Wolf Hall: Part 4: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

Parliament meets in mid-January, and on the agenda is the business of “breaking the resistance of the bishops to Henry’s new order” to cut revenues to Rome and make him the head of the church. Gardiner leads the opposition to the king, which angers Henry immensely, who demands to know if the clergy are his subjects at all since they seem to have taken an oath of loyalty to the Pope rather than to him. Cromwell tells Gardiner that if the king does lock him up, he will make sure he has some “small comforts” in prison. Gardiner is angry, and he tells Cromwell that he is “nothing,” since he doesn’t even hold an official position.

Cromwell understands that they have to “win the debate, not just knock [their] enemies down.” It “suits him, for the moment,” to have Gardiner in his post at Winchester in order to maintain “Henry’s reputation in Europe,” so he tells Henry to reconcile with Gardiner since it is a more pleasant course of action and there is “more honor” in it. Henry wants to always take the path of honor, and he also knows that Cromwell dislikes Gardiner. This is why he is inclined to take this piece of advice. At his house, Cromwell meets with parliamentarians and gentlemen to strengthen his case. Cranmer has gone to Germany to win international support for Henry’s suit. In the city, many of Cromwell’s friends, like John Petyt, are sick or dead after their time at the Tower on More’s orders. 

Cromwell visits Anne Boleyn often, and on one such visit, he asks her if she is grateful to the cardinal—if not for him, she might be married to Harry Percy. She “snaps” that she might then at least “occupy the estate of wife.” Mary Shelton says she hears that Harry Percy “has gone mad” and is spending all his money, and Cromwell makes the ladies laugh by saying that Percy would have kept Anne in a high tower and brought her the heads of Scots enemies as presents. As he gets ready to depart, Cromwell says he will leave Anne to her “goggle-eyed lover,” pointing at Mark the lute player. Anne admits that he does goggle.

Mary Boleyn accompanies Cromwell as he leaves, prompting Jane Rochford to say that she is “going to offer him her virtue again.” Mary tells Cromwell that her brother George and his wife, Jane Rochford, don’t get along, and that Anne Boleyn is looking for a house of her own in the city. Mary then says that Cromwell has made himself indispensable to Anne, and to Henry, too. Cromwell says he needs a job—just being a councilor isn’t enough for him. He wants a post in the Jewel House or the Exchequer. Mary says Anne “made Tom Wyatt a poet” and “made Harry Percy a madman,” and that she surely has a plan about what she can do with Cromwell.

Thomas Wyatt comes to see Cromwell to apologize for his behavior that New Year’s morning. He admits he is too old for such behavior, though he is too young for his hair to be thinning. Cromwell asks him if his father never advised him “to stay away from women in whom the king is interested,” and Wyatt says he went to Italy, and then Calais, to do just that. He tells Cromwell that he did nothing more than kiss Anne when they were alone, though she did hint to him that she did more with other men. Wyatt wonders if Henry won’t realize this when she does finally give in to him, and Cromwell asks him to give Anne credit. He thinks that Anne is not “carnal,” she is “calculating.” She tormented men for her sport while “arranging her career” in a way she liked.

Thomas More comes to see Cromwell at Austin Friars and accuses him of making a “breach in the walls of Christendom.” Cromwell says that neither he nor the king are infidels. More says perhaps Cromwell’s “faith is for purchase,” and that he might serve the Sultan of Turkey “if the price was right.” He says he knows of Cromwell’s correspondence with Stephen Vaughan, and that he has met with Tyndale. Cromwell asks him if he is threatening him, and More “sadly” admits that he is. Cromwell realizes that “the balance of power has shifted between them.” 

