The Royal Shakespeare Company production Wolf Hall Parts 1 & 2, adapted from Hilary Mantel’s historical novels about Thomas Cromwell and life in the court of King Henry VIII, is a fast-paced epic drama that moves through a variety of locations — some of which can still be visited today.
First, there is the River Thames, the main artery for transport in 16th century London. The Thames is still a tangible presence in the city, although its banks are now transformed by modern construction and it is much more narrow and fast-flowing than it was during the Tudor era. Several characters in the play will take the journey along this river to meet their death at the Tower of London. Then visit Hampton Court and the Tower of London, and with a little imagination you can step right back into the world of King Henry and his court.
Some other key locations in the story, however, survive in name only. At Austin Friars, Cromwell’s London home, all you find today is a collection of modern office towers. Cardinal Wolsey’s York Palace, which became White Hall after it was commandeered by King Henry, is completely destroyed. In its place is Whitehall, a major road with a string of British government administration buildings. However, by appointment only, a privileged visitor could gain access to the basement of the Ministry of Defense to view “Henry VIII’s wine cellar,” an actual remnant of the original York Palace.
Hampton Court Palace
It takes less than one hour by train to get to Hampton Court Palace from Central London. In the summer, you can also get there by boat (which takes about four hours) — the mode of transport for Cromwell and others when they were summoned to the presence of the King Henry. This palace, too, once belonged to Cardinal Wolsey; when the powerful prelate fell out of favor with the King — because he failed to secure an annulment for Henry’s first marriage — Wolsey tried (unsuccessfully) to appease the angry monarch by gifting his luxury home to the King.
The Great Hall is still decorated with Henry’s prized Flemish tapestries and is laid out as it might have been in Henry’s day. When Anne Boleyn fell out of favor and was executed, Henry had the intertwined initials “H&A” hastily erased from the wood paneling, replacing them with Jane Seymour’s insignia. But you can still find the spot where Anne’s symbol escaped obliteration and remains visible for posterity.
Hampton Court was rebuilt many times by different monarchs, but when you walk through the area referred to as Henry VIII’s Apartments, you see surviving pieces of the original Tudor architecture and decoration. The ceilings of the Great Watching Chamber are adorned with Henry’s and Jane’s coats of arms, and the tapestries on the walls are all original. The Council Chamber is arranged to give visitors a sense of what it would have looked like when Henry met with his Privy Council in that very room. One can also visit the Chapel Royal to gaze at the stunning blue and gold ceiling. When Jane Seymour died after giving birth to a much-longed-for son, she lay here in state; later, on Henry’s orders, her viscera were buried under the altar.
The Tower of London
At various points in English history, the Tower of London, located on the north bank of the River Thames in Central London, has served as a royal residence, armory, treasury, and sanctuary. Its notorious reputation as a prison and place of execution grew as King Henry VIII’s reign became more tyrannical; the Tower looms forbiddingly over the political, religious, and personal drama enacted in Wolf Hall. Currently, visitors are not allowed access to the Bell Tower, where Sir Thomas More was kept incarcerated until his execution in 1535, but you can visit Beauchamp Tower, where other Tudor-period prisoners of conscience scratched graffiti and poetry on the walls as they awaited their inevitable fates.
The Line of Kings Exhibit, Tower of London In happier years (c. 1515), before the events in Wolf Hall take place, the young King Henry was much enamored of his first wife, Katherine of Aragon; he even had engraved into the hem of this silver armor skirt the initials “H&K” intertwined with a love knot. But their marriage of nearly 24 years was annulled in 1533 to make way for Anne Boleyn. This splendid suit of armor, along with other sets belonging to an older and more portly Henry, form part of the Line of Kings collection of arms and armors in the Tower. Here you will also find a carved wooden head of the much-married king, commissioned in the 17th century as a prop for one of the armor displays.
