Sometimes when he is on the verge of sleep the cardinal’s large scarlet presence flits across his inner eye. She is a plain young woman with a silvery pallor, a habit of silence, and a trick of looking at men as if they represent an unpleasant surprise. He can imagine a time when he may no longer please the king, just like Katherine and Anne, just like Thomas Wosley and Thomas More, and just like George Boleyn, Sir William Brereton, Mark Smeaton, Henry Norris and Sir Francis Weston. All he can do is seek the revenge he desires on those who betrayed the cardinal, while he can, as well as set things up for his family, in the hope they will not suffer his fate too.Ĭromwell does not live his life like a doomed man, in fact, he hopes for the best. The rewriting of history, the playing with truth and Henry’s need of a scapegoat all bode ill for Cromwell. When he saw the portrait finished he has said, ‘ Christ, I look like a murderer’ and his son Gregory said, didn’t you know?”Įven though, Bring up the Bodies, is all about Thomas Cromwell at the height of his influence, many ominous warnings and signs prepare us for what will happen in book three. Hans has pushed a table back to trap him and said, Thomas, you mustn’t laugh and they had proceeded on that basis, Hans humming as he worked and he staring ferociously into the middle distance. “ At home in his city house at Austin Friars, his portrait broods on the wall he is wrapped in wool and fur, his hand clenched around a document as if he were throttling it. She created anecdotes around the sittings, that give little insights into another world and time. Mantel also used Hans Holbein’s many portraits as a way of fleshing out the characters and their history. He faces some ribbing from the others about his name choices, but it does allow Mantel a chance to give us a quick recap of how Cromwell got to be here, hunting alongside Henry VIII.
Cromwell has his falcons out – curiously named after his dead daughters and wife. Bring Up the Bodies starts at the end of this summer tour with Cromwell and Henry VIII hunting in and around Wolf Hall, the family home of the Seymour family. Wolf Hall finished with the itinerary planning for Henry’s big summer tour of the counties. They’re so often clunky, slow to the point and unnecessarily long. Usually, I find recaps annoying within a series.
As I started BUTB, I realised that Mantel helps with this by some clever recapping. Part of my desire in (re)reading Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies was to refresh my memory, so that I could have it all front of mind for my very first reading of The Mirror and the Light.
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