After More leaves, Cromwell thinks about the time when he ran off to London when he was around 10 years old and “saw an old woman suffer for her faith.” He had never seen anyone being burned, so he’d gone along with the crowds because he was curious. People told him that her crime was that she was a “Loller” who said that “the God on the altar is a piece of bread” and that “the saints are […] wooden posts.” A woman with “a broad smile” asked Cromwell to stand with her, saying that “[y]ou get a pardon for your sins just for watching it.” He saw that the Loller was “a grandmother, perhaps the oldest person he had ever seen.” She was followed by “two monks, parading like fat gray rats, crosses in their pink paws.”

The woman next to Cromwell punched the air and screamed “in a shrill voice like a demon.” Other people screamed too, and they pressed forward for a better view. After the fire was lit, he could hear the Loller screaming. When the smoke cleared, he could see “the old woman was well ablaze.” It seemed like a long time before the screaming stopped. After, Cromwell saw the Loller’s skull and bones on the ground, and he could still smell the “stink of the woman.” He prayed for her, thinking it could do no harm to do so. Later in the evening, the woman’s friends came and gathered up her remains in earthen bowls. Cromwell had run off to London that morning to avoid Walter’s anger, and he thinks that “there comes a point where the fear is too great and the human spirit just gives up.”

Cromwell hasn’t told anyone about this incident, not wanting to “give away pieces of himself.” Chapuys has taken to coming often to dinner to find out more about Cromwell’s past in order to report it to the Emperor. Cromwell knows that Chapuys is feeding the Emperor the story that the English dislike Henry so much that they will “rise in revolt” against him if they have the support of the Spanish troops—Cromwell knows that this certainly not true of the “narrow-hearted, stubborn” English. Sometimes, Cromwell feels almost inclined to defend his past to Chapuys, but he doesn’t, because he knows it is “wise to conceal the past even if there is nothing to conceal” since there is “power […] in the half-light.” The “absence of facts frightens people.”

On April 14, 1532, the king appoints Cromwell Keeper of the Jewel House. Henry says there is no reason he cannot employ “the son of an honest blacksmith.” Meanwhile, More has been rounding up more heretics, saying that it is fine to lie to them or trick them into confessing their crimes. More and his people “break their fingers, burn them with irons, hang them up by their wrists.” A group from the House of Commons says that an angel attends Parliament to note who votes for the king’s divorce, and they say that these people will be damned. While thinking of the people who speak their minds and get caught by More, Cromwell wants to tell them to “believe anything, […] swear to it and cross your fingers behind your back.”

On May 15, the bishops sign a document of submission in which they state that they will not make new church legislation or meet in Convocation without the king’s approval. The next day, Cromwell and Anne Boleyn watch together in Whitehall as Thomas More is stripped of his title of Lord Chancellor. Anne asks Cromwell who should be the next Lord Chancellor, and Cromwell tells her it should be Audley, the speaker of the House.

Cromwell goes to see Gardiner in Westminster and tells him that Anne Boleyn is looking for a country house, and Cromwell immediately thought that Gardiner’s manor at Hanworth would be perfect for her. Cromwell suggests that Gardiner offer the lease of the house to Anne “before it becomes a royal command.” Even though Gardiner is still Master Secretary, Cromwell sees the king almost every day and advises him on all matters. Cromwell knows how to make the king laugh when he is in a good mood, and how to be gentle with him when he is not. Chapuys notices that the king prefers to meet with Cromwell alone, rather than in his presence chamber, as a result of which the gentlemen of the privy chamber are jealous.

In late July, Cromwell gets a letter from Cranmer in Nuremberg. Usually, his letters ask for Cromwell’s advice regarding various matters, but this letter has been dictated to a clerk and talks about “the workings of the holy spirit.” Scrawled in a margin is a message in Cranmer’s own handwriting in which he says he has a secret he cannot entrust to a letter, and that he has perhaps “been rash”—but he gives no other details. 