Traitor’s Gate and the Tower Green Memorial
The so-called Traitor’s Gate is a water gate built in the 13th century to provide access to the Tower from the river. The wooden framing above the archway was built during the renovations made in preparation for Anne Boleyn’s coronation as King Henry’s second wife. She spent the night before her coronation in the Queen’s Lodgings at the Tower, leaving the fortress in ceremonial procession to Westminster Abbey, where she was crowned in June 1533. A mere three years later, on May 2, 1536, the 29-year-old Queen Anne, accused of treason, adultery, and incest, was brought back to the Tower, is it claimed, through this very gate. She was beheaded by sword within the Tower walls on May 19.
Most condemned prisoners were executed on the plain outside the Tower; Boleyn was among a privileged few who were spared the public spectacle. A memorial by artist Brian Catling — a sculpted glass pillow atop a circular glass engraved with the names of the dead (including Queen Anne Boleyn) — marks the vicinity of the execution site in Tower Green.
Portraits of Sir Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, The Frick Collection, New York — courtesy of The Frick Collection
Back in New York City, you can meet two key players of Wolf Hall at the Frick Collection, located at Fifth Avenue and 70th Street — some 20 blocks north and east of the Winter Garden Theatre, where the epic drama unfolds every night. Here, in the Living Hall of the century-old palatial residence that business tycoon Henry Clay Frick built for himself and his stupendous art collection, the arch enemies Sir Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell stare out at each other across a great fireplace. Both portraits are the work of German painter and printmaker Hans Holbein the Younger.
Copies of Holbein’s portraits, very popular with the elite families of Henry’s day, can be found in art museums around the world. In many instances the copies were made by the master himself or by his own studio. The Frick Collection’s portrait of More is not only the finest example in existence, it is a confirmed original. It is tempting to believe that this is the very portrait that a furious Anne Boleyn allegedly flung out a window of Hampton Court Palace, but the evidence to link this particular painting to King Henry’s own collection is based on hearsay. Although the Cromwell portrait has lost some of its luster due to cleaning, this painting too carries Holbein’s autograph, and is an older version of the copy that currently hangs at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
In Wolf Hall, Cromwell astutely notes — while forcing a noble to alter his testimony — “the past changes all the time.” When Frick decided to pair these two portraits in his living room, More was universally regarded as the saint who was ruthlessly brought down by a malevolent Cromwell. Mantel’s view of More is far less reverential than that which endured through the centuries, and Cromwell is the man for a modern age.
Privacy Policy
Last updated and effective as of January 14, 2019
Introduction and Your Acceptance of These Terms
Broadway Direct ("Us", "We", "Our") knows that your personal information is very important to you, and We respect your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how your personal information is collected, used, and protected and the choices available to you with respect to Our handling of your data. This Policy applies to all visitors to Broadway Direct.com, Our mobile services, services available via telephone, and those transactions that take place in person, by postal or electronic mail. (Collectively, the "Site"), including ticket sales, comments on articles, and any information provided to Us.. By visiting this website, you consent and agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy and to the collection, use and storage of your information by Us. From time to time, We may change this Privacy Policy. When We do, the “Last Updated” line above will be revised. You are responsible for regularly reviewing this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this Site following the posting of a changed Privacy Policy indicates your acceptance of the changes. Unless We provide you with specific notice, no changes to Our Privacy Policy will apply retroactively. Please also refer to our Terms of Use and Lottery Terms & Conditions. If you require any more information or have any questions about Our privacy policy, please feel free to contact Us by email at [email protected].
