The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
Published by Fourth Estate Price - £25
Hilary Mantel has produced a brilliant book to complete her trilogy of works looking at the life of Thomas Cromwell and Tudor politics.
This book takes Cromwell from the height of his powers in 1536, being awarded the order of the garter by Henry VIII and extensive lands across the country, to the executioners block in the summer of 1540.
Mantel takes the reader through all the different twists and turns of being a major political manipulator at the heart of Tudor politics. Cromwell’s constant battle against the old order, the noble class, who view him as of low birth and never really one of them.
The belief amongst the likes of the Duke of Norfolk Thomas Howard, Bishop of Winchester Stephen Gardiner and others from the old Catholic families that Cromwell is working his way through them, seeking to replace the old order, with others from lower classes. It seems pretty likely that this was exactly what he was doing, though, whether the ermine clad minister was quite the rebel spirit that Mantel portrays is a matter for historical debate.
Whilst the intrigues unvail, at the centre of the action the whole time is the volatile nature of Henry. Everything in the end is reliant on keeping the King happy. Once the wind changes, death seems to beckon.
It is fascinating to get such a deep insight into what made the politics of the time tick, with a sometimes surprising class dimension.
The importance that the King produced an heir, then the clamour for a spare. The marriages made amongst royalty across Europe, predominantly for diplomatic reasons. Though, when the King does not like the match that can be curtains for the chief advisor, as Cromwell found.
Mantel is clearly a Cromwell fan, yet she does also reveal him as a not particularly likeable human being in many ways. He is a product of his life’s journey, which she regularly tells, with a series of flashbacks to his early years in Putney. The brutality of his father, Walter, who whilst despised by Cromwell has clearly bequeathed a strong genealogical inheritance. Walter features much in the tale as execution beckons.
Mantel goes into great detail in the book, some might say too much in places, as she painstakingly describes a piece of clothing, a plate or meal that is about to be consumed. But the book is a masterclass in historical story telling. It lays out the scene, blood and guts as well as the splendour of court life.
No doubt the work will transfer to stage and screen in a similarly successful way to the earlier novels Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies. There is certainly plenty of scope to draw out excellent screen and stage plays from the rich contents of this book. It is a book that draws the reader in to such a degree that there is real disappointment that it is over come the end.
If the author is looking for a new project, then she could do worse that jump forward 100 years, when the King's power is finally stripped, with Charles I going to the block. The Mirror and the Light shows some of the fundamentals being put in place that did eventually lead to the later civil war and English Revolution.
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