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
Five days after More’s trial, he is executed. That evening, Cromwell walks in the garden with Richard and Rafe, discussing the trial. More had seemed very calm, so everyone, including the jury, was surprised when he had turned on Riche and attacked his character, calling him “a gamer and a dicer, of no commendable fame even in [his] own house.” The jury took his “sudden animation” to be evidence of guilt. Norfolk asked More to leave Riche’s character aside and to clarify whether he spoke the words Riche said he did. More said he did not say those words, or that if he did, he did not mean them with malice, which makes him “clear under the statute.”
More’s biggest error at the trial was that he wasn’t in control of his emotions. Riche’s accusations angered him so much so the jury was inclined to believe they were true and that More was acting out of guilt and panic. More’s death is the culmination of a theme that has come up throughout the novel: that controlling oneself and using that control to manipulate others is key to gaining and maintaining power.
Themes
George Boleyn asked More to give his own account of that conversation with Riche, and More said he didn’t recall it. It took the jury only 15 minutes to deliver their verdict. On the night before More is executed, Cromwell thinks of him. He knows that More will not be told until the morning that he will be executed that day, and that More must be asleep, “not knowing that it [is] his last night on earth.” Cromwell remembers that after More was declared guilty, he had made a speech in which Cromwell had found nothing new. More had declared that the statute was faulty and the council’s authority baseless. He had said his conscience was satisfied, and said he had the majority on his side, meaning Christendom and the church.
More’s tendency towards bombastic speeches continued even at the end of his trial, after he was declared guilty. Cromwell had heard him voice these opinions so often that he dismisses the speech as being “nothing new,” which again emphasizes how fatally single-minded and inflexible More is.
Themes
Audley asked Cromwell if he had made any promises to More regarding the manner of his execution. Cromwell said he hadn’t, but that the king would surely show More mercy. Norfolk told Cromwell to try to convince the king to be merciful, and he said that if he didn’t succeed in doing so, Norfolk himself would go beg the king on More’s behalf. Adter More’s death, Cromwell sends More’s prayer book to More’s daughter Meg, and he gives instructions to the bridge-master to not trouble Meg when she comes to collect her father’s head so she can bury it.
Unlike More, who was always rigid in his ideas and therefore angry at anyone who believed differently, Cromwell seems to take More’s trial as just a part of his job rather than something to act on with an impassioned vendetta. This helps Cromwell to stay reasonable and sympathetic through it, and he even shows concern for More’s family after the execution.
Themes
Cromwell recalls that as a child, his father’s apprentice had told him that if the dead weren’t nailed in their coffins, they would rise and chase the living. Now, Cromwell knows that it is “the living that turn and chase the dead.” He thinks that “words like stones [are] thrust into their rattling mouths: we edit their writings, we rewrite their lives.” He thinks that More spread the rumor that Bilney had recanted as he was burning. It wasn’t enough for More to take away Bilney’s life—he “had to take his death too.” Cromwell imagines More’s death, and he can almost see how he was beheaded at the scaffold. He feels the “past move heavily inside him.”
Cromwell reflects on how the living can make any claims they want to about the dead since the dead can no longer speak for themselves or clarify their positions. More did this after Bilney’s death, claiming that Bilney recanted his beliefs that were in opposition to the Catholic Church—which Cromwell doesn’t believe ever happened. Through this idea, Mantel seems to be commenting on how she herself is reinventing all the dead people in this novel. She is “rewrit[ing] their lives” and giving them feelings and opinions that are completely invented, ones that they cannot oppose or confirm.
Themes
Get the entire Wolf Hall LitChart as a printable PDF.
The king and his court are riding west in the summer, and Cromwell hopes that Anne Boleyn will return pregnant. Rafe wonders at how “the king can stand the hope each time,” adding that “[i]t would wear out a lesser man.” Cromwell has five days free before he joins the king’s court in their travels, and he tells Rafe that the two of them should go visit the Seymours in Wolf Hall.
At the conclusion on the novel, Cromwell is still hopeful that Anne Boleyn will soon give birth to the long-awaited male heir. Cromwell knows this will cement his place by the king’s side since Henry would be grateful to finally have the son he has dreamed of. As Rafe says, Henry does in fact seem to be getting worn by his cares, which will become increasingly important in the book’s sequels Since Cromwell has a few days off, he thinks of Jane Seymour at Wolf Hall and plans to visit her. This novel is titled Wolf Hall, though no part of it is set there, because Mantel thought the place’s name represented the wild, wolf-like quality of Henry’s courtiers. Also, Jane Seymour will be Henry’s next queen after Anne Boleyn’s execution, so Wolf Hall will certainly gain importance as Cromwell’s story continues.
Themes
