Anne Boleyn

1531: one year after Wolsey’s death, one year into Cromwell’s royal prepotency, one year closer to the Break with Rome. Even in the context of this weekly serial drama, ‘Wolf Hall’ made the pace of change and tension discernible; opening with More reading aloud in Latin, anew in his appointment to Lord Chancellor. Political and religious change permeated the political, religious, social, cultural and, especially, sexual aspects of this episode. Our acquaintance with Catherine of Aragon in the previous episodes has been slight, but sympathetic. So really there was nothing new this week, except the distinct hopelessness of her regaining any favour with the king or his court. What particularly resonated was Catherine’s grievance not at Henry running off to Chertsey with his ‘Jezebel’, but at him not ‘saying goodbye’ before doing so. Perhaps this injects unnecessary romance, but it’s certainly interesting that ‘Wolf Hall’ sidelines Catherine as a cause of her own annulment; as reflected in Parliament, the ‘matter’ of Henry’s personal life rests entirely with the king and his minister.

Even though Cromwell is manipulating and colluding with the brother of the “odd” Jane Seymour, he remains a whole lot nicer than the Latin-speaking, and hence innately shady, More. I think that More has been given a harsh treatment by Hilary Mantel, but that even Cromwell buys in to Elizabeth Barton’s Catholic prophesies gives some due back to More’s cause. To a twenty-first century audience, the alleged Holy Maid of Kent brings heresy to the forefront as a real political issue, underpinning and almost undermining the entire Reformation.

Our minister, Cromwell, now ‘writes all the laws’. We see him holding sway over the king and holding up a swaying, queasy Henry. Even though his influence is so far-reaching, ‘Wolf Hall’ doesn’t present Cromwell as power hungry. His background as a humble blacksmith remains sensitive and motivates his request for a position in Anne’s household; Master of the Jewel House he may become, but as with Henry, Anne wears the trousers. In a Tudor court where it’s quickly becoming a game of who hasn’t been seduced by Anne, she touches Cromwell’s hand, but unlike the king, this courtier does not go weak at the knees. His relationship with Anne is very much political, and even when he enters her bedchamber to deliver a kiss from her babyfather, Cromwell never hides his constitutional perspective of Anne. In joking that the nation would be bankrupt for the cash advances given to Anne for each inch of flesh shown, he really is quite degrading of her. There is little compassion for Anne, which will probably only serve to make the audience complicit in her beheading for believing the claims of cheating and incest to come.