December edition of "Tudor Life"

Keith Michell as Henry VIII and Jane Asher as Queen Jane Seymour (1972)

The December edition of Tudor Life magazine, for members of the Tudor Society, is out. Sadly, the Australian actor Keith Michell, famous for his three on-screen performance as Henry VIII, passed away less than two weeks ago, which makes Roland Hui's article on Michell's work in Henry VIII and his Six Wives (1972) all the more poignant. Along with articles on piracy in Tudor England, the theory of the "little Ice Age", a review of a new study of Mary I, short stories, profiles of houses belonging to Anne of Cleves, banquets and carols, the magazine was also thrilled to host a wonderful piece of satire from Professor Susan Bordo, author of The Creation of Anne Boleyn. I am so pleased to post the excerpt from She, Anne, which formed the banner piece for this month's edition. The story is dedicated by the author to author Sue Grafton and Oscar-nominated actress, Genevieve Bujold.

Author’s note: In July 2015, Sue Grafton, author of the Kinsey Millhone mysteries, was interviewed in The New York Times. When asked about her favorite reading, she replied that she “has trouble passing up books about Anne Boleyn. I keep hoping for a different ending. So far, no luck.’ (New York Times, July 16, 2015, “By the Book”)

She, Anne, sits musing about preparations for the execution they say is to come in the morning.  She is troubled at the prospect that her bit of an extra fingernail, which has been gestating like a deformed fetus in the imaginations of her enemies, growing larger and more disfiguring each day, would be exposed for all as she spread her arms for the executioner’s well-timed blow.  She ponders which highly fashionable French execution robe would cover it most effectively.  “Looking good is the best revenge,” she cackled to herself (cackling being a human sound especially beloved by witches,) revealing as she did so small, feral teeth that she longed to put to best use by piercing the robust neck of her husband’s chief counselor TC.  Then she sighed, remembering that her days as a living body were soon to be over.  She can already feel her fictional self ascending, her teeth becoming sharper, her hair blacker, her motives meaner.  There were compensations, of course. She was pleased to note that her sallow skin and moles would disappear and she would grow more beautiful over the coming centuries.  Eventually, perhaps, even the sixth finger would disappear.

Interrupting her musings, a visitor to her Tower rooms!  Was it her jailer, Mr. Kingston, come to blather some more about the skill of her executioner? (French—of course he was skilled! Kingston himself--an idiot who doesn’t know a joke when he hears it.) Was it Cranmer, come to make her an offer of life in a convent should she agree to renounce her daughter Elizabeth’s claim to the throne? Cranmer was a dear man, but didn’t he know she, Anne, was a goggle-eyed whore who would as soon chop her own head off with a dull English hatchet as spend the rest of her life without a man to suck on her slender toes?  Is it Elizabeth, come to pose for a painting of a tearful parting from her martyred mother?  Is it her sister Mary, that simpering do-gooder (then again, might she be gulled into asking Henry to pardon her)? Perhaps it is TC himself, and they can together converse about the 21^st century alchemy that would transform him, Cromwell (She never calls him “Cremuel”; sometimes “Crumb” but never “Cremuel”), from unscrupulous factotum to a warm and dryly witty man for all seasons?  (Or was that TM?  It is so difficult to keep the Thomas’s straight as they mutate, along with Anne herself, over the centuries!) 

No.  The visitor is the beloved husband himself, come to make the offer of life “for old times’ sake.” He wants to marry again, they all know that.  But he is a fool if he thinks her daughter’s rights can be bought that cheaply. And—ah! —He also wants to know if the charges are true.  Has she, Anne, really been unfaithful to him? Henry appears bleary-eyed, as though he has been on a bender; he is speaking oddly, bellowing with eyes raised to heaven, much like a preacher or a travelling actor from the north, come to court to tell tales of Arthur and Guinevere. Anne, recalling those tales, is tempted to make an argument with herself: Guinevere was queen, Guinevere was condemned, Guinevere was saved.  Perhaps she, too….? 

No.  She, Anne, is not fooled by the poetic, impassioned performance of her husband (who also seems to have lost a bit of weight since her arrest.) She knows that future re-tellings will often make her look about anxiously as she walks to the scaffold, hoping for the savior/messenger, but she does not expect her husband to issue a last-minute pardon.  She knows too that the future will often make her colder, meaner, and more grasping than she is, but rarely will it fathom her intelligence.  She has “wit,” they always say.  But she, Anne, this Anne, has more than wit, and she knows how to conjure a real curse.  “Take it to your grave,” she tells him, excited and flushed by the perfect extravagance of her lie, “I was unfaithful to you with half your court.” Henry, who cannot bear to feel his mind waver—it isn’t Kingly or manly—does not now know what to believe.  Impotent with rage, he slaps her.  She hardly cares about the sting of the slap; she faces far worse in the morrow. Actually, it is quite a delectable moment, even more soul satisfying than when, barely a breath later really, in eternal time, she will see that snake TC with his head finally off his shoulders.  As for Henry, she cannot resist a final thrust, knowing it will stir the souls of later generations, with a persuasion beyond mere fact. “But Elizabeth is yours! And will rule an England far greater than any you could have built!” Henry’s expression is worth the coming blood on the scaffold.  

