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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Whom does Wolsey bid Cromwell retrieve?

2. As which of the following does the novel gloss “hywl”?

3. What is the name of the legate sent to assist Wolsey?

4. What title is conferred on the father of Anne Boleyn?

5. What kind of bird attracts Cromwell’s attention?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Cromwell insist on observing quarantine protocols despite his position?

2. How does Rafe explain Cromwell’s adherence to Wolsey?

3. Why do diplomats tend not to learn English in the novel?

4. How does Wolsey ease his servitors against his dispossession?

5. Why does Cromwell send red meat to Wolsey during Lent?

6. Why does Cromwell disclaim particular skill with the longbow?

7. How had Cromwell met his wife?

8. With what is Wolsey charged in court?

9. Why is Wolsey in doubt of his investigation into the King’s marriage to Katherine?

10. How do Clerke and Sumner die?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the ending of the novel. Does it satisfy? How or how not?

Essay Topic 2

Consider the comment “Try always, Wolsey says, to find out what people wear under their clothes. At an earlier stage in life this would have surprised [Thomas Cromwell]; he had thought that under their clothes people wore their skin” (83). What does Wolsey mean? What does Cromwell mean? What in the novel suggests as much, and how does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

To what other writer’s work in your experience does Mantel’s seem most similar? What makes the writers similar? What differentiates them? Overall, which do you regard as doing better at the craft of writing, and why?

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This section contains 494 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample