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Wolf Hall
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Wolf Hall Trilogy: Book 1

Wolf Hall (2009) (edit title/settings)

by Hilary Mantel (Author) (edit contributors)

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In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political... read more

Summary edit see section history

In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the heights of political power England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war.... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the heights of political power England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

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Quotes edit see section history

  • “There it is: if you are so lenient with yourself as to insist on living with a woman, then for the sake of your soul you should make it a woman you really don't like.”
  • “He is like a man who has wandered inadvertently wandered into a play, who has found it to be a comedy, and decided to stay and see it through.”
  • “It is time to say what a king is, and what protection from foreign incursions moral or physical, what freedom from the pretensions of those who would like to tell an Englishman how to speak to his God.”
  • “How brightly coloured the king is, like the king in a new pack of cards.”
  • “A man's power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguessed-at expression of his face,” he blusters. “It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.”
    Cromwell
  • “In England there is no mercy for the poor. You pay for everything, even a broken neck.”
  • “The wives of England, they all keep secret books of whom they are going to have next when they have poisoned their husbands. And you are the top of everyone's list.”
  • “The world corrupts me, I think. Or perhaps it's just the weather. It pulls me down and makes me think like you, that one should shrink inside, down and down to a little point of light, preserving one's solitary soul like a flame under glass. The spectacles of pain and disgrace I see around me, the ignorance, the unthinking vice, the poverty and the lack of hope, and oh, the rain--the rain that falls on England and rots the grain, puts out the light in a man's eye and the light of learning too, for who can reason if Oxford is a giant puddle and Cambridge is washing away downstream, and who will enforce the laws if the judges are swimming for their lives?”
    Cromwell
  • “The world is not run from where he thinks. Not from his border fortresses, not even from Whitehall. The world is run from Antwerp, from Florence, from places he never imagined.”
    Cromwell
  • “I am praying for everybody. I am praying for everything. That is what it is, to be a cardinal. Only when I say to the Lord, "Now, about Thomas Cromwell-" does God say to me, "Wolsey, what have I told you? Don't you know when to give up?"”
    Cardinal Wolsey
  • “Why does everything you know, and everything you've learned, confirm you in what you believed before? Whereas in my case, what I grew up with, and what I thought I believed, is chipped away a little and a little, a fragment then a piece and then a piece more. With every month that passes, the corners are knocked off the certainties of this world: and the next world too.”
    Cromwell on More
  • “'...I will tear him with my teeth''My lord.' He bows. 'May I substitute the word, "bite"?'”
  • “The surprise is it took her so long, but there is a lesson here; you think people are always watching you, but that is guilt, making you jump at shadows.”
  • “It's all very well planning what you will do in six months, what you will do in a year, but it's no good at all if you don't have a plan for tomorrow.”
  • “‎'Hans grunts, downs his cup of wine and talks about what he's left behind: talk about Basle, about the Swiss cantons and cities. Riots and pitched battles. Images, not images. Statues, not statues. It is the body of God, it is not the body of God, it is sort-of the body of God. It is his blood, it is not his blood. Priests may marry, they may not. There are seven sacraments, there are three. The crucifix we creep to on our knees and reverence with our lips, or the crucifix we chop it up and burn it in the public square. 'I am no Pope-lover but I get tired of it.''”
  • “It's the living that turn and chase the dead. The long bones and skulls are tumbled from their shrouds, and words like stones thrust into their rattling mouths: we edit their writings, we rewrite their lives.”
  • “Have you ever observed that when a man gets a son he takes all the credit, and when he gets a daughter he blames his wife? And if they do not breed at all, we say it is because her womb is barren. We do not say it is because his seed is bad.”
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • You don’t get on by being original. You don’t get on by being bright. You don’t get on by being strong. You get on by being a subtle crook;
    Highlighted by 95 Kindle customers
  • Why does everything you know, and everything you’ve learned, confirm you in what you believed before? Whereas in my case, what I grew up with, and what I thought I believed, is chipped away a little and a little, a fragment then a piece and then a piece more. With every month that passes, the corners are knocked off the certainties of this world: and the next world too. Show me where it says, in the Bible, “Purgatory.” Show me where it says “relics, monks, nuns.” Show me where it says “Pope.”
    Highlighted by 92 Kindle customers
  • it’s all very well planning what you will do in six months, what you will do in a year, but it’s no good at all if you don’t have a plan for tomorrow.”
    Highlighted by 86 Kindle customers
  • But it is no use to justify yourself. It is no good to explain. It is weak to be anecdotal. It is wise to conceal the past even if there is nothing to conceal. A man’s power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguessed-at expression of his face. It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.
    Highlighted by 83 Kindle customers
  • “Wolsey always said that the making of a treaty is the treaty. It doesn’t matter what the terms are, just that there are terms. It’s the goodwill that matters. When that runs out, the treaty is broken, Whatever the terms say.”
    Highlighted by 77 Kindle customers
  • Petrarch writes, “between one dip of the pen and the next, the time passes: and I hurry, I drive myself, and I speed toward death. We are always dying—I while I write, you while you read, and others while they listen or block their ears; they are all dying.”
    Highlighted by 76 Kindle customers
  • There cannot be new things in England. There can be old things freshly presented, or new things that pretend to be old. To be trusted, new men must forge themselves an ancient pedigree, like Walter’s, or enter into the service of ancient families. Don’t try to go it alone, or they’ll think you’re pirates.
    Highlighted by 69 Kindle customers
  • The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman’s sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.
    Highlighted by 67 Kindle customers
  • “The multitude,” Cavendish says, “is always desirous of a change. They never see a great man set up but they must pull him down—for the novelty of the thing.”
    Highlighted by 62 Kindle customers
  • uxorious of men. Any doubts were quashed.” He places a hand, softly and firmly,
    Highlighted by 18 Kindle customers
Show all 27 quotes from this book

