Wolf Hall e la trilogia Tudor di Hilary Mantel

E non vedo l'ora di leggere di Anna di Cleves! Ho il sospetto che siccome è protestante sarà una superfiga intelligentissima con cui lui avrà fluenti conversazioni in tedesco su tutto lo scibile umano, ma in fondo al mio cuore spero che sia una tipa un po' awkward, un po' "deludente", così che lui inizi da solo a sentire il campanello d'allarme.

il matrimonio di Gregory con Bess Seymour

Non ecludo affatto che muoia prevedendo per filo e per segno il dissolvimento della Casa dei Tudor e la futura grandezza di Elisabetta

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“Mantel’s historical inaccuracy stems more from what she leaves out of her books rather than from what she puts in,” Clare Cherry, co-author of George Boleyn: Tudor Poet, Courtier & Diplomat observes. “By disingenuously leaving out certain facts and situations she is able to manipulate her version of history in order to meet the requirements of her narrative. For example, leaving out the fact that Cromwell praised George Boleyn’s ‘sense, wit and courage’ enables Mantel to portray George as a coward at his trial. There are many other examples of this, including conveniently overlooking the real reason for Anne’s fall out with Cromwell. To have Anne argue that the money from the dissolution of the monasteries should be used for charitable purposes would fly in the face of Mantel’s characterisation of Anne”.

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“Anne’s supporters hate anyone who says so, but it is possible that she did have affairs,” writes Mantel. “The allegations seem wildly implausible to us, but clearly did not seem so at the time. It is said that the details of the indictments do not stand up to scrutiny, that Anne could not have been where she was alleged to be on this date or that. But this misses the point. If Anne was not where everybody thought she was, that did not count in her favour. If she had risen from childbed to meet a lover, that showed her a monster of lust. It is the incest allegation that seems lurid overkill.”7

Ironically Mantel echoes Gregory’s widely denounced theory that it was “not unusual” for brothers and sisters who had not grown up together to be attracted to each other when they first met.”The 16th century did not invest incest with especial loathing. It was one of a range of sinful sexual choices. In the days when brothers and sisters seldom grew up together, genetic attraction no doubt occurred more frequently than it does in the nuclear family,” writes Mantel.8

The charges did, in fact, seem implausible at the time. Even the Imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys, who had taken to calling Anne Boleyn ‘The Concubine’ by 1536 denounced the charges as false9. The idea that the people of the 16th century did not invest incest with especial loathing is ridiculously incorrect and warrants no further discussion.
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Mary Boleyn

There was some rather strange complaints, from some, that Gregory’s Mary Boleyn was too saintly, too angelic. She was a virgin on her wedding night according to Gregory. Mary has also suffered from a few centuries of slander, mainly attributed to a single sentence written by Rodolfo Pio, Bishop of Faenza in 1536. Pio wrote that “the French king knew her here in France ‘per una grandissima ribalda et infame sopre tutte’ ” (“for a very great whore, and infamous above all”)19. There is absolutely no historical evidence that Mary Boleyn acquired an infamous reputation as a royal mistress or that she worked her way through the French court. Pio was biased against the Boleyns. He wrote the letter after Anne Boleyn’s miscarriage, and in the same letter he was speculating that Anne had never been pregnant at all. Pio writes that “that woman pretended to have miscarried of a son, not being really with child, and, to keep up the deceit, would allow no one to attend on her but her sister”,20 and then goes on to call Mary a whore. He is an extremely unreliable source and clearly an enthusiastic conspiracy theorist. Pio should be dismissed entirely. We are not even certain Mary was at court at this point. Thus Mary’s alleged infamy is attributed to this single sentence and her affair with King Henry VIII.

In fact, perhaps Hirst and Mantel have regressed with Mary Boleyn. While Gregory attempted to bring Mary out of the shadows and cast off the stigma of promiscuity that now dogs her memory, Hirst and Mantel were happy to stick with the centuries-old stereotype. “A jade like Mary, through so many hands you can’t find a stable lad who hasn’t had her” sneers Jane Boleyn in Bring up the Bodies. Hirst’s Mary Boleyn spends most of her brief screen time in one sexual position or another. Mary has sadly been reduced to a trope, the slutty loser of the family and the black sheep. Most historians dismiss her as a pleasant airhead. It was Gregory’s portrayal of Mary Boleyn that renewed interest in her, and if not for The Other Boleyn Girl she would have faded into obscurity altogether.

George Boleyn
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Historian Julia Fox, author of Jane Boleyn, The Infamous Lady Rochford discussed Jane and George’s marriage with us “It was probably much the same as many other Tudor marriages, few of which were love matches and most done for practical reasons. And she would not have held such a prominent place within Anne’s circle if George had loathed her. To suggest she’s an abused wife is fanciful, and unsupported by any evidence. I spent 3 years researching Jane and found nothing to even hint at anything of the kind. It was certainly never mooted when she was alive, nor after. Nor is there any direct evidence that George was homosexual – it was not remarked on at the time, and his execution speech confessing his heinous sins followed the usual, expected, indeed required, template for scaffold speeches. Both angles simply add extra spice to the legends. And once a legend starts it gathers more and more pace!”

