Blogs by David A. Schwinghammer
The Mirror and the Light, book review
5/17/2020 9:28:27 AM
How Thomas Cromwell, Master Secretary to Henry VIII, met his end.
It took me a month and eleven days to read THE MIRROR and THE LIGHT. I was reading twice a day for around two hours, averaging ten pages a shot. This is just a hard book to read.
If you're going to tackle this seven hundred-fifty page book, you need to bookmark your cast of characters and remember Cromwell is in every scene. Sometimes he's in his own head; you will confuse what he says with whomever he's talking to.
I knew this book was about the downfall of Thomas Cromwell, Henry's Master Secretary. Cromwell was always reluctant to blame Henry for anything. He actually believed that Devine Right bull. Cromwell had helped him get rid of Anne Boleyn. It's hard to tell if the men who died with her were actually guilty or if Cromwell even cared. He does regret the death of Henry's jester or fool. It's hard to believe Anne would actually consort with a jester. Henry just wanted to prove she was cheating on him so he could marry Jane Seymour.
BTW, her brother George was also accused of having congress with his own sister and died with her.
You will question the maturity of a leader who is so offended by a look from his new queen (a political arrangement) that he can't consummate the marriage. I also expected that turn of events, but I had always thought he rejected Anne of Cleves because she was homely. Not according to Hillary Mantel. The look she gave him was shock that Henry was old and overweight, and he took her by surprise.
We get to see the tower of London quit a bit. Thomas Wyatt, who testified against the other Boleyn lovers, was in the tower early in the book. Cromwell gets him out, and he becomes an effective ambassador. We see Anne decapitated. Later we learn that was a compassionate way to execute someone.
At the end Cromwell thinks he might be the exception to the rule when he is made an Earl and given the title of Lord Chamberlain. He should've known better than to tell Henry it was a bad idea to reject another queen.
I did get an answer to the question I'd had after reading the first two books in the trilogy. Is Thomas Cromwell related to Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England after the Civil War of the early 17th Century? Thomas has a nephew, Richard, who was Oliver's grandfather.
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