It’s now 1536. Anne Boleyn has lost the child she was carrying and her marriage to the king is falling apart. The members of the court see this, and it’s only a matter of time before, and it’s common knowledge that the king is very interested in Jane Seymour. Following Henry VIII’s instructions, Cromwell begins […]
It’s 1535. The Act of Supremacy has passed, and Henry VIII is now head of the Church. Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador, still refuses to recognize Anne Boleyn as Queen of England. Cromwell joins the royal progress at the Seymour home, Wolf Hall. Cromwell is keenly interested in Jane Seymour. During dinner, an exhausted Henry VIII […]
It’s currently September 1533, and Anne Boleyn returns to Whitehall not with the son and heir she promised Henry, but with a daughter. Henry is disappointed at this, and he requests that his daughter be named Elizabeth, most likely after his own mother, Elizabeth of York. He also orders that the joust planned in anticipation […]
In 1531, Henry is ready to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and asks parliament to declare him Supreme Head of the Church of England. There are many who are against the idea, including Thomas More, Henry VIII’s chancellor, who is a devout Catholic.
It is December 1529. Wolsey has lost power and has taken refuge at Esher. Cromwell is still in London, seeking to have Wolsey reinstated. He pays a visit to Henry, who refuses to talk about the cardinal. It looks like Henry is doing all he can to avoid making a final decision about Wolsey.
Happy almost weekend! I’ll be recapping the American broadcast of Wolf Hall on PBS’s Masterpiece over the next few weeks, and I’m really looking forward to it. For those of you who don’t know, the series is based on Hilary Mantel’s novel of the same name and tells the story of Henry VIII, his break […]
Hilary Mantel makes for a good literary celebrity around here: She’s won the Booker Prize twice, and the stage adaptations of her winning books are doing well. She’s progressed so far in the celebrity circus that her views are now “controversial” (the media love bringing up her words about the Duchess of Cambridge, although nobody […]