History Literature / WolfHall

* MaliciousSlander: Lady Rochford is a spiteful gossip and she's been known to fabricate tales to spread around court. It's left unsaid if her accusations against her husband and Anne were true or not.

* 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. 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. 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.

* {{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.

* 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!).

* 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.

* 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 he was never truly married to her -- as he's 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.

* ItIsPronouncedTropay: At their first meeting, Thomas Wriothesley makes a point of informing Cromwell that “My name is Wri-oth-es-ley, but wish to spare you the effort, you can call me Risley." This leads to a RunningGag shared between Cromwell, Rafe, and Richard, as nearly every time after that they speak of him, they refer to him as "Call Me Risley" or just "Call Me".

* PrecisionFStrike: When trying to get into the room to do some damage control with Henry at Christmas, Cromwell is accosted by a couple of Henry's gentlemen of the privy chamber goofing around in costume. Outwardly he remains as calm as ever, but his internal monologue indicates how pissed off he is:
-->Prime Christmas game: Let's fuck about with Cromwell.

* 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 he was never truly married to her -- as he's 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 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.

** Cromwell. At ''best'' he's considered an amoral bureaucrat, but more often he's a backstabbing, [[AmbitionIsEvil ambitious]] SocialClimber. Here he's portrayed as a family man whose acquisition of wealth is to make his family respectable and comfortable, whose opposition to the Church comes from sincere objections to their practices, and his questionable deeds and machinations arise from his intense loyalty to his first master, Cardinal Wolsey. The real Cromwell was also at ease with torture, ordering it to be carried out through letters.

* 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 he was never truly married to her -- as he's been claiming nonstop for close on a decade -- 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.

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: Cromwell. At ''best'' he's considered an amoral bureaucrat, but more often he's a backstabbing, [[AmbitionIsEvil ambitious]] SocialClimber. Here he's portrayed as a family man whose acquisition of wealth is to make his family respectable and comfortable, whose opposition to the Church comes from sincere objections to their practices, and his questionable deeds and machinations arise from his intense loyalty to his first master, Cardinal Wolsey. The real Cromwell was also at ease with torture, ordering it to be carried out through letters.

''Wolf Hall'' is a novel by Hilary Mantel told from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell, one of Henry VIII's favourite advisors in the 1530s. It portrays him much more positively than most fictional depictions of Cromwell tend to, as a generally nice guy with extraordinary talents and a good sense of humour who just happens to occasionally do some morally ambiguous things to keep favour with his king. It won the 2009 Man Booker Prize, as did its sequel, ''Bring Up The Bodies'', in 2012. A third book, ''The Mirror and the Light'', was published in March 2020.

-->'''Cromwell:''' I wonder what you discussed.\\

-->'''Cromwell:''' Are you threatening me? I'm just interested.\\

-->'''Cromwell:''' My reccomendation: write only a little, and pray a lot.\\

--> Prime Christmas game: let's fuck about with Cromwell.

* TitleDrop: Wolf Hall is an alternative spelling for Wulfhall, an estate owned by the Seymours. It comes up a couple of times in connection to the lady-in-waiting Jane Seymour, foreshadowing the larger role it and she will play in the sequel.

* NeverTrustATitle: Although Wolf Hall is the home of the Seymours, virtually nothing that happens in the first book takes place there, and the Seymours themselves don't really become significant until ''Bring Up The Bodies.''

* TitleDrop: Wolf Hall is an alternative spelling for Wulfhall, an estate owned by the Seymours. It comes up a couple of times towards the end.

* YouHaveFailedMe: After capably serving Henry for years, Cardinal Wolsey fails him once and would almost certainly have been executed had he not died en route to London. Later, Henry makes clear that he doesn't care how "slender" the case against Thomas More is, he wants a conviction--that on the heels of a KangarooCourt which proved insufficiently unjust, Cromwell has his colleagues pull out all the stops. In ''Bring Up the Bodies'', Cromwell repeatedly contemplates his odds of retiring honorably versus having his head on a spike.

* AmbiguousSituation: Despite its focus on the fall of Anne Boleyn, ''Bring Up The Bodies'' never makes it clear whether or not Anne is actually having an affair. Cromwell's position on the matter swings back and forth several times: he knows Anne is a strong-willed, intelligent woman who fully realises the implications of adultery, but she's also a rampant egotist who thrives on the attention of men and she's becoming tired of being treated as a doormat during sex. The ambiguity is at is clearest during Cromwell's interrogation of Weston. He seems to be on the verge of making a genuine confession of adultery, but a troubled Cromwell decides to leave the room at that moment for reasons he can't parse even to himself. In the end, of course, Anne's guilt or otherwise is irrelevant--Henry wants her gone, and making her out to be unfaithful is the simplest method.

** The Boleyns are grasping and ambitious, more or less selling their daughter Mary to powerful men in hopes of increasing their own standing. Anne takes a lesson to be flirtatious but not actually promiscuous. Her brother and sister-in-law have an awful marriage, and when Anne loses Henry's favor, most of her male relatives turn on her like piranha, happily assisting in her downfall.

* AmericansHateTingle: This series is not well recived by Catholics.

* LaserGuidedKarma: After being arrested, Cromwell notes to himself that his enemies are sticking him with charges so spurious they would never manage to defend them in court, but they don't actually to: they can just introduce a private bill against him and have the King pass it, a workaround Cromwell himself came up with to deal with previous enemies of his own.

* KavorkaMan: Cromwell is built like the proverbial brick shithouse and his looks are ordinary at best, but he encounters very few women who are not at least briefly interested in him. The list includes [[HistoricalDomainCharacter Mary Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Helen Barre, Mary Tudor, Bess Uhtred, and Catherine Parr.]]

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: Cromwell. At ''best'' he's considered an amoral bureaucrat, but more often he's a backstabbing, [[AmbitionIsEvil ambitious]] SocialClimber. Here he's portrayed as a family man whose acquisition of wealth is to make his family respectable and comfortable, whose opposition to the Church comes from sincere objections to their practices, and his questionable deeds and machinations arise from his intense loyalty to his first master, Cardinal Wolsey.

** As the author admits in the notes in back of ''Bring Up the Bodies'', the popular characterization of Jane Rochford as enemy to her husband and sister-in-law is a retroactive construction made mostly from her involvement with Catharine Howard, Henry's fifth wife. She was given the task of providing the information against Anne to save the reader from learning even more names. In the afterword, Mantel recommends the book ''Jane Boleyn'' by Julia Fox for a more historical viewpoint.

* SmugSnake: Anne and George Boleyn try to order Cromwell around on the basis that they made him what he is today. Not his own considerable talents or his service as Wolsey's right hand man. And he certainly didn't make ''them'' by being the one to successfully break Henry's marriage to Catharine, oh no.