Why is it called Bring Up the Bodies?
Christopher Pierce
Updated on April 21, 2026
The title of Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies, we learn late in the narrative, is a legal phrase, the command to court officials instructing them to deliver to their trial men who, because they are accused of treason, are regarded as already dead: “The order goes to the Tower, ‘Bring up the bodies.
What is the story Bring Up the Bodies?
Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy.
Where does bring up the bodies end?
The book concludes in the late summer of 1535, with Cromwell, the king and his attendants stopping off at Wolf Hall in Wiltshire, the seat of the family of Jane Seymour, ‘a plain young woman with a silvery pallor, a habit of silence, and a trick of looking at men as if they represent an unpleasant surprise’.
What happens in Wolf Hall?
Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, Wolf Hall is a sympathetic fictionalised biography documenting the rapid rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII through to the death of Sir Thomas More. The novel won both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
What is the sequel to bring up the bodies?
The Mirror and the Light
Bring Up the Bodies/Followed by
Do you have to read Wolf Hall before bring up the bodies?
In answer to what will surely be everyone’s first question about Ms. Mantel’s “Bring Up the Bodies”: Yes, you can read it cold. Knowledge of “Wolf Hall” is not a prerequisite to appreciating what “Bring Up the Bodies” describes, because Ms. Mantel sets up her new book so gracefully.
Was Wolf Hall a real place?
Coordinates:51.355°N 1.654°W Wulfhall or Wolfhall is an early 17th-century manor house in Burbage, Wiltshire, England. A previous manor house on the same site, in the parish of Great Bedwyn, was the seat of the Seymour family, a member of which, Jane Seymour, was queen to King Henry VIII.
What is bring up the bodies?
Bring Up the Bodies is the second part of my trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII. I have been interested in Cromwell for years, and wanted to get beyond the negative portrayal of him in popular history and fiction.
Is bring up the bodies based on a true story?
Published in 2012, Bring Up The Bodies is a historical fiction novel by Hilary Mantel. The second book in Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy, it’s based on the true events of Henry the VIII, King of England, as he tries to divorce his wife, Anne Boleyn (which was illegal at the time), in order to marry Jane Seymour.
Is bring up the bodies by Hilary Mantel a good book?
“ Bring Up the Bodies isn’t just her boldest book; it’s also her best — and it reaffirms Mantel’s reputation as one of England’s greatest living novelists.” ―NPR “Hilary Mantel made waves in 2009 with her Man Booker Prize-winning page-turner, Wolf Hall …The second in her planned trilogy, Bring Up the Bodies stalks Anne Boleyn and…
What happens to the body when a person drowns in water?
The bodies of the drowned sometimes surface on their own, but this depends on the qualities of the water. The putrefaction of flesh produces gases, primarily in the chest and gut, that inflate a corpse like a balloon. In warm, shallow water, decomposition works quickly, surfacing a corpse within two or three days.