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.

I don't get that either. Cromwell could be so ruthless. And he doesn't seem intimidated by Norfolk when he forges ahead with his plans to close down the abbey. I've read the books, but a while ago, so I don't remember if Mantel addresses this.

The thing I don't understand is whether his agents did try to eliminate Reginald Pole (as he'd promised) or if he didn't actually have them try hard.

I seem to dimly remember from the book that they did try, but he led them a merry dance, possibly helped by European allies.

I wondered about that too. In the end, I doubt even whacking Pole would have saved him.

Norfolk was huge, a brutal wife beater, and widely loathed. He was also the first peer of the realm ie H’s chief advisor and never let you forget it.

By the time Anne of Cleves (wife 4) rolled up Henry was going mad.

H was impotent which is why the Cleves marriage was so embarrassing - he wanted a hot flirty chick (see wife 5) to reverse his little problem but Ann was a normal-looking virgin.

Cromwell knew Henry couldn’t get it up. H was terrified more people would get to know. Not great PR esp for a man obsessed with siring male children.

Wife 6 was widely believed to be infertile (widowed and childless, twice) which was her main appeal. H could blame her for lack
of heirs.

It is thought Henry had syphilis which would explain the crazy and the impotence. (Mind you historians blame VD the whole time.)

However, Henry never went mad enough to stop regretting murdering Cromwell.

Wife 6 was widely believed to be infertile (widowed and childless, twice) which was her main appeal. H could blame her for lackof heirs.

She had a child with her next husband though, at the ripe age of 35.

It's also believed that the reason Henry's wives had so many miscarriages and difficulties with having children may have been connected to the fact that Henry and all six wives were related. They were all descended from Edward I.

I've enjoyed this thread, thanks everyone. It's added to my knowledge of history and, as importantly, I now know that I recognised Call Me because he was Dudley Dursley.

OMG just cottoned on to the fact that Call me is Dudley Dursley 🤦‍♀️

More recent historians tend to discount the syphilis theory. And I don't think descent from Edward I would've been enough to cause fertility issues as the relationship to each other would've been very distant. Edward lived 300 years earlier and had 16 children. By Tudor times a large proportion of the population would've descended from him!

I don't think the fertility issues had anything to do with him being very very distantly related to his wives.

I think Catherine of Aragon's miscarriages and stillborns were just bad luck. It was common in those days. She had no problem conceiving, it's just many pregnancies ended in tragedy. She did have a son who lived 52 days and of course Mary who lived to adulthood. She was also 25 when she had the first, which was quite old to get started by the standards of the time.

As far as we know Elizabeth was Anne Boleyn's first pregnancy. The pregnancies after that (at least two) ended in miscarriage. There is a theory that Rhesus (RH) Negative, causing her body to reject Rhesus positive babies after the first pregnancy.

Jane Seymour died after her first pregnancy (a successful birth, Edward), so we don't know if she would have had more children had she lived. However it took Jane 8 months to conceive, .

After Jane we know Henry suffered from impotency. He was advanced in age now at 49 when he married 17 year old Catherine Howard, and no pregnancies. Also no pregnancies with Catherine Parr, and we know she was fertile as she later had a child. We can probably assume Henry had low/no sperm by the time of his 4th/6th/6th marriage.

Catherine Parr is an interesting one as she had no children with her first two husbands, one of whom was her age and another who was 20 years older but only about 40 when they married. And he had children by a previous marriage. So she may well have believed herself to be barren until she married Seymour.

He was in Queen's Gambit too. Always amuses me that he never got to go to Hogwarts but has grown up to be a far better actor than Radcliffe et al. That moment where he was avoiding looking at Cromwell and then just sort of glanced at him was brilliant.

On the subject of HP I really hope the Dumbledore rumours are true. I can actually hear Rylance saying 'by all means continue destroying my possessions, I daresay I have too many!'

You're right he's a way better actor than the HP 3.

H...H...Harry....it's a g...g...ghost!

That’s a very impressive career he’s made. Good for him.

Always amuses me that he never got to go to Hogwarts but has grown up to be a far better actor than Radcliffe et al.

Not hard, to be fair, but yes, he is excellent and I hadn't realised that was him! If he had lost the weight sooner, perhaps he could have auditioned for Harry or a more major role. Glad to see he is successful though, he's so talented.

He was also in His Dark Materials, though it was a small role in one or two episodes.

He had a leading role in a netflix film The Pale Blue Eye with Christian Bale

They want Rylance for Dumbledore...Oh. My. word.

https://variety.com/2024/tv/global/harry-potter-tv-series-mark-rylance-dumbledore-1236204647/

Dumbledore was badly written in the films and not well played either; there was none of the nuttiness and quirk. He was just a wise old man. I'd hope for a better script in the show and while I wouldn't have thought of Rylance, the more I do think of it, the more I like it...

He’d be great! Really looking forward to a new version. I hope they put women in charge of making the series and give JKR fullest possible involvement this time.
The old Potter films have aged so badly, they were sexist in tone, not diverse in casting. Daniel Radcliffe wasn’t an experienced child actor and yet he was made to carry the films with these amazing adult actors around him like Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman. (RIP both). The three main kids were put together like a manufactured pop band to grow older in the movies time. That adolescence was probably not good for their MH

Just caught up with the last episode. What a marvellous face off between Cromwell and his tormentors, and then the dialogue with Call Me Risley.
Rylance says so much without even raising his voice.

I am glad they didn't show the botched execution. It was sad enough already.
Sigh. Particularly the scene with Rafe.

I am puzzled as to how Rafe Sadler did so well while being known to be Cromwell's ward and protege.

I am puzzled as to how Rafe Sadler did so well while being known to be Cromwell's ward and protege.

Maybe he didn't threaten anyone? He served both Cromwell and the king loyally without really engaging in politicking himself perhaps.

Maybe it had something to do with Henry's apparent later regret at Cromwell's demise?

I guess so, but so many people have been executed for worse, so I thought Rafe would not have done so well.

We barely got to see Harriet Walter as Margaret Pole, which also makes me sad. Of course, she goes to her death a year or so after Cromwell.

I wish in a way they went further than the books, because we haven't got to see Jane Rochford's sneaky machinations with Catherine Howard. But I guess that would be tampering with Mantel's glorious trilogy. What a writer. I am going to get her biography to read next.

I'd like to know if they really did use his purple doublet and his sables as evidence against him; and if so, why did he not realise they might get him into trouble?
Generally, the interrogation scenes just made me think that all the stuff they used to build a case against him was the sort of thing he'd used for years to bring people down when he wanted to. Did it never occur to him that the wheel turns and he might be in the same position one day? Was it a case of hubris; he got fatally carried away with/caught up in all that he'd achieved?