Information We Collect
Information we collect directly from you: Your provision of your personal information to Us is completely voluntary; it is not a statutory or contractual requirement. Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”) is information that is uniquely identifiable to you, such as your name, address, email address, phone number, credit card number and other personal information that is not otherwise publicly available. Certain features of Our website may require that you provide Us with your personal information, including:
Contests/Sweepstakes
Surveys
Newsletter Sign-Up
Mobile Alert Sign-Up (SMS)
Contact Us (email)
Public forums (e.g. message boards)
E-commerce (ticket purchases)
To use these features, We may require you to provide your email address, mobile number, name and/or address and certain demographic information. When you give Us PII to use the features above, you expressly consent to Our collection, storage, use and disclosure of this information as described in this Privacy Policy. We may use your personal information to communicate with you about:
Your use of any of the features above;
New content on Our website;
New contests;
Prize information;
News that We think may interest you about Us;
Responses to your questions/comments to us; and
Information relating to a ticket purchase.
We may use your demographic information for in house statistics, advertising and marketing target information. Our processing of your personal information is necessary for the performance and fulfillment of the contract between us and to provide you with Our services. We will also process, transfer, disclose and preserve personal information when We have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary, to resolve disputes, enforce our agreements and otherwise required by law. You can always opt-out of receiving future promotional communications from Us; see the Choice/Opt-out section below.Information We Collect Automatically: Even if you don’t use any of the features above, when you visit Our website, We may collect certain information about you.
From your Browser. For example, Our servers keep an activity log that tracks all visitors to the website. The information in the activity log does not identify you individually. The information collected may include among other data: your IP address, your registered domain or home server, time of access, date of access, web page(s) visited, number of clicks, software crash reports, type of browser used, session identification number, search terms, search results, access times and referring website’s address. We use your IP address to help diagnose problems with Our server and to administer Our website. Your IP address is also used to gather broad demographic information, such as country of origin and geographic location. We use such data in the aggregate to run internal analyses to improve upon your experience on Our website.
Cookies. “Cookies” are small text files that are stored on your computer and record your preferences when you visit certain online pages. Our website uses cookies to track your use of the site and its features and links. If you provide Us with personal information, cookies may be linked to that information. We may use cookies to control the display of ads, to track usage patterns on the sites, to deliver editorial content, to record requests for subscriptions and to personalize information. Our cookies may contain PII and such cookies may be shared with others to the same extent indicated in below in the section regarding “Information Collected By/Shared With Third Parties”. We (or third party service providers on Our behalf) may also use cookies to collect aggregate information about web site users on an anonymous basis (“Anonymous Information”). We may share aggregate demographic and usage information with Our prospective and actual business partners, advertisers and other third parties for any business purpose.
You may occasionally get cookies from third parties with links on Our website. We do not control these cookies, and these cookies are not subject to Our Privacy Policy. You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but, if you prefer, you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies. Please note, if you chose to remove or reject cookies, this could affect the availability and functionality of Our Site. If you need help with this, contact Us at [email protected]. For more information on cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information provided by the Interactive Advertising Bureau at www.allaboutcookies.org.
Tracking Tags (also known as “web beacons,” “action tags” or “single-pixel gifs”). Our website may also use tracking tags. Tracking tags are invisible graphics embedded in the pages of Our website that are programmed to collect non-personal information about your use of Our website. Like cookies, tracking tags provide overall usage patterns for Our website that We use for analysis and to provide personalized services and advertising content.
We comply with the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising set forth by the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA). You can opt-out of targeted advertising from certain providers at www.aboutads.info/consumers.
How We Use Your Personal Information
The personal information We collect allows Us to keep you posted on updates to Broadway Direct. It also helps Us to improve Our services, content, and advertising. If you don’t want to be on Our email list, you can opt out anytime by clicking the “unsubscribe” button or sending an unsubscribe email to [email protected]. From time to time, We may use your personal information to send transactional emails, such as communications about purchases and changes to Our terms, conditions, and policies. Because this information is important to your interaction with Broadway Direct, you may not opt out of receiving these communications. We may also use personal information for internal purposes such as auditing, data analysis, and research to improve Broadway Direct’s services, and customer communications. If you enter into a sweepstakes, contest, or similar promotion We may use the information you provide to administer those programs.
