'Wolf Hall' Recap: Episode 3

Wolf Hall airs Sundays at 9:00 pm on WTTW is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes
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Thomas Cromwell has made himself a valued agent of King Henry VIII and his longed-for wife Anne Boleyn. Cromwell visits the King’s wife Katherine and their daughter Mary as he is working to pass a bill through Parliament that will make Henry, not the pope, the head of the church in England. Cromwell shows some kindness to Mary, while Katherine speaks against his bill. But she is on the way out; Henry is sending her to a new house, further away.

Cromwell’s sister-in-law Johane, with whom he has been having an affair, is also wary of the bill. She mentions a prophesying nun named Elizabeth Barton, who has said Henry won’t reign a year if he marries Anne. Johane also worries that Cromwell will be caught up in the arrests (and torture) Lord Chancellor Thomas More is making against heretics: Cromwell’s friend James Bainham has been arrested for disseminating the New Testament in English, but Cromwell is not worried. He continues to receive secret messages from Antwerp from the translator of the New Testament, William Tyndale. He’s disappointed that Tyndale won’t support Henry’s petition to divorce Katherine in order to marry Anne, as it would bring Tyndale a powerful ally in the English king.

More visits Cromwell to tell him that Bainham has recanted and been released. More warns Cromwell that he knows about his letters to Tyndale, and disagrees with his bill elevating Henry as head of the church.

But Cromwell wins out. After the bill has been passed – under Henry’s watchful eye in the House of Commons, so that he knows who voted for and against him – More resigns from his position as Lord Chancellor because he disagrees with it. Cromwell suggests a replacement for More to Anne, and also asks for a position as Keeper of the Jewel House for himself. Henry later grants it to him, thanks to Anne’s influence.

Cromwell has already expressed his interest in the post to Anne’s sister, Mary, who regularly reports on the intimate details of Anne and Henry’s relationship to Cromwell. Anne will not give herself to Henry until they are married, Mary says.

Cromwell is also friendly with Jane Seymour, another of Anne’s attendants. He has brought a gift for her – needlework patterns, wrapped in luscious blue silk – but learns that Jane has left Anne’s court. It was discovered that Jane’s father has been sleeping with her brother’s wife back at their estate, Wolf Hall. Anne takes Cromwell’s gift for Jane.

Cromwell may have romantic interest in Jane. He’s still getting over the death of his wife Liz, even accidentally calling Johane “Liz.” But Johane is married, and it would be illegal for her to marry her sister’s husband even if her own spouse died. (Hence why King Henry required special dispensation from the pope to marry Katherine, his brother’s widow.) Furthermore, Johane’s mother Mercy, who lives in Cromwell’s household, knows they are sleeping together. It must stop, Johane says.

Other improprieties are plaguing Anne. She summons Cromwell to an angry meeting of her family: the nobleman Harry Percy, whom Anne wanted to marry when she was younger, has told his wife that he and Anne did indeed marry in secret. Anne denies it, but Henry is furious. Cardinal Wolsey fixed things when this affair first arose years ago, but he’s dead now, so Cromwell is sent to deal with it.

He finds Percy in the back room of a pub and tells him that he knows all of Percy’s creditors and will have them call in their debts. Percy is almost out of money, and the King will take away his land and titles. Percy eventually relents and recants his claim.

Henry and the court head across the English channel to Calais to meet with King Francis of France, who has agreed to support Henry to the pope. The court stops at Canterbury on the way, where they encounter the prophet Elizabeth Barton. Henry laughs at her provocations until she mentions his mother; the Duke of Norfolk sends her away amidst a chorus of boos.

Cromwell follows her: he has heard she can locate souls in heaven, purgatory, or hell. He would like to know where the Cardinal is. It will require a generous donation, she and her monk minders tell him.

At Calais, Cromwell notices the King jealously watching Anne with the King of France and sends her uncle Norfolk to interrupt, to Anne’s annoyance. She and Henry argue loudly enough that evening for everyone to hear. But then Mary Boleyn appears and asks for a Bible: Anne and Henry will marry in secret then and there.

Cromwell walks the gardens that night and runs into Mary, who tells him that Anne will no longer resist Henry. Mary herself comes on to Cromwell, and he’s about to kiss her back when he hears a noise and draws a knife against an intruder. It’s another man, whom Mary was to liaise with – but she thought he wasn’t coming, and so chose Cromwell instead. Cromwell leaves and goes to bed – alone.

Back in England, Anne and Henry are married in a bigger ceremony. When she is crowned queen later, she is visibly pregnant. Cromwell visits her as she is resting in her chamber afterward in just a shift. She mentions that a rival family of claimants to the throne are plotting against her with the prophet Elizabeth Barton. But she will give Henry a son and end any schemes.

Jane Seymour runs to speak with Cromwell, and show off the sleeves she had made from the silk with which he wrapped her present – she has been bragging about them at Wolf Hall.

When Cromwell returns to his home, he finds a tapestry he had admired in one of the king’s houses there. The king has sent it to him as a gift: a woman in it reminds Cromwell of a woman he once loved in another country.

James Bainham cannot live with recanting his beliefs, and has gotten himself arrested again by reading out the English translation of a priest’s Latin during mass. Even without More as Lord Chancellor, Bainham will be burned. But he refuses Cromwell’s offer to sneak him out of prison. Cromwell even appeals to More himself to talk to Henry on behalf of Bainham – and to ask him if he has associated with Elizabeth Barton. More says he doesn’t believe in her. He also doesn’t believe in Anne; he refused to attend her coronation.

Anne goes into confinement as she is due to give birth. Bainham is burned at the stake.