Welcome to In Videos Veritas, where accuracy and artistic licence fight it out in the coliseum of audience experience.
The goal of this column is not to lambast a piece of media for failing to deliver perfect ‘historical accuracy’, something that is impossible to define, impossible to achieve, and rarely ever an acknowledged intention of the creators anyway. Nor is it my goal to overly praise works that feel authentic to their period but fall flat in other areas. So, ‘What am I doing?’, you may wonder. To put it simply: it’s interesting to explore how fact and fun interact, with an ultimate focus on what we are willing to include, embellish, or omit from the former in order to attain the latter.
This month, I’m taking a look at Wolf Hall, the critically-acclaimed 2015 BBC television adaptation of the first two books of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy. The series charts the rise of Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance), parallel to the explosive rise and fall of Anne Boleyn (Claire Foy), in the court of Henry VIII (Damian Lewis). A second series based on the final novel is on its way, set for release in later 2024 or early 2025.
The works of the late Dame Hilary Mantel have such depth and complexity that it would be impossible to cover everything in a six-hour television adaptation. Equally, it is impossible to cover that adaptation in full here, so I will be focusing largely on Anne Boleyn, Thomas Cromwell, and whoever gets caught in the intriguing web of tension between them.
Anne Boleyn’s Body Politic
May 19 of this year marks the 488th anniversary of Anne Boleyn’s death. She was executed on Tower Green, accused of adultery, incest and high treason, charges of which she was almost certainly innocent. Almost exactly three years before that, she had become the first and only queen consort to ever be crowned with St Edward’s Crown during a magnificent coronation in Westminster Abbey. During her queenship, she took the motto ‘The Most Happy’ in recognition of her good fortune. Intertwined with her greatest success and with her greatest disgrace, was Thomas Cromwell. His fate, too, would be matched with hers, as he was beheaded on Henry VIII’s orders a mere four years after Anne. Every May, devotees of Anne Boleyn still leave flowers at her grave in the chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula, or take part in the Anne Boleyn walk at Blickling Hall.
It is Anne Boleyn’s name that has endured through the centuries, arguably eclipsing every other queen consort in fame. In her lifetime she was a figure of great debate, determined in her pursuit of both the crown and of religious reform. In some ways, this explains the fact that Anne Boleyn has more wildly contrasting iterations in the media than nearly any other historical figure. In some mediums, she is a vicious, vindictive schemer (The Other Boleyn Girl), in others, an innocent victim of Henry VIII’s mercurial nature (Anne of the Thousand Days). Of course, it is impossible to truly get to know any person from the past, but Anne seems uniquely obscured by the sheer number of versions of her that appear on page, stage, and screen.
We first meet Wolf Hall’s interpretation of Anne in 1529; she is living in lavish limbo whilst Henry attempts to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Famously, Anne did not wish to be Henry’s mistress (as her sister, Mary, had likely been), and managed to keep him at arm’s length for a significant seven years.
Claire Foy’s Anne in Wolf Hall seems remarkably aware of the currency of her body, wryly commenting that she will not trade her innocence to secure political favours for others, though it is alleged (by her mischievous sister) that she allows Henry to partially undress her in exchange for such favours. After she eventually sleeps with Henry, she uses her resulting pregnancy as the final incentive to secure marriage, lest the potential heir to the throne be born out of wedlock. This canny self-awareness seems reflective of contemporary accounts of Anne’s behaviour and upbringing. Her early mentor Margeret of Austria, a fascinating and brilliant figure in her own right, instructed her ladies to “suffer no man to touch your body, no matter who he is – not one in a thousand escapes without her honour being attacked or deceived”. It seems likely that Anne, who was conscious of her reputation and the effects of losing one’s reputation (perhaps through her sister, Mary’s, experience), would have judged such risks and rewards with calculated precision.
In Wolf Hall, we see Cromwell daydream about touching Anne’s neck, a recognition of her body as an object of desire; we hear Anne, clutching her pregnant belly, remark that “I was always desired, but now I am valued”. Cromwell’s sister-in-law asks about Anne’s height, and if her teeth are ‘good’, without asking after her character; Mary Boleyn jokes with Cromwell about Anne’s breasts and legs. Conversely, we see bloodied floors and cloths following Anne’s miscarriages, and just before her downfall Cromwell imagines Anne’s body being dragged onto the dinner table before him. Finally, not long after Anne remarks that she has only “a little neck“, we see the swing of the sword that decapitates her. Her serving women rush to attend to her corpse, claiming that they don’t want men to touch her. The references to Anne’s body are numerous and uncomfortable. Existing in a complicated space on screen in Wolf Hall, her body is at once objectified and venerated, at once invulnerable and fallible, at once her best bet and her worst gamble.
This is true of so many queen consorts throughout history. As we well know, speculation about royal bodies, especially royal female bodies, continues today.
Thomas Cromwell’s Eyes
What is perhaps most interesting about Wolf Hall is Hilary Mantel’s choice of protagonist. Thomas Cromwell is another figure of intense debate, both during his time and our own. Involved personally in some of the most horrific events at the Henrician court, yet jarringly tender and loyal to his many friends, Cromwell feels as difficult to pin down as Anne.
