Her former husband, King Henry VIII, marries his new bride Jane Seymour almost immediately.Īll this change has been engineered by Thomas Cromwell, a blacksmith's son turned lawyer turned politician, now Henry's right-hand man and the second-most-powerful man in England. Henry Holt and Co, 2020.Įngland changes in an instant with the beheading of Anne Boleyn: once a queen, now condemned as an adulterous traitor. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man's vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage.The following version of this book was used to create this guide: Mantel, Hilary.

With The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. But can a nation, or a person, shed the past like a skin? Do the dead continually unbury themselves? What will you do, the Spanish ambassador asks Cromwell, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him? Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry's regime to breaking point, Cromwell's robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. The blacksmith's son from Putney emerges from the spring's bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour.Ĭromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on he has no great family to back him, no private army. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. 'If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?'Įngland, May 1536. 'The Mirror & the Light lays down a marker for historical fiction that will set the standard for generations to come' Independent 'Mantel has taken us to the dark heart of history.and what a show' The Times

'Does it merit another Booker? Yes it does' Evening Standard

'A masterpiece that will keep yielding its riches, changing as its readers change, going forward with us into the future' Guardian The long-awaited sequel to Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, the stunning conclusion to Hilary Mantel's Man Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall trilogy.

Hilary mantel the mirror and the light