HILARY MANTEL
WOLF HALL
To my singular friend
Mary Robertson this be given.
CONTENTS
Cast of CharactersFamily Trees
Part OneChapter I - Across the Narrow Sea. 1500Chapter II - Paternity. 1527Chapter III - At Austin Friars. 1527
Part TwoChapter I - Visitation. 1529Chapter II - An Occult History of Britain. 1521–1529Chapter III - Make or Mar. All Hallows 1529
Part ThreeChapter I - Three-Card Trick. Winter 1529–Spring 1530Chapter II - Entirely Beloved Cromwell. Spring–December 1530Chapter III - The Dead Complain of Their Burial. Christmastide 1530
Part FourChapter I - Arrange Your Face. 1531Chapter II - ‘Alas, What Shall I Do For Love?’ Spring 1532Chapter III - Early Mass. November 1532
Part FiveChapter I - Anna Regina. 1533Chapter II - Devil's Spit. Autumn and winter 1533Chapter III - A Painter's Eye. 1534
Part SixChapter I - Supremacy. 1534Chapter II - The Map of Christendom. 1534–1535Chapter III - To Wolf Hall. July 1535
Author's NoteAcknowledgementsAlso by Hilary MantelCopyrightAbout the Publisher
CAST OF CHARACTERS
In Putney, 1500Walter Cromwell, a blacksmith and brewer.Thomas, his son.Bet, his daughter.Kat, his daughter.Morgan Williams, Kat's husband.
At Austin Friars, from 1527Thomas Cromwell, a lawyer.Liz Wykys, his wife.Gregory, their son.Anne, their daughter.Grace, their daughter.Henry Wykys, Liz's father, a wool trader.Mercy, his wife.Johane Williamson, Liz's sister.John Williamson, her husband.Johane (Jo), their daughter.Alice Wellyfed, Cromwell's niece, daughter of Bet Cromwell.Richard Williams, later called Cromwell, son of Kat and Morgan.Rafe Sadler, Cromwell's chief clerk, brought up at Austin Friars.Thomas Avery, the household accountant.Helen Barre, a poor woman taken in by the household.Thurston, the cook.Christophe, a servant.Dick Purser, keeper of the guard dogs.
At WestminsterThomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York, cardinal, papal legate, Lord Chancellor: Thomas Cromwell's patron.George Cavendish, Wolsey's gentleman usher and later biographer.Stephen Gardiner, Master of Trinity Hall, the cardinal's secretary, later Master Secretary to Henry VIII: Cromwell's most devoted enemy.Thomas Wriothesley, Clerk of the Signet, diplomat, protégé of both Cromwell and Gardiner.Richard Riche, lawyer, later Solicitor General.Thomas Audley, lawyer, Speaker of the House of Commons, Lord Chancellor after Thomas More's resignation.
At ChelseaThomas More, lawyer and scholar, Lord Chancellor after Wolsey's fall. Alice, his wife.Sir John More, his aged father.Margaret Roper, his eldest daughter, married to Will Roper.Anne Cresacre, his daughter-in-law.Henry Pattinson, a servant.
In the cityHumphrey Monmouth, merchant, imprisoned for sheltering William Tyndale, translator of the Bible into English.John Petyt, merchant, imprisoned on suspicion of heresy.Lucy, his wife.John Parnell, merchant, embroiled in long-running legal dispute with Thomas More.Little Bilney, scholar burned for heresy.John Frith, scholar burned for heresy.Antonio Bonvisi, merchant, from Lucca.Stephen Vaughan, merchant at Antwerp, friend of Cromwell.
At courtHenry VIII.Katherine of Aragon, his first wife, later known as Dowager Princess of Wales.Mary, their daughter.Anne Boleyn, his second wife.Mary, her sister, widow of William Carey and Henry's ex-mistress.Thomas Boleyn, her father, later Earl of Wiltshire and Lord Privy Seaclass="underline" likes to be known as ‘Monseigneur’.George, her brother, later Lord Rochford.Jane Rochford, George's wife.Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, Anne's uncle.Mary Howard, his daughter.
Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, old friend of Henry, married to his sister Mary.
Mark Smeaton, a musician.Henry Wyatt, a courtier.Thomas Wyatt, his son.Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, the king's illegitimate son.Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland.
