“Your Majesty is the only prince. The mirror and the light of other kings.”
Henry repeats the phrase as if cherishing it: the mirror and the light. (Excerpt from The Mirror and The Light)
It is 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead. King Henry VIII marries Jane Seymour who gets pregnant soon but sadly dies days after giving Henry the male heir he has been expecting for a long time. Since one heir is not enough to secure the throne, finding a new bride for Henry is critical. And this is only one item on Thomas Cromwell’s to-do list in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light!
Cromwell, a blacksmith’s son from Putney, and a newly created baron, who continues his meteoric rise in the court of Henry VIII, needs to succeed at all costs to keep his power, wealth, and privileges. Imperial Ambassador Chapuys tells him:
“For when all is said, you are a blacksmith’s son. Your whole life depends on the next beat of Henry’s heart, and your future on his smile or frown.”
Well, the ambassador is right. There was a time when Henry loved Catherine of Aragon. There was a time he loved Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas More and Anne Boleyn, too. And where are they now?
I did not come to Wolf Hall because of Damian. Wolf Hall was already my all-time favorite book when I found out he was cast to play Henry. I had actually cast him as Henry when I read the book! Since this post is not about me, I am leaving a link here about my “Wolf Hall” journey in case anybody is interested.
I was very lucky to see the great late Hilary Mantel at Cheltenham Literature Festival back in October 2014 as she talked about her new book of short stories, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher , followed by a Q&A. When she got the inevitable question about the very anticipated third installment of Wolf Hall series, Hilary Mantel told us that she was working on it and would need another 18 months to finish it. Soon after Radio Times reported that the BBC was poised to commission Wolf Hall series two when the third book is out.
“Executive producer Colin Callender tells RadioTimes.com that the production team and actors Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis are “eager” to film the last book in the trilogy, The Mirror and the Light.
Author Hilary Mantel is currently writing the final installment in the series, which will take us up to Thomas Cromwell’s demise on the chopping block.
“We are waiting for Hilary to deliver it, but everybody involved felt they were making something of substance,” Callender said. “Subject to everybody’s schedule I think they will want to come back.”
And they came back… But, firstly, we had to wait for five and a half years for the book to be out… The long wait was totally worth it and The Mirror and The Light was the first book I finished during the lockdown. Hilary Mantel’s untimely death in 2022 left me heartbroken since she was one of my favorite authors. So I returned to The Mirror and The Light and read it one more time in Mantel’s memory. It is the perfect ending to her fantastic trilogy.
My husband and I saw the BBC adaptation of Wolf Hall three times. We both think it is one of the best things that has ever happened to TV. And not because Damian is in it. But because it is very different from the typical juicy costume drama like The Tudors. Wolf Hall is a dark, slow-cooking, political drama with wit and humor exactly as Hilary Mantel put on paper. It has such a contemporary-feel to it. In a Sunday Times interview with Director Peter Kosminsky, he says “I hope I will bring the same ethos — of a well-researched, contemporary, quite political drama — to Wolf Hall that I’ve tried to bring to my own work in the past 10 years or so.” This alone attests to the fact that Peter Kosminsky is the RIGHT director for the job, because the book itself feels the same way — a well-researched, contemporary and quite political drama — Kosminsky’s trademark in his work. So we are very lucky that Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light was able to bring together the team behind the first series that won a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and a Peabody for Best Miniseries.
BBC confirmed that they would adapt Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light for TV as early as in May 2019. The Guardian reported that the BBC adaptation will see director Peter Kosminsky and screenwriter Peter Straughan resuming their partnership from 2015. Mark Rylance announced in March 2022 that he was to reprise his role as Thomas Cromwell and that he hoped to start the production sometime in 2023. And, finally, in an interview with Natalie Boare of ITV News ahead of his Brighton gig in September 2023…
…Damian shared the news that he would start filming Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light soon! See the interview in its entirety here and repeat after me: LONG LIVE THE KING!
Thanks to the pandemic and the busy schedules of everybody involved, they were able to start filming only in November 2023. And while we did not have any photos of the king from the set, we saw him having a pint at a pub with fellow actor Thomas Brodie Sangster who portrays Cromwell’s right-hand man Rafe Sadler…
…and him and his Henry beard, on their way to the set, inviting us all to the second leg of his UK tour on Instagram.
And when I caught up with Damian on his UK tour late March and gave him an elegant Gift Set edition of Mantel’s three volumes of Wolf Hall he told me that he was just done with filming The Mirror and The Light.
