#anyways new laptop hath arrived now to remember how to set everything up just so

[moonlight-at-dawn]

I haven't viewed Tumblr on an actual computer in god knows how long what the FUCK is happening here

[thatsnotperiod-blog]

HOT DOG after what seems like and may actually be years of waiting I am watching Wolf Hall for free. 

It starts with the Good Stuff, which is to say 1529 when Henry VIII had succumbed to full-fledged Annulment Madness. Some intro text tells us this, and that Henry is sure all delays are Cardinal Wolsey’s fault. 

AND NOW THIS. Early in the morning, six riders are clomping up to York Place in London. Inside, a man I presume is Cromwell is watching the sunrise and lighting lamps. Jonathan Pryce in the role of Cardinal Wolsey prepares himself for a confrontation.

“Wolsey, you’re out!” is the first line uttered on this show. It’s not... as much of a humdinger as maybe they wanted. The guy uttering it is one of Lord Norfolk or Lord Suffolk, and considering that the latter of these two men was played by literally Henry Cavill on The Tudors, these two are disappointing. The point of the scene is that Norf and Suff are eager to bring down their enemy, and Wolsey is gracious, canny, and supported by the clever, loyal Thomas Cromwell. Meanwhile, Suffolk literally is breathing with his mouth open. 

But still the next morning the Yeomen of the Guard (kidding) are there packing up Wolsey’s shit so Mouth-Breathing: 1 Wolsey: 0. They punt off in a ... punt, I guess, and Wolsey is sticking up for King Henry graciously, while his men gripe about how it’s unfair. “Do you think it’s something about the English? They cannot see a great man set up but they have to pull him down?” Well Hilary Mantel certainly thinks so. 

EIGHT YEARS EARLIER. 

Anne Boleyn at a masked ball at the royal palace or whatever, where everybody is dressed as a virtue. This scene feels like a big fuck-you to The Tudors version of the exact same thing, all the women have their hair in bags, nobody’s shoulders are sticking out, there’s no grommets on anybody and the men are appropriately in tights and shoes. Joke’s on this show though, because no matter how smug they are about this costuming the end result is that this scene is full of people dressed like dopes. Also, Anne is dancing with Harry Percy and not Henry VIII. 

Wolsey is chewing out Anne’s dad for this dancing impropriety. He has a solution though: marry her off asap before anyone gossips. Ho hum, life in the past.

Speaking of life in the past, the same people who get worked up about grommets and snoods tend to get extremely worked up about lighting in period television, specifically, there is too much of it. With no ambient light and only so much physical space to put candles in, after the sun set people spent much of their time in extremely dark rooms. This show is really rubbing it in by showing us that Wolsey has only lit about half of the candles at his disposal, presumably because this is a business casual, semi-private meeting with a concerned father about how many boys his daughter hath given smooch to. The result is that the scene is dark though and I have to crank up the light on my laptop.

Cromwell is in the hallway and Thomas Boleyn tosses some Tudor insults (”butcher’s dog!”) at him on the way out, and Wolsey summons Cromwell in. There’s some obvious contrast with how in-charge and intimidating he looks behind his desk, compared to how nervous and flustered and pathetic he looked in the first scene and like, I get it, ok, point made. Wolsey is charmed by Cromwell as a fellow lowly origins success story, Cromwell is clearly looking at Wolsey and thinking that he wants what this guy has. “William Popely tells me I might find a use for you,” says Wolsey. “A man of many talents.” It’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship. 

Cromwell arrives home. Like everything else at night, it’s dark as h e l l. His wife hands him a dog that I can’t even squint out in the goddamned candlelight, and they share a sweet moment where Cromwell says he’s hitching his wagon to Wolsey’s. She’s a little skeptical of his obvious excitement, he’s understanding and keeps scritching at the lil dog. They like each other. Cute!

Morning. Cromwell reads a letter from his son and helps his daughters with their breakfast homework (or whatever). He gets a package in the mail. It’s a Contraband English Bible for Sneaky Protestants, Illegal Edition. He gives it a soft sell to his wife, who blows him off, so he opens a regular ol Latin Bible for his youngest daughter, Grace. She traces the illuminations of angels and peacocks, an action that given the Tudor importance of symbology is in no way foreboding.