The clergyWilliam Warham, aged Archbishop of Canterbury.Cardinal Campeggio, papal envoy.John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, legal adviser to Katherine of Aragon.Thomas Cranmer, Cambridge scholar, reforming Archbishop of Canterbury, succeeding Warham.Hugh Latimer, reforming priest, later Bishop of Worcester.Rowland Lee, friend of Cromwell, later Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield.
In CalaisLord Berners, the Governor, a scholar and translator.Lord Lisle, the incoming Governor.Honor, his wife.William Stafford, attached to the garrison.
At HatfieldLady Bryan, mother of Francis, in charge of the infant princess, Elizabeth.Lady Anne Shelton, Anne Boleyn's aunt, in charge of the former princess, Mary.
The ambassadorsEustache Chapuys, career diplomat from Savoy, London ambassador of Emperor Charles V.Jean de Dinteville, an ambassador from Francis I.
The Yorkist claimants to the throneHenry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, descended from a daughter of Edward IV.Gertrude, his wife.Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, niece of Edward IV.Lord Montague, her son.Geoffrey Pole, her son.Reginald Pole, her son.
The Seymour family at Wolf HallOld Sir John, who has an affair with the wife of his eldest son Edward.Edward Seymour, his son.Thomas Seymour, his son.Jane, his daughter: at court.Lizzie, his daughter, married to the Governor of Jersey.
William Butts, a physician.Nikolaus Kratzer, an astronomer.Hans Holbein, an artist.Sexton, Wolsey's fool.Elizabeth Barton, a prophetess.
Family Trees
‘There are three kinds of scenes, one called the tragic, second the comic, third the satyric. Their decorations are different and unalike each other in scheme. Tragic scenes are delineated with columns, pediments, statues and other objects suited to kings; comic scenes exhibit private dwellings, with balconies and views representing rows of windows, after the manner of ordinary dwellings; satyric scenes are decorated with trees, caverns, mountains and other rustic objects delineated in landscape style.’VITRUVIUS, De Architectura, on the theatre, c.27BCThese be the names of the players:
PART ONE
I
Across the Narrow Sea
Putney, 1500
‘So now get up.’Felled, dazed, silent, he has fallen; knocked full length on the cobbles of the yard. His head turns sideways; his eyes are turned towards the gate, as if someone might arrive to help him out. One blow, properly placed, could kill him now.Blood from the gash on his head – which was his father's first effort – is trickling across his face. Add to this, his left eye is blinded; but if he squints sideways, with his right eye he can see that the stitching of his father's boot is unravelling. The twine has sprung clear of the leather, and a hard knot in it has caught his eyebrow and opened another cut.‘So now get up!’ Walter is roaring down at him, working out where to kick him next. He lifts his head an inch or two, and moves forward, on his belly, trying to do it without exposing his hands, on which Walter enjoys stamping. ‘What are you, an eel?’ his parent asks. He trots backwards, gathers pace, and aims another kick.It knocks the last breath out of him; he thinks it may be his last. His forehead returns to the ground; he lies waiting, for Walter to jump on him. The dog, Bella, is barking, shut away in an outhouse. I'll miss my dog, he thinks. The yard smells of beer and blood. Someone is shouting, down on the riverbank. Nothing hurts, or perhaps it's that everything hurts, because there is no separate pain that he can pick out. But the cold strikes him, just in one place: just through his cheekbone as it rests on the cobbles.‘Look now, look now,’ Walter bellows. He hops on one foot, as if he's dancing. ‘Look what I've done. Burst my boot, kicking your head.’Inch by inch. Inch by inch forward. Never mind if he calls you an eel or a worm or a snake. Head down, don't provoke him. His nose is clotted with blood and he has to open his mouth to breathe. His father's momentary distraction at the loss of his good boot allows him the leisure to vomit. ‘That's right,’ Walter yells. ‘Spew everywhere.’ Spew everywhere, on my good cobbles. ‘Come on, boy, get up. Let's see you get up. By the blood of creeping Christ, stand on your feet.’Creeping Christ? he thinks. What does he mean? His head turns sideways, his hair rests in his own vomit, the dog barks, Walter roars, and bells peal out across the water. He feels a sensation of movement, as if the filthy ground has become the Thames. It gives and sways beneath him; he lets out his breath, one great final gasp. You've done it this time, a voice tells Walter. But he closes his ears, or God closes them for him. He is pulled downstream, on a deep black tide.