A shameful episode in history - and not a word about the welfare of the British people

Halfway through "Wolf Hall" it does at last seem like the fog is lifting and the narrative line gets a little easier to follow: no new characters on the horizon, and the plot now begins to settle on its main themes. So I read through about 50 pages last night and actually understood everything going on, though Hilary Mantel never makes it easy for you - you have to reach out to the narrative rather than the other way around. The big flaw remains, however - what does the protagonist, Thomas Cromwell, really do to affect the course of history? He has a lot of conversations, but I don't see what sage advice and crafty legal skills he provides or applies. To an American reader, this era of British history has always seemed kind of insane - a whole continent in a dither about whether Henry VIII should be allowed to divorce (annul) and remarry? A big deal about a male heir? Obviously more to it, as we start to realize through this book, as it's about the king seizing for his control and power and treasury all the property of the church in England. It's a shameful episode - so much thought and energy into something that would not in any way improves the lives of the people of England. Nobody ever mentions them - it's all about selfish gratification and grandiosity. Parliament is a joke, basically hand-picked by the king. In its austere way, Wolf Hall makes no judgments, just portrays history in scene after scene. One scene stands out - the burning of a heretic at the stake, one of the few moments in the book when we viscerally experience the actual strangeness of the tie. The rest of the scenes, despite the 16th-century flourishes (Mantel did a ton of research it seems) feel like contemporary conversations, or perhaps more accurately like a teleplay for a BBC costume drama.