Review of BBC Two/PBS miniseries “Wolf Hall”, season 1 (2015).
Review of BBC Two/PBS miniseries “Wolf Hall”, season 1 (2015).
Wolfhall
(or Wulfhall) is the site of a manor house, home of
the Seymour family in Burbage, Wiltshire.[1] Episode 5 begins with King Henry and his
entourage arriving at Wolf Hall during his Royal Progress. TV/film aficionados will recognize Claire Foy
(Anne Boleyn) from the first two seasons of “The Crown” (2016-) as well as Bernard
Hill (Anne’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk) who played Theoden, king of Rohan in The
Lord of the Rings (2001-2003). Let’s
not forget Mark Rylance[2]
(Thomas Cromwell) who played Rudolf Abel alongside Tom Hanks’ James Donovan in Bridge
of Spies (2015) and Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Rafe Sadler, Cromwell’s
secretary) who stars in the 2020 miniseries “The Queen’s Gambit”.
Season 1 charts
the ascent – over a seven-year period – of Thomas Cromwell, who goes from serving
as lawyer to Thomas Cardinal Wolsey (Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of
England), to becoming the vicegerent of King Henry VIII. Following Wolsey’s failure to procure a papal
annulment for the king and his subsequent fall from favour, Cromwell rose due
to his role in facilitating Henry’s divorce from his first wife, Catherine of
Aragon (through the Act of Supremacy of 1534), thus allowing him to marry Anne
Boleyn. Cromwell is shown to have two,
sometimes contradictory, aims – firstly, to destroy those who had conspired
against Wolsey, to whom Cromwell remained devoted, even after the Cardinal’s
death and secondly, to satisfy Henry’s desire to procure a male heir.
Following
Wolsey’s death in 1530, Cromwell dedicated the rest of his life to the service
of the man who had humiliated his former master. Anne Boleyn, who had been the king’s romantic
interest for four years at this point, was crucial in Cromwell’s rise to power. However, her hatred of Wolsey was never
forgotten by Cromwell, who facilitated her execution in 1536 once King Henry had
lost patience with her failure to give him a son. Cromwell was instrumental in the condemnation
of Thomas More in 1535 (who had resigned the Chancellorship in 1532 after
refusing to sign Henry’s petition to the Pope for an annulment). Cromwell is shown to have tried earnestly –
and in vain – to get More to endorse the Act of Succession (1534), which
recognized the issue of Henry’s marriage to Anne as legitimate successors to
the English throne. This final insult to
the king was deemed unforgivable and More was sent to the scaffold.
Cromwell is
portrayed as a man thirsty for power, willing to serve those who didn’t share
his Protestant convictions (e.g. Henry) in order to obtain it. Cromwell is no martyr – he eventually
perished by becoming ensnared in his own web of royal nuptial intrigues – but rather
proves himself to be a shrewd and pragmatic politician who avoids sticking his
neck out by keeping his religious beliefs to himself and distancing himself from
outspoken Protestants. Though the 1966
film A Man for All Seasons portrays Cromwell as somewhat of a loud-mouthed
thug, this series shows him to be a subtle and Machiavellian statesman. Cromwell comes across as a tragic character –
he is haunted by an abusive childhood, having wandered Europe for many years having
many adventures and becoming skilled in law, business and languages before
returning to England only to be robbed of his wife and two daughters by the sweating
sickness. All his attempts at love
following his wife’s death are frustrated.
Cromwell rises to power through serving a volatile monarch and is
ruthless and vengeful against those whom he perceives as having
wronged/threatened him.
When Thomas
Cranmer appears in season 1, he rarely speaks, which is fitting since –
according to MacCulloch’s biography[3] – he preferred to take a
back seat to Cromwell’s political machinations.
Dr. Cranmer – then a professor at Cambridge University – first shows
himself in episode 2, when he is introduced to Cromwell during a visit to Anne
Boleyn at York Place, the former residence of Wolsey, which was given to her
following Wolsey’s having been deposed as Chancellor. Cranmer is described as the Boleyns’
chaplain, just back from Rome, having failed to advance Henry’s cause. Cranmer tells Cromwell that “the Boleyns like
to have him close”. This scene is set in
late Fall 1530. This was not to be
Cranmer’s last trip to the continent on royal business; in total, Cranmer spent
7 years working on “the annulment file”.[4]
The next
time we see Cranmer is in Ep. 3, as he crowns Anne Queen of England in the
capacity of Archbishop of Canterbury. One
could say that Cromwell created the favorable conditions necessary for Cranmer’s
rise in 1533 from having been an obscure academic to being made the most powerful
cleric in England. By September of that
year, Cranmer had been consecrated Archbishop, ruled that Henry’s marriage to
Catherine was void and that his secret 1532 marriage to Anne was valid, crowned
Anne (who was 6 months pregnant) and stood as godfather to the newly born
princess Elizabeth. All the groundwork
for these events had of course been laid by Cromwell. Both Cromwell and Cranmer, who served
together on the Privy Council, were raised to these unexpected heights of power
due to their roles in these momentous events in Henry’s life. MacCulloch notes that these two men valued
each other’s skills and realized how their talents could be complimentary in
the pursuit of common evangelical goals.[5] This was reform through realpolitik.
This series is light on theology – besides Tyndale’s presence by proxy via his NT – but offers a fascinating glimpse into the teeming hive of English power politics whose intrigues resulted in the Reformation taking root in the royal household despite/because of Henry’s single-minded obsession with having a male heir. Surely, he did not foresee that it would be the daughter of his second wife who would seal his victory over Rome. This series brings 16th-century characters to life – the four Thomases[6] (with their clever jurisprudential banter), Henry, Catherine, Mary Tudor, Mary & Anne Boleyn, Suffolk, Norfolk, Jane, Chapuys and Gardiner all become relatable people. In conclusion, all I can say is that I’m eagerly awaiting the release of season 2.
[1] https://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2015/04/10-little-known-facts-about-the-real-wolf-hall (accessed on 15 November 2020): The
title of the book, and therefore the TV series, uses the name of the Seymour
home as an atmospheric hint that we are in the realm of the Latin
expression homo homini lupus, or “Man is wolf to man.”
[2] Rylance won a BAFTA award as well
as a Satellite award for best actor for his role as Cromwell.
[3] Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas
Cranmer: A Life. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2016
[1996], p. 135.
[4] Ibid. p. 89.
[5] Ibid. p. 135.
[6] Wolsey, Cromwell, More, Cranmer.
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