She, Anne, wishes she could do better than this for Sue Grafton.  Alas, there are some things—very few—that biographers and novelists cannot tinker with.  Whore, martyr, sister from hell, exploited innocent, ambitious predator, sexual temptress, religious reformer, rebel girl—she, Anne, can see her many strange future selves displayed before her, as she awaits the hour of her execution.  Fingers, moles, skin, swellings, teeth, nipples—up for grabs. The head, however, must come off.  She, Anne, is as sorry about this as you are. But think on this, as you count the books on your shelf:  Who, of all Henry’s wives, has lived the longest?  Ha!

Professor Bordo holds the Otis A. Singletary Chair in the Humanities at the University of Kentucky and she is the author of many well-known books and articles, most recently The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England’s Most Notorious Queen, available both in U.S. and U.K. editions.

Review: "Inside the Tudor Court" by Lauren Mackay

I once came across a comment on-line from Lauren Mackay fairly highlighting the difference between a blogger and an historian, and rather self-deprecatingly pointing out that having achieved her masters she did not yet consider herself an historian. It is therefore something of a relief that she has since used the work undertaken for her MA to pen this wonderful biography of Eustace Chapuys, the Hapsburgs' ambassador to England for most of the last two decades of Henry VIII's reign.

In much the same way as Chapuys' negative appraisal of Anne Boleyn helped shape her historiography for so many years, the academic swing in her favour following Eric Ives's 1986 biography saw Chapuys cast in the light of a malign intriguer who got more wrong than right when it came to Boleyn - and, by an extension of logic, everyone around her. Mackay sets out to rescue her subject from this two-dimensional view and she does so with great success. If Anne Boleyn was much more than suggested by Chapuys, he too is worth a lot more than the Anne Boleyn matter. The biography brims with the author's passion for her subject, beginning with a charming and vivid account of his home town in Annecy, where he is still commemorated in street names and local architecture. Mackay does well too where the sources are silent by sketching the broad outlines of his life before he was sent to England in 1529, freely admitting that there is much we do not know about Chapuys's life but credibly suggesting various possibilities based on what we do know. It's what all Tudor historians have to do from time to time, it's full of pitfalls and Mackay does better than most in weaving her way through it. Once Chapuys gets to England, where his legal training was intended to help the beleagured Katherine of Aragon, Mackay is able to make use of the mountains of letters that her subject wrote to the Emperor and the picture becomes clearer still.

Mackay's strengths are not just her zeal for the thin and rather elegant man she's writing about, but also her ability to analyse his thoughts and to make full use of his lengthy and colourful correspondence. She is right when she points out that without Chapuys's letters Tudor history, as we know it, would not exist. There were a few times when I did not agree with her conclusions and I thought there were one or two moments when she was slightly too prepared to take Chapuys at face value. However on moments when I, or any reader, might disagree with Mackay's conclusions on certain minor points they are still well-argued and well-written enough to be taken seriously and respected. There are no unreasonable assessments in Inside the Tudor Court and she presents the information clearly enough that she allows her readers to make their own conclusions. She invites them, as it were, to share her enthusiasm for Charles V's servant.

This is a wonderfully useful book that brings to life the colourful and often confusing world of the Henrician court, as seen through the eyes of one of its most gifted if controversial observers. Lauren Mackay deserves considerable praise for setting Chapuys back in his context and reminding us, regardless of whom he quarrelled with or why, what a debt we all owe him. She makes him both an esteemed intellectual but entirely human, she allows him her foibles - I particularly enjoyed the point she makes about his correspondence's relative lack of descriptions of the English court's numerous entertainments: he didn't enjoy them and thought them slightly frivolous, so he told the Emperor he wouldn't bore him with the details. There has long been a need for a biography of this brilliant and complex figure and Lauren Mackay has certainly delivered it.

Some of my favourite reads of 2013

Tudor: The Family Story by Leanda de Lisle. Leanda's biography of Lady Jane Grey and her sisters Katherine and Mary is my favourite historical biography and I loved this take on the well-trodden story of England's most dysfunctional Royal family. De Lisle's writing style is so delicious that if it were edible, you'd almost certainly end up the size of a house and/or Henry VIII, the porky sovereign who for once is not allowed to stand centre stage in this dynastic tale of wife-changing, religious revolution and palaces more blinged up than an MTV crib. The women and minor members of the family are allowed their day in the metaphorical sun and de Lisle's refusal to play favourites guarantees fair treatment for all. Buy it, read it and I'm sure you'll love it. 

