Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (2009) tells the story of England’s break with the Roman Catholic Church from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s chief political adviser. This is the first book in a trilogy.
PLOT
- Henry VIII wants to marry Anne Boelyn. There’s just one problem. He’s already married.
- Thomas Cromwell works for Cardinal Wolsey who has been unable to get Henry an annulment with Pope Clement.
- When Wolsey gets deposed, Cromwell takes his place in the king’s confidence and gets Henry the marriage he wants.
- The religious and political ramifications of Henry’s remarriage are huge, especially when Anne Boelyn fails to deliver the male heir Henry craves.
- The novel ends with Cromwell planning the king’s next move as his nemesis, Thomas More, gets executed.
THEME
The novel is about ethics and sanctions. Mantel rewrites the Thomas More-friendly A Man For All Seasons with Cromwell, a Machiavel, for a hero. Cromwell’s motivations are not religious; they are political and pragmatic. He knows the Bible, but he doesn’t live by it. He knows that certain Catholic doctrines have no scriptural support but wearies of how scripture gets used to explain life’s harsh realities. His father beat him, and his wife and children died from sweating sickness. He’s not entirely amoral. As he clashes with Thomas More, he appears more reasonable. The novel shows that even when religion is pervasive, the sanctions that matter most happen here on earth.
This is a modern theme set in an early modern era. Mantel is, in fact, trying to persuade us that this was the moment our modern world began.
Experiments in Criticism 