The concluding novel in Hilary Mantel's Thomas Cromwell trilogy follows the blacksmith's son at the height of his power, in the years after Anne Boleyn's execution, as he serves Henry VIII through a fraught new royal marriage, religious upheaval, and the schemes of rival courtiers. Cromwell reshapes England's church and state while managing the king's volatile moods, the ambitions of old noble families, and his own accumulating enemies. As his influence and wealth grow, so does the danger surrounding him, and the novel traces his final years toward an inevitable reckoning.
Books mentioned in The Mirror and the Light (3)
New Tenures by Thomas Littleton: “I have set aside Linacre’s Grammars, but now I must look into Littleton’s New Tenures, and be educated in the law.”
The Way of Dying Well by Thomas Lupset: “Thomas Lupset, The Way of Dying Well.’ Lupset was tutor to the cardinal’s son.”
Magnificence by John Skelton: “The players are Collusion and Abusion, Folly and Mischief, and Magnificence himself, who proclaims: ‘I reign in my robes, I rule as me list, I drive down these dastards with a dint of my fist.’ But at length Magnificence is brought low. (Low confidence: the play's title is never stated outright in the passage — it's identified only via…”