The Mirror and The Light gets its title directly from Cromwell’s praise of King Henry VIII that he is the mirror and light of all other kings and princes. In addition, a careful reader would notice multiple references to mirrors and light throughout the book. And while everybody that knows a bit of Tudor history knows what happens to Cromwell, Mantel’s unique ability to turn a well known historical story like this into a gripping one, a nail biter if you will, is extraordinary. Her Cromwell is restless throughout the book, so is the reader. And as one turns the pages, one feels like this story may end up differently than it actually does. This is the magic of Hilary Mantel’s unparalleled writing.
So as we pick up where we left, Anne is dead, and her ghost as well as the ghosts of all other people that he destroyed for Henry – but also to take revenge for their betrayal against his beloved Wolsey – haunt Cromwell. And while this is a crisis in Cromwell’s own interior world, there is a number of crises in England that he needs to sort out so he can stay as Henry’s favorite right-hand man and keep his head on his shoulders.
One major threat to the throne is the living descendants of Richard III’s elder brother Clarence, aka the Plantagenets. They support Mary as the heir to the throne. In particular, one of them, Reginald Pole, sends Henry a long manifesto in Summer 1536 from his safe haven in France. In his manifesto, Pole explains why Mary is the only legitimate heir to the throne and that England must go back to Catholicism. Henry wants to see Pole’s dead body and Cromwell is on it. As Pole’s mother Margaret Pole, who reconciled with the court ages ago, the wonderful Harriet Walter joins the cast.
It is not only the Plantagenets but also some influential characters, such as Norfolk, who helped Cromwell with getting rid of Anne Boleyn, find return to Catholic status quo appealing. Bernard Hill, who brilliantly portrayed Norfolk in Wolf Hall, sadly passed away last year. So another great British actor, Timothy Spall, is bringing Norfolk to life in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light and it is Alex Jennings rather than Mark Gatiss playing the sneaky Stephen Gardiner.
And then there is Princess Mary herself. Henry’s daughter is a devout Catholic. For her, supporting the new regime where Henry is the head of the Church is going against everything she believes in. So it is not a trivial task to convince Mary to sign an oath of allegiance to Henry. Cromwell has to tread very carefully here.
Cromwell also needs to deal with Fitzroy, Henry’s 17 year old illegitimate son, who thinks he has the right to sit on the throne should his father die (at a time where talking about Henry’s death is banned!). There is Margaret of Scotland, Henry’s niece, who weds some obscure character without asking the king about his wishes for her marriage. More importantly, someone’s spreading a rumor in the court that Cromwell has his eye on Princess Mary and another rumor in the north that the king is dead but the government doesn’t announce it so they could still collect taxes sparkles a rebellion. Money is an issue on its own when the king needs to have his army fight the rebels. YIKES!
Regarding money, there is a scene in which Cromwell sees that Henry is eager to spend the kind of money they need to spend to suppress the rebellion in the north on his new clothes and as an experienced trades man, gets a one-third discount from the French tailors who are trying their best to rip the King off. I really hope this scene makes it into the mini series.
Cromwell’s relationship with Henry lies at the heart of Mantel’s trilogy. His life, as in the Chapuys quote at the beginning of this post, depends on Henry’s satisfaction with the work he gets done. Henry’s needs and desires become Cromwell’s own needs and desires, he knows them even before Henry talks about them. Cromwell keeps Henry “in the corner of his imagination, painted in bright colours and fitted with gilt shoes. He lives with it, but he doesn’t talk to it. He is afraid it will answer back.” So even when the king is not in a scene, you still feel his presence.
We have seen Cromwell guiding Henry’s thoughts in the direction that Cromwell himself prefers in Wolf Hall. However, as his tasks pile up, he is not able to spend as much time with the king as he would like. Cromwell is well aware of his own vulnerability: he knows that he has more enemies than friends in the court and there is a lot of conversation going on there without him being present. Besides, Henry is more volatile and paranoid than ever. So much so that when Jane’s pregnancy becomes public knowledge, he needs reassurance about Jane being his legitimate wife and her unborn baby being the legitimate heir to the throne. Cromwell is there to play the therapist 🙂 But he is restless and rightly so. His beloved Wolsey visits him in his thoughts until he is not… (no spoiler!)
BUT, yes, the great Jonathan Pryce is resuming his role in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light.
Queen Jane gives Henry a male heir; however, she sadly dies a few weeks after giving birth. Henry is heartbroken. But also, since one male heir is not enough to secure the throne, he is impatient about finding a new bride.
