Mr Secretary

Bring Up The Bodies, the second volume of Hilary Mantel’s vivid imagining of Thomas Cromwell’s life lives up to high expectations. It follows on seamlessly from her first, Booker Prize winning effort, Wolf Hall. Hilary likes to draw her titles from things that happen late in the story. In the first we left Thomas and Henry on the last page embarking on a visit to Wolf Hall, home of Jane Seymour. Thomas has successfully survived the demise of his mentor and father figure, Cardinal Wolsley and accommodated his King’s desire to be done with one Queen and acquire a new one. Knowing our history we foresee the trouble that lies ahead. Bringing up the bodies is a reference, late in this volume, to bringing forth those condemned to death, accused as lovers of the Queen. Anne Boleyn will follow them to the scaffold while Henry is impatient for the virginal Jane. The narrative, like history, repeats itself.

I am guarded about sequels, wary of disappointment, but from the first page it is clear we are in the same world. We left Thomas a happily married family man, his home a sanctuary. We find him a widower, his wife and two daughters dead of a random, cruelly quick fever. He has named his birds of prey after his girls – Grace and Anne. They are graceful – circling and hovering in the blue sky overhead – but deadly accurate when they strike – with blood filled gaze and gore streaked breast. What you need to be to survive in this place, in these times, working for this King.

Dennis Glover, in a review published in The Australian for which I can find no link or reference anywhere (paywall effect?) lauded Wolf Hall for choosing a bureaucrat as hero. And for it’s skill in describing so accurately the under-valued skills needed to pursue good public policy in difficult political environments. The reader is taken deep into the heart of government processes – a different sort of government to be sure, but the essentials are the same. The successful political advisor needs to know how to manage the Leader, his (or her) moods and predilections, to build confidence and maintain trust, know when to advance, when to withdraw. Must know how to build alliances – who to approach, who to avoid and most critically who to trust with the deepest secrets, strategy and finally critical actions. Must know the basics of running the show – how to canvass support before critical forums, then how to conduct the critical meetings, the theatre and the substance, and the drudgery of keeping minutes, presenting evidence, persuading. Must know how to dispose of enemies – identify weaknesses, uncover information, know the right time to use it, know when to bring the Leader up to speed. All the while keeping ahead of the paperwork – reading everything, getting important papers signed in a timely way, keeping records. And reading and managing the public mood – inside the machine and on the streets. All of this is happening now, in Parliaments and Whitehall equivalents around the world.

Bring Up The Bodies is about the fall of Anne Boleyn, and of her family. We see the Queen gradually losing her grip. Her mis-steps handling the King. Her venal family. Trapped in a vicious circle that her previous coquetry cannot conquer, she is now in the serious business of producing an heir. And failing. Thin and sallow, no longer alluring, no longer alluring to the King. Her story is reflected in the clothing of the time – the fashionable yellow she wore at her coronation is no longer seen at court, now only worn in the brothels in the city. Yet she refuses Cromwell’s counsel. Continues to push the King into arguments he does not want – about the treatment of Mary. About his relations with the Church and other monarchs. Surrounds herself with women. And men who are happy to pay court to her – to their detriment.

And so the bodies get brought up, giving us insights into trials of the period – much like the show trials of any modern autocratic regime. It is all over by the time the public court convenes. But the right people have to be selected as judge, prosecutor, jury. The old aristocratic families of England assert themselves to be rid of the venal Boleyns. The Seymours are their kin. And so it is all arranged, in advance and then everyone must play their part.

The accused can go easily – better for family and friends (status and possessions after) and for him or herself (easier death); or they can go hard. The bodies take the first course. Interviews are conducted to seek confessions – but not in a religious sense. As Thomas says, “we are not priests. We don’t want their sort of confession. We are lawyers. We want the truth little by little and only those parts we can use”. The young man he is instructing says admiringly, “It’s not so much who is guilty but whose guilt is of service to you…. You are deft in these matters and without false compunction”. Thomas gives advice to those he wants to promote, or more importantly those he knows the King will promote – in this case the Seymour family. He draws those he wants to destroy, or who must be destroyed if the King’s ends are to be achieved, into traps that will finish them. In a nice touch he protects the poet Thomas Wyatt for his death serves no purpose and he admires the young man’s way with words.

In this second book Hilary Mantel has settled more confidently into the character of Thomas. There is more openness and fluidity in the telling. More impressionistic. We are thrown into scenes – at the Court, in his house, in the Tower – directly from inside his head. Sometimes it takes a while to catch up. It is moodier, more nuanced. We see, feel, experience Thomas as he registers glances, a shift in atmosphere, the mood. Lots of murmurs, whispers, rustling of skirts, entering and exiting stage left. All the time keeping his own impassive countenance. Ignoring insults refusing to rise to baits tossed out. But storing it all away for future use.

We get more personal information. He interrogates himself, his memories and judgements – and entertains doubts. Perhaps his father was not the brutal figure remembered in Wolf Hall. He taught some useful things. He wonders what his wife’s life as really like – whether Elizabeth was always faithful. He recalls happy times with his daughters – Christmas celebrations. He keeps a box of mementos. He considers his son Gregory and compares himself. He remembers the Cardinal – and takes revenge on a past discourtesy. What goes around comes around.

Surrounded by scheming insularity Thomas is a renaissance man: worldly but celebrating the domestic, immersed in power plays by men he is sensitive to the plight of their women used as pawns in the pursuit of power and wealth – he notices them, their looks, their clothes, their knowledge. At home anywhere and under any conditions he is appreciative of fine food and furnishings. Utilising higher order skills he is knowledgeable and respectful of menial trades. Sophisticated in his dealings with Ambassadors and dethroned Queens he is sympathetic to outsiders and untutored youth. He is disparaging of those who are uncouth and conniving, stupid and self seeking. We see him vulnerable for the first time. Unable to continue an interview, sympathetic to the outgoing Queen until she makes a gesture that suggests artifice. Weaknesses, that if observed would be used against him. He considers his own vulnerability, knows there are plenty who would bring him down if they could, ponders his dependence on Henry. Intimations of what is to come.

All deeply satisfying. Not a word, a sentence, a thought out of place. All authentic to the time and place but universal and therefore resonating still in the modern world.

A measure of the power of both books is how they both sent me back to history and constitutional law texts to check the veracity of incidents and characters. All had a basis in fact. Thomas was responsible for the first Foundling Home in London – who knew! Thomas Wyatt was imprisoned in the Tower but released without harm. There is a great description of Jane Seymour’s characteristic head gear at the end of Bring Up The Bodies and I defy you to resist googling it to have a look!

In an Authors Note at the end of this second volume Hilary talks thanks those historians who have contacted her with praise and the odd correction, but notes her endeavour is not intended as an historical account. Not of the life of Henry VIII or, in this second book, a new theory about the fate of Anne Boleyn. Rather it is an exploration of the life of Thomas, with these historical events recounted as she imagines he would have seen them. She does not claim this version of events as an authoritative view, but as a proposition she is putting to the reader. I am pleased to accept the offer and am looking forward to a promised third volume: “Mr Secretary remains sleek, plump and deeply inaccessible” and Hilary says she hopes to continue (her) efforts to dig him out.

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