Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall is a 2009 historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth Estate, named after the Seymour family's seat of Wolfhall, or Wulfhall, in Wiltshire. Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, "Wolf Hall" is a sympathetic fictionalised biography documenting the rapid rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII through to the death of Sir Thomas More. The novel won both the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2012, "The Observer" named it as one of "The 10 best historical novels".
The book is the first in a trilogy; the sequel "Bring Up the Bodies" was published in 2012. The last book in the trilogy is "The Mirror and the Light" (2020), which covers the last four years of Cromwell's life.
Summary.
In 1500, the teenage Thomas Cromwell runs away from home to flee his abusive father, and seeks his fortune in France as a soldier.
By 1527 the well-travelled Cromwell has returned to England and is now a lawyer, a married father of three, and is highly respected as the right-hand man of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, with a stellar reputation for deal-making. His life takes a tragic turn when his wife and two daughters abruptly die of the sweating sickness, leaving him a widower. His sister-in-law, Johane, comes to keep house for him.
Cromwell is still in Wolsey's service in 1529, when the Cardinal falls out of favour with King Henry VIII because of his failure to arrange an annulment of the king's marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Cromwell manages to buy the Cardinal a little time before everything the Cardinal owns is repossessed and given to Henry's mistress, Anne Boleyn. Cromwell subsequently decides to relocate the Cardinal and his entourage to a second home in Esher, and the Cardinal moves on to York.
Though he knows the Cardinal is doomed, Cromwell begins negotiations on his behalf with the king. During the course of his visits he meets the recently widowed Mary Boleyn, Anne's older sister, and is intrigued by her. Cromwell is eventually summoned to meet Anne and finds Henry's loyalty to her unfathomable.
Continuing to gain favour with both the king and Anne, Cromwell is disturbed by Wolsey's activities in York, but is shocked when he learns that the Cardinal has been recalled to London to face treason charges and has died on the way. Cromwell mourns his death and vows to take vengeance on those involved in his downfall. Despite his known loyalty to Wolsey, Cromwell retains his favoured status with the king, and is sworn into the king's council after interpreting one of Henry's nightmares, about his deceased older brother, as a symbol that Henry should govern with the blessing of his late father and brother.
Cromwell continues to advise Anne, and works towards her ascent to queen in hopes that he will rise too. Just as the wedding appears imminent, Henry Percy, a former lover of Anne's, declares that he is her legal husband and still loves her. Cromwell visits Percy on Anne's behalf and threatens him into silence, securing his position as a favourite in the Howard household.
King Henry travels to France for a successful conference with the French. Anne, finally secure in her position, is able to marry Henry in a private ceremony and to consummate their relationship. She quickly becomes pregnant and Henry has her crowned queen in a ceremony which Cromwell organises to perfection.
Historical background.
Born to a working-class family of no position or name, Cromwell rose to become the right-hand man of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, adviser to the King. He survived Wolsey's fall from grace to eventually take his place as the most powerful of Henry's ministers. In that role he observed turning points of English history, as Henry asserted his authority to declare his marriage annulled from Catherine of Aragon, married Anne Boleyn, broke from Rome, established the independence of the Church of England, and called for the dissolution of the monasteries.
The novel is a re-envisioning of historical and literary records; in Robert Bolt's play "A Man for All Seasons" Cromwell is portrayed as the calculating, unprincipled opposite of Thomas More's honour and rectitude. Mantel's novel offers an alternative to that portrayal, an intimate portrait of Cromwell as a tolerant, pragmatic, and talented man attempting to serve King, country, and family amid the political machinations of Henry's court and the religious upheavals of the Reformation, in contrast to More's viciously punitive adherence to the old Roman Catholic order that Henry is sweeping away.
Process.
Mantel said she spent five years researching and writing the book, trying to match her fiction to the historical record. To avoid contradicting history she created a card catalogue, organised alphabetically by character, with each card containing notes indicating where a particular historical figure was on relevant dates. "You really need to know, where is the Duke of Suffolk at the moment? You can't have him in London if he's supposed to be somewhere else," she explained.
