”There were four or five illustrated manuscripts written by old monastic writers, giving vivid descriptions of the use of Greek Fire. Sometimes they c”There were four or five illustrated manuscripts written by old monastic writers, giving vivid descriptions of the use of Greek Fire. Sometimes they called it Flying Fire, sometimes the devil’s tears, fire from the dragon’s mouth, Dark Fire: I puzzled over that last name. How could fire be dark? An odd image came into my head of black flames rising from black coals. It was absurd.”
[image]
A Byzantine ship uses Greek fire against a ship of the rebel, Thomas the Slav, 821. 12th century illustration from the Madrid Skylitzes
It is 1540, and I won’t tell you how significant that year is in English history. To some, 1540 is not as big as others, but for someone who knows the impact of Thomas Cromwell on history, it is a year of major shifting in power. Instead, I will focus your attention on a lawyer of modest, but reasonably wealthy means...Matthew Shardlake.
He will inadvertently be caught up in the events of 1540 because of his association with the second most powerful man in the land...Thomas Cromwell. This is not by choice, but then choice, when it comes to powerful men, is really at the discretion of those with the power to allow it. Cromwell has uses for Shardlake’s investigative abilities, and to refuse his bidding is simply to be asking to be sent to the Tower of London in chains.
The stench of London is particularly odorific the summer of 1540. Men and women walk around the city with their noses buried in sprigs of flowers to keep from tossing their latest meal all over the soiled walkways. Shardlake pines for his paintbrushes and a quiet life in the country, but he is not comfortable enough financially to feel he can retire. When he takes the case of a young girl accused of pushing her cousin down a well, he has no idea how much trouble he is placing on his crooked shoulders.
He is, as you should know, a hunchback.
The girl won’t talk, insolent wench, and the court intends to place a sharp rock under her back and place a door on top of her. They will pile rocks on top of the door until the pressure is great enough to break her back. How do humans think of such cruel implements of torture?
Cromwell needs Shardlake’s help and knows the best way to leverage him is to assist him to help someone else. Cromwell, with some not so subtle pressure put on the judge, spares the girl for two weeks. Meanwhile, Shardlake needs to find the formula for Greek Fire.
In 672, Greek Fire was the Atom Bomb of its day. The Eastern Roman Byzantine Empire used pressurized nozzles to shoot the burning liquid onto ships, which not only burned the ships, but continued to burn on the surface of the water. What hellfire was this? The secret was closely guarded, so closely that the formula for making it was lost for between 1500 to 2000 years.
But now a demonstration of its power has been shown in London. Cromwell, besieged by his enemies, knows he can save himself if he can give Greek Fire to King Henry VIII. Needless to say, there is much pressure put on Shardlake, including the addition of an assigned helper named Barak whose loyalty to Cromwell is unquestionable. The problem is Shardlake doesn’t think anyone should have the formula, least of all Henry VIII. ”Yes, all power is with the House of Tudor now. Yet is it not hard to take seriously, the king as head of the Church deciding how his people should relate to God, when his policy is ruled by his fickle passions.” The lovely Lady Honor might be talking about religion, but Henry’s fickleness extends to all levels of his government. The only person keeping some semblance of order is Thomas Cromwell.
Henry VIII is pissed off at Cromwell over the arranged marriage with Anne of Cleves. ”And now the Duke of Norfolk’s dangling his niece before the king, schooled her to catch his fancy. Catherine Howard is pretty, not yet seventeen, and he’s caught. He drools over her like an old dog over a fine joint of meat and blames me for saddling him with the Cleves mare.”
*Double Shudder* Too much dangling and drooling.
[image]
Catherine Howard, the bait. Here, you Arrogant Prick. Here, pricky, pricky. Try to poke the teenager.
Shardlake finds himself investigating a branded whore, ”The ‘W’ stood out clearly in the dim light; ashes would have been rubbed into the burn to ensure the mark never faded,” as well as the Lady Honor from one of the oldest families in London. The absolute lowest class of society intersects with the highest levels as Greek Fire becomes a hot issue, too incendiary to hold on to. Mixed in with all the secrets and the treacheries surrounding the formula, Matthew is still trying to find out what exactly happened with the girl and the well. Something is rotten in that family, and only discovering the source of the smell will finally lead to the truth.
