Bring Up The Bodies

The novel opens at a moment of seasonal transition as summer concludes and “already you can feel the autumn” (4). This type of sensory detail is a technique used throughout the novel to evoke immediacy despite the distance of the historical moment. Even though Mantel is describing events that took place nearly 600 years ago, her use of “you” makes Tudor England a world the reader can inhabit. Highlighting the seasonal transition is narratively important because it means that the relaxed period of summer travel is over, and Henry will soon have to return to his formal duties in London. The seasonal transition also mirrors Henry’s emotional transition from Anne to Jane Seymor. Cromwell observes that with Jane, Henry is like “a veal calf knocked on the head by the butcher” (29). This shift in Henry’s desires introduces the theme of The Precarious Nature of Favoritism since Cromwell’s fate now rests on effecting the nearly impossible project of annulling Henry’s marriage.

Though Henry’s desires drive the plot, Cromwell is the protagonist, and the novel continues his story from Wolf Hall. Cromwell is about 50 and holds the position of master secretary. He has amassed significant wealth, status, and most importantly, direct access to the king. Cromwell is portrayed as discreet and enigmatic: “[N]o one knows where he has been and who he has met, and he is in no hurry to tell them” (6). The narrative preserves this distance with a third-person point of view that describes Cromwell’s feelings in an aloof and dispassionate way. The series’ depiction of Cromwell is notable because he is portrayed negatively in historical accounts and period fiction. For example, in Robert Bolt’s play A Man for All Seasons, Cromwell is contrasted negatively with Thomas More: Cromwell is wily and duplicitous, while More is a man of values and principles.

Bring Up the Bodies and the other novels in the trilogy do not shy away from depicting Cromwell’s ambition and ruthlessness, but they also contextualize his motivations and desires. Centering Cromwell as the protagonist of a novel rather than assigning him an accompanying role to more important historical figures reveals a rich inner life that other accounts of his life lack. For example, Bring Up the Bodies considers how Cromwell’s wife and children’s deaths to plague affected him. Despite his calm exterior, he is haunted by grief. The novel opens with him reflecting on “dead women, their bones long sunk in London clay” (3). The loss of his family members adds additional weight to the grief Cromwell feels about his late mentor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. Wolsey was a prominent English statesman who also held a high office in the Catholic church; Cromwell gained power by working closely with Wolsey when the latter was an advisor to the king. Wolsey gradually fell out of favor, and Anne also held a grudge against him because he was involved in disrupting her relationship with her first lover, Henry Percy. In 1530, Wolsey was charged with treason and ordered to travel from York to London, where he would be imprisoned in the Tower and eventually executed. Wolsey never reached the Tower, dying of natural causes during the journey. These events, and their impact on Cromwell, are described in Wolf Hall, and Wolsey’s downfall constantly hovers in the background of Bring Up the Bodies, as Cromwell knows he may meet a similar fate.

Other historical figures introduced earlier in the series continue to function as secondary characters in Bring Up the Bodies. Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was active in invalidating Henry’s marriage to Katherine and earned the favor of the king. Eustace Chapuys, King Charles V of Spain’s ambassador to England, is loyal to Katherine, Henry’s first wife, who was born a Spanish princess and is also Charles’s aunt. These characters work with or against Cromwell at various points in the novel. Their roles tie into the theme of Ambiguity Between Truth, Lies, and Rumor, as each party bends the narrative to serve their own ends.

Henry’s decision to dissolve his first marriage and marry Anne has serious political and religious ramifications, which are still unfolding when Bring Up the Bodies begins in 1535. Both Henry and Cromwell are frustrated because despite “all the turmoil, the scandal, to make the second marriage” (25), Henry has no legitimate son. This sense of urgency drives the actions Cromwell and Henry later take in trying to dissolve his marriage with Anne. Cromwell wants to ensure his own power and the ongoing stability of the kingdom; Henry wants to ensure the continuity of the Tudor dynasty, especially since his father resolved the War of the Roses with the guarantee that the Tudors offer stability and peace.