There have been more than 60 monarchs of England and Britain over the past 1,200 years or so, but the one people seem to really care about—at least based on viewing habits and the sheer amount of works about him—is Henry VIII: the glutton, the tyrant, the wife killer. In Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light, though, the bloodthirsty king’s story is overshadowed once again by that of his principal councillor, Thomas Cromwell. And it makes for six stunning hours of television.
A decade ago, critics and audiences alike fell hard for the Machiavellian masterpiece that was Wolf Hall. It carefully brought the first two tomes in Hilary Mantel’s award-winning trilogy to life in sumptuous detail, with the psychological and political thriller ending with the public execution of Claire Foy’s Anne Boleyn. Despite dropping so many years later, this second—and final—season (which aired on BBC One at the end of 2024) picks up immediately where things left off. Indeed, the late queen’s blood is still being sluiced from the block as her dangerously fickle husband (played by Damian Lewis) utters his wedding vows for the third time to Kate Phillips’ Jane Seymour.
These scenes of Henry are fleeting, of course, for it is Cromwell (portrayed once again by Mark Rylance) who co*mands attention and drives the story forward. Now Master Secretary and Lord Privy Seal, he has been richly rewarded for delivering Anne to the Calais swordsman’s blade and thus paving the way for Henry’s third marriage. But all of this power co*es at a cost.
For starters, he’s constantly being watched by a whole host of influential enemies, including Anne’s uncle, Thomas Howard (Timothy Spall), and the genuinely chilling Plantagenet heiress Margaret Pole (Succession’s Harriet Walter). A wedge has also been driven between Cromwell and his once-loyal ward Rafe Sadler (the eternally youthful Thomas Brodie-Sangster), who can’t help but question the bloody solution to the king’s second marriage. In fact, Cromwell has very few allies on the Privy Council but plenty of rivals, all of whom would love to see him fall so that they might rise up in his place. And, of course, he has his own warped moral co*pass to contend with, which drives him to “protect” Princess Mary (Lilit Lesser) as he forces her to break with the Catholic church. It co*pels him, too, to track down the illegitimate daughter of his late mentor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (Jonathan Pryce), to look overseas when hunting down a fourth wife for the king, and to push forward with his own controversial agenda for religious reform.
All the while, Henry beco*es increasingly unpredictable, forcing Cromwell to reflect upon his role as the “good dog” to an ever-monstrous king as he is haunted—sometimes literally—by the ghosts of those he betrayed in the past. In this way, the show deftly builds tension as we are dragged ever closer to (sorry for the 485-year-old spoiler) Cromwell’s eventual arrest and execution.
The performances are nearly perfect across the board here: Lewis gives us a unique take on the terrifying and gout-ridden king; Spall brings some much-needed levity to the series; Lesser swiftly sidesteps history’s biased view of Bloody Mary to offer up a deeply sympathetic character; Hannah Khalique-Brown might just break your heart as as Dorothea; Phillips conveys a wealth of emotion with every quiver of her lips; and the inco*parable Rylance delivers a truly nuanced, award-worthy performance.
But it’s not just the acting that makes this one tick. From the costumes to the scenery, the attention to detail is pretty outstanding throughout the show. And we can see all of the characters this time around, as the divisive lighting woes of season one (are candles atmospheric or ill-suited to the needs of modern television?) have been fixed. The soundtrack, too, is quite immersive, drawing us into the suffocating world of the Tudor court. And, despite the mammoth 10-year gap between seasons, they flow seamlessly into one another, which is no small feat considering the likes of the Duke of Norfolk had to be recast.
The only real issue with this season, perhaps, is that it has to condense nearly 800 pages of Mantel’s fiction into just six episodes. While the show certainly captures the essence of her work, one can’t help but wish there was more time to soak it all in and luxuriate just a bit longer before the axe falls.
Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light premieres March 23 on Masterpiece on PBS