When it comes to choosing his new bride, the king does not rely on his ambassadors’ word only. When the 16-year-old widow Christina of Denmark seems to be a viable candidate, Henry wants to know how she looks like, and so the court painter Hans Holbein the Younger makes a painting of her and it is presented to Henry.
While Henry thinks she is beautiful, Christina is well aware of Henry’s favorite pastime of chopping heads, including that of his wife’s, and she decides she is not willing to spare hers. Legend has it that, when asked if she would marry Henry VIII, Christina said, “If I had two heads, one should be at the King of England’s disposal.”Brilliant.
From Cromwell’s point of view, an arranged marriage is a political statement. As a staunch defender of the Reformation, he thinks that an alliance with a Protestant country through marriage is critical to make sure England does not return to Catholicism. That is why he looks into House of Cleves and chooses Anne of Cleves as a potential bride. Hans Holbein the Younger also paints Anne and once the king agrees, the arrangements are made for the marital union.
Another scene in the book that I would very much love to see in the BBC adaptation is when Henry tells Jane about Rafe Sadler and his wife Helen’s love story. The king’s manner is easy and gracious, his eyes are lit, when he talks about Rafe as “a man who might have married to his advantage, to match with a lowly woman, only for the virtue he perceived in her.” In 16th century England, common people have greater freedom than those in the court when it comes to falling in love and marrying. The same man who talks about true love when it comes to Rafe and Helen, does not give a shit about true love when his cousin Meg marries someone she falls in love with without asking Henry! And it falls on Cromwell to sort it out. And when it comes to the Henry’s new marriage, it is all political.
While historical records tend to argue that it was Henry who did not like the disappearance of Anne of Cleves and asked for the annulment of the marriage, Mantel tells an alternative and quite a plausible story in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light. Henry is aging. He has a bad leg. And he has a reputation of getting rid of his wives. So he is probably not the most eligible bachelor in Anne’s view. Besides, the first encounter between them is quite an offending one for Henry. When Henry hears that his new bride has arrived, he rides to Rochester, with some of his closest men of the Privy Chamber, to surprise her. And he chooses to meet his new bride dressed in disguise, a romantic tradition that is popular in Tudor Court. The tradition means to demonstrate true love and Anne is expected to fall in love with Henry at first sight. But the meeting does not go as expected. Anne does not recognize Henry and also ignores him. Too big an insult for the king!
In Mantel’s words:
“He fell back. He was stricken, as any man would be.”
Well, Henry is not any man, is he? Add to this that his weak performance in the bedroom, and that everybody in the court knows it, and that Henry knows that everybody knows it, and England has a total disaster in her hands.
With a little help from his close friends, Henry does not have to look too far to find a scapegoat for his unfortunate marriage… At the end of the day, it is Cromwell who has single-handedly chosen Anne of Cleves as Henry’s new bride…
…and, even though it is also Cromwell who has the king’s marriage to Anne of Cleves annulled, Henry is still very disappointed… which brings Cromwell first to the Tower of London, the same living quarters that Anne Boleyn used a few years ago – is it Karma, or what?- and then to the executioner’s block.
Every Wolf Hall volume ends with an execution and a wedding. The Mirror and The Light does follow the tradition. Too bad Cromwell’s death precedes that of Catherine Howard because I would really have liked Hilary Mantel’s take on Henry’s fifth queen who loses her head only eighteen months after Cromwell. I would also have liked to see Anne of Cleves’ life after the annulment of her marriage to Henry because she is a real winner in my opinion. She does not have to stay married to Henry, receives a generous settlement, and has her independence. Hats off.
We can’t wait to have The Mirror and The Light on TV. Regarding the release date, neither BBC nor PBS has made an announcement yet. According to iMDB, the six episode mini series will be released on BBC in 2024. When asked in an interview, Damian said that we should expect to see it around Christmas time on BBC. So watch this space and our sister site damian-lewis.com for official announcements and more!
in mantel trilogy, thomas more is an anti heretic fanatic; this is contradicted by his allowing Lutheran Roper to court daughter, but opposing marriage till roper recanted
downfall of Cromwell: by rewarding him with earldom, henry expected cromwell to dissolve cleves marriage; his failure confirmed his enemies’ slander he was paid off by cleves, he was promoting protestant cause. henry’s leniency towards cromwell’s son/nephew shows he soon regretted the execution
cromwell should have suggested divorce if Katherine Howard gets pregant; else why bother? whatever the consequences of the divorce you can defer till it is necessary