In Wolf Hall, it is through Cromwell’s eyes that we see Anne: she is clever, but also vindictive, witty, quick to anger, generous, beguiling and aloof. Complex and flawed, the version of Anne Boleyn in Wolf Hall seems most alive when at the side of Thomas Cromwell. The scenes featuring the two of them are the highlight of the show, presenting two ambitious, socially-dexterous individuals alternately surviving and thriving at an unforgiving court.
Even if you are unfamiliar with the history, it seems obvious upon a recommended second-viewing, that Anne and Cromwell are destined to be each other’s make and ruin. From their first meeting, where Anne sarcastically comments on Cromwell’s kindness, then berates him, whilst he stays benignly implacable, it is clear that they have met their match in each other. The sparring continues in subsequent scenes; Anne is prickly, Cromwell remains unprovoked, and they both seem to be enjoying it. Having started out with diametrically opposed views of Lord Chancellor Thomas Wolsey, the way they come together to support each other’s ascendency is remarkable. They revel in smugness at the take down of a mutual enemy, the ill-fated Thomas More, and at Anne’s coronation, it is Cromwell who goes to visit her after the ceremony.
However, even at their most cooperative, there is always a lingering sense of unease. Both Anne and Cromwell owe everything to Henry, who reminds them of this when it suits. Hence, when Anne cannot give Henry a son, and Henry’s eye wanders to Jane Seymour, it is up to Cromwell to unmake the marriage he had worked so hard to establish. Anne, volatile and desperate as she watches Henry’s dissatisfaction grow, similarly lashes out, aiming to topple Cromwell. One of them must go, and Cromwell, by chance as much as skill, happens to be the last man standing.
When Cromwell comes with an entourage to take Anne to the Tower, she greets him as “the man [she] created”. When she is reminded by her repulsive uncle that Cromwell “created [her] in turn”, she simply says “but I am sorry first, and I am sorry more”. Somehow, this line of acknowledgement, delivered with steely clarity by Foy, seems the most tragic in the entire show. Much must be made of the talents of the cast here; just as Claire Foy gives one of her finest performances as Anne, Mark Rylance plays Cromwell with a deftness and subtlety of expression so captivating that it won him a TV BAFTA for Best Actor.
Overall, it is the ambiguity of the relationship that is the most striking. Does Cromwell admire Anne? Does he hate her? Does he blame her for the death of his former master, Thomas Wolsey? Is she his closest ally? A kindred spirit? Is he ultimately responsible for her death?
The answers to these questions can be inferred with more confidence from the trilogy of novels, but the show displays a wholehearted commitment to the essence of Mantel’s work, where nuance and subtlety reign supreme.
‘The Most Happy’
The series, as the books, depicts Anne’s fall in brutal detail, much of it accurate to the records that we have. A specific conversation between Anne and some of the men of the court is recreated, depicting Anne taking some flirtatious talk too far. Similarly, her brother reads out a damning and infamous comment about Henry’s virility during his trial. Anne swings between crying and laughing in the days leading up to her execution are also recorded by contemporaries.
Finally, the scene of Anne’s death features plenty of accurate details, from the use of a Calais swordsman rather than a standard executioner, to the colour of Anne’s dress, to her last words, and to her body being placed in a chest as a coffin hadn’t been provided. The effect of these details, enhanced by Peter Kominsky’s masterful and understated direction, is both sobering and profound.
There is a wealth of details not even touched upon in this article that would warrant entire columns in themselves. The crew deserve significant praise for bringing the Tudor world to life so successfully on screen, creating an immersive feel with carefully chosen set design, naturalistic lighting, and an evocative soundtrack. The men’s costumes are fantastically detailed, and the women’s have a better silhouette than most Tudor media, despite the glaring issues with the headdresses (which seems to have been rectified judging by the previews of series two).
It is this commitment to history that Mantel, whose books present “a fully imagined universe, not a world seen only through some lens of the present”, is known for. Her commentary on the interactions between historical fiction and history itself, can teach us much about how we choose to perceive those that came before us.
The characters that move through this rendition of Tudor England are full and vivid. They are believable in the sense that you are shown what they eat for breakfast, what jokes they laugh at, or what they choose to wear to sleep at night, even as events get darker and more extreme. Wolf Hall takes care to show us these mundane things sitting side by side with the extraordinary, understanding that it is only the combination of both that gives the fullest impression of life.
In Videos Veritas Rating:
Fact rating: 8/10
Fun rating: 10/10
Overall rating: 9/10
Words by Briony Havergill
Some selected sources and recommendations: Game of Queens, The Women Who Made Sixteenth-century Europe (Sarah Gristwood, 2016); Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10, January-June 1536 (British History Online); Mary Boleyn, the Mistress of Kings (Alison Weir, 2011); Not Just the Tudors (podcast, 2021-); Rex Factor (podcast, 2010-); Suzannah Lipscomb; The National Archives; The Tudors in Love (Sarah Gristwood, 2021); Tracy Borman; Young and Damned and Fair, The Life and Tragedy of Catherine Howard at the Court of Henry VIII (Gareth Russell, 2017).
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