The Mirror and the Light

“If they cannot rule England themselves, as Plantagenets once did, they mean to rule through the king’s daughter. It is her bloodline they admire, the inheritance from her Spanish mother Katherine. For the sad little girl herself, they care much less; and when I see Mary, he thinks, I will tell her so. Her safety does not lie that way, with men who live on fantasies of the past.”

Here, Cromwell considers the intentions and actions of the ancient noble families, including the Poles, the Carews, and the Courtenays. All are suspected of having Catholic sympathies, and all have what are marginally legitimate claims to the throne, dating back to the days of the Plantagenets. If they can plot to install Mary on the throne—whose personage they think little of—they can also restore Catholicism to England. While these are obviously treasonous plans, it is also true that England has been weakened by Henry’s toppling of the old religious and geopolitical order. It is not at all clear that England can survive without the patronage of the Pope and the Holy Roman Empire. There are many, from peasant to merchant to courtier alike, who would support such plans.

“In January when I thought the king was dead, he thinks, when they burst in shouting, I leapt up and said, ‘I’m coming, I’m right behind you’—but before I quit the room I sanded the paper and dried the ink, and I picked up from the desk the Turkish dagger with the sunflower handle, which there as an ornaments: so I had one knife in the coat, and one knife extra; then I went and found Henry, and I raised him from the dead.”

Cromwell remembers the moment when Henry fell from his horse and appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be dead. He, whose presence in the halls of power is wholly dependent on the king, wants to be prepared before he enters the scene. The ambiguity here is intentional: Does Cromwell arm himself to fight? Or, does he arm himself to be prepared to end his own life, should Henry really be dead? The final sentence conflates Cromwell with Christ, taking credit for the king’s resurrection.

“Choose a husband for a future queen, and you are also choosing a king for England. As a wife she must obey him: women must obey, even queens. But what foreigner can we trust? England may become a mere province in some empire, and be governed from Lisbon, from Paris, from the east.”

The king desperately wishes for a legitimate son to be his heir. Aside from the complication that both Mary (daughter of Katherine of Aragon) and Elizabeth (daughter of Anne Boleyn) have been rendered illegitimate by Henry’s political machinations, a queen on the throne poses other risks. The modern reader can view this sentiment with irony: Both Mary and Elizabeth do become queens of England, and Elizabeth oversees the makings of a vast empire during her 45 years in power—and she does without ever taking a husband, foreign or domestic.

“Jane explains, ‘It is he who does everything in England. I did not understand that, till one of the ambassadors told me. He marvelled that one man could have so many posts and titles. It is a thing never seen before. Lord Cromwell is the government, and the church as well. The ambassador said the king will flog him on to work till one day his legs go from under him, and he rolls in a ditch and dies.”

Jane directly voices what most only mutter about: that Cromwell’s rise to power and the scope of his authority are unparalleled. Most often, the sentiments are not uttered aloud, for they contain dangerous implications, namely that Cromwell’s position usurps the king and the priests. It can also be implied that Cromwell’s strength—or at least the perception of it—necessarily denotes the king’s weakness. Cromwell, seen in this light, emasculates Henry, just as Anne Boleyn was said to do via her many infidelities.

“It is true. No text stays clean. Yet one must part with it, send it to the printer. The trick is to get them to set the line right to the edge of the page. It does not make for a good appearance, but no white space means no perversion by marginalia.”

During the many debates over producing an English Bible, perhaps the most important problem was how to transmit the purest form of the scripture. Yet there are almost as many interpretations of the Bible as there are scholars to read it. The other problem, one that resonated particularly with popes and with princes, is that once the scripture is rendered in the vernacular, then the old forms of authority dissipate. Anyone who can read English can also interpret for themselves the will of God. This might render popes and princes obsolete.

“These are not the concerns of simple people. What has Hob or Hick to leave behind him, but some bad debts and broken shoes? No: these are the complaints of small landowners, and men who don’t like to pay their taxes. Men who want to be petty kings in their shires, who want the women to curtsey as they pass through the marketplace. I know these paltry gods, he thinks.”

At the beginning of the rebellion, many of the courtiers and others with attachments to the old nobility claim that the rebels are commonfolk who are injured by the king’s policies, or disturbed by the dismantling of the old ways. While this is undoubtedly true to some degree, Cromwell clearly sees that the sentiment is being fomented by the landed classes, probably under the direction of certain noble families. This is not a repeat of the infamous Peasants Revolt of 1381; it is a clandestine attempt to reclaim ancestral power.

“During daylight hours, he is so bejewelled that it hurts to look at him; he is the sun. But when he strips off his nightgown stiffly pearled, he is a phantom in white linen, and beneath his shroud his skin. To breed kings in a line of kings, he must become a naked man, and do what every pauper does, and every dog.”