Information Collected By/Shared With Third Parties
Other than as provided in this Privacy Policy, we do not share your personal information with third parties.
Advertising. We partner with advertising companies who may use information from cookies and the tracking tags they place on our website to provide you with targeted advertisements about goods and services that may be of interest to you based on your use of our website and to track the effectiveness of ads served to you. These advertising company partners may anonymously track your Internet usage across other websites in their networks beyond our website. Any information that these advertising companies collect via cookies and tracking tags is generally not personally identifiable (unless, for example, you provide personal information to them through an ad or email message). You are welcome to browse the site in private/incognito mode, which means cookies will not be activated and previous cookies will not be tracked. If you need help with this, contact us at [email protected]. If you would like more information about the use of cookies and tracking tags and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, see the Network Advertising Initiatives consumer Web site at http://www.networkadvertising.org/consumer/.
Ticketing Partners. Your information may be shared with our ticketing partners (i.e. Telecharge and Ticketmaster) in order to fulfill your transaction and send you updates, special offers, and other information via electronic messages. For more information on our ticketing partner’s data collection and use practices, please review the Ticketmaster privacy policy and/or the Telecharge privacy policy. You can withdraw your consent for any promotional or marketing messages at any time by clicking “unsubscribe” on any promotional or marketing e-mails you receive or by contacting us directly at [email protected] and requesting to be unsubscribed from Telecharge or Ticketmaster.
Third Parties Doing Work for Us. Third parties have no rights to use any data We have collected on your behalf. However, We may employ other companies or individuals to perform functions on Our behalf, such as sending postal mail, email, and text messages, conducting sweepstakes/contests, prize fulfillment and promotional activities, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, processing credit card payments and providing customer service. These outside suppliers, agents and vendors have access to your personal information only as needed to perform their functions.
Third Parties with Links from Our Website. From our website, you may be able to click on links to third party sites to buy tickets and merchandise and for other purposes. These third party sites may collect information, including personal information. We are not responsible for, nor do we have access to the information they collect. The collection of this information is governed by the privacy policies on the applicable third party sites.
Social Networking Services. Our website may integrate with social networking services. We do not control such services and are not liable for the manner in which they operate. While we may provide you with the ability to use such services in connection with our website, we are doing so merely as an accommodation and, like you, are relying upon those third party services to operate properly and fairly.
When necessary. We may also release personal information when we believe, in good faith, that such release is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of Ourselves, Our clients, Our users, or others. We may disclose personal information about you to law enforcement, other government officials, or other third parties, as We, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate, in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, or other activity that is illegal or may expose Us to legal liability.
Public Forums
Please be aware that when you disclose PII through the comment feature or message board on the Site, the information may become public and accessible to all or a part of the Site community, so it is important for you to exercise discretion and appropriate caution when deciding to reveal PII in these areas. In addition, when you choose to make a posting, certain PII may be available for other users to view. We urge you to exercise discretion and caution when deciding to disclose your PII, or any other information, on the Site. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE USE OF ANY PII YOU VOLUNTARILY DISCLOSE THROUGH THE SITE VIA THESE FORUMS AND OTHER INTERACTIVE FEATURES. Please note that We reserve the right, but have no obligation, to republish content posted (including any PII contained therein) as further set forth in Our Terms of Use.
Co-Branded Pages
We may enter into relationships with “powered by” partners, business partners, sponsors, and co-branded sites (referred to here as “co-branded pages”). These might include, for example, pages that share our name and that of another entity. There may be a specific privacy policy on any such co-branded page. Any personal information that you provide when signing up at any co-branded page may be collected by, or shared with, our third party partner. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, our third party partners’ use of your personal information. If you want to learn more about other entities’ privacy practices, please review the websites of those third parties.
