Knit to This
Knit to This: Wolf Hall Returns
Dear Ann,
If you’re going to keep quoting Taylor Swift lyrics at me—and I sincerely hope that you are—you’re going to have to put up with me making pronouncements like, “I represent the King’s interest. That’s what I’m FOR.”
Wolf Hall, the British television series based on Hilary Mantel’s novels about Henry VIII’s ruthless minister Thomas Cromwell, has become a touchstone for me. The line about representing the King comes from him, or at least from Hilary Mantel’s brilliant imagining of him. Mark Rylance’s sympathetic yet spine-chilling interpretation of one of history’s baddest bad guys is so compelling that I can watch the first season, which was first released in 2015, over and over—and I have.
Here’s a favorite snippet of dialogue:
George Cavendish: I knelt by [Cardinal Wolsey’s] body, and I wept, and I prayed to God to send vengeance upon them all.
Cromwell: There’s no need to trouble God, George. I’ll take it in hand.
Whatever it is, Ann, I’ll take it in hand! It’s what I’m FOR.
My point here, and I do have one: the first season of Wolf Hall has returned to my PBS Passport streaming menu, and there is a thrilling reason for this. After nearly a decade, the second season of Wolf Hall is coming at last! Season 2, The Mirror and the Light, was just released in the UK, and it’s coming to Channel Thirteen, my local PBS station on March 23, 2025.
So far all PBS has given us is a paltry a 30-second preview, but I scrounged up a longer UK trailer on YouTube, which you can watch up top.
Wolf Hall is simply one of the best things you’ll ever see. To get ready for Season 2, go ahead and memorize entire scenes from the first season. It just gets better with repeated watching, and you’ll be all caught up with the story on March 23.
Prediction: in late March, our morning team Zooms will be peppered with advice like, “Have the axe in your hand.”
Love,
Kay
PS Further incentive: the handcrafted period costumes are extraordinary.
Yes! Can’t wait
You won’t be disappointed. x Kate UK.
Thank you for this! I feel totally energized: axe in hand. This could not come as inspiration moving forward.
Last sentence should read: This could not come at a better time for inspiration moving forward.
Mark Rylance is just amazing! After watching it again, we noticed how the cinematographer focused on faces, like painted portraits in a gallery. Beautiful acting, music and cinema.
The scene in season 1 where Holbein is painting his portrait gave me the shivers when I realized the cinematographer was showing us the portrait.
Also, re the lighting, it’s all daylight and candlelight! A brilliant choice, must have been such a challenging constraint.
The BBC spent £20 000 on getting the beeswax candles historically correct. Royals had the highest quality whitest wax.
If bee keepers take a very small proportion of the wax in the hive this does not have a negative impact on the bees.
Also it was funny that the Holbein character was such a sassy gossip.
Let’s talk about Wolf hall all day
That’s Rembrant lighting. Use it the next time you have a portrait taken! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rembrandt_lighting
Well, no spoilers, but I’m in the UK and I’m watching it now. It will not disappoint!
Wait, what?? You don’t have to wait until NEXT MARCH??
I’m packing my bags now. Well worth the price of airfare and a hotel…
The sound design is amazing in this show. At one point, Henry asks Cromwell to help him remove some arm wrappings, and you hear the silk fabric zizzing as it rubs against itself. There is only that and the rain in the background. Extraordinary.
I often think about that: how much our everyday lived soundscape has changed.
Not me resolving to start again with Episode 1 just to listen to all the sounds more carefully.
Gorgeous sets, fantastic actors and way too compressed to properly tell Hilary Mantel’s story. To get the most out of the show, read the books first. It makes so much more sense that way.
Oh I read them! I’m so sorry she’s gone.
This is such welcome news! Had no idea more Cromwell was in my future. A little like doing the Titanic, however, for Tudorphiles. Things end poorly for moths that fly too close to the flame. Hasn’t anyone told RFK Jr. that?
I’ve always heard great things about it, so I recorded it to watch on a snowy day with some knitting on hand. Happy there is a second season to come!
I have never even of this show! The trailer was chilling! I cannot wait to watch it.
Excellent books as well.
