It took eight years. Eight long years for Hilary Mantel to finish the final brick in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy. When The Mirror and the Light finally hit shelves in 2020, the world was a different place than when Wolf Hall first introduced us to the calculating, silk-stroking version of Henry VIII’s right-hand man. But the wait was worth it.
Honestly, most historical fiction feels like a costume drama where the actors are just modern people wearing uncomfortable hats. Mantel didn’t do that. She got inside the head of a man who was basically the architect of modern England, even if he ended up losing his own head in the process. This book isn't just a sequel. It’s a 900-page autopsy of power.
The Weight of Thomas Cromwell’s Final Days
We start exactly where Bring Up the Bodies left off. Anne Boleyn is dead. The sword has done its work. Cromwell is at the height of his powers, but you can feel the floor vibrating. It's shaky. He's the son of a blacksmith from Putney who has somehow become the Earl of Essex, yet he’s surrounded by "old blood" aristocrats who would love nothing more than to see him tripped up.
The title itself—The Mirror and the Light—comes from a quote about the King. Henry is the light; Cromwell is the mirror that reflects that light back to make the King look more glorious. But what happens when the mirror gets dusty? Or when the light turns into a scorching heat that burns everything it touches?
Henry VIII in this book isn't the caricature from the history books. He's not just the fat guy with the turkey leg. He’s dangerous. He’s a man-child with the power of life and death, grieving Jane Seymour one minute and demanding a new wife the next. Cromwell has to manage this. He has to balance the King's ego against the empty treasury and the looming threat of an invasion from Catholic Europe.
It's exhausting to read, in the best way possible. You feel Cromwell’s fatigue. He’s getting older. His memories are starting to bleed into his daily life. Mantel uses this stream-of-consciousness style that makes you feel like you're eavesdropping on his private thoughts. Sometimes he’s thinking about a treaty, and then suddenly he’s thinking about a dog he saw in Italy thirty years ago. That’s how real brains work.
Why Accuracy Matters (And Where Mantel Shines)
A lot of people think historical fiction is just "making stuff up." But Mantel spent years in the archives. When she describes the fabric of a doublet or the specific way a legal document was sealed, she’s pulling from the record. She doesn't invent drama where it isn't needed because the Tudor court was already a shark tank.
The Mirror and the Light covers the years 1536 to 1540. These were the years of the Pilgrimage of Grace, a massive rebellion in the north of England. People were pissed off about the monasteries being closed. Cromwell had to crush it. He did it with a mix of lies, diplomacy, and brutal force.
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You see the nuance here. Cromwell isn't a hero. He’s a bureaucrat who thinks he's doing the right thing for the country, even if it means destroying families and traditions. He’s trying to build a state that functions on merit rather than who your father was. In a way, he’s the first modern politician.
The tension comes from the Cleves marriage. The "Flanders Mare." Henry hated Anne of Cleves the moment he saw her. Cromwell had pushed for the match to secure an alliance with German Protestants. It was his biggest mistake. When the King is unhappy in the bedroom, someone usually dies.
The Slow Descent to Tower Hill
The last third of the book is a slow-motion car crash. You know it’s coming. We all know how it ends for Thomas Cromwell. But Mantel makes you hope, just for a second, that maybe he’ll slip away. Maybe he’ll find a way to outmaneuver the Duke of Norfolk one last time.
He doesn't.
The arrest scene is chaotic. It’s not a dignified affair. It’s a scuffle in a council chamber. The men who were laughing with him at dinner the night before are the ones tearing the Garter from his leg. It’s petty. It’s human.
One thing most people get wrong about Cromwell's fall is that they think it was just about the Cleves marriage. It was more than that. It was about religion, it was about class, and it was about a King who was tired of being told what to do by a man he had raised from the gutter. Henry needed a scapegoat for his own failures, and Cromwell was the only one big enough to fit the bill.
The Legacy of the Trilogy
Since the final book came out, historians like Diarmaid MacCulloch—who wrote the definitive biography Thomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life—have noted how Mantel changed the public's perception of the man. Before Wolf Hall, he was the villain in A Man for All Seasons. He was the dry, cruel foil to the "saintly" Thomas More.
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Mantel flipped the script.
She showed that More was a zealot who burned people for their beliefs, while Cromwell was a pragmatist who just wanted the law to work. The Mirror and the Light cements this version of history. It makes us question who writes the stories we believe.
The prose is dense. You can't skim it. If you miss a sentence, you might miss a subtle insult that leads to a character's execution 200 pages later. It’s a masterclass in "show, don’t tell." Instead of saying Cromwell is scared, she describes the way his hands feel against the cold stone of the Tower.
Actionable Insights for Readers and Writers
If you’re looking to dive into The Mirror and the Light, or if you’ve finished it and feel that "book hangover," here is how to actually process a work of this magnitude:
- Read the MacCulloch biography alongside it. It’s a beast, but it helps you see where Mantel stayed true to the record and where she used her "novelist's license" to fill in the gaps of Cromwell's internal life.
- Watch the BBC adaptation, but wait. If you haven't seen the Wolf Hall series with Mark Rylance, do it. But finish the book first. Rylance is incredible, but Mantel’s internal monologue for Cromwell is something a camera just can't catch.
- Pay attention to the "He" problem. Mantel famously uses the pronoun "He" to refer to Cromwell, often without naming him. It can be confusing at first. Stick with it. It’s designed to make you see the world through his eyes—he is the center of his own universe, just as we are ours.
- Visit the sites. If you’re in London, go to the Tower. Stand on Tower Hill. Look at the Austin Friars area where his house once stood. Seeing the physical scale of Tudor London makes the political claustrophobia of the book feel much more real.
- Study the dialogue structure. For aspiring writers, Mantel is a gold mine. Notice how her characters rarely say exactly what they mean. In the Tudor court, saying what you meant got you killed. Subtext is everything.
The book ends with a heartbeat. Or the lack of one. It’s a visceral, sensory experience that stays with you long after you close the cover. It’s a reminder that power is a gift from the unstable, and mirrors eventually shatter.
To truly understand the impact of this work, look at the "Man Booker" history. Mantel won for the first two books. While she didn't take the hat-trick for the third, the consensus among critics is that The Mirror and the Light is the most ambitious of the three. It’s the one that takes the most risks with form and memory. It's a heavy lift, but it’s the kind of reading experience that actually changes the way you think about politics and personhood.
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If you want to explore the real-world locations mentioned in the text, start with a visit to the National Portrait Gallery in London once it reopens its Tudor galleries. Standing in front of the Hans Holbein portrait of Cromwell—the one where he looks like a "murderous' monk" according to some—is the final piece of the puzzle. You’ll see the man Mantel spent fifteen years resurrecting, and he’ll look right back at you.