The Mirror & the Light
First published 2017 · English · 883 pages
- Novels
- Historical fiction
The final volume of the Cromwell trilogy, published in 2020 after the dates given here, picks up in the aftermath of Anne Boleyn's fall in Henry VIII's England. Thomas Cromwell is now powerful, wealthy and widely resented. He serves a king who grows more unpredictable, while religious change, foreign threats and old enemies press in around him. Mantel gives the period's politics and daily life rich detail, and draws Cromwell as a man shaped by memory, loss and ambition. It is a long, reflective novel about power, reputation and how fragile favour can be, bringing the trilogy to a considered close.
Quotes
Usually he is the soul of courtesy. But if you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?
Gregory,” Richard says, “what we want from you is less theology and more swagger.
I don’t have a history, only a past.
Blessed are the meek,” he says.“Yes, so they claim. I notice where it gets you.