I can’t say why, but I have an odd affinity for Matthew Shardlake. I don’t know if it is his misfortune being born with a deformed back or the fact that he has overcome all obstacles to become a successful barrister, but when things go wrong for him, I, at several points in the story, felt the pinpricks of tears at the corners of my eyes. He takes such chances, like when he woos the Lady Honor and dares to hope she will return his attentions.
”’Perhaps you are a man of too gentle feeling to deal with blood and death.’ She smiled softly.
‘As I told you last week, I am a mere jobbing lawyer.’
She shook her head, smiling. ‘No, you are more than that. I thought so when I first saw you.’ She inclined her head, then said, ‘I felt your whole being resound with sadness.’”
Certainly, Matthew Shardlake is a man of uncommon courage. He is hunted, harassed, nearly killed, and still he marches on trying to produce some good results in a world that seems to be dominated by evil intentions. Kudos to C. J. Sansom. I thought this book was even better than his first one. I can’t wait to get a chance to dig into the third one…Sovereign.
”Master Cromwell...you are now entered into the service of a most noble, wise and liberal prince… you shall in your counsel given unto his grace ever ”Master Cromwell...you are now entered into the service of a most noble, wise and liberal prince… you shall in your counsel given unto his grace ever tell him what he ought to do, but never what he is able to do...for if a lion knew his strength, hard were it for any man to rule him.” ---Sir Thomas More
Thomas Cromwell has been dead for 478 years, yet his name still evokes a smidgen of fear in my belly. He became so powerful at one point that people discussed very quietly the two-headed beast (Henry VIII and Cromwell) running England. Right up until the point that Cromwell is hauled away to the Tower, he was the most influential advisor to the king.
Cromwell’s problem was he got mixed up in the business of the wives of the king, and when he was able to do exactly what Henry wanted, which was usually to clear the way for the next one, he was fine, but once he showed some resistance to one wife being booted for another, then he was subjecting himself to the wrath of one of the most petulant, self-indulgent kings to ever wear an English crown.
And believe me that is saying something.
The fascination that people have with Henry VIII and his wives never seems to wane. I’ve never been a fan of the Tudors. I feel my lip curl up in a grimace, or maybe the beginnings of a snarl, every time I run across some reference to the bloated pisspot.
I can only say that because Cromwell is dead. His large ears are long stilled.
Is that a pounding I hear at yonder door? Just the wind.
I do though have a fascination with the enigmatic, hyper intelligent, ruthless Thomas Cromwell. He rose as high as a self-made man of low birth can rise. His first boss, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, valued his counsel and his adaptability to situations. Wolsey fell out of favor with Henry VIII when he failed to achieve the annulment of the king’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Anne Boleyn, that mischievous, ambitious, cock-tease, convinced Henry that Wolsey was dragging his feet in the process. She was not a patient woman, but then maybe she was starting to run out of excuses to keep Henry from plucking her rose before she had a crown nestled down on her auburn tresses.
I’m sure Cromwell took note of the downfall of Wolsey, so it is interesting that he too became a victim of kingly, pettish, spousal dissatisfaction.
Is that the sound of mail-clad fingers tapping at my window? For the love of all that is holy, it is but an errant branch from a maple tree.
With the major religious schism that Henry caused, along with his dissolution of the monasteries and nunneries, he made many enemies domestically and abroad. As he lopped off the heads of wives, it also became more difficult to find an alliance with a foreign power. Kings were known for using their daughters unmercifully as political pawns, but even the most hard hearted father would have a difficult time subjected his daughter to that ulcerated, fickle headed, imbecile in England.
My Scottish Terrier has just raced to the drawbridge. I can only hope she can hold them off long enough for me to finish and post this review. There will be some bloody ankles, I’ll wager, before they can reach my chamber door.
