The Mirror and the Light: crisis of sovereignty and national identity makes a rich stage for the present

After a gap of nine years, Wolf Hall returned to our screens this week with a second series based on the last of the late Hilary Mantel’s trilogy of historical novels, The Mirror and the Light. Almost a decade may have elapsed off screen, but on screen the continuation is seamless.

It is 1536, and England, we are told, “is in uproar”. Previously seen scenes of the brutal execution of Anne Boleyn (Claire Foy) are intercut with new images of Henry VIII (Damien Lewis), his expression hard and unmerciful, donning ceremonial robes for his marriage to Jane Seymour (Kate Phillips).

Historically, there was more than a week between the two events, but here we cut directly from Henry as he places the ring on the finger of his new bride, to the recovery of Anne’s bloody severed head by her ladies-in-waiting.

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A new challenge for the king’s adviser Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance) is to bring Henry’s defiant daughter Mary to heel, and thus stem the Catholic dissent that mobilises behind her claim to the throne. At one point Cromwell designs to persuade Mary with a letter from Margaret Pole (Harriet Walters), mother to Reginald Pole, a prominent Catholic and author of a treatise against the king (who would become the Archbishop of Canterbury two decades later under Mary’s rule).

“You are a snake, Cromwell,” Margaret declares, conceding to his instructions. “Oh no. A dog, madam,” he retorts. The distinction is telling, as her initial perception echoes a traditional historical interpretation of Cromwell’s character.

However, the Cromwell of Wolf Hall is neither slippery nor self-interested, but a principled servant to a capricious king, who has learned to strike before he is himself struck. The dog metaphor is returned to twice in the episode: first after Cromwell makes a potentially dangerous public admission that he had made a promise to “guard” Mary.

He recalls he was once dubbed the “butcher’s dog” which is fitting because “if you set me to guard something I’ll do it”. Shortly after, there is one of several scenes in which he is alone in his study, where little is visible in the candlelit gloom besides himself and the late Cardinal Wolsey (Jonathan Pryce), conjured by his imagination and a means to air his thoughts out loud.

It is the cardinal who reminds Cromwell that the “most important” quality of a dog is that it is “loyal and true”. Elsewhere, frequent flashbacks to a stage play – in which Wolsey is mocked – confirm that Cromwell is motivated, in part, to avenge his former master’s ill treatment.

Contemporary politics of period drama

The decision by director Peter Kosminsky to shoot such scenes by candlelight alone caused something of a stir for the previous series, as the reported cost of the candles was more than £20,000. However, the choice is indicative of the meticulous attention to period detail, and gives visible heft to the drama’s reimagined version of historical characters and events.

Equally distinctive is the pace and timing of performance – the confidence to sometimes allow the story be understood from what remains unsaid; to absorb the viewer into a world that is as slow and contemplative as it is perilous and violent. If it seems something of a rarity in contemporary television it is testament, perhaps, to how this steady linear storytelling works to offer deeper insight rather than, say, just distracting the viewer with wearily frequent shifts of time and place.

Of course, despite the continuity of on-screen events, a great deal has happened off-screen in the past nine years. For some time, the critical acclaim which greeted Wolf Hall allowed it to be presented as the epitome of public service value, and in 2016, both Rylance and Kosminsky used their BAFTA speeches to commend and defend the BBC.

Crucially, the same creative team has worked on the series’ return, including screenplay writer Peter Straughan and cinematographer Gavin Finney. However, it will have escaped no one’s notice that since the original we have entered a new phase of television in which multinational streaming platforms with deep pockets jostle for position using a somewhat different criteria of value.

Particularly galling for the BBC will have been the way services such as Netflix have poached its proprietary genres, sexing up and repurposing period costume drama as historically anomalous spectacle, a licence for bawdy romps under a thin veneer of restrained dialogue.

It is perhaps no surprise that in the past week, Wolf Hall’s executive producer Colin Callender has again commended the BBC for its commitment to creative production that resists the editorial decision-by-algorithm increasingly relied upon by newer providers.

In a wider political context, the past decade has also been eventful. One can hardly fail to read the post-Brexit resonance of a conversation between Cromwell and the French Ambassador, Chapuys, about the need for England to heal its breach with Europe, and the improbability that it will “undo all that we have done these last four years”.

Perhaps it is in part the crisis of sovereignty and forging of national identity during the Tudor period that makes it such a rich stage for the present. Needless to say, the course of history itself contains spoilers and a tragic trajectory for Cromwell is likely to unravel over the remaining episodes much as the first series followed the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn.

Cromwell’s situation is precarious, that much is clear, and he starts The Mirror and the Light with the king as his only powerful friend. As ever, interest will surely lie not in whether, but in how, the butcher’s dog will be undone.

Helen Piper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.