First Sentence edit see section history

Go now get up.

Table of Contents edit see section history

Cast of Characters
Family Trees
Part One
I. Across the Narrow Sea, 1500
II. Paternity, 1527
III. At Austin Friars, 1527
Part Two
I. Visitation, 1529
II. An Occult History of Britain, 1521-1529
III. Make or Mar. All Hallows 1529
Part Three
I. Three-Card Trick. Winter 1529-Spring 1530
II. Entirely Beloved Cromwell. Spring-December 1530
III. The Dead Complain of Their Burial. Christmastide 1530
Part Four
I. Arrange Your Face, 1531
II. "Alas, What Shall I Do for Love?" Spring 1532
III. Early Mass. November 1532
Part Five
I. Anna Regina, 1533
II. Devil's Spit. Autumn and Winter 1533
III. A Painter's Eye, 1534
Part Six
I. Supremacy, 1534
II. The Map of Christendom, 1534-1535
III. To Wolf Hall, July 1535

Author's Note
Acknowledgments

Glossary edit see section history

  • Praemunire: In English history, Praemunire or Praemunire facias was a law that prohibited the assertion or maintenance of papal jurisdiction in England, against the supremacy of the Monarch. This law was enforced by the Writ of Praemunire facias, a writ of summons, from which the law takes its name.

Series & Lists edit see section history

This is book 1 of 3 in Wolf Hall Trilogy. (standard series)

Followed by Bring Up the Bodies.

This book is in Tudor Historical Fiction. (community list)
This book is in Woman and Home's Top 30 Books of 2010. (authoritative list)
This is book 2009 of 47 in Booker Prize Winners. (authoritative list)
This is book 55 of 100 in Top 100 Books That Defined The Noughties (Telegraph). (authoritative list)
This book is in New York Times Bestsellers (Current). (authoritative list)
This is book 18 of 20 in New York Times Bestsellers - Paperback Trade Fiction (Current). (authoritative list)
This book is in Big Fat Books. (community list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Hilary Mantel (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Fourth Estate
Country: UK
Publication Date: 2009
ISBN: 0007230184
Page Count: 672

Awards edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: PR6063.A438
  • Dewey: 823.914

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Reading Level: Adults

High level of history, references to sex and violence

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
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