One evening, Francis Bryan comes to Austin Friars to fetch Cromwell, saying that Anne Boleyn is throwing things in a rage after she heard that Harry Percy’s wife, Mary Talbot, is planning to petition Parliament for a divorce. Talbot says that Percy told her their marriage was not valid since “he was married to Anne Boleyn.” Cromwell finds Norfolk and the Boleyns gathered together, worried and upset. Anne says she denies everything, and Cromwell tells her that is good. Cromwell asks how the king took this piece of news, and Mary Boleyn says he “walked out of the room.” George Boleyn says that Harry Percy “was persuaded once to forget his claims,” and so he can be persuaded again. Anne says that “the cardinal fixed him,” but now, the cardinal is dead. The silence that follows is “sweet as music” to Cromwell.

Cromwell tells Anne Boleyn that “if the Pope cannot stop [her] becoming queen,” then neither should Harry Percy. Norfolk asks Cromwell to “[b]eat his skull in,” and Cromwell says he will do it “[f]iguratively.”

Cromwell leaves them, and Wriothesely brings him news that Percy is at an inn nearby. When Cromwell gets there, Percy “shout[s] and weep[s]” as he says that the king loudly declared to “all of Christendom” that the king  doubted his own marriage to Katherine but has sent “the lowest man in his employ to sweet-talk [Percy]” when Percy doubts his marriage. He says the cardinal previously bullied Percy out of saying he was “pledged to Anne [Boleyn],” and Percy’s father had threatened to disown him then—but now his father is dead, and he is no longer afraid to speak the truth.

Cromwell tells Percy that he is a man “whose money is almost spent” and Cromwell knows his creditors. He says that he can imagine Percy “without money and title,” in “a hovel,” hunting a rabbit for dinner that Anne Boleyn will skin and cook. Harry Percy “slumps over the table” with tears in his eyes. Cromwell tells him that he and Anne “were never pre-contracted” and that their “silly promises” have no legal binding. He also tells him that if he makes any comments about Anne’s “freedom,” Norfolk will “bite [his] bollocks off.” He then calmly tells Percy that Anne hates him, and that the only favor he can do for her, “short of dying,” is to “unsay what [he] said to [his] poor wife” and “clear [Anne’s] path to become Queen of England.”

Early the next morning, the king’s council meets and Warham attends as well. Cromwell asks Warham about Eliza Barton, the Maid, a prophetess in his diocese who has said that King Henry will only reign for a year if he marries Anne Boleyn. Cromwell wants to know who controls her, and Warham insists the girl is innocent. Just then, Harry Percy is brought in, and he is followed by Henry. Audley, who is standing in as Lord Chancellor, asks Percy if his relationship with Anne was pre-contracted, and whether there was “carnal knowledge of any kind.” Percy denies all of it. He then swears on the Bible that he has spoken the truth, and Henry is pleased when it is done.

Back at Austin Friars, Cromwell feels sorry for Mary Talbot, whose “life will not be easier after this.” He thinks of how Harry Percy had arrested the cardinal and set guards around his bed as he was dying.

Cromwell then reads up on all the information he has on Eliza Barton, the Maid, and he tells Rafe that the Maid has visions of the saints and can tell if someone’s dead relatives ended up in Heaven or Hell by speaking in either a high- or low-pitched voice. Rafe says “[t]he effect could be comic,” and Cromwell says he has brought up “irreverent children.” Rafe says that More and Fisher have visited the girl, and Cromwell says the king is “disposed to believe in prophecies.”

In September, the king gives Anne Boleyn the title of Marquess of Pembroke. Cromwell has organized her income from 15 manors. Anne knows she is “almost there now, almost there,” and she smiles often, showing teeth that are “white and sharp.” Cromwell is master of the jewels, and he is in charge of procuring Katherine’s jewels and redesigning them to Anne’s specifications. He feels that the “wind is set fair and the tide is running for him.” He thinks the king will soon name his friend Audley the Chancellor. Many of the old courtiers have resigned in protest, refusing to serve Anne, and Cromwell is filling the empty positions with friends from his Wolsey days. 