This passage both humanizes and animalizes the king. While he may be God’s chosen authority, a light that shines over all his subjects, the king is still a mortal being—especially when it comes to matters of succession. He must make himself vulnerable, unarmed, and naked in order to copulate with the queen. It reduces the lineage of kings into a mere matter of breeding.

“He [Cromwell] says, ‘When you work for Henry Tudor you have no choice in how you appear. You must be a courtier, you cannot look like a clerk. And the common people, outside the gate, you must show them you have the king’s favour. They only understand what they see plain. If you put on no show, they take you for nothing.”

First, this passage suggests that appearances—though often deceiving—are more significant than substance. Second, it is painfully ironic: Much of Cromwell’s undoing is the result of his rising above his station and appearing as wealthy and as powerful as a duke. Third, while Cromwell suggests that he assumes the trappings of wealth because it is required of his station, the reader is immediately asked to question this: he goes on to think to himself, “I was happy in my lawyer’s black. But is that true?” (346). Thus, one is left to wonder whether this is faux humility, if “pride goeth before the fall.”

“Somewhere—or Nowhere, perhaps—there is a society ruled by philosophers. They have clean hands and pure hearts. But even in the metropolis of light there are middens and manure-heaps, swarming with flies. Even in the republic of virtue you need a man who will shovel up the [excrement], and somewhere it is written that Cromwell is his name.”

This is a reference to Thomas More’s Utopia. The word “utopia” is taken from the Greek, meaning “no place” or “nowhere.” More’s fictional world imagined a community where shared values and common cause create an ideal society. Of course, More himself was put to death by Henry for refusing to renounce Catholicism, and his book describes an unrealizable ideal—his utopia could exist “nowhere.” Cromwell is keenly aware of this irony, that even in an ideal state there must be someone who deals with the refuse and the excreta—the literal and metaphorical detritus of human existence.

“He [Cromwell] thinks, the damage has been done since last October. It is cumulative, but we are only noticing now. The rebels have knocked him out of true. He will not be the same again. The king stands alone on the turkey carpet, feet planted on the cobalt stars.”

The king’s physical state has been weakened. The old jousting wound, the fall, and his overindulgence have all contributed to his diminishment. The rebellion—fighting off enemies who once were his friends—was the final blow, psychologically speaking. Shortly thereafter, the king stumbles and almost faints while sitting for his portrait. In a bitter irony, the portrait will show him to be young, hearty, and virile.

“The king is like the shrike or butcher bird, who sings in imitation of a harmless seed-eater to lure his prey, then impales it on a thorn and digests it at his leisure.”

Again, Cromwell points out that appearances can be deceiving. He well knows that the king enjoys his sly game of luring others in with his outsized charm before striking the fatal blow. This is a simile fit for a king.

“Anyone spreading such a rumour [of the king’s death] can expect to be nailed to the pillory by his ear on market day. But the origin of such lies can seldom be traced.”

The dangerous consequences of rumor and gossip are addressed throughout the book. Cromwell acknowledges that it is nearly impossible to track the source of rumors. Thus, only the victims of such campaigns are ultimately punished, not the perpetrators. Cromwell will eventually fall prey to this inequitable arrangement.

“We do not need more predators. We do not need wild boar, though they make good sport. But we need to keep our rivers in their courses, and we need to plant trees, if we are going to cut them down at the present rate: for timber frames for merchant’s houses, for palaces for princes; for ships to sail against the Pope and the Emperor, and the world in league against us.”

Cromwell explains why he wants to breed beavers, who are instrumental in keeping the rivers free of debris and flowing freely. The importance of natural resources for defense and security are clear. Cromwell’s thoughts also hint at the future of England: London will eventually become the emporium of the world, while the monarch of England will rule over a vast empire that spans the globe. It is also perhaps an oblique reference to the defeat of the Spanish Armada under Queen Elizabeth I, putting a decisive end to the possibility of foreign rule or Catholic reconquest of England.

“Only a clever surgeon, and possibly not even he, could tell you whether they are the bones of a martyr or of an animal.”

Cromwell contemplates all of the relics he has taken from monasteries and abbeys, keeping them at his home at Austin Friars. He retains them as insurance for a possible time in which Henry has changed his mind, and Catholic relics become reliable currency, both financially and spiritually. His conflation of the sacred with the material reveals his skepticism and disgust. Cromwell suggest that a martyr may be more like a lower animal than a human.

“Now church bells are cast into cannon, ploughshares beaten into swords, the cross of Christ becomes a bludgeon, a club to beat out the brains of the opposition. What’s ink in Whitehall is blood in the borderlands, what’s a quibble in the law courts is a stabbing in the streets. [. . .] You cannot greet the world in the morning with anything less than ferocity, or by evening you will be destroyed.”

