The Mirror & the Light (Thomas Cromwell, #3)

by Hilary Mantel

He, Cromwell, touches a finger to the metal. You would not guess it to look at him now, but his father was a blacksmith; he has affinity with iron, steel, with everything that is mined from the earth or forged, everything that is made molten, or wrought, or given a cutting edge.

Usually he is the soul of courtesy. But if you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?

‘And besides, I think, with women, when something happens to one of them, all of them feel it. They are more pitiful than us, and it would be a harsh world if they were not.’

It is only May, he thinks, and already two queens of England are dead.

I have risen above this, he thinks: this day, this waning light, these snares. I am the Damascene cat. I have travelled so far to get here, and nothing they do disturbs me now, nor disquiets me, high on my branch.

Call-Me flinches. He is sensitive even for a redhead.

And I ask you—a woman, weak in body, weak in will—can she rule, with all the frailty of her sex?

Love when weak men use these words.

As a boy he was always climbing about on somebody’s roof, often without their knowledge. Show him a ladder and he was up it, seeking a longer view. But when he got up there, what could he see? Only Putney.

Sweet herbs, frankincense: these drive off contagion in any season.

Perhaps we should try this?

Wolsey always said, work out what people want, and you might be able to offer it; it is not always what you think, and may be cheap to supply.

A cat will come and save us. Thomas Cromwell will come with the key.’

‘This will require self-abasement.’ Richard Cromwell says, ‘Shall I go out and find somebody who’s better at it than you are?’ ‘Richard Riche knows the art of creeping,’ Gregory offers. ‘And Wriothesley can crawl when required.’ He begins: ‘Most humbly prostrate before your Majesty…’ ‘Try, prostrate at the feet of your Majesty,’ Gregory says. ‘Redundant,’ Richard says. ‘Yes, but it makes her sound … flatter.’

Best line so far

That’s the point of a promise, he thinks. It wouldn’t have any value, if you could see what it would cost you when you made it.

Mantel has some perfect lines. This is one.

Chapuys had said, you may renegotiate with the living, but you cannot vary your terms with the dead.

But now there are rumours of plague and sweating sickness. It is not wise to allow crowds in the street, or pack bodies into indoor spaces.

Even the Tudors knew you don't gather crowds during a plague in summer Likely 45 knew it, too. He just didn’t care.

If you marvel at your good fortune, you should marvel in secret: never let people see you.

Yep

So: talking must hold the rebels back. But by now the king hardly wants to talk. He does not ask if the rebels’ demands are reasonable. He says he is their sovereign and they have no right to make any demands at all.

‘Father, do you not know right from wrong?’ Walter’s face grew dark. But he said in a tone mild in the circumstances, ‘Listen, son, this is what I know: right is what you can get away with, and wrong is what they whip you for. As I’m sure life will instruct you, by and by, if your father’s precept and example can’t get it through your skull.’

I had another sister, Elizabeth, three years old when she died, I have no memory of her, but they said she was as lovely as Mary, and a great pity she died, for she could have been married thereafter, with advantage to our polity.

He says to Rafe, vanity compels us to pretend we plan every step.

Peace is a woman: she is a blonde; her hair is braided, and her head leans upon her hand, which is turned so that you see the tender white skin of her inner arm. Her dress is of a fabric so fine that, when it falls away from her breasts, it skims the length of her body and drifts into graceful pleats and folds, into an area of mystery between her relaxed, parted legs. Her feet are bare: they look intelligent, like hands. On the opposite wall, Bad Government has taken Peace by the hair. She is panicked, screaming, jerked to her knees.

‘Thomas More wrote his epitaph in his lifetime,’ he tells her. ‘He was that sort of man.’ Words, words, just words. ‘He wanted it engraved in stone: Terrible to heretics. He was proud of what he did. He thought if you let the people read God’s word for themselves, Christendom would fall apart. There would be no more government, no more justice.’

Some would ask why, when your ears are open to the gospel, you would serve such a master.’ ‘Who else should I serve? A man cannot be masterless.’

The Venetians, you know, they draw a line on their ships to see that they don’t overload them. I have no load line. Or none that the king can see.’

Lady Lisle cannot get women to serve her, she is so demanding. But old Lisle is in love with her, he thinks: his hard, bright, selfish bride.

In fantasy, he takes off his coat again. He rolls up his sleeves, and punches Stephen on the nose. It is dismaying to him, that Stephen has been gone three years, and his urge to knock him down is as strong as ever.

the mirror and light of all other kings and princes in Christendom.

Ou sont les gracieux galans Que je suivoye ou temps jadiz, Si bien chantans, si bien parlans, Si plaisans en faiz et en diz?

I am sure I have displeased him, he thinks. Look how he steamed and glared, that day I took a holiday. Look how he pawed the ground and rolled his eyes. This is what Henry does. He uses people up. He takes all they give him and more. When he is finished with them he is noisier and fatter and they are husks or corpses.

‘You know that cat that you fetched from Esher in your pocket, in the cardinal’s time? Master Gregory took against him, and called him Marlinspike? Well, I think I saw him on the wall the other day, with a piece of a rabbit under his paw. But I said to myself, can any cat live that long?’ He says, ‘The cardinal’s cat would be a prodigy of nature, I suppose. How did he look?’ ‘Torn up a bit,’ Thurston says. ‘But aren’t we all?’

Gregory takes a bite of his pastry; Bella leans against his shin and adores him.

Puppies. . .

He looks at the brute and she looks back at him. Her golden eyes blink. She yawns, but all the time she is thinking of murder. She gives herself away by the twitching of her tail.

Henry says. ‘You are of common stock. Common men have vigour.’ The king does not know they wear out. At forty a labourer is broken and gnarled. His wife is worn to the bone at thirty-five.

The duke stamps his feet, pushes back his chair, hauls his napkin loose from his person. Gardiner has opulent linen and it looks as if he is fighting his way out of a tent.

perfect visual

If he were to counsel Anna, it would be to patience. The dowager Katherine won the admiration of all, when she sat smiling by the king she supposed her husband, through hours of court ceremonies, hours which stretched into years. Never was she seen with tears on her cheeks, or an angry frown. ‘Yes,’ Bess says, ‘Katherine was a great pattern for womanhood. She died alone and friendless, did she not?’

And she died after he divorced her

He has read a library of those volumes called Mirrors for Princes, which state the wise councillor must always prepare for his fall. He should embrace death as a privilege; does not St Paul say, I covet to be dissolved with Christ? But he covets nothing more than to be in his garden on this soft evening, now fading unused beyond the window: where a strong guard stands, in case Cromwell decides on a breath of air.

Any jury would laugh you out of court.’ But, he thinks, there will be no jury. There will be no trial. They will pass a bill to put an end to me. I cannot complain of the process. I have used it myself.

A Man For All Seasons

He thinks, ten years I have had my soul flattened and pressed till it’s not the thickness of paper. Henry has ground and ground me in the mill of his desires, and now I am fined down to dust I am no more use to him, I am powder in the wind. Princes hate those to whom they have incurred debts.

‘That is not it.’ Kingston is disconcerted. ‘You are meant to pass your whole life in review, and discover new sins each time.’ ‘I know that,’ he says. ‘I know how to do it. I live here with Thomas More. I have read the books. We are all dying, just at different speeds.’