At the celebration afterward, Cromwell spots John Seymour’s daughter, the pale, quiet girl he is so taken with. She holds up her hands and shows him the “kingfisher flash” of the blue silk that she has edged her sleeves with—she has reused the fabric with which he’d wrapped her book of needlework patterns. Cromwell tactfully asks her how things are at Wolf Hall, and she says John Seymour is well, as always, while the rest of the family isn’t. She says her sister Liz Seymour will come down to court to keep the new queen company if the king gets a new wife, but that she herself would prefer to serve Katherine up-country. Cromwell advises her to serve Anne Boleyn, saying she “will soften, when she has her heart’s desire,” but he doesn’t quite believe it himself.

In October, the king and his court prepare to travel to France to meet King Francois, who has promised to speak to the Pope in favor of Henry’s marriage. Anne Boleyn asks Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, if his wife is ready to make the journey, and he is angry that his wife—who is a former Queen of France—is supposed to wait on “Boleyn’s daughter.” He storms out, and the king sends Cromwell after him to wrangle an apology.

Brandon tells Cromwell that Anne Boleyn has learned her tricks from her mother, who was a “great whore,” and from her sister Mary Boleyn, who was “trained in a brothel.” Cromwell calmly insists that no one “believe[s] that story now.” He tells Brandon that even if his wife is too ill to make the journey to France, he would advise at least Brandon to go since “Anne is unforgiving.”

A problem that emerges as they prepare for the trip is that none of the French ladies want to host Anne Boleyn since they consider her to be Henry’s mistress. Francois suggests that she can stay with his own mistress, the Duchess of Vendone, and Henry is furious. Finally, they decide that Anne will remain in Calais while Henry goes to meet Francois in Boulogne.

When the entourage stops in Canterbury, Henry wants to show Anne Boleyn to the people. The crowds put out their hands to touch the king. A bunch of Franciscan monks come by and bring the Maid with them. Henry asks her to approach and she tells him that he must burn the heretics who surround him—she says that Anne is one of them. The Maid says that if Henry marries Anne, his reign will only last for seven months. She also claims to have seen Henry’s mother in the afterlife. Anne demands that she get out of her way, and the Maid leaves after saying that lightning will strike Henry. Henry is upset by these prophesies and sends Anne away from him that evening.

The entourage reaches Calais, which has been an English outpost for 200 years. The king is greeted by the governor, Lord Berners, an “old soldier and scholar” who seems anxious about the cost he’ll have to bear for this royal visit.

In Boulogne, King Francois asks to see Cromwell, and he wants to know if Cromwell is Welsh. Cromwell says he isn’t, and Francis seems puzzled about how Cromwell entered the court if his family isn’t connected to the Tudors. Francois says he has heard that Cromwell is in good standing with Anne Boleyn and says that he’s had no experience with her since she was a young woman at the French court. He gives Cromwell a pair of leather gloves, saying Cromwell’s “sudden fortunes” might not last and that they might never meet again. Inside the glove, Cromwell finds a dark ruby. He takes it straight to Henry, who is pleased and says he will have it set right away and wear it in front of Francois to show him “how [he is] served.”

When Francois and Henry come to Calais, Anne Boleyn leads Francois to dance and Cromwell notices that he is very taken with her. The two of them laugh and talk in a way that makes Cromwell’s “spine […] stiff with […] personal terror.” He finally decides to end their flirtation by sending Norfolk to ask Anne to dance. Cromwell wonders if he really does love his king, which makes it difficult to see him jealous. That night, the king retires early. Mary Shelton asks Cromwell for a Bible since Anne wants to swear on something. Later, when Cromwell is in the gardens, he meets Mary Boleyn, who says that Anne is finally sleeping with Henry. Henry and Anne swore on the Bible before Norris and Mary Boleyn, and they are now “married in God’s sight.” Henry promised to marry Anne again in England and make her his queen.