Time to make a long insensible plurk about Cromwell

also, name change and page title change

BECAUSE HE HAS CAKES.

"Who would not want to spend time in the company of a man who has cakes?"

WHO INDEED, MISTER CROMWELL.

And that is literally how his vast conspiracy against Anne Boleyn starts.

By offering people cake.

And as for the conspiracy, this IS how you write a conspiracy.

So much of the middle of the book is coaxing and manipulating people in a series of improbable conversations, but it never looks contrived

And thankfully there isn't any heavyhanded suggestion that Cromwell feels guilty about what he is doing,

but neither is he blithe about it, I should almost describe it as "nefariousness as responsibility"

The dark humor is just so good. "We locked him up with Christmas"

because holiday decorations were more effective at scaring a confession out of someone than torture

And then, as you're 70, 80% through with the book it becomes clear

so much of this was revenge for Wolsey's downfall, for the one person who was a father and mentor to him

that it's kind of gratifying and wrenching at the same time

Also "to have to do with someone" is the best euphemism for sex ever, it's just so droll