He was prepared to do the wrong thing for a few people in order to offer 'true' religion to England.

As Mantel tells the story, Cromwell never truly believed that it was right to annul Henry's first marriage, much less to execute Ann Boleyn and all of her purported consorts, but he was sympathetic to the cause of Luther and to the burgeoning Protestant movement, which held that people should be allowed to read the scriptures for themselves and that much of their interaction with the Catholic Church served purely to divest the common people of their money while enriching the Church. Of course, Henry was busy distancing himself from the Pope and from Catholicism because he didn't like the Pope's rules about marriage, but many of his advisers (Cromwell among them) encouraged this rift (and enabled Henry's actions) for reasons that were, at least in part, a matter of genuine faith and principle. Not to belabor what is, ultimately, an accidental set of parallels, but it's also interesting to me that the king's person in these books becomes the location of great religious (and class) strife in ways that feel queasily familiar. Twitter is brutal, but it's no executioner's sword.)

(Let us all be glad that the Constitution does not allow the President to order beheadings, because I think it's safe to say 'the former guy' would have made full use of those powers. Add to that the constant presence of advisers who all have their own agendas (various combinations of religious, acquisitive, and vengeful) and who go in and out of the king's chambers and in out of his esteem and what you have is a very Trump-ish set of circumstances. After all, Henry was raised to believe he was anointed by God to be sovereign.which seems like a good excuse for his eagerness to believe his most deplorable acts were, in fact, God's will. Ironically (or not?), Wolf Hall's Henry comes out looking much more sympathetic than DJT despite sharing his narcissism, foolishness, vagaries, and dangerous moodiness. Given that she is writing about events that occurred inside the black box of the king's inner sanctum 500 years ago (!!!), I call that a win.Įqually impressive is the fact that this trilogy could have been written as a lens into understanding the Trump presidency, but the first book was published in 2009, when DJT was still just a reality-TV loser with bad hair. And it renders that bizarre tale understandable-albeit complex, self-contradictory, and unlikely-in fundamental ways.

Based on my cursory Googling efforts, it seems to be at least hung upon the real bones of the bizarre story of Henry VIII's disposable wives. I am not a historian, and I would not dare to comment on its factual authenticity, although, to be honest, I don't even care about that. Reading it took one full month, almost to the day.

I found this trilogy utterly engrossing, so much so that I binged it.

Wolf hall mirror and the light