‘The Mirror & the Light’: Tracing the ruins of 16th-century England

Anne Boleyn, the Queen of England, has fallen. The executioner’s axe has done its job — cleanly, efficiently. Thomas Cromwell, who brought about the downfall, is now possibly the most powerful man in England after King Henry VIII.

The Mirror & the Light is British writer Hilary Mantel’s final book in the trilogy about English statesman Cromwell’s life and times. If Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012) — both winners of the Booker Prize — were riveting, this book is perhaps even better.

The events in The Mirror & the Light encompass just four years, 1536-40, during the reign of Henry VIII. It begins exactly where Mantel left off in Bring Up the Bodies — with Boleyn on the executioner’s block. It ends with another beheading — Cromwell’s own. Over four years, Cromwell rises ever higher in power and prestige. He is Lord Privy Seal, then he is baron, and then earl. He is by the king, doing whatever is required to seal the ways of a new England. This is the England that has broken off from the Catholic Church, where monasteries are being razed, and the spoils divided among the nobles.

Even as uprisings rage in the north, the matter of the king producing a male heir occupies everyone’s minds. Henry weds and loses two wives in this period, one to death after childbirth and the other to divorce. At the moment of Cromwell’s beheading, he is about to wed his fifth wife, Katherine Howard, which will end in yet another disaster.

The facts of history are well known. A quick Google search will yield plenty about this most fascinating and capricious of England’s monarchs as well as about the equally fascinating life of his chief minister, Cromwell, one of the most powerful proponents of the English Reformation in 16th-century UK. The mastery of Mantel’s writing lies in how she takes these facts and makes them so immediate, so tightly woven, that it feels almost like reading a thriller. Events are narrated in the present tense, as though we are sitting at Cromwell’s shoulder, watching as he nears closer and closer to his doom. The power that he thought would come to him following Boleyn’s death arrives, but it is not something he can relax in. His ordinary birth will forever pull him down in the rarefied world of kings and nobles. The people of the country are suspicious of him, as he has ended the old ways of saints and monks and abbeys. He is capable of witchcraft, they say. The nobles are frightened of his ambition, as are the ambassadors of Europe. Yet, Henry VIII turns to him time and again for counsel.

As we read Cromwell’s thoughts and hear his words, we access the deepest recesses of his mind. With supreme deftness, Mantel weaves the picture of an ageing Cromwell, one who knows he has to keep rising higher because the king can pull anyone down any time. He meets the various women who are pivotal to the king’s story, and deals with them with compassion and pragmatism.

In Mantel’s description, Cromwell is a man who recognises the value of power and information. He hungers for these. But he is also someone who uses them to protect those who need it. He unites Henry’s estranged daughter Mary with her father. He finds ways to stay the execution of those accused of treason, if he feels that is needed. He is ruthless as well as a realist. As the novel winds its way towards the ending, stories from Cromwell’s past pile up. His abusive father, Walter; the first murder he had committed; his daughters who are dead; his dead master Wosley, who appears to him again and again... all wander through the pages. Mantel not only draws every thread in this book to a close, she brings in all that happened in the previous titles as well, and so the trilogy sits firmly interlaced as a tapestry.

The Mirror & the Light is a masterwork of historical fiction. Events from 500 years ago appear as immediate and urgent as anything happening today. We know what happens to the people who live in its pages, yet they are alive in all their luminescence. The past has not gone anywhere — it lives, breathes, and throws its light on the world of today. Where Bring Up the Bodies hurtled on, witty and sparkling, its sequel is reflective, taking its time to unfurl the lives that inhabit it. And when it ends, one is returned to the chaotic, upside-down world of today, thinking pensively about the pursuit of power, the costs it wreaks and the many ways in which we meet our ends.

At well over 800 pages, this book is good exercise for the wrist and the mind, and perfect company in times of social distancing. And as The Guardian has noted, the Booker Prize jury for the year can safely take the time off — we know whom we are betting on.

Sudeshna Shome Ghosh is a Bengaluru-based editor

COMMENT NOW