Cromwell survived the beheading of Anne Boleyn, despite the fact that she was instrumental in his rise to high office. David Loades said it was her head or his, but I think it was more a matter of both their heads rolling together, so it was only practical to save the one that could be saved, his own. A wagon tethered can be quickly untethered, as Cromwell later learned with his own “supporters” when his time came. Next was Jane Seymour, whom Henry married one day after Anne’s head rolled across the stone pavers of the Tower. Seymour gave Henry a son.
Hallelujah! God be praised. Peace can now reign upon the land. Not quite.
Seymour died in childbirth and became the only one of his wives to receive a queen’s funeral. As much as I hate to attribute any human qualities to Henry, I do believe he truly mourned the death of Jane. She never had a chance to displease him, and she did give him that much cherished son, sickly and fragile though he be, who would hopefully secure the throne of England in Tudor hands. After all, there were still plenty of Plantagenets lurking about. Usurpers, who Henry’s father was, as he took the throne by conquest from the last Plantagenet king, Richard III, never rested easy in their hold on power.
Usurpers are like everyone else beset by insecurities; most of us would fit that description, who believe that any minute some toothless crone from the back of a ruly crowd is going to yell the words…FRAUD.
[image]
Anne of Cleves by Hans Holbein. She may not have the face that launched a thousand ships, but still, come on Henry, she’s not mugly!
So Cromwell was not resting easily with the future of the kingdom residing on the slender, shaking shoulders of Henry’s son, Edward, and pressed Henry to remarry. The Duke of Cleves was in dispute with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, with whom Henry was having issues, but then who didn’t he have issues with? So the Duke’s daughter, Anne, was a good strategic match on paper. Henry did dispatch the court painter, Hans Holbein, to get real likenesses of all the potential queens of England. Either Holbein was too flattering in his portrayal of Anne or Henry was just not mentally in the mood for the match from the beginning. You have all heard of love at first sight. Well, Henry experienced loathing at first sight. Months later, he swore the marriage was never consummated due to the inability of Henry to mask his repugnance long enough to get the English flag to rise.
He might have tried extinguishing the candles, lying back, and thinking of England.
Meanwhile, Henry became enamored with the 17 year old Catherine Howard, who seemed to have put the lead back in the royal poxy pencil.
Here we go again.
I cannot deny the battering at my door. I must hurry!
So…”Cromwell was quite prepared to act ruthlessly, even when political and religious issues were not involved, but he was always concerned to use the due process of the law.” David Loades talked about what is known of the statesman and how little is known of the man himself. Hilary Mantel explored the man more than the statesman in her excellent duo of books Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies. We saw the charitable man (he fed 200 men and women every day at his house, an early soup kitchen) and the man interested in intellectual pursuits. I couldn’t help but like, nay love, the man whom Mantel shared with us. Can a man be so ruthless in his politics and so kind in his private life?
I’d like to think so.
Loades did an excellent job of separating the myth from what can be proven and painted a portrait of a man who was the consummate loyal official. Cromwell, in the course of the dissolution, made sure that Henry retained enough lands to make him rich enough to not have to go begging for money from the royal families and made sure that those same families were rewarded with enough land that they would have to support the crown in the future. He made Henry the first English king to be Royal Supreme.
Cromwell’s head was rather sloppily parted from his body. The executioner must have been an incompetent fool, or maybe Cromwell whispered in his ear that he would be coming for him from the afterlife and that made his hands slippery with sweat, but either way it was a botched job. Henry was soon remorseful at his impetuous, foolish decision to execute Cromwell. ”It was not long before Henry was regretting his precipitate action in getting rid of him. Policy continued to be in the king’s hands, but government would never be the same.”
Unhand me, you loutish brutes! A pox on all your whoreson houses! Could someone please send books to The Tower?!?!
”’This is not Thomas More’s Utopia, a nation of innocent savages waiting only for God’s word to complete their happiness. This is a violent realm, ste”’This is not Thomas More’s Utopia, a nation of innocent savages waiting only for God’s word to complete their happiness. This is a violent realm, stewed in the corruption of a decadent church.’
‘I know.’
‘The papists will use every means to present us from building the christian commonwealth, and so God’s blood I will use every means to overcome them.’
‘I am sorry if my judgement erred.’
