Tyrants on our minds, the arrival of the Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light is well-timed, for all that the wait for it has been very long. In his finery, so luxuriantly cumbersome it swaddles him like a baby, Henry VIII (Damien Lewis) is at once ridiculous and terrifying. If the king at this point struggles to walk, a leg gatepost-stiff with gout, his temper grows ever more vigorously peripatetic; not even Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance) can always anticipate where next it might land, eager to separate another head from another body. And yet, the mood overall is hushed. In the rooms through which we’re led – so many rooms, and every threshold a cliff edge – the conversation is sotto voce, and restricted to a bare minimum. For feeling, as for apprehension, one must look as well as listen. What volumes are spoken by the manner in which a man doffs his cap or bends his knee.
This second (and last) series is based on the final novel in Hilary Mantel’s Tudor trilogy. When it begins, it is May, 1536: a grave month, blood all around. Anne Boleyn is executed on May 19, and days later, Henry marries Jane Seymour (Kate Philips), whose skin is as pale as snowdrops. What is she in for? Nothing good, as any fool knows. Lady Rochford (Lydia Leonard) tells Cromwell that Anne said congress with the King was like being “slobbered over by a mastiff pup” – though a little drool at this point seems worth putting up with. It’s when Henry isn’t drooling that his Queen should worry. Jane, however, believes she must do more than merely endure his night-time visits. Women who do not enjoy the act, she has heard, are unlikely to bear sons.
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