In an interview with "The Guardian", Mantel stated her aim to place the reader in "that time and that place, putting you into Henry's entourage. The essence of the thing is not to judge with hindsight, not to pass judgement from the lofty perch of the 21st century when we know what happened. It's to be there with them in that hunting party at Wolf Hall, moving forward with imperfect information and perhaps wrong expectations, but in any case moving forward into a future that is not pre-determined, but where chance and hazard will play a terrific role."
Characters.
"Wolf Hall" includes a large cast of fictionalised historical persons. In addition to those already mentioned, prominent characters include:
Title.
The title comes from the name of the Seymour family seat at Wolfhall or Wulfhall in Wiltshire; the title's allusion to the old Latin saying "Homo homini lupus" ("Man is wolf to man") serves as a constant reminder of the dangerously opportunistic nature of the world through which Cromwell navigates.
Critical reaction.
In "The Guardian", Christopher Tayler wrote, ""Wolf Hall" succeeds on its own terms and then some, both as a non-frothy historical novel and as a display of Mantel's extraordinary talent. Lyrically yet cleanly and tightly written, solidly imagined yet filled with spooky resonances, and very funny at times, it's not like much else in contemporary British fiction. A sequel is apparently in the works, and it's not the least of Mantel's achievements that the reader finishes this 650-page book wanting more."
Susan Bassnett, in "Times Higher Education", wrote in a rare negative review, "dreadfully badly written... Mantel just wrote and wrote and wrote. I have yet to meet anyone outside the Booker panel who managed to get to the end of this tedious tome. God forbid there might be a sequel, which I fear is on the horizon."
In "The Observer", Olivia Laing wrote, "Over two decades, she has gained a reputation as an elegant anatomiser of malevolence and cruelty. From the French Revolution of "A Place of Greater Safety" (1992) to the Middle England of "Beyond Black" (2005), hers are scrupulously moral – and scrupulously unmoralistic – books that refuse to shy away from the underside of life, finding even in disaster a kind of bleak and unconsoling humour. It is that supple movement between laughter and horror that makes this rich pageant of Tudor life her most humane and bewitching novel."
Vanora Bennett in "The Times" wrote, "as soon as I opened the book I was gripped. I read it almost non-stop. When I did have to put it down, I was full of regret the story was over, a regret I still feel. This is a wonderful and intelligently imagined retelling of a familiar tale from an unfamiliar angle – one that makes the drama unfolding nearly five centuries ago look new again, and shocking again, too."
A poll of literary experts by the Independent Bath Literature Festival voted "Wolf Hall" the greatest novel from 1995 to 2015. It also ranked third in a BBC Culture poll of the best novels since 2000. In 2019, "The Guardian"'s list of the 100 best books of the 21st century ranked "Wolf Hall" first.
Adaptations.
Stage.
In January 2013, the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) announced it would stage adaptations by Mike Poulton of "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies" in its Winter season. The production transferred to London's Aldwych Theatre in May 2014, for a limited run until October.
Producers Jeffrey Richards and Jerry Frankel brought the London productions of "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies", starring Ben Miles as Thomas Cromwell; Lydia Leonard as Anne Boleyn; Lucy Briers as Catherine of Aragon; and Nathaniel Parker as Henry VIII, to Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre in March 2015 for a 15-week run. The double-bill has been re-titled "Wolf Hall, Parts 1 and 2" for American audiences. The play was nominated for eight Tony Awards, including Best Play.
Television.
In 2012, the BBC announced it would adapt "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies" for BBC Two, for broadcast in 2015. On 8 March 2013, the BBC announced Mark Rylance had been cast as Thomas Cromwell. The first episode was broadcast in the United States on PBS's "Masterpiece Theatre", on 5 April 2015. In June 2015, Amazon announced exclusive rights to stream "Masterpiece" programmes, including "Wolf Hall", on its Amazon Prime Instant Video platform.