‘Some say you are soft, Matthew, ‘ he said quietly. ‘Lacking in fire and godly zeal, even perhaps in loyalty.’
Lord Cromwell had the trick of staring fixedly at you, unblinking, until you felt compelled to drop your gaze. You would look up again to find those hard brown eyes still boring into you. I felt my heart pound. I had tried to keep my doubts, my weariness, to myself; surely I had told nobody.”
[image]
A view eastwards along the chancel of the church at the Cistercian monastery of Rievaulx Abbey in the Yorkshire Wolds. The monastery was founded in the 12th century and abandoned during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
I had just been introduced to Matthew Shardlake when he is summoned to the office of Lord Thomas Cromwell. Shardlake has become disillusioned about working for Cromwell. It is arduous work, requiring travel hither and yon, and mentally draining to see the look of fear and barely suppressed loathing that people feel for a representative of Cromwell. To make matters worse the infirmity he was born with, a hunchback, continues to give him more and more trouble with each passing day. Already weary in soul and feeling the physical toil of the past few years the last thing Shardlake wants to do is to be dispatched to the St. Donatus monastery at Scarnsea.
But there has been a murder and not just any murder, but the murder of a Cromwell representative while he was investigating the monastery for improprieties. The killer was sending a very clear message to Cromwell by beheading his agent. Cromwell’s own head is lucky to still be setting squarely on his shoulders after he became such an ardent ally of the recently beheaded Anne Boleyn.
To prove his loyalty to Henry the 8th Cromwell is fervently enforcing the recent First Act of Succession (1536) dissolving as many monasteries as possible, within the confines of the new law. He is confiscating their lands and gold baubles to help bolster the King’s treasury. St. Donatus is one of the larger monasteries all of whom hope to survive the purge. Although anybody in the know realizes that Henry will not be happy with just a few when he can pass a law, Second Act of Succession (1539), that will bring them all down. Right now it is 1537 and Shardlake can offer some assurances to the abbot that the monastery can still be saved.
[image]
Haughmond Abbey. The extensive remains of an Augustinian abbey, including its abbots' quarters, refectory and cloister.
This was a time of uneasy alliances with Catholics swearing allegiance to the new church not because they necessary believed, but because they wished to keep their property and to keep their heads attached to the rest of their bodies. People used the new laws to settle old grievances, turning their enemies in for Catholic devotion that reminds me of neighbors turning on neighbors in Germany under the Third Reich.
Protestants killing Catholics. Catholics killing Protestants. Good lord, all so a king can bed a particularly crafty young lady who would settle for nothing less than the crown on her head before she ministered to the Kingly “crown”.
Anne Boleyn was a true Eve, nearly bringing a kingdom down with her feminine wiles and her “progressive” religious ideas. Think of the lives that would have been saved if Henry the 8th in one of his many mishaps had crushed his balls or better yet sliced his dinger off. Are we to believe that his main objective in having so many wives was to procreate an heir? Maybe so, but truly in the course of doing so it is hard not to see him as bordering on sexual conquesting lunacy.
I know he was worried about starting a war with Spain and France, but wouldn’t this all have been easier and saved a lot of hanging, beheading, burnings etc. if only Catherine of Aragon had say had an accident in the bath or had a bit of loose stone masonry fall on her head? Not that I wish ill on Catherine. She seems to be the one purity in this whole sordid mess, but would thousands of lives been spared?
Shardlake with his rather comely (male) assistant in tow arrives at the monastery to discover that there are more problems than just one murdered man. Needless to say everyone is on edge knowing that the King’s representative needs very little cause to close the monastery and confiscate their lands. Shardlake finds a nest of barely repentant monks still clinging to their idols and traditions. It is too much to expect that people can just flip a switch and do away with beliefs that have sustained them their whole lives.
[image]
The ruins of Glastonbury Abbey dissolved in 1539, following the execution of the Abbot on charges of treason.
A monk is poisoned...what did he know or what did he see? An old murder comes to light of a young girl who once worked at the monastery. Before long Shardlake wonders if he is chasing one murderer or three? He soon discovers that the monastery keeps two sets of books and the missing blue book may be the very thing he needs to find to unmask at least one of the killers. To make things even more irritating for him he finds himself competing with his young assistant for the affections of a young lass who works in the infirmary of the monastery.
