Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall

WOLF Hall was the name of the Wiltshire home of the Seymour family.

WOLF HALL How King Henry VIII broke with Rome WOLF HALL: How King Henry VIII broke with Rome

Yet the Seymours, including Jane, third wife of Henry VIII, hardly feature in this 650-page book. The title is more a metaphor for the court of the Tudor king and the mentality of those surrounding him.

It has been 500 years since the coronation of the controversial monarch. As such, Britain is in the grip of Tudor fever, with an abundance of exhibitions, TV programmes and books on the subject. Centuries on the story of the tyrannical reformer is as riveting as ever.

Mantel’s novel – her 10th – is told from the wings. Her focus is familiar stuff: Henry’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon, his second marriage to Anne Boleyn and the profound impact his tangled love life had on the church. The main character is Thomas Cromwell, son of a brutal blacksmith and ancestor of the famous Oliver.

Henry has been married to Katherine for more than 20 years but still has no male heir. It falls to his chief adviser Cardinal Wolsey to negotiate the divorce that the Pope is refusing to grant. Wolsey’s failure to secure the annulment leads to his downfall and arrest. However, the fortunes of his trusted clerk Cromwell are on the rise.

The King admires Cromwell and invites him to join his inner circle. Cromwell is a man beset by grief – his wife and daughters have been killed by the plague – and yet he puts every aspect of his personal life aside to focus on Henry’s ambitions and machinations.

Dirty dealing and distrust characterise the court of King Henry. Cromwell is ruthless and manipulative but in Mantel’s version he is charming, too. He becomes Henry’s right-hand man and it is he who drafts the legislation formalising England’s break with Rome.

While advisers and clergy fall out of favour with the King, Cromwell’s position is strengthened. Ultimately his rise is also followed by a fall from grace but Mantel’s tale stops far short of this.

The prize-winning author has written a novel of staggering scope and detail. It is meticulously researched, with any gaps in the facts convincingly fictionalised.

But perhaps the scope is what makes Wolf Hall a little daunting. At the very start is a five-page list of characters. It is a star-studded cast of historical dignitaries but one that renders Wolf Hall rather unwieldy.

HarperCollins, £18.99

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