Transactions With Third Party E-commerce Partners, Vendors and Advertisers
When you provide personal information to one of Our Site’s third party e-commerce partners, vendors or advertisers (i.e. Ticketmaster.com, Telecharge.com), this transaction will occur in connection with the site of the e-commerce partner, vendor or advertiser, not on the Site, and, as such, the personal information you provide is collected pursuant to and controlled by the privacy policy of such e-commerce partner, vendor or advertiser. Broadway Direct is not responsible for such parties’ privacy policies and We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the applicable privacy policy of the e-commerce site with which you transact business or to contact the operator of such site for more information.
Delivery of Advertising and Other Content
In addition to ads and content that We may serve you directly, We use third-party advertising companies and marketing services companies to serve ads and other content when you visit Broadway Direct and elsewhere on the internet and in other media. Both We and these companies may use information about your visits to Broadway Direct and elsewhere to serve ads and other content to you. In the course of doing so, a unique third-party cookie may be placed or recognized on your browser by such companies. In addition, We and these companies may use Web beacons to help manage Our online advertising and content. These Web beacons enable Us and the third-party companies to recognize a browser’s cookie when a browser visits this Site and to learn which banner ads bring users to our website and to serve you ads that you may find of interest elsewhere on the internet and in other media. Both Broadway Direct and these companies may use information obtained from your visits to Broadway Direct or other websites, and information received from you offline in order to provide advertisements about goods and services and other content of interest to you across the internet and in other media. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used in this manner by Our third party advertising companies, please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/optout_nonppii.asp and/or www.aboutads.info/choices. European users may opt out of receiving targeted advertising by visiting http://www.youronlinechoices.eu/. In addition, we may provide PII and Anonymous Information to marketing services companies. This may include information we received from you offline or online. These companies may combine information we provide (including PII and Anonymous Information) with personal and anonymous information they may have about you, using cookies they place or that We place on their behalf, as described in the section regarding “Cookies and Tracking Tags”. We require these companies to delete the PII we provide them. These companies may use the resulting non-personal information and such cookies for their own marketing purposes, and they may provide the same to their customers for their customer’s marketing purposes. Some of Our emails may contain tags that allow Us and Our advertisers and other partners to determine the types of content that may be of interest to you. Those tags may contain PII and may be shared with others to the same extent indicated in the section regarding “Cookies and Tracking Tags”. Those tags may not be deleted but you can opt out of receiving the emails.
Use of This Site by Children
The Site is not directed to individuals under the age of thirteen (13), and We request that such individuals do not provide personal information through the Site. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has provided Us with PII without the parent or guardian’s consent by, for example, misrepresenting his or her age, that parent or guardian should contact us at [email protected]. If Broadway Direct determines that it has collected personal information of children under the age of 13, Broadway Direct will immediately delete such information and any accounts believed to be held by children under 13. In addition, we may not collect or process information from a citizen of an EU member state under the age of sixteen (16) without such person’s parental consent. If you are a citizen of an EU member state under the age of 16, please tell your parents that you are using the Site and have your parents email Us at [email protected] so that We may delete any information We may have collected about you.
California Visitors
California Civil Code § 1798.83 permits California residents to request information about whether we have disclosed personal information to any third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes. California residents have the right to request in writing: (a) a list of the categories of Personal Information, such as name, email address and mailing address and the type of services provided to the customer that a business has disclosed to third parties (including affiliates that are separate legal entities) during the immediately preceding calendar year for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes and (b) the names and addresses of all such third parties. To make a request, please contact Us at the following email address: [email protected].
EU Visitors
If you are located within the European Union, you should be aware that your personal information will be transferred to the United States, the laws of which may be deemed by the European Union to have inadequate data protection. If you are located in a country outside the United States and voluntarily submit personal information to Us, you thereby consent to the general use of such information as provided in this privacy policy and to the transfer of that information to, and/or storage of that information in, the United States. We transfer Personal Information from the European Economic Area and Switzerland to the USA and other countries, some of which have not been determined by the European Commission to have an adequate level of data protection. Personal Information of EU residents will be transferred in compliance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).