These are all metaphors for battle and war. The instruments of spiritual belief are transformed into weapons, while metaphysical thinking and legal opinion turn to spilled blood. The author reveals the heightened tensions of the time. England was a powder keg during the early years of the Reformation.

“He thinks, I wish the court would call Anna by that name, not use Anne. But women are to be named and renamed, it is their nature, and they have no country of their own; they go where their husbands take them, where their father and brother send them.”

To rename someone or something is to enact power over it. Anna is to relinquish her German identity in order to become Anne in England. Her identity is subsumed by that of her husband, the king. She is a mere pawn in the game of imperial chess—objectified, as all women are at this time, and useful only in their service to men.

“No more examples are needed; the traitors’ banner is trampled, that portrayed the Five Wounds. Superstitious men in the north claim that in addition to his principal wounds, Christ suffered 5,470 more. They say that every day fresh ones are incised, as he is cut and flayed by Cromwell.”

Cromwell is again demonized, metaphorically compared to Christ’s heretic accusers or even to the devil himself. The power of rumor and the potency of the past are again highlighted. To many ordinary people of the day, the restoration of the old religion is preferable than the imposition of the new order. Losing the old rituals means relinquishing familiar comforts and spiritual relief. Cromwell becomes the symbol of this often unwelcome transformation.

“You offended, and I forgave. A ruler must do it. I am greatly altered these ten years. You, not so much. You do not surprise me as once you did. I do not think you will surprise me again, considering all you have said and done—some of it miraculous, Tom. I will not deny. You work beyond the capacities of ten ordinary men. But still I miss the Cardinal of York.”

This is the final time that Henry and Cromwell speak intimately in private. He is arrested a few months later. Henry’s words can be read as a warning of what is to come. The Cardinal that he misses was almost sure to be executed, had he not perished before the order could be made. Henry’s reference here foreshadows Cromwell’s fate.

“Henry will like the queen to see what manner of countrymen she has now: the refuse all slavery, detect all knavery. The monarch that was then, in Caesar’s time, armed the Thames itself, planting iron-tipped staves below the waterline to rip out the belly of the Roman ships. When the survivors hauled themselves to shore, the Britons butchered them.”

Henry has commissioned an entertainment for his new bride, Anne of Cleves, to demonstrate English power and dominance. The mighty Thames, which runs through the heart of England, is personified as a warrior itself, destroying the Roman fleet. The show is also a reminder to everyone that England has defeated Rome before, just as it will now defeat the Holy Roman Empire.

“We could offer her a settlement, yes. I do not know how much we would have to find to placate her brother. And I do not know how to salvage your Majesty’s reputation, if you renounce a lawful match. It would be hard to hold up your head before your fellow princes. Or come by another wife.”

Cromwell speaks frankly to the king regarding his unsatisfactory marriage to Anne of Cleves and will ultimately pay the price for such forthrightness. However, it is hard to know if Cromwell speaks the truth or if he is merely serving his self-interest. If Henry takes another bride, especially the Howard girl, then Cromwell’s grip on power will inevitably slip and his rivals’ fortunes will rise. In addition, the act of breaking this union will also lead Henry away from an alliance with the Protestant Germans, leaving an opening for the reintroduction of Catholicism to England.

“‘But you are not omniscient. Nor are you omnipresent. Have you been thinking you were? Did you think you were God?’ ‘No,’ he says, ‘God’s spy.’”

Stephen Gardiner warns Cromwell that his unwillingness to dissolve the marriage between Henry and Anne of Cleves will be his undoing. Cromwell’s response implies that the king is God, and Cromwell is but his spy. Thus, the king’s will, like God’s, must be done. This is ironic considering Cromwell’s position is to dissuade the king from breaking off his union with Anne.

“Gone with it are his letters from the Swiss divines: which would injure him. They may choose to say he is a heretic who denies that God is in the host. But they will have no evidence. And he has no difficulty in saying that God is everywhere.”

While in prison, Cromwell has been informed that his private letters have been destroyed. Thus, he knows that his secret beliefs—particularly that he, like Luther, denies the miracle of transubstantiation—will not be brought against him in whatever accusations are to be made. He can speak about his beliefs truthfully, if somewhat circuitously.

“On the scaffold he will praise the king: his mercy, his grace, his care for all his people. It is expected of him, and he has a duty to those left behind. He will say, I am not a heretic. I die a member of the universal church; and let the crown make what they will of it.”

Again, the reader is left feeling ambiguous about Cromwell’s loyalty. He will “praise the king” because it is “expected”—and necessary to save the lives of those close to him left behind—but it is unclear whether he means it. Of course, Henry has betrayed him, with this charade of treason, though Cromwell never willingly betrays Henry. In the end, it is perhaps more important to Cromwell that he keep his conscience, rather than renounce his true beliefs.