JANE SEYMOUR, his daughter, lady-in-waiting to both Henry’s queens.

BESS SEYMOUR, her sister, married to Sir Anthony Oughtred, Governor of Jersey: then widowed.

The Courtiers

CHARLES BRANDON, Duke of Suffolk: widower of Henry VIII’s sister Mary: a peer of limited intellect.

THOMAS WYATT, a gentleman of unlimited intellect: Cromwell’s friend: widely suspected of being a lover of Anne Boleyn.

HARRY PERCY, Earl of Northumberland: a sick and indebted young nobleman, once betrothed to Anne Boleyn.

FRANCIS BRYAN, ‘the Vicar of Hell’, related to both the Boleyns and the Seymours.

NICHOLAS CAREW, Master of the Horse: an enemy of the Boleyns.

WILLIAM FITZWILLIAM, Master Treasurer, also an enemy of the Boleyns.

HENRY NORRIS, known as ‘gentle Norris’, chief of the king’s privy chamber.

FRANCIS WESTON, a reckless and extravagant young gentleman.

WILLIAM BRERETON, a hard-nosed and quarrelsome older gentleman.

MARK SMEATON, a suspiciously well-dressed musician.

ELIZABETH, Lady Worcester, a lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn.

HANS HOLBEIN, painter.

The Clerics

THOMAS CRANMER, Archbishop of Canterbury: Cromwell’s friend.

STEPHEN GARDINER, Bishop of Winchester: Cromwell’s enemy.

RICHARD SAMPSON, legal adviser to the king in his matrimonial affairs.

The Officers of State

THOMAS WRIOTHESLEY, known as Call-Me-Risley, Clerk of the Signet.

RICHARD RICHE, Solicitor General.

THOMAS AUDLEY, Lord Chancellor.

The Ambassadors

EUSTACHE CHAPUYS, ambassador of Emperor Charles V.

JEAN DE DINTEVILLE, a French envoy.

The Reformers

HUMPHREY MONMOUTH, wealthy merchant, friend of Cromwell and evangelical sympathiser: patron of William Tyndale, the Bible translator, now in prison in the Low Countries.

ROBERT PACKINGTON: a merchant of similar sympathies.

STEPHEN VAUGHAN, a merchant at Antwerp, friend and agent of Cromwell.

The ‘Old Families’ with Claims to the Throne

MARGARET POLE, niece of King Edward IV, supporter of Katherine of Aragon and the princess Mary.

HENRY, Lord Montague, her son.

HENRY COURTENAY, Marquis of Exeter.

GERTRUDE, his ambitious wife.

At the Tower of London

SIR WILLIAM KINGSTON, the constable.

LADY KINGSTON, his wife.

EDMUND WALSINGHAM, his deputy.

LADY SHELTON, aunt of Anne Boleyn.

A French executioner.

Part One

I

Falcons

WILTSHIRE, SEPTEMBER 1535

His children are falling from the sky. He watches from horseback, acres of England stretching behind him; they drop, gilt-winged, each with a blood-filled gaze. Grace Cromwell hovers in thin air. She is silent when she takes her prey, silent as she glides to his fist. But the sounds she makes then, the rustle of feathers and the creak, the sigh and riffle of pinion, the small cluck-cluck from her throat, these are sounds of recognition, intimate, daughterly, almost disapproving. Her breast is gore-streaked and flesh clings to her claws.

Later, Henry will say, ‘Your girls flew well today.’ The hawk Anne Cromwell bounces on the glove of Rafe Sadler, who rides by the king in easy conversation. They are tired; the sun is declining, and they ride back to Wolf Hall with the reins slack on the necks of their mounts. Tomorrow his wife and two sisters will go out. These dead women, their bones long sunk in London clay, are now transmigrated. Weightless, they glide on the upper currents of the air. They pity no one. They answer to no one. Their lives are simple. When they look down they see nothing but their prey, and the borrowed plumes of the hunters: they see a flittering, flinching universe, a universe filled with their dinner.