Cromwell kisses everybody within reach and runs off for his first day of work. Everybody on the way in has shit to say about his Humble Origins. Crom shows Wolsey a card trick. Wolsey explains that he just heard some Divorce Murmuring from King Henry. 

Wolsey remembers when Queen Catherine came over from Spain to marry Henry’s dead brother Arthur. The dialogue (just like in The Tudors) interacts interestingly with the ~source material. Like here Wolsey remembers how “[Catherine’s] red hair slid over her shoulder” when he first saw her. In the real world, a herald recording Catherine’s arrival in London described “her hair hanging down about her shoulders, which is fair auburn,” like it’s not a direct quote but it’s funny to think of everybody in Tudor times sitting there thinking the same thing: shit her hair’s down.  

They talk a little bit about how Catherine is taking the whole annulment thing (not well, and specifically she’s mad at Wolsey). Wolsey jokes that maybe the two of them will have to do card tricks for cash very soon. 

Throughout pretty much every one of his scenes, Cromwell is dropping little references to all the badass/regular crazy stuff he did in his Mysterious Wastrel Past and like, I can hear Hilary Mantel breathing heavily from here. Cromwell is an interesting person, but the way he can’t shut up in this show about the wild & crazy shit he got up to, especially in Italy, is like 2 much. "Once, in Italy, I held a snake for a bet,” he says, and everyone is like WHOA WHOA WHOA YOU ARE STONE COLD CRAZY TELL ANOTHER ONE. What does “held a snake” mean?

Back to 1529. Wolsey & Co are clattering up to Wolsey’s place of exile. Cromwell is shouting at everyone to get their asses in gear making the place hospitable for Wolsey, who looks pretty shitty. Everyone is sluggish and tired and it’s raining and dark, like the whole scene is just maximum depressing. 

Later, Cromwell helps Wolsey into bed. They joke like old friends, but are both clearly freaked out. “This is what they’ve waited for,” says Wolsey. “You should leave me. Gardiner has.” Cromwell takes his hand and is like, “Gardiner would.” Haha fuck that guy.  

Jonathan Pryce’s sad, tearful eyes look up at him. Cromwell grabs a lute player or someone on his way out and asks him to go play for Wolsey: “it might help him rest.” Lute Guy’s name is Mark, so I assume he’s Mark Smeaton. In this show, he’s a dick, because the next morning Cromwell walks in on him predicting Wolsey’s downfall and death, and claiming that he’s getting sent to “the Lady Anne” so 100% confirmed for Smeaton.

Next scene, Cromwell at a dinner party with Antonio Bonvisi, a merchant and frequent More correspondent. The scene is like literally pitch black. I can’t see shit. The whole room gets quiet when Cromwell arrives, and he zeroes in on Sir Thomas More, telling him to continue with whatever smack he was talking about Wolsey. Bonvisi is like, a little annoyed with everyone trying to start shit, and introduces the new Spanish ambassador, Eustace Chapuys. Chapuys leans over to More and starts bad-mouthing Cromwell, but Cromwell makes it awkward by calling him out. More says Wolsey is greedy. Cromwell says More is greedy and also a hypocrite. Bonvisi is like “.......how is everybody’s herring.”

On the way out, Bonvisi dishes out some friendly advice about Wolsey: “Leave him now.” 

Cut to the past, but less, “eighteen months before Wolsey’s fall,” the Holy Roman Empire is rampaging everywhere and has taken the pope prisoner. 

Wolsey is pumped because he has a plan: while the pope is not home he’ll convene all the cardinals in France and, in the course of being the interim government of the Catholic Church, slap a quick annulment on Henry. They talk a little bit about Anne Boleyn. Wolsey glibly Underestimates Her. His downfall has begun!