And then where does Mantel, with her so-called meticulous research, get the idea that George was a fop, an abusive husband and a coward? This is a bigoted depiction based on unsubstantiated opinion. Hirst’s George Boleyn loathes his wife from the outset and beats her and rapes her on their wedding night. Mantel’s George smirks on almost every page he is mentioned, when he is not blustering and prancing. “He is always a sight to see: George likes his clothes braided and tasselled, stippled and striped and slashed”.

Even at his trial Mantel can not resist making a mockery of him. Mantel jeers that George “entertained the court by telling them that Henry was no good in bed”,22 in Bring up the Bodies she writes “George smiles in disdain. Relishing the moment, he smirks: he takes a breath; he reads the words aloud.” At the end of his trial he collapses and weeps, which would be perfectly understandable in his situation, yet in reality that is not what happened. Chapuys observed that:

“He answered so well that many who were present at the trial, and heard what he said, had no difficulty in waging two to one that he would be acquitted, the more so that no witnesses were called to give evidence against him or against her, as is customary in such cases, when the accused denies the charge brought against him.” 23

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He, Cromwell

Finally it is time to reassess “He, Cromwell”. Just who is Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell? Merely the usual sinister, sordid and over-mighty Cromwell who has been casually dismissed as deserving his fate for centuries. His various sleazy observations of women at court don’t reflect the real Cromwell, who went out of his way to form a good working relationship with Anne Boleyn, stuck his neck out for the Princess Mary, helped both Jane Boleyn and Mary Boleyn after they were widowed – and not in “exchange for services”. He was an intelligent and dedicated servant of the King. In the end he had to plead for his own life. It fell on deaf ears.

When Mantel asserts that Thomas Cromwell “is still in need of attention from biographers” in her author note in Bring up the Bodies, she conveniently omits John Scofield’s outstanding biography of Cromwell published in 2008, about 14 months before the publication of Wolf Hall. Perhaps Mantel didn’t have time to read it before she wrote Wolf Hall, but then Mantel is not interested in attempting to rehabilitate Thomas Cromwell. “I do not run a Priory clinic for the dead.” 24 she says, further compounding her casual disregard for her subjects.

Scofield’s studymakes a mockery of the fundamental basis for Mantel’s fiction. We have arrived at the core of Mantel’s book, her leading man Cromwell, and we can see that she is not in thrall with her subject. The Thomas Cromwell of Bring up the Bodies is out to wreak revenge on the Boleyns for their part in the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey.

Yet as Scofield asserts “not a trace can be found of a Cromwellian conspiracy against Anne.” Historians will always be divided as to the role Cromwell played in her downfall, was it really a coup? Was he simply following his King’s orders? Even Mantel agrees that it was not up to Cromwell to murder Anne, and that ultimately the responsibility is Henry’s. But the idea of a petty and vengeful Cromwell who relished his role in the downfall of the Boleyns is an absurdity.

“Astute, adult men of state are not like petulant six year-olds,” thunders Scofield “who must get their own back whenever someone calls them names. Nor do they waste valuable time on petty, personal vendettas, especially when there is nothing worth getting worked up about. And should the time ever come for a sharp, surgical strike against an opponent, they make sure that someone else’s fingerprints are on the knife.”25

“Cromwell’s alleged perfidy against Anne Boleyn…comprises fly-by-night stories from Alesius and the Spanish Chronicle, words of Chapuys taken out of context and an untrustworthy translation in the Calendar of State Papers. As a result, a wholly imaginary power struggle between Anne and Cromwell, unnoticed by Chapuys and all other contemporary witnesses, now dominates many modern accounts of Anne’s last weeks. This, unfortunately, is the chief problem with faction theories and conspiracy theories – they succeed only in diverting attention away from the central point. The threat to Anne in spring 1536 came not from Cromwell but from her intimidating husband, now in love with another woman, and from the Seymour party, eager to exploit the king’s affections and hasten Jane to the throne…Cromwell became involved in the royal marital drama only when Henry ordered him onto the case.”26

“All the players gone,’ Wriothesley says. ‘All four who carried the cardinal to Hell; and also the poor fool Mark who made a ballad of their exploits.”

Mantel’s drive for Cromwell bringing down the Boleyns is attributed to their part in the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey. Then he must find the victims. The ‘players’ in question are George Boleyn, Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston and William Brereton. Mantel alleges the four men took part in a masque depicting the Cardinal being dragged to hell. In reality three of the men were not even present at the private dinner the masque was staged at, and George Boleyn would hardly be likely to leave his seat to perform in a masque. Nor would his father, who commissioned the play, approve of such a folly. Chapuys describes the masque:

“Some time ago the earl of Vulchier (Wiltshire) invited to supper Monsieur de la Guiche, for whose amusement he caused a farce to be acted of the Cardinal (Wolsey) going down to Hell; for which La Guiche much blamed the Earl, and still more the Duke for his ordering the said farce to be printed.”27

Certainly the ever-reliable Chapuys would have noted if George Boleyn performed in the play. Thus Cromwell’s motivations for revenge against both the Boleyns and Henry Norris, Francis Weston and William Brereton are a farce. That the men performed in the play is a bald-faced fabrication. That Cromwell relished destroying Anne Boleyn is false. Where are the supposed factual representations?