Rights of EU Data Subjects
If you are a resident of the European Union, under the GDPR, European Union residents, as data subjects, have the following rights:
Right to access – This right allows individuals to obtain confirmation as to whether or not personal information concerning him or her is being processed and provide access to such personal information. It also allows individuals to request details of the processing of his or her personal information, including, without limitation, categories of recipients to whom the personal information have been or will be disclosed and purposes of processing.
Right to rectify – This right allows individuals to rectify any inaccurate personal information about him or her.
Right to restrict processing – This right allows individuals to block or suppress processing of personal data under certain circumstances.
Right to be forgotten – This right is also known as the “right to erasure”. It is an individual’s right to have personal data erased or to prevent processing in specific circumstances.
Right of data portability – This right allows individuals to move, copy or transfer personal data from one place to another in a secure manner without interrupting the integrity and usability of the information.
Right to object to processing – This right allows individuals to object to certain types of processing, including direct marketing, profiling and providing for purposes of scientific or historical research and statistics.
An EU resident has the right to access his or her personal data that We hold and to ask that their personal data be corrected or erased and to port their data. An EU resident may also have the right to object to, or request that We restrict certain processing or to withdraw consent previously provided. If you would like to exercise your rights under the GDPR, please contact us at [email protected]. If you are an EU resident and have a concern about our processing of your personal data that we are not able to resolve, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Authority where you reside. For contact details of your relevant local Data Protection Authority, please see http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/article29/item-detail.cfm?item_id=612080
Security of Your Personal Information
Broadway Direct employs reasonable security measures consistent with standard industry practice, for personal information collected through this Site, including physical, electronic and operational measures to maintain security and prevent unauthorized access. While Broadway Direct takes all appropriate steps to safeguard personal information under Our control, unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or method of storing data can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As such, We cannot guarantee that personal information supplied by users will not be accessed on Our servers, or intercepted while being transmitted to Us over the Internet. We assume no liability for any damages you may suffer as a result of interception, alteration or misuse of information during such transfers.
Retention
We will retain your information for as long as your account or inquiry is active and for a reasonable time thereafter in accordance with Our standard procedures or as necessary to comply with Our legal obligations, to resolve disputes, and to enforce Our agreements. Even if We delete some or all of your Personal Information, We may continue to retain and use aggregate or anonymous data previously collected and/or anonymize or aggregate your Personal Information. Please note that We will not be liable for disclosures of your data due to errors or unauthorized acts of third parties.
Choice/Opt Out
This Site provides users the opportunity to opt-out of receiving communications from Us, at any time, by email at [email protected], or by clicking the unsubscribe link in any email communication. The Site gives users the following options for removing their information from our database, to not receive future communications or to no longer receive our service, at any time.
Users can send mail to the following postal address: Broadway Direct 1501 Broadway 14th floor New York, NY 10036
Users can call the following telephone number: (800) 223-6715.
Users can opt-out of receiving future newsletter emails from Us by selecting the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our email. However, We are not responsible for removing your information from the lists of any third party who has previously been provided with your information or is collecting your information through their cookies. You have the right to withdraw your consent for Our processing for your personal information by contacting us at [email protected].
Correct/Update
This website gives users the following options for changing and modifying information previously provided, at any time.
Users can send mail to the following postal address: Broadway Direct 1501 Broadway 14th floor New York, NY 10036
Users can call the following telephone number: (800) 223-6715
Successors
In the event that We are, or any component of our operations is, merged with, or is acquired by, another entity, then any such successor or acquiring entity may become the successor to Our obligations with respect to the personal information that you have provided to Us, which would be necessary for the entity to effectively continue our business. By using this website, you consent to any transfer and use of such personal information by an entity assuming control of Our operations as a result of a merger, purchase of assets, or liquidation in bankruptcy or insolvency.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of this website, or your dealings with this website, you can send an email to [email protected]. Our data protection officer can also be contacted at [email protected].