Wolf Hall discussion continuation thread

[AKnickerfulOfMenace]

Continuing the thread from Telly Addicts, just in time for episode 4

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/telly_addicts/2288038-Damian-Lewis-fans-line-up-for-Wolf-Hall-tonight?msgid=52500336#52500336

I cried (not normal for me!)

Didn't even like Anne all the way through but her downfall was superbly done and so very moving.

Mantel is bloody good at making you like horrible people and root for people you don't like, isn't she?

Absolutely.

Anne was quite a bitch at times, but essentially, to be beheaded for failing to produce a son...

which is why I still have a terrible crush on think Robespierre had A Bad Press

thanks Hilary

also

See, I still think she did the whole Cromwell thing for a bet. Imagine the scene. Mantel has had long boozy lunch with her agent in which she drunkenly boasts, 'I can make the women of England fall in love with ANYONE, such is the power of my writing!' After lunch, she and her agent are wandering through the National Portrait Gallery. Her agent's eyes light on Thomas Cromwell: the small, piggy eyes, his great black-shrouded bulk, the unflattering woolen headgear, the track record of having set up, tortured and sent to their deaths not only half a dozen innocent men but also everyone's favourite Henrician queen, Anne Boleyn. 'Thomas Cromwell!' says the agent. 'I bet you couldn't make people fall in love with him.'
'Oh, couldn't I?' says Mantel. 'Just watch me.'
She makes notes on the Tube on the way home. Must cuddle kittens. Make him educate daughters. Emphasise Anne Boleyn being cow.

countess Yes! That must be it. I still can't believe that I pitied Wolsey! Pretty skillful manipulator, this Mantel.

Yes. Cromwell would have loved her

I'm not going to click on that bracelet link in case the charms are severed heads

Inspired if a little macabre, Allalonenow

I think the look in TC's eyes as H8 embraces him conveyed what Thomas More said to Cromwell about H8 - it's like playing with a lion ; you can ruffle his mane and fondle his ears, but all the time you're thinking "those claws, those claws, those claws......." (as written by HM)

I would love to know why H8's passion for Anne changed to such hatred so swiftly. To spend 7 years chasing her and changing the world to have her, and 3 years later to want her dead........

It's so ironic that Anne thought her position was so much more secure when Katherine died in January, then 4 months later she is dead herself.

at doing it for a bet

...then she thinks of a particularly unpleasant nun or priest at school, and thinks ooh, while I'm at it, I can stuff Thomas More too

THAT'LL SHOW EM

I understood that nobody actually knew how old Anne Boleyn was. Because so few records of her exist the date of her birth seems to vary between 1501 and 1507. So she was between 29 and 35 when she died.

Countess - I love the Mantel scene you have set.

Just popped in to share in the general awe of the last episode which I watched on iPlayer at last - MR and CF both amazing. Did anyone else have the feeling of double horror as Cromwell/MR checked the gallows and watched the execution of him realising that he would probably be walking the same walk one day himself.

Not sure that TC was quite so aware of what was to come yet, but MR clearly sees the shadow of his own execution as he watches Anne's.

Totally agree with the brilliance of CF - the execution scene was so real. (I also kept thinking of poor Mary, whose own execution wasn't nearly so . . . neat

But what was up with Anne, suddently calling him Crumwell??! She didn't do that throughout did she?

She called him Cremuel in the book.

Yes, she did in other scenes. It was her frenchifying his name.

In RL people called him Crumwell when they were trying to be insulting. When the Pilgrims of Grace thought they'd won they said 'we've crumbed Crumwell' #fascinatinghistoricalfact.

I think Mantel has Norfolk calling him Crumwell. As with so many things (St Uncumber was another) it's so perfect you think she's made it up and then it turns out to be in the sources

But did Cromwell's men call the duke "Uncle Norfolk"?

btw have I mentioned the bit in the book where someone says 'What are all those letters about?' and Cromwell says, 'They want me to marry their daughters'?

There's an actual letter in the Letters & Papers of Henry VIII where some random wrote to Cromwell on the offchance, enclosing a portrait of his daughter, saying 'Do you want to marry her? If you're interested I can send a more up-to-date painting.'

I expect when he wasn't in the room, Funnyossity

Apparently everyone called him Uncle Norfolk.

According to IMDb the actor playing William Brereton (that took me about 3 goes to spell correctly) is Archie MacDonald from Monarch of the Glen.

I didn't spot that at all. Another reason to make ask dp to buy me the dvd.

I knew that in advance Downy but didn't think he looked very recognisable even then. And I had a massive crush on him back in the day. I think the beard really threw me.

Loved the episode, found the execution scene so upsetting in a very bleak way. The looks on the faces of the men as they realised how they were stitching themselves up was quite something too.

countess love your little nuggets of knowledge.

Must cuddle kittens. Make him educate daughters. Emphasise Anne Boleyn being cow.

Yes!

I want more!

Make her do another one!