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

by Hilary Mantel

We must hope so. You can persuade the quick to think again, but you cannot remake your reputation with the dead.

The poor labourer owns his sleep and his stool, and can sell his piss to the fuller, whereas the king’s piss and stool is the property of all England, and every fantasy that disturbs his night hours is recorded somewhere in a book of dreams, which is written in the clouds

massing over the fields and forests of his realm: every stir of lust, every frightful waking. Should he be costive, he is ordered a potion; should his bowel be loose, its product is taken away in a bowl under an embroidered cloth. They can only judge what is within him, by what comes out: a pity he is not made of glass.

Once the king leaves his inner rooms and enters his privy chamber, his natural body unites to his body politic: here he is dressed and presented to the world, a bulky, new-barbered man scented with rose oil.

then, broken on the body.’ The joust is not his model for public affairs. You don’t want your opponent to see you coming. The last thing you want is a tent and a flag.

There are those who believe—and perhaps the king is one of them—that the health of the land depends on the health of its prince, and on his beauty besides. If you speak of an ordinary man you might say, ‘He cannot help his face.’ But a king must learn to help it. If he is ugly, so is the commonwealth. If the king is sick, so is his realm.

A king is made by God, not Parliament. Parliament proclaims his title, furbishes his authority—but