Wolf Hall - The Mirror and the Light

[virgocatlover]

Series 2 is confirmed to start Sunday 10th November.

Almost 10 years after the first series, I'm excited to see the third and final novel brought to life.

Yes I agree but at this point she’s not produced a male heir. And only lives a few short weeks to enjoy that exalted position as mother to a prince.

True. According to some historical accounts, Henry's eye was already wandering and he was even talking about regretting the marriage to Jane.

But I do think that once her son was born, she'd have been untouchable. All hypothetical now obviously.

Yes agree she may in fact have been clever and politically calculating underneath - her brothers certainly were- but the image she presented outwardly (whether deliberately or not) was meek and demure. This scene doesn’t fit with that chosen outward image.

It took about 7 months for Jane to conceive after their marriage - I would imagine that was a very tense time for her. Henry would likely have been impatient too, especially as his previous two women conceived almost instantly.

Given how his marriage to Anne Boleyn ended, and Jane too was 'just' an Englishwoman (ie. Not a foreign princess with allies behind her), she must have been petrified of putting a foot wrong. Henry did get cross with her when she spoke up during the Pilgrimage of Grace, so she probably learnt it was best to be meek, mild and to appear a bit dumb (even if she wasn't).

If she had lived, I agree she would have been pretty much untouchable after her son was born and who knows, maybe she would have become bolder and history would have remembered her differently.

Mantel’s Jane Seymour isn’t meek at all though. It’s clear Henry thinks she’s a sweet little flower, and a charming contrast to sexy, knowing, demanding, political Anne but, as seen by Cromwell, JS is a observant, disillusioned mind and a sharp tongue. The comedy of lots of those early scenes with the Seymour men (in the novels, I mean) plotting to have Jane as queen, is Jane saying the most outrageous things in her ‘meek, pious young woman’ manner, and no one noticing but Cromwell, who was nice to her when she was just one of Anne’s ladies, but who later finds himself in some awe of her way of handling herself.

I don’t remember the sex conversation in the novel, but Cromwell did have a lot of sex conversations with women in the novels in general — sex was so key to whether Henry was legitimately married to his brother’s widow, to Anne’s rise and downfall etc. Royal bodies weren’t private.

Kate Phillips is doing an amazing job as Jane. You can see all the layers to her character, not just the bland, passive creature she is usually portrayed as.

Yes. I don’t think Mantel is especially historically accurate in this regard. But it makes for more interesting female characters.

That’s an excellent description of the way Cromwell sees Jane’s little side comments when others don’t. Her brothers totally underestimate her and are a bit like “What, Jane?” when Henry shows an interest.

The sex conversation is in the books. Cromwell is present when Jane’s brothers and mother are asking her about the wedding night. Jane is her usual acerbic self, I can’t remember the exact wording (and haven’t watched the two episodes yet) but when they’re talking about the wedding night, Jane says something along the lines of the King wants me to do something strange, he wants me to do something that I don’t think will beget a child (teasing her mother and brothers and Cromwell about what depraved sex act it might be), he wants me to…. go to Devon with him.

I've watched episode 3. Following on from the Jane discussions last week, I think it would have been very unlikely that Mary would meet Cromwell in her nightgown, especially unchaperoned!

He probably never met the princess mary at all at thst point. There's a v good review in the guardian www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/23/caring-thomas-cromwell-makes-good-tv-beware-yes-men-who-enable-tyrants?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

We'll have to agree to differ there! The whole purpose of the review seemed to be to shoehorn in some trite comparisons with 21st century politics and mores. And surely it isn't "Rylance's Cromwell" so much as Mantel's Cromwell?

But Mantel fully intended comparisons. Cromwell is one of those figures who is often spoken of as being much like a modern political type. Dominic Cummings was oft compared to him.

The review seems to suggest this is Rylance , and Straughan and that Mantel's take is more complex and ambiguous. It would be really !

What's the point of history if not to compare with today
?

I'm only one episode in to M&TL but I do think Rylance's portrayal of Cromwell is different to Mantel's writing of Cromwell. Still fantastic, but quite different. Mantel's Cromwell has a heart, too – but his brutality is closer to the surface, and because we learn so much more about his childhood, we understand that more than anything he is driven by a will to survive, whatever it takes. I think Rylance doesn't have the physicality to portray the brutal hulk of a man that Mantel's Cromwell is (and that he most likely was in real life), and the limitations of the TV format mean we don't get the same insight into his thought processes. That's not a criticism of Rylance, who is a truly extraordinary actor – I'm thoroughly enjoying his Cromwell. But I do think the review has a point. Having said that, I anticipate the same "unravelling" she talks about coming in later episodes.

It’s funny, because Mark Rylance is a fairly slight figure but he totally convinced as a physically bulkier and macho figure as Rooster in Jerusalem. So there must have been a conscious decision by Kosminsky/Rylance/Mantel for him to play Cromwell in this meeker and physically unprepossessing way. Possibly to make him more sympathetic? But it’s the one thing with Wolf Hall where I struggle to be ‘sutured’ into that world.

I always think that Ben Miles would have been better casting. I often get irritated by Rylance's monotone.

In "A Man For All Seasons" he was played by Leo McKern, who seemed to bring heft to the role, in every sense. When I read Wolf Hall, that's who I saw and heard in my mind!

You know he's in the play?

Yes- that's why I suggested it! Plus he does the audio book. Excellent on both counts.

He is excellent in the play but I prefer Rylance tbh. Ben is too handsome.

I’m totally hooked on this TV adaptation. Would I get anything out of reading the books now versus before viewing?

Yes, I think you would, @Tinybigtanya , they're very absorbing. You do get inside Cromwell's head.

Thanks. I need an engrossing winter read.

Anybody else got sound issues?
I can see their lips moving but voices very muffled!