History Literature / WolfHall

* BitchInSheepsClothing: Harry Norris, one of Henry's oldest friends, is called "Gentle Norris" for his manners. Cromwell's use of the nickname is always sarcastic because Norris only behaves this way towards his equals in rank and manages to snap up all the most lucrative posts of the Privy Chamber while behaving as though he's doing everyone else a favor by taking them.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: In ''Bring Up the Bodies'', there are hints ahead to Cromwell's fate. After Henry's public tirade Cromwell admits to himself that he can envision the day when his head will be on the block. When Anne is executed, Wriothesly opines that Cromwell could be contemplating treason against Henry for Wolsey's sake. Cromwell can feel "the dagger between his shoulders" and suspects that it was Stephen Gardiner who put the thought into Risely's head; Gardiner would indeed be one of the architects of Cromwell's demise. Lastly Anne's "lovers" warn Cromwell that Henry had went against Dudley, Empson, Wolsey, Thomas More, and now them, what makes Cromwell any different?

* CallForward: Cardinal Wolsey, morose after he has been pushed out of power and exiled to his diocese in York, starts talking about 'prophecies, and the downfall of the priests of England", which he says will come soon. He's right, as the Reformation is around the corner.

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Many of the names are given their early modern spelling rather than the contemporary one--Ralph Sadler is Rafe, Elizabeth Wykes is Wykys. Also, Catherine of Aragon is spelled as Katherine (which ''is'' how she spelled it in her signature).

** All the fuss over Henry's quest for a male heir for one thing. At one point Cromwell thinks that there's no way the "ginger infant" (read: Elizabeth) will get the throne.

** Anne is fixated on marrying her daughter Elizabeth to a French prince, and if not that then making some sort of brilliant match for her. Once she grew up and became queen, Elizabeth would be legendary for choosing ''never'' to marry.

** Cromwell is happy to visit financial and legal ruination on people, but he doesn't like using physical violence if he can achieve his purpose another way. He visits a piece of astonishing cruelty on Harry Percy at the end of ''Bring Up the Bodies'', but he remains seated while Harry is railing around the room because it keeps him from fetching the ill man a smack. He also finds the idea of torturing Mark akin to stamping on a dormouse and is the only one to treat Anne with some measure of dignity and courtesy--unlike her own relatives--even while he's busily setting up her scaffold. He's also somewhat disturbed at the climate of fear that he himself has created around court.

* TheScrooge: Henry is willing to pour fortunes into his military campaigns, but when it comes to the women in his life he can be much more stingy. He tries to get hold of Katherine's fine furs and plate after she dies, even though Richard Riche points out that if Henry and Katherine were never truly married -- as Henry has been claiming nonstop for close on a decade -- then he's only her brother-in-law, and therefore not legally entitled to her property. When Henry sends Jane Seymour a courting gift of a prayer book, she's disappointed when she sees that it still has the initials H and A on the cover. As Cromwell makes excuses, saying the A can be replaced, he mentally notes that you can still see where the ''' ''K'' ''' used to be, meaning Henry's used the same gift for three different women. And when his bastard son Fitzroy dies of consumption, Henry refuses to let his daughter-in-law Mary Howard keep many of the lands that should have come to her as his son's widow, since the marriage wasn't consummated (on Henry's order, mind you!).

* AdiposeRex: Henry VIII's getting there. Hans Holbein at one point wonders whether it would be more appropriate to paint Henry as he was five years ago, or ten. Cromwell: 'Stick to five. He'll think you're mocking him.'

* BluntYes: In a flashback in ''The Mirror and the Light'', a friar named Robert Barnes is brought before Wolsey for criticizing the cardinal's lavish lifestyle.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Marriage among royalty and the nobility is much more of a business contract and meant to form alliances than because of any feelings on the part of the bride and groom; when Anne Boleyn and Harry Percy try to marry for love, it doesn't end well as their families and Wolsey quickly separate them. It's more relaxed amidst the lower classes, but Liz's father is bemused when she and Cromwell want to at least get to know each other first before they marry, and Cromwell has to plead Rafe Sadler's case to his father when Rafe marries without his permission. These attitudes clash horribly with Henry's far more modern desire to actually be in love with his wife from the start, leaving his advisors confused and annoyed about why he can't just suck it up for the sake of an important alliance.

** Henry chafes at the idea of marrying someone he doesn't actually love -- which might be an admirable trait for a hero in a ballad but is a ''really'' unfortunate opinion when held by a king.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Marriage among royalty and the nobility is much more of a business contract and meant to form alliances than because of any feelings on the part of the bride and groom; when Anne Boleyn and Harry Percy try to marry for love, it doesn't end well as their families and Wolsey quickly separate them. It's more relaxed amidst the middle classes, but Liz's father is bemused when she and Cromwell want to at least get to know each other first before they marry, and Cromwell has to plead Rafe Sadler's case to his father when Rafe marries without his permission. These attitudes clash horribly with Henry's far more modern desire to actually be in love with his wife from the start, leaving his advisors confused and annoyed about why he can't just suck it up for the sake of an important alliance.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Marriage among royalty and the nobility is much more of a business contract and meant to form alliances than because of any feelings on the part of the bride and groom; when Anne Boleyn and Harry Percy try to marry for love, it doesn't end well as their families and Wolsey quickly separate them. It's more relaxed amidst the middle classes, but Liz's father is confused when she and Cromwell want to at least get to know each other first before they marry, and Cromwell has to plead Rafe Sadler's case to his father when his son marries without his permission. These attitudes clash horribly with Henry's much more modern desire to actually be in love with his wife from the start, leaving his advisors confused and annoyed about why he can't just suck it up for the sake of an important alliance.