Home. Crom’s wife urges him to visit his father. His youngest daughter wanders in, wearing angel wings made out of peacock feathers. Just like the pictures she was looking at in that bible a bunch of scenes ago! The peacock, of course, is a common symbol of immortality but I’m sure this is not foreboding. Bedtime. Grace knocks on the door, claiming that she’s too warm. She’s still wearing her peacock angel wings. Crom sends her off, watching her wander down the hallway in her angel wings, you know, normal non-foreboding stuff. 

A scary part: Cromwell is off to work, chatting with his wife who’s still in bed. He takes off down the stairs, and then catches a glimpse of her on the landing. He turns around to tell her to go back to bed, but she’s.... not there. He looks everywhere, freaked out. It’s worth noting that he gallumphed and creaked down his old-ass stairs, and she didn’t make a sound.

He heads off anyway, to a quick Secret Protestant meeting where he warns everybody about Thomas More.

Then he heads home. It’s still light. His servants meet him at the door; his wife is dead. Cromwell sits tearfully on her bed. Someone rushes in to tell them that his daughters are dying too, and then they kind of...do. After that it’s still just the middle of the day so Cromwell is stuck looking at his garden. 

New day. Wolsey’s plan for a conclave didn’t work. Wolsey has a new plan: a papal envoy authorized to rule in the pope’s staid. His confidence in the plan seems a little manic; Cromwell is clearly bummed out that his whole family died.

He wanders over to a blacksmith, and has a flashback to his own childhood of having the bejeezus kicked out of him by his father (a blacksmith). And oh shit, it IS his father! He’s still a blacksmith and still mean. Like a real dick. Cromwell had been holding a hammer when he walked up; he puts it down. Cute horse, though. 

Next day he formally adopts his nephew. Apparently he has some other son wandering around somewhere but I assume we’ll get to him later. So, recap of remaining live Cromwells: Cromwell, Richard Cromwell (former nephew), Gregory Cromwell (off-screen), Unnamed Father Cromwell, Unnamed Sister Cromwell. 

And now for the legatine court! Queen Catherine testifies, and since it’s like, a matter of historical record every Queen Catherine in all of television (as well as the Shakespeare play) says the same words, “I was a true maid, without touch of man, and whether this is true or no, I put to your conscience.” 

King Henry blinks. Then they do the rest of the stuff, some crusty old guy tells the “last night I was in Spain” story, the crowd is weird, Cromwell looks grossed out. In the hallway, the Iron Bank of Braavos guy delivers news that the Pope has signed a treaty with the Holy Roman Empire so Wolsey is complete toast.

1529 again. Wolsey totters around in his garden looking pathetic. Cromwell off to visit Anne Boleyn. Mark Smeaton is there, and he’s still a dick. He’s not even playing his lute, just standing around like a dud. 

Anne is yelling at a curly little pup who runs to greet Cromwell. He scoops it up. She tries to snob him and he just stares back. She calls him “Cremuel” for like, reasons of her own. He argues that Wolsey is the only person who can get Henry an annulment. She thinks about it and decides she still hates Wolsey. Her sister, Mary, catches Cromwell on the way out and they talk a little good-natured shit about Anne. In fact all of her ladies are giving him sympathetic looks. He determines that things are grim for Wolsey, and that he needs to do more to speak up for him. 

He goes to talk with Norfolk, who tells him his chances of getting back in Parliament are not great, and talks more about Cromwell’s Humble Origins like, we get it. They have one of those weird, friendly conversations about how they don’t like each other that only men over the age of 40 in period television can have. It’s like they’re too genre-savvy to cooperate, the scoundrels!

Audience with Henry time! Henry’s still mad that Crom voted against war with France, and wants to yell about that. So he does! They talk a little bit about war with France and under what circumstances it could be a little cheaper. Then Henry’s like, “Master Cromwell, your reputation is bad,” and Cromwell is like shruggo. Henry asks why he won’t defend himself, and Cromwell’s like, “your majesty can form your own opinions” which is just exactly what Henry likes to hear. “I will,” he says. 

Cromwell comes back to Wolsey’s old apartment or whatever at court and has the painting guys paint in his coat of arms brighter. The end! Damn??