Shardlake is very dismissive of Catholicism, a true believer in the Reformation, but at the same time he is sickened by the lives that are being ruined needlessly. He certainly feels the pressure to not only uncover the true murderers, but also to reach solutions that will put him back in the good graces of Cromwell. It is a time when people must deny their true nature whether they are homosexual, Anabaptist, or harboring affection for the Pope of Rome. It is always tragic when people who have much more in common than they have in disagreement are killing each other over the whims of Kings. I will definitely be reading more in this series. I’ve heard that the books just keep getting better and better.
“Suppose within each book there is another book, and within every letter on every page another volume constantly unfolding; but these volumes take no “Suppose within each book there is another book, and within every letter on every page another volume constantly unfolding; but these volumes take no space on the desk. Suppose knowledge could be reduced to a quintessence, held within a picture, a sign, held within a place which is no place. Suppose the human skull were to become capacious, spaces opening inside it, humming chambers like beehives.”
[image]
Thomas Cromwell by Hans Holbein. Cromwell was a great supporter of Holbein and personal gave him many commissions for paintings, but also recommended him to the powerful people he knew.
Thomas Cromwell was first and foremost a thinker. The myth that we only use about 10% of our brains has been debunked in recent years, but I do think we can accurately say that for some of us our brain works more efficiently. I think if we were to sit in a very quiet room with Thomas Cromwell we might actually be able to hear the humming of his mind like the circuitry of a super computer. Henry the Eighth
I'm 'Enery the Eighth, I am, 'Enery the Eighth I am, I am! I got married to the widow next door, She's been married seven times before And every one was an 'Enery She wouldn't have a Willie nor a Sam I'm her eighth old man named 'Enery 'Enery the Eighth, I am!
Sorry I can’t ever seem to say or write his name without that song popping into my head. Let’s try this again.
Henry the Eighth was not supposed to be king. The 16th century was supposed to be the return of the Age of Camelot when his older brother, Arthur, claimed his birthright and became king of England. It was Arthur that had been tutored and trained to be king. Henry would have been destined for the church if not for the fickleness of fate that left his brother dead six months before his sixteenth birthday. Henry the Eighth rules like a second son that was always second best. He is impetuous, bombastic, corpulent, and prone to fits of fury. He is not a stupid man and always surrounded himself with intelligent men, disciplined men, who could provide him with wise counsel. He did not always take their advice, but he did always give them a chance to make a case.
[image]
The most iconic image of Henry the Eighth painted by Holbein as a mural in Whitehall Palace. It was unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1698, but survives through the numerous copies that were made of it. Notice the bulging calves. Henry was always very proud of them.
Henry preferred advisers named Thomas.
Thomas Wolsey Thomas More Thomas Cromwell
Cromwell worked for Thomas Wolsey and when the cardinal fell out of favor it could have been the end for Cromwell’s hopes as well. Cromwell is a lot of things, a complicated man, a sometimes hard man, but ultimately he is a survivor. It is so interesting that Hilary Mantel decided to paint a more sympathetic picture of him than what I’d previously thought him to be. He understood money and that true power does not reside with the man on the throne.
”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 has never imagined; from Lisbon, from where the ships with sails of silk drift west and are burned up in the sun. Not from castle walls, but from countinghouses, not by the call of the bugle but by the click of abacus, not by the grate and click of the mechanism of the gun but by the scrape of the pen on the page of the promissory note that pays for the gun and the gunsmith and the powder and shot.”
I first met Thomas More through his book Utopia in a class in college. The Praise of Folly by Erasmus was also required reading for the same class. I thought both books were fantastic because to truly understand the writings of these two important writers one must explore the history behind the books. So I wanted to love More, but as I learned more about him the title of his book became more and more an inappropriate extension of the man. His view of how the real world should work was not the Utopia he persuaded me could exist. He was opposed to the Protestant Reformation. He, with great fervor, began to hunt down anyone connected to the Reformation and interrogate, torture and burn them. He didn’t keep his distance from it. He was frequently down in the stench and the squalor of the dungeons watching his prisoners being broken on the rack. The flames of burning heretics danced in his eyes. He may have taken too much pleasure in his work.