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Originally published in 2004, I half-read it at my friend Colin's suggestion at university but returned to it when the wonderful movie adaptation (below) starring Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Susan Sarandon, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Hugo Weaving, James D'Arcy and Ben Whishaw was released. The story of various reincarnated souls passing through the centuries from pre-abolition America, the inter-war years in Britain, a nightmarish twenty-second century Korea and a dystopian future is haunting, clever, nimble, beautifully written and very moving. If the story of Sonmi-451 doesn't devastate you, see a therapist immediately.

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel. Once you can get past the trademark horrors that Hilary Mantel seems to make of all her female characters, this 1992 novel inspired by the biographies of three male revolutionaries - Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and Maximilien Robespierre - is actually a beautiful novel that captures perfectly how even the leaders of the Great Revolution of 1789 began to fear its strength and wonder how it would all end. (Hint - not happily for more or less anybody involved whose surname wasn't Bonaparte.) A Place of Greater Safety even manages to make Desmoulins interesting, charismatic and almost sympathetic - no mean achievement. A wonderful example of historical fiction.

The Night's Dark Shade by Elena Maria Vidal. The festering underbelly of the Cathar movement and the clash between two rival faiths in thirteenth-century France make this novel very interesting, very enjoyable and, reading for pleasure this time, one of the most intriguing takes on religious controversies of the Middle Ages. If you are a fan of medieval stories, then this one is certainly worth picking up.

A Night to Remember by Walter Lord. Famous for inspiring the 1958 movie of the same title (above), I had never actually read this minute-by-minute dramatisation of the Titanic disaster of 1912. Lord interviewed many of the survivors, had previously travelled on the Titanic's nearly-identical sister ship the Olympic, and approached the story of the sinking with a respect that bordered on the reverential. Unlike the 1997 take on the story, there are no fictitious love stories at the centre of Lord's novel. Instead, it's a gripping and almost forensic account of one of the greatest tragedies in maritime history. It also manages to capture the syntax and attitudes of 1912 perfectly. I loved this book and I wish I had read it earlier. 

Shiverton Hall by Emerald Fennell. Released early this year by Bloomsbury, this children's story is, and I kid you not, actually as close as I can come to the horror genre without suffering nightmares and/or dousing my room with water from Walsingham. A glorious return to the Victoriana world of camp macabre and horror, Shiverton Hall is the perfect book for a child who loves to read, anyone who enjoys a good boarding school tale or, for the adults in your life like me, who like to be scared but only within due reason. There'll be no Norman Bates meets Emily-Rose in my nightmares, I can assure you.

The War that Ended Peace: How Europe abandoned Peace for the First World War by Margaret Macmillan. No one but Margaret Macmillan could have approached the story of how "Europe's century" ended in the horrors birthed by 1914 and produced something so compulsively readable. Focusing on both the wider social context of the Gilded Age and the political figures who helped make the terrible decisions which resulted in a global conflict, Macmillan has produced a book that is irreverent, thoughtful and wonderfully written. 

The Creation of Anne Boleyn: In Search of the Tudors' Most Notorious Queen by Susan Bordo is a cultural biography of how Anne Boleyn acquired posthumous immortality, what attracted her legion of modern-day fans and critics, and how her story has been used and abused by subsequent generations. With interviews with two of the actresses most famous for bringing Boleyn to life on screen, this is a fascinating book with its finger kept firmly on the pulse of modern culture. Scholarly, but also funny, wry, sarcastic and emotive. And as the UK cover proves, we always knew Annie B could rock a pair of aviators. Once a fashionista...

The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder the Changed the World by Greg King and Susan Woolmans. Any suspect story about Archduke Franz Ferdinand is perhaps rightly declared as something to be treated with caution and scepticism in this book, while similarly improbable and damning anecdotes about any of his blood relatives are repeated as fact. Thus, the title figure emerges as a devoted family man, while his elderly uncle is described as a border-line autistic syphilitic and Franz Ferdinand's brother, Otto, was apparently a sadomasochistic pervert if Viennese gossip was to be believed. It's one standard for Ferdy and another for the rest of the Hapsburgs, which is a shame because otherwise this was a fascinating and wonderful biography of a man who is probably the most important assassination victim in history. Greg King and Susan Woolmans deserve great praise for rescuing his personality and his tragic love story with Sophie Chotek from obscurity. Fast moving, sympathetic and engagingly written, The Assassination of the Archduke was a truly gripping biography of the first victim of the First World War. Highly recommended.

Counting One's Blessings: The Selected Letters of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother by William Shawcross. The late Queen Elizabeth's biographer returns with a volume of her selected letters, chosen from across the remarkable century of her life and eight decades in the public eye. The late Queen's wit, impish sense of humour and inimitably effervescent mode of expression come across alongside her steely determination, quick intelligence and pathological ability to avoid anything too unpleasant until the last possible moment. A beautiful book from the pen of a celebrated and popular Royal, Counting One's Blessing was a joy to read. And made me hanker for a gin in the Highlands.