It’s the little details that get to me: Cromwell posing for his portrait by Holbein, which is at The Frick (NYC) and placed directly looking at Holbein’s portrait of Thomas More…. see https://collections.frick.org/search/%22hans%20holbein%20the%20younger%22
Frock Flicks did a rundown of characters for “Mirror”:
https://frockflicks.com/wolf-hall-the-mirror-and-the-light-season-2-preview/
and yes, they are using The Tudor Tailor … excellent source for Henrician clothing.
And Mark Rylance is a patron of The School of Historical Dress in London … IYKYK.
Can’t wait. Wish I was on the other side of the pond … they get (almost) everything Masterpiece first.
The Frick has been closed for many months, it’s reopening in April thank goodness. I have stood in front of those two portraits many a time, and I will never forgive them for changing the audio guide for the Thomas More portrait, which once said, with regard to his velvet sleeve, “it makes the knees go weak!” You had to be there, perhaps, but it always makes me laugh to think of. It really does give you the vapors.
When Rylance did Twelfth Night and Richard III on Broadway some years back, if you arrived early you got to watch the actors putting on their period-correct costumes onstage. The plays were great but that was still my favorite part. So many ties to be tied! I think this was before the Wolf Hall series which puts it 10 years ago at least.
Oh joy! Here’s the audio guide about the painting:
https://www.frick.org/interact/hans_holbein_younger_sir_thomas_more?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAr7C6BhDRARIsAOUKifgsTZnVbS8FrgIebMS4eNBmQGRlXDI9Cl_uRfPuXFYqV8Q8AR0Y3YkaAqOwEALw_wcB
And here’s a wonderful (not from the Frick) video about Holbein’s portrait of Cromwell. There’s a surprise at the end!
https://youtu.be/5wWFfSa3uKs?si=rfpu0F_IkXM5ll3c
You sure you’re not an art/dress historian?
It’s that silly comment that ‘this sleeve should be illegal’ pertaining to the treatment of the velvet on the More most likely.
I miss The Frick. My favorite. Though when at the Breuer things looked different … and the Holbeins were placed w/o a fireplace between them. Can’t wait for it to reopen.
Rylance is an amazing actor. Sadly I only saw photos of his Twelfth Night I did though, see, The Tudor Tailor dress Queen Elizabeth.
Have to agree with you, Kay – and the tv series is almost as good as the Book!
They are two different things of course! I do not read much at the moment but I was riveted by those books. Highly recommend watching recordings of her interviews and lectures; she was a wonderful speaker also.
It’s fabulous, you have a treat in store. Episode 4 tonight, here in the UK!
But can you really knit with this??
I can’t tell if this is a joke based on yesterday’s Snippets or a coincidence, as we do occasionally get this question. As we said in Snippets, Knit to This is a concept that doesn’t always hold up in practice!
I do knit to Wolf Hall but then I’m a repeat viewer many times over, and I knit to practically everything.
Can’t wait either! Our PBS station is re-airing Wolf Hall. Part 6 tonite. I’ve read all the books too; another disappointed in the show, only that there’s not enough of it!
❤️❤️❤️! Heck, I even have time to read all the books . . . again. What a delight (murder, betrayal, and treachery notwithstanding) they are to read!
Well, we know how I spent my day.
Thank you, Kay! I saw the first season when it came out and loved it. After all this time, I really didn’t think there would be any more, which was so disappointing. This is great!
It is the whisperiest show. All I can hear is pss pss pss pss so it just sounds like someone is calling their cats all the time.
“A snake? No, Madam. A dog, and on your scent”
Especially good line for hunting new yarns….eager to see Wolf Hall, part 2 for more clever quotes to adopt.
So excited for Season 2
…but didn’t realize it had been 10 YEARS since S1
If you live in the US, download a free VPN (Google it) and choose to connect to the UK. You can then a watch it every Sunday after 3pm EST (or any time after that) on the BBC Iplayer.
I bounce between Scotland and the US and this has become my workaround for watching UK shows here.
I’m a tremendous fan of Mark Rylance. I’ve watched the first season so many times I can’t even say. The writing is perfect and the acting is brilliant. You will never be able to imagine anyone but Claire Foy as Ann Boleyn.
“Have an axe in your hand”, love it. Translate to modern times-be prepared for anything!
It’s always such a pleasure to find another history nerd! I’m currently watching Wolf Hall again, too, on my local PBS station. And knitting to it, too.