My theory is anyone who wears a hairshirt all the time and scourges themselves for evening entertainment is not someone I want making decisions about my life. More may have been brilliant, but those beautiful marbles in his head were scrambled.
[image]
There have been many beautiful actresses to play the enchanting Anne Boleyn, but my favorite is Natalie Dormer from The Tudors simply because she has that saucy smirk that could be used as such a weapon quite capable of bringing down a King or a kingdom to achieve her ambitions.
When the King, in his pursuit of Anne Boleyn, decides that the only way he is going to free himself from the albatross from Aragon, Catherine, is to break with the Roman Catholic Church. This puts the King in direct conflict with one of his most trusted advisers the before mentioned Thomas More. Sir Thomas cannot break with his beliefs. When he is asked to sign an oath supporting the King he refuses. He certainly had a martyr complex. In fact Cromwell in a last ditch effort to try and save More’s life points out his hubris in thinking of himself as a Christ figure. It was to no avail.
I do believe that Cromwell feels an uneasiness about the fates of the powerful men who came before him. He is always trying to hedge his bets, loaning money at ridiculous low interests to the aristocrats, soothing the relationship between Anne and her sister Mary (Henry’s current favorite bed warmer as he waits for Anne to pop open her corset.), taking care of embarrassing circumstances for other people, forming alliances with the enemies of his friends, and being kind to Henry’s only surviving child (Mary) with Catherine. He is always trying to anticipate the future. He worked to soften the blows to his enemies believing that someday they would be potential allies. He took in orphans, not just from his family, but even from people unconnected to him. He assessed their best aspects and put them with tutors so they would be useful to him in the future. He understands people and knows how to manipulate them and encourage them at the same time.
“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.”
He is but a man and there is no time when that is more evident than when his daughter Grace dies.
”Grace dies in his arms; she dies easily, as naturally as she was born. He eases her back against the damp sheet: a child of impossible perfection, her fingers uncurling like thin white leaves. I never knew her, he thinks; I never knew I had her. It has always seemed impossible to him that some act of his gave her life, some unthinking thing that he and Liz did, on some unmemorable night.”
The sweating sickness took his wife and both his daughters leaving only him and his son Gregory alive. Maybe those deaths is why he felt so compelled to fill his house with children. It didn’t have to be his children. He thought all children were salvageable, moldable, if encouraged to work at being better at what they were best at.
Cromwell grew up the son of a blacksmith. His father beat him so severely, in fact the book opens with a scene that showed the impassioned brutality that his father was capable of, that Cromwell leaves to join the army and seek his fortune abroad. He taught himself to read. He was always working his mind like a muscle making it stronger with every book he read. With every moment he spent studying the workings of economics, politics, and psychology (he didn’t know that was what it was called.) he was giving himself the means to make better decisions, to offer better advice, to hone his cunning.
He was truly a self made man who by sheer audacity and brilliance made it to the pinnacles of power. When he becomes sick though and is at his most vulnerable the fears of a child creep into his mind.
”On the stairs he can hear the efficient, deathly clip of his father’s steel-tipped boots.”
Little is known about the early life of Thomas Cromwell. He would be pleased to know that. He was much more interested in knowing everything about everyone and careful about letting others know anything about him. He was a long game thinker. Something he does one day may not make sense to those around him until much later when the dominoes fall a new direction. Mantel will clothe him, put flesh on his bones, share his innermost thoughts, and show you a man capable of being ruthless, but just as likely to be compassionate. Though Henry was particularly fascinated with lopping off heads Cromwell knew that ultimately as you eliminate one enemy you only create more. If possible it is much smarter to blackmail, confuse, or convince an arch enemy, maybe not to be friends that would be expecting too much, but at least to become a passive challenger.
There are a lot of Thomas’s in this book and at times it can seem confusing, but the rule of thumb is if you are not clear about who is speaking or who is sharing their inner thoughts that would be Thomas Cromwell.
Winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2009 and highly recommended by this dedicated reader.
Loading...
