Bring Up the Bodies

Bring Up the Bodies: author

Hilary Mantel was born in Derbyshire, England, in 1952. She was raised in a strict Catholic household. Despite losing her faith at age 12, she claimed to have always suffered from feelings of guilt resulting from her religious upbringing.

Mantel authored her first novel, Every Day is Mother's Day, in 1985. As Mantel continued to write, it became apparent that she had a flair for historical fiction. Two of her early historical novels, Fludd (1989) and A Place of Greater Safety (1992), received prestigious awards.

With the release of Mantel's Thomas Cromwell trilogy, Mantel's fame exploded. Each of the three novels—Wolf Hall (2009), Bring Up the Bodies, and The Mirror and the Light (2020)—received worldwide acclaim upon release. The first two novels in the trilogy received consecutive Booker Prizes. This made Mantel only the fourth person ever to win more than one.

In 2014 Mantel was awarded a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her services to literature. She passed away in 2022, aged 70 years old.

Bring Up the Bodies: book background

Bring Up the Bodies is based on the true story of Thomas Cromwell's rise and fall as Henry VIII's adviser. The novel is the second book in Mantel's trilogy. It tracks the period between the annulment of Henry VIII's marriage to Katherine of Aragon and the dramatic downfall and execution of Anne Boleyn.

Fig 1. Henry VIII (pictured above) was the King of England between 1509 and 1547. This portrait, painted by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8-1543), was created sometime after 1537.

The narrative is told from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's adviser.

Mantel takes a sympathetic approach to Cromwell and attempts to see the world as he may have.

The book follows the action of Wolf Hall and precedes the events of The Mirror and the Light.

Bring up the Bodies: characters

Each character in Bring Up the Bodies is based on a real person. Even the minor characters in the book were based on actual people that played a role in Henry VIII's Tudor courts during the early fifteenth century. Mantel attempted to see the period through their eyes and imagine how they would have thought, acted, and reacted to the world around them.

Bring Up the Bodies: synopsis

The novel opens at Wolf Hall, the home of the Seymour family in Wiltshire, where Henry VIII and his entourage are hunting. The King has grown infatuated with Jane Seymour, a lady-in-waiting at Wolf Hall. Henry's marriage to his second wife, Anne Boleyn, is beginning to falter. The couple regularly quarrels, and Henry is growing weary of Anne's shrewd intelligence and sharp tongue. Furthermore, Anne has so far failed to provide the King with his promised son, producing one daughter and suffering one miscarriage.

It quickly becomes evident to Cromwell that the King would like Jane as a mistress. However, plans of action are cut short when Anne announces she is pregnant for the third time; the power changes hands once again.

Cromwell is at the height of his power, and with that comes many enemies. Schemes are always being plotted against him, and he must be on his guard to ensure he is two steps ahead of all those who would happily have him executed. Unfortunately, Cromwell's relationship with Anne Boleyn is also decaying, likely because Anne is becoming warier of the power and influence he holds.

Fig 2. This 1532-33 painting depicts Thomas Cromwell. This is the closest reference available that shows how Cromwell may have looked when Mantel's trilogy was set.

After sustaining near-death injuries during a nasty fall in a jousting accident, Henry grows frustrated and unpredictable. His love for Jane Seymour continues to grow, and Henry tells Cromwell that he has had enough of Anne. Cromwell, ever the person to solve a problem, agrees to do the job.

Cromwell tries to arrange for divorce. The Boleyns are resilient, refusing Cromwell's attempts at negotiation and threatening him. Attempting a new approach, Cromwell talks to those who know Anne best and collects rumours that Anne has been unfaithful. When Mark Smeaton, a musician that Cromwell is hosting, proudly boasts of his affair with the queen, Cromwell knows he has what he needs. Smeaton (after one too many glasses of wine) gladly lists several other men who have had affairs with Anne.

Anne Boleyn is arrested and taken to the Tower of London. She is accused of sleeping with five men, including her own brother George Boleyn, and of plotting the death of the King. The men accused of sleeping with Anne are also arrested.

Even though Cromwell is not convinced any of the evidence is true, he reminds himself that the men helped take down his beloved mentor and friend, Cardinal Wolsey. The chance to bring the men down is enough for Cromwell to move forward with the plan. Anne Boleyn and all the accused men are executed, and Henry arranges to marry Jane Seymour. By again fixing the King's problems and arranging his third marriage, Cromwell's position as Henry's chief adviser is no longer in doubt.

Bring up the Bodies: analysis

As Bring Up the Bodies closely follows actual events, Mantel's stylistic choices are critical. Any reader who researches the fate of Thomas Cromwell can discover how Mantel's trilogy will end. There is no room for plot twists, so she must create entertainment and tension in other ways. Mantel accomplishes this with careful research and a distinctive literary style that gives her prose captivating urgency.

Genre

Bring Up the Bodies is a historical fiction novel:

Hilary Mantel's novels are grounded in truth. She is renowned for meticulously researching her novels to ensure they are accurate. It was important to her to understand Cromwell's actions without the benefit of hindsight offered to historians. Mantel wanted to immerse herself in the period and understand what led him to his decisions.

Point of view

One of the most challenging yet exciting elements of Bring Up the Bodies is its use of perspective. The narrative is told in the exceedingly rare third-person objective present tense.

Usually, third-person novels are either written with a limited or omniscient perspective. In a limited perspective, the reader has access to the thoughts of one character. In an omniscient perspective, the reader knows the thoughts and motives of multiple characters.

Mantel's narration is neither limited nor omniscient. Readers are in Thomas Cromwell's shoes, meaning they can only access information as Cromwell finds it. However, unlike with a first-person limited perspective, Mantel doesn't let the reader access Cromwell's inner thoughts. While the perspective follows Cromwell and observes his daily routine, it does not exist within his head.

Despite having no access to Cromwell's motives, readers still feel personally attached to him because they see the world through his eyes. The use of present tense makes the novel feel even more immediate, creating a sense of immersion, as though the reader is walking alongside Cromwell as he carries out his duties.

This narrative style serves a few critical functions:

• It allows Mantel to avoid making too many uninformed decisions about what the real Thomas Cromwell was thinking at a given moment.
• It adds mystery to the character. Thomas Cromwell is presented as astute, calculative, and uncompromising. If Mantel were to let the reader into his inner thoughts, it would ruin the enigma surrounding Cromwell's methods and tactics. A magician never reveals her tricks!
• It involves the readers in the present and makes them feel like the action is happening as they read it. They feel involved in Cromwell's actions and see the world precisely as he sees it.