New to Wolf Hall

[fatherfurlong]

I did not watch the first series of WH so with the arrival of the second series I thought I’d do a catch up. I agreed with a previous poster who said she was two episodes in and finding it tough going and I felt the same but it has drawn me in but I must admit in part because of the great cast and I keep thinking oh there’s Yosser Hughes, there’s Spider-Man, there’s the kid from Nanny McPhee etc and a big mystery for me is why does Anne Boleyn pronounce Cromwell’s name as ‘Cremwill’?? Every time she says it I burst out laughing!
Please someone not as lowbrow as me explain…..

Cremuel. He is referred to as Cremuel in various existing documents of the time including those sent by Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador who comes up all through the books and series. Anne was brought up in France so she is either using the French pronunciation or deliberately mocking him. There are points all through the first two series where Anne mocking either Cromwell or Wolsey sharpens Cromwell’s intention to bring her and her whole family crashing down out of revenge.

It’s outstanding. Brilliant cast, script, direction and styling.

No electric light, the camera always follows Cromwell when he walks into a room and the music is exceptional.

@mimbleandlittlemy thanks for that clear explanation!

Anne’s feeble attempt to mock the brilliant Cromwell.

I find the choir singing irritating

Ah thanks for enlightening me. Now it makes sense. Perhaps you can help me again!
Watched another episode today from the new series, but nodded off mid episode but Cromwell was visiting Dorethea, the young nun, supposedly the daughter of Cardinal Wolsey. Is this fact that he had a daughter? And why was Cromwell offering to marry her?

I’m new to it too and loving it. Such a great cast. Tudors have always been my favourite bit of history.
For folk local to me, there’s a painting at Nostell priory which is a copy of Holbein’s painting of Thomas More’s family. Interesting.

@fatherfurlong - it is believed Wolsey had two children, a boy and a girl and the girl, either Dorothy or Dorothea was put in to the religious house in Shaftesbury. It happened to be the second wealthiest nunnery in England before the Reformation.

Obviously no evidence whatsoever that Cromwell offered to marry her but the plot device is a) Cromwell knows that Shaftesbury will be taken by the Court of Augmentation, whatever he said to the abbess, so Dorothea will be without the safety of the Order and without a home, b) guilt.

All through The Mirror and the Light (my least favourite of the books but that's another matter), it's about Cromwell's guilt towards Wolsey as he sees his own position becoming, like Wolsey's did, more precarious with the king, and his balancing act to find a way to keep his position in the face of the nobles' hatred of him. The emphasis in the second episode on Sunday is very much about both Wolsey and Cromwell having such lowly upbringings, which did not go well when they both start meddling.

As an aside, I've heard quite a few Tudor history experts saying the Wolf Hall trilogy has been a bit of a bane of their lives as students come in and spout Mantell as fact, and often won't believe another side to Cromwell. For balance, it's worth reading the other books he is fictionalised in, the CJ Sansom Shardlake ones, where he is less... err... twinkly!

I'm new as well and struggling to follow it! Love the music.

@fatherfurlong
Anne Boleyn was prone to renaming things/ people as if french and pronounced his name Cromwell as Cremuel as a joke/ jest
Her dog was Purkoy as play on the word Pourquoi -French for Why?

I don't think it was malicious more an amusement for Anne to do this

Yes Cromwell is potrayed very differently to how he is in the Thomas More play A Man for All Seasons. I had a bit of a head swerve as I'd studied that at school and then read Wolf Hall....

I'm enjoying Wolf Hall and I thought I'd read the books, but I found reviews saying they are difficult to read. Has anyone here found that to be true?

I loved them, particularly the first two.

Anne was said to speak French or use French affectations when speaking as it was the fashionable language at court-it was the in thing. She also adopted French style hoods by all accounts to replace the previously worn larger Spanish ones.

Annes time at the French court made her quite the influencer when she was called back to the English one

Loved 1 and 2, gave up on 3 half way thru... may have to try again. (It could have done with a good edit...)

I agree that book 3 is a bit longer than it needs to be. One of the problems I think is that as Cromwell's fall was so very sudden all his papers were seized (whereas Wolsey had time to "edit" his). This means that Mantel (and historians) have a lot of source material available, especially for the later years, and the temptation to incorporate lots of it was probably too great.

That source material is fascinating - I saw some of it at the National Archives - you see a clerk listing out all of the issues for Cromwell to discuss when he sees the king and then Cromwell's annotations of which matters he thinks are the most important.

I think that's one of the things Mantel wanted: to flesh out a character that is often depicted as a one-dimensional ruthless bastard.

Couldn't it just?!

Can I ask. Would this be ok to watch with my 15 yo interested in history?

@Untery , I really can't see why not, but do be aware there are sexual references, some violence, some gore and some threat - as goes with the times really.

Hilary Mantel didn't write a great big bonk buster though so it's not like watching The Tudors with Jonathan Rhys Myers.

Thanks that’s what I was wondering about !