![]() ![]() A man whose hard work and sharp brain has placed him at the dark heart of the Tudor machine: “Even in the republic of virtue you need a man who will shovel up the shit, and somewhere it is written that Cromwell is his name.”ĥ0 books to read in 2020 - the best releases coming up in the next six monthsĪt what price, though? Mantel’s Tudor trilogy has long been interested in unpicking the warp and weft of power the chance-made connections that pay off later down the line the small moments that may save a man or woman, or cost them their lives. ![]() The blacksmith’s son, now Lord Privy Seal. Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell in the BBC adaptation of Wolf Hall (Photo: Ed Miller)Īt the centre of these machinations sits Cromwell. Her words thrust us deep into the heart of Henry’s febrile court, where we see courtiers jostling for power, the new queen Jane Seymour, “regrettably pale and as usual silent”, and Henry himself, the sick man of Europe, corpulent, nursing a hunting injury, refusing to acknowledge that he is no longer the golden youth to whom all once bent a knee. ![]() Yet there is joy here, too, both in the lavish descriptions of Tudor England, and in those perfectly weighted sentences. ![]()
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