Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Wolf Hall, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power, Ambition, and Deception
Poor Leadership and Violence
Children and Human Connection
Dogmatism vs. Open-Mindedness
Myth and Storytelling
Summary
Analysis
Liz is awake when Cromwell gets home, even though it is very late. She hands him his little dog, Bella, and tells him a book arrived for him from Germany which had been packaged as something else. She had almost sent it back. She also hands him a short letter from his son Gregory, in which Gregory writes in poor Latin that he hopes his family is well and that he is too busy to write more. Cromwell tells Liz that he told Wolsey that he doesn’t know Spanish, and she laughs, calling him a “weasel.” Cromwell says that the cardinal doesn’t have to know everything that he knows.
Cromwell’s warm household is a stark contrast to his childhood home. He hasn’t forgotten his affection for the dog he had as a boy, since he has named the new dog Bella, too—again, this shows the softer side of Cromwell’s nature since he has held onto his old attachment through all these years.
Themes
Liz tells Cromwell that she heard some news from her friend, a master jeweler’s wife, that an emerald ring with a big stone was commissioned—they suspect it must have been ordered by the king, since nobody else would order a stone of that size. Cromwell thinks that Wolsey will let him know if an emerald ring shows up with regard to the king and his concubine. He thinks that the king should sleep with the woman soon and tire of her by the autumn so he can be ready for the “fertile French princess” whom Wolsey plans to import. He doesn’t tell Liz any of this.
Rumors are swirling about Henry’s relationship with his “concubine” Anne Boleyn, and he seems to be trying to woo her with expensive presents. Neither Wolsey nor Cromwell considers her important enough to be the next queen, though Cromwell’s instinct that the king will get bored with her shows some of his insight into Henry’s nature.
Themes
Liz talks about Gregory, who is at Cambridge and will soon be 13. Cromwell has sent his nephews, his sister Bet’s sons, to school with Gregory too. Liz says that Gregory doesn’t seem very interested in school and prefers to be outdoors. Cromwell doesn’t mind this, saying he is happy that Gregory is nothing like what he used to be at that age, back when he “used to stick knives in people.” Cromwell says Gregory is just “busy growing,” and he understands his need for sleep, which he never could do as a boy, first because he lived with Walter and then because he was constantly anxious as a soldier fighting under terrible conditions, weather, and leadership. This was why he got out of fighting after a few years and went “into supply.”
Cromwell is now wealthy and is happy to share the wealth with his extended family, even sending his nephews to school. His son, Gregory, seems to have none of Cromwell’s ambition and mental acuity, but Cromwell is generous in his defense of Gregory, which reveals his unconditional affection for his son.
Themes
Later, Liz surprises Cromwell by asking who the lady is, and he at first thinks she is accusing him of having an affair in Yorkshire. But Liz wants to know about the woman the king is buying the ring for, and she says that there are rumors he will do something very strange, which will be certainly opposed by “[a]ll women everywhere in England,” especially those who are older than 40 and have only daughters.
There seem to already be rumors that Henry will leave Katherine and remarry—probably that he will marry Anne Boleyn. While Wolsey is still preparing for the moment when Katherine will be told about this, many townspeople seem to already know, suggesting that court secrets are often leaked. Liz objects to Henry’s remarrying because it is unethical and unjust to all women, which shows her to be fair and thoughtful in the same way that Cromwell is.
Themes
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Early the next morning, Cromwell begins reading his new German book before Liz can object to it. He has tried to convince her to read Tyndale’s New Testament, which he keeps locked up in a chest, but she refuses to. Cromwell thinks that he is very unlike Thomas More, for whom every new thing he learns only seems to confirm what he knew before. For Cromwell, on the other hand, with “every month that passes, the corners are knocked off the certainties of this world.”
The German book that was delivered when Cromwell was away is one that has been banned in England for holding ideas opposed to Catholicism. Even Tyndale’s Bible has been banned by people like Thomas More, who faithfully follow the Catholic Church’s rule that the Bible must be only in Latin. Unlike More, who is rigid in his ways, Cromwell is forward-thinking and flexible, and so he reads these books in secret.
Themes
While Cromwell doesn’t love Martin Luther and often wishes he were more subtle, he is interested in reading what he says, which is why he procures his books through smugglers. The king and More have written a book against Luther, for which the Pope granted Henry the title of Defender of the Faith. Cromwell keeps Wolsey updated on Luther’s ideas so he can calm More and his clerical friends down when they get enraged about them. Cromwell has even met Tyndale, a serious and principled man who translated the Bible into English, which is against the law. More calls him “the Beast.”
The book from Germany that Cromwell is reading is by the theologist Martin Luther, who wrote books and pamphlets that questioned Catholic doctrine. Interestingly, Cromwell doesn’t admire Luther unreservedly—he sees many flaws in Luther’s ideas and presentation, but he is interested in hearing them in any case. Cromwell has met Tyndale and has come to his own conclusions about his character rather than being influenced by the Catholic Church’s verdict on his work as being against religious law. More, on the other hand, has co-authored a book with King Henry against Luther’s ideas and calls Tyndale a “Beast,” which shows More’s rigid ideas on religion and his fanatical adherence to Catholic doctrine. Again, it’s clear that Cromwell and More view ideas in opposing ways.
Themes
Cromwell thinks he must get someone else to translate Luther’s new book from German into Latin so it can be discreetly circulated—he doesn’t have the time to work on the translation himself. He gets dressed and thinks of Henry Wykys, Liz’s father, who was from Putney and employed Cromwell many years ago. Wykys had asked him how he had changed so much since he was a rough boy in Putney. Thomas didn’t know how to explain why exactly he gave up fighting, and so he said, “I found an easier way to be.”
Cromwell not only reads banned books but seems to also be involved in circulating them illegally among others like him who might be interested in them, which shows that he works actively—and secretly—against More and others like him who seek to uphold Catholic ideas and punish those who oppose them. While thinking about how he’s found an “easier way to be,” Cromwell seems to imply that he used to be combative in his youth—somewhat like More—but has matured with time into an open-minded person. More, on the other hand, seems to be stuck in immature closed-mindedness.
Themes
Henry Wykys’s broadcloth business was failing, but Cromwell helped revitalize it with help from the three wool traders he had met all those years ago in Dover. Wykys was so impressed by the profits that Cromwell brought in that he asked his daughter Liz, a widow, if she would like to marry him. Gregory was born a year later, and Cromwell had kissed him and said, “I shall be as tender to you as my father was not to me. For what’s the point of breeding children, if each generation does not improve on what went before?”
To Cromwell, treating children kindly is a sign of a good way of life. He went looking for a better world after he ran away from home, and he creates his own oasis of harmony in his household by ensuring that everyone is happy there. Cromwell’s tenderness towards his children establishes him as compassionate and sympathetic character.
Themes
Cromwell thinks about what Liz said the night before about the women of England, and about how she was thinking about women who had no sons. He thinks he can learn from her womanly tendency to “spend time imagining what it’s like to be each other.”
Cromwell appreciates Liz’s empathy for women unlike her, since she has a son of her own and yet can understand the pain of a wife who might be cast away simply because she hasn’t borne her husband a son. Cromwell, too, exhibits empathy when he is willing to listen to and consider viewpoints that are unlike his own.
Themes
