On the Mirror and the Light

I was immensely disappointed by the BBC’s adaptation of The Mirror and the Light. Soppy, melodramatic, Americanised, commercialised, inaccurate and worst of all - boring. Everything its predecessor Wolf Hall wasn’t - a contained, introspective, cutthroat, psycho-political thriller. Yet every cloud has silver linings, and the music was as good as ever, perhaps surpassing Wolf Hall’s. Its mixture of contemporaneous Tudor music and original soundtrack by Debbie Wiseman have inspired some internal reflections.

As you may know, the Mirror and the Light was written by historian Hilary Mantel as the last installment of her Wolf Hall trilogy, being published in 2020. I remember being intrigued by its title without knowing anything about the book. Time passed and I have learnt about the dramatic rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, the unlikely chief minister of Henry VIII, which Wolf Hall chronicles. But why the mysterious title for the last book? What exactly does ‘the mirror and the light’ mean?

There are many theories, but a few stand out. The most widely accepted is it refers to the king and his servant - Cromwell is the mirror and Henry is the light. One reflects, one projects. One lives in the shadows, while the other is the source of light. But how so? Why do these metaphors describe these men? I of all people asked ChatGPT for its insights and I was floored by its responses and it inspired some ideas of my own. Firstly, ChatGPT’s ideas in my own words:

• Henry is the light because he is the light of the world of the Tudor court. Just as the sun gives life to us all and is the centre of the solar system, Henry is the centre of the system of government. People live and die by his will, and his will alone. No light, no life.

• Cromwell is the mirror for many reasons.

  • He reflects the will of the king. He becomes Henry’s instrument for governing by means fair and foul. For all of Cromwell’s power and brilliance, he can only reshape the world as Henry wants it. A mirror cannot create light, but only reflect it.

  • Since mirrors cannot create light but only reflect it, they depend on the light. Cromwell depends on Henry. Cromwell’s power only emanated from the royal prerogative - his power was never his alone.

  • Cromwell reflects the age. The 1500s were a time of technological change and religious turmoil. It was a time where people looked to the ancients of Greece and Rome, yet carved out a new future. Cromwell reflects those contradictions of the age and the nation he governed - harkening back to the classics, yet modernising the law and reforming the Church.

AI can be frightening and awe-inspiring. These ideas led to some internal reflections of my own (pun not intended.)

• Henry is like the sun - it’s a source of light and life, but also of death. Those who don’t protect themselves from the sun get burnt. And those who fly too near the sun get destroyed. Everyone in Henry’s court fell, no matter how high they flew. Cardinal Wolsey, Sir Thomas More, Archbishop Cranmer, the Duke of Norfolk, Henry’s wives, his daughters and of course Cromwell.

• Other analogies for the mirror:

  • Cromwell is a reflective man, very much the opposite of Henry. Henry projects onto others, whereas Cromwell reflects upon himself. It was the secret of Cromwell’s power - he reflected upon his circumstances and adapted, whereas others’ lacked the strength to look into themselves and perished (Anne Boleyn for example.)

  • Cromwell is a mirror in another way too - he reflects others’ selves back upon them. He is the mirror people cannot bear to gaze into, because they see their own failings. It is no coincidence so many nobles and courtiers hated him. Cromwell’s rise from being a young runaway to lord of the land reminded them of their own shortcomings - their blue blood was not enough to draw Henry’s light.

• There’s something else - I believe the title reflects the complex relationship between king and minister. Mirrors and light interact with each other and can enhance each other. But sometimes it can make the light unbearable… after all, how much brighter does the sun seem reflected in a mirror? How could we see the dimmest lights in the night sky without the mirrors in our telescopes? How could we understand our appearance without reflections? The interplay between mirrors and lights is more intricate than it first seems, just like Henry and Cromwell. Their interplay unveils each others’ strengths and weaknesses too.

Whilst these reflections are interesting, they are more than mere ideas. They are insights into every person’s nature. People tend to become imbalanced in one way or another, and the wise take this into account - the term ‘mirror and light’ comes from a medieval ideal of kingship. The king was supposed to be:

“The mirror and light of all other men.”

The medieval sages thought the strong person is both a mirror and a light. One has to be a light unto the world yet be able to look back at themselves. It is an uneasy path to tread; after all, it is not easy to look into a light. Henry and Cromwell had their own inclinations towards one end or the other, just as we all do. I for example am more of a mirror than a light. I reflect rather than emanate, and often end up sawing whatever branch I am sitting on. Henry was a light who shone too brightly, a man who found it paralysing to look inwards. Cromwell was too much of a mirror - because he showed the world what it was. Mortal, corruptible, human. It destroyed him for that.

When the 4th marriage of King Henry VIII to Anne of Cleves failed to materialise due to Anne’s repugnance towards an aging Henry, Cromwell’s grip over the king vanished. After all, Cromwell had promised Henry she was eager to marry him. Cromwell’s enemies smelt blood and his fall was dramatic. When attending a meeting one morning, he was arrested by a bill of attainder - he was stripped of his garments and lost everything he’d ever worked for - his titles, his honours, his assets and his family. He was executed on Tower Hill on July 28th 1540, the same day Henry married his 5th wife Katherine Howard.

His reign never recovered from the incident. Not long after Cromwell’s death, the king reflected and lamented the loss of ‘the most faithful servant he’d ever had.’ The light was learning to be a mirror too late. Kierkegaard put it well hundreds of years later saying, “Life must be lived forwards, but understood backwards.” We too could be mindful of maintaining such a balance. We too need to be the mirror and the light.