The cardinal A novel of love and power

Born an innkeeper's son, Thomas Wolsey rose spectacularly to become a Catholic cardinal and Henry VIII's principal advisor. Weir's (The Passionate Tudor, 2024) newest biographical novel departs from royal protagonists to present an intimate, adroitly multifaceted portrait of the man (here called Tom) who devoted many years to serving Henry's interests but whose failure to engineer the annulment of Henry's first marriage caused his disgrace. Reliably meticulous, Weir takes readers through Tom's growing influence, showing how his ambitions led him to the priesthood and how his acumen with foreign policy made him indispensable to Henry while igniting the nobility's resentment. She dexterously interweaves the political and personal, like Tom's love for his mistress, Joan Larke, which he hates keeping secret, and his close, paternal friendship with Henry. Through Weir's controlled storytelling, readers' sympathy for Tom fluctuates throughout; one admires his administrative brilliance while cringing at his astonishing accumulation of riches, which he feels he deserves. Weir plows familiar ground with Henry's split from Katherine of Aragon, but seeing it from Tom's viewpoint provides additional insights.

Weir (the Six Tudor Queens series) delivers an insightful tale of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey's rise to power, his friendship with Henry VIII, and the ways in which both men's lives are complicated by their love affairs. Wolsey, the son of a butcher, enters the priesthood after attending Oxford. In 1509, he's tapped to become a member of the Tudor Court's Privy Council under Henry, all while maintaining a secret affair with Joan, the sister of a fellow priest. Wolsey quickly establishes himself as Henry's trusted adviser, eventually earning the title of lord chancellor. While reveling in the king's trust and representing him in dealings with the French monarch, Wolsey becomes the target of nobles who resent his influence over Henry. The tension boils over after the king becomes enamored of Anne Boleyn and Wolsey tries and fails to obtain an annulment of Henry's marriage to Katherine of Aragon, leading to charges of treason against Wolsey. The prose can be clumsy (Wolsey is seen "resolutely quelling his teeming thoughts"), but Weir capably dramatizes the cleric's desperate quest to remain in the king's favor, even as he yearns for a "parallel life" in which he could live openly with Joan. It's an immersive tale of Tudor intrigue. (May)