dramas go, it is beyond compare.
In the first episode, we saw Cromwell writing in his Book of Henry, a compendium of tips and tricks that he has learni during his years of serving this quick-
tempered, unpredictable king. By the last, it is painfully clear that it has all been in vain. Cromwell has fallen foul of his master, thanks in part to arranging the disastrous marriage to Anne of Cleves, the machinations of his enemies and, above all, the capriciousness of the king.
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Cromwell’s end came on 28 July 1540. Having been convicted of trumped-up charges of treason, he made the short walk from his apartments in the Tower to the scaffold site. It took three blows of the axe to sever his head. Later that day, Henry married the Duke of Norfolk’s niece, Catherine Howard, as if to prove how little he cared for his fallen minister. Remorse soon followed. Just a few weeks after Cromwell’s remains had been buried in the Tower chapel, his former royal master was heard to lament the loss of the “most faithful servant” he ever had.
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