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Bring Up the Bodies (Thomas Cromwell, #2)
by Hilary Mantel
by Hilary Mantel
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In "Wolf Hall" during an evening revel at Hampton Court four masked courtiers act out a wildly blasphemous play in which a character costumed in the scarlet vestments of the deposed and recently dead Cardinal Wolsey is "dragged and bounced across the floor" then borne off to hell.
That scene reverberates throughout the last half "Bring Up the Bodies," and is remembered by Cromwell for the "feral stench" he experienced seeing the memory of his beloved mentor and patron debased. That scandalous play at court is central because it will eventually demonstrate Cromwell's capacity for calculation, control and vengeance at its most menacing.
Each of the four masked players: Henry Norris, George Boleyn, William Brereton and Francis Weston will become Cromwell's players in his prosecution of Anne Boleyn whom Henry wants to make null so he can take up with Jane Seymour.
In order to comply with the king's wish for freedom to marry again, Cromwell needs to prove treason by authenticating stories of Anne's impropriety. For that, Cromwell says to himself, he needs men guilty of indiscretion with the queen. "So he has found men who are guilty. Though perhaps not guilty as charged."
The players in the Hampton Court allegory will be accused, interrogated, tried and executed. Their due process at Cromwell's hand is swift and terrifying for being calmly ruthless and for the absolute purity of its logic. After the gang of four, comes Anne herself. The novel will end as we already know in another beheading, not to be the last ordered by Henry and orchestrated by Cromwell.
Mantel at first talked about writing a trilogy of historical novels chronicling Cromwell's rise and fall. Anne Boleyn's downfall so fascinated Mantel she decided to devote an entire book to the final three months of her life. That means "Bring Up the Bodies" may be the second of four novels in the Cromwellian saga, concluding with the privy councilor's execution in 1540.
Both Cromwell novels succeed in amazing because of Mantel's ability to make the Tudor Court vibrant. In her hands Tudor history becomes new and Cromwell's machinations all the more chilling.
In "Wolf Hall" during an evening revel at Hampton Court four masked courtiers act out a wildly blasphemous play in which a character costumed in the scarlet vestments of the deposed and recently dead Cardinal Wolsey is "dragged and bounced across the floor" then borne off to hell.
That scene reverberates throughout the last half "Bring Up the Bodies," and is remembered by Cromwell for the "feral stench" he experienced seeing the memory of his beloved mentor and patron debased. That scandalous play at court is central because it will eventually demonstrate Cromwell's capacity for calculation, control and vengeance at its most menacing.
Each of the four masked players: Henry Norris, George Boleyn, William Brereton and Francis Weston will become Cromwell's players in his prosecution of Anne Boleyn whom Henry wants to make null so he can take up with Jane Seymour.
In order to comply with the king's wish for freedom to marry again, Cromwell needs to prove treason by authenticating stories of Anne's impropriety. For that, Cromwell says to himself, he needs men guilty of indiscretion with the queen. "So he has found men who are guilty. Though perhaps not guilty as charged."
The players in the Hampton Court allegory will be accused, interrogated, tried and executed. Their due process at Cromwell's hand is swift and terrifying for being calmly ruthless and for the absolute purity of its logic. After the gang of four, comes Anne herself. The novel will end as we already know in another beheading, not to be the last ordered by Henry and orchestrated by Cromwell.
Mantel at first talked about writing a trilogy of historical novels chronicling Cromwell's rise and fall. Anne Boleyn's downfall so fascinated Mantel she decided to devote an entire book to the final three months of her life. That means "Bring Up the Bodies" may be the second of four novels in the Cromwellian saga, concluding with the privy councilor's execution in 1540.
Both Cromwell novels succeed in amazing because of Mantel's ability to make the Tudor Court vibrant. In her hands Tudor history becomes new and Cromwell's machinations all the more chilling.
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