‘But think, my lord. If you call a traitor everyone who has voiced a dislike of the king or his proceedings, who does that leave alive?’
‘Me,‘ he says. Henry and Cromwell. Cromwell and Henry….
‘He will not turn,’ he says. ‘Too much has been said and done in England. The king cannot resist change even if he would. Let me live another year or two, and I will make sure what we have done can never be undone, not by any power on earth. And even if Henry does turn, I will not turn. I will make good my cause in my own person. I am not too old to take a sword in my hand.’
The Mirror and the Light, 602
Fire, treason, and the like
Will make your dreams unkind
And the doubt within your mind
Sleeps quiet – there it lies, or does not lie
Silent in every man, to unwind
Only when his guards are all asleep
For though his soul be wide and deep
As lonely seas, yet he thinks,
And while he thinks, there lies treason,
Tranquil at the bottom of his mind.
If Henry is the mirror, he is the pale actor who sheds no lustre of his own, but spins in a reflected light. If the light moves he is gone.
The Mirror and the Light, 617
Make the king’s countenance
The sun itself, the mirror and the light
In which he stands, full majesty
Embroidered and aflame:
Have him stand
To terrify, amaze, astound, known to himself
And you alone; yet not so,
He does not know himself
And casts his eye here, there, and all about:
The light and mirror are not one but two; he blinks –
The light has left, and you, an empty glass
Possess no heart, no form, no eyes,
And you are gone.
The Journal is a section where I post weekly poems responding to Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy. Here’s last week’s edition:
