History and Fiction - Studying Hilary Mantel

On one hand, History and Fiction might seem opposites, but really isn’t written history a form of literature? It is a choice of words made by the historian to not just record events but to interpret them.The actual events were ‘real’ but the moment a historian writes about those events they are making choices - choices about which events are important and assumptions about people’s motivations, even if these assumptions are hidden.

A good writer of historical literature, through deep research, emotional sensitivity and literary skills can sometimes get closer to the real event, but so could a historian if she had the same set of skills. What I intend doing is what follows is to look more closely at an extract from Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, the first in her trilogy on the life of Thomas Cromwell, advisor to Henry VIII of England

. I have annotated some of the techniques she has used.

First the context of the passage

Thomas Cromwell and Stephen Gardiner have just had dinner at Thomas More’s. Cromwell, through his own talents, has risen from being the son of a blacksmith in Putney to being an acquaintance of the King. Stephen Gardiner is secretary to Archbishop Wolsey and later to become Master Secretary to Henry VII and eventually Cromwell’s enemy. Almost all the discussion during the meal has been carried out in Latin, despite More’s wife being present but not having Latin.

This extract takes place as they leave More’s house to return to Westminster by boat along the Thames (pp. 233-235).

 Thomas Cromwell is responding to a comment by Alice in English as they are leaving.

He [Cromwell] looks around him; he feels something he identifies as pity[1], a heavy stirring beneath the breastbone. He believes Alice has a good heart; continues to believe it even when, taking his leave, permitted to thank her in English, she raps out, ‘Thomas Cromwell, why don’t you marry again?’

‘No one will have me, Lady Alice’

‘Nonsense your master [Wolsey] may be down but you’re not poor are you? Got your money abroad, that’s what I’m told. Got a good house, haven’t you? Got the king’s ear, my husband says. And from what my sisters in the city say, got everything in good working order.’

‘Alice!’ More says. Smiling, he takes her wrist, shakes her a little. Gardiner laughs: his deep bass chuckle, like laughter through a crack in the earth[2].

When they go out to Master Secretary's barge, the scent of the gardens is heavy in the air[3]. ‘More goes to bed at nine o’clock’ Stephen says.

‘With Alice?'

‘People say not’

'You have spies in the house?

Stephen doesn’t answer.

It is dusk; lights bob in the river. 'Dear God, I am hungry,’ Master  Secretary complains. 'I wish I had kept back one of the fool’s crusts. I wish I had laid hands on the white rabbit; I’d eat it raw.’

He says, 'You know he daren’t make himself plain.’

‘Indeed he dare not,’ Gardiner says. Beneath the canopy he sits hunched into himself, as if he were cold. ‘But we all know his opinions, which I think are fixed and impervious to argument. When he took office, he said he would not meddle with the divorce, and the king accepted that, but I wonder how long he will accept it.’

‘I didn't mean himself plain to the King. I meant to Alice.’[4]

 Gardiner laughs. ‘True if she understood what he said about her she'd send him in down to the kitchens and have him plucked and roasted’

'Suppose she died? He'd be sorry then.

'He'd have another wife in the house before she was cold. Someone even uglier.'

He broods: foresees, vaguely, an opportunity for placing bets. ‘That young woman,' he says. 'Anne Cresacre. She is an heiress, you know?  An orphan?'

‘There was some scandal, was there not?’

'After her father died her neighbours stole her, for their son to marry. The boy raped her. She was thirteen. This was in Yorkshire…that’s how they go on there. My lord cardinal was furious when he heard of it. It was he who took her away. He put here under More’s roof because he thought she'd be safe.'

'So she is.'

‘Not from humiliation. Since More's son married her, he lives of her lands. Site has a hundred a year. You'd think she could have a string of pearls.'[5]

‘Do you think More is disappointed in his boy? He shows no talent for affairs. Still, I hear you have a boy like that. You'll be looking for an heiress for him soon.’. He doesn’t reply[6]. It's true; John More, Gregory Cromwell, what have we done to our sons? Made them into idle young gentlemen - but who can blame us for wanting for them the ease we didn’t have? One thing about More, he's never idled for an hour, He's passed his life teaching, writing, talking towards what he believes is the good of the Christian commonwealth. Stephen says, 'Of course you may have other sons. Aren't you looking forward to the wife Alice will find you? She is warm in your praises.'

He feels afraid. It is like Mark, the lute player: people imagining what they cannot know. He is sure he and Johane have been secret.

He says, ‘Don't you ever think of marrying?'

A chill spreads[7] over the waters. 'I am in holy orders.'

‘Oh, come on, Stephen. You must have women. Don't you?

The pause is so long, so silent, that he can hear the oars as they dip into the Thames, the little splash as they rise; he can hear the ripples in their wake. He can hear a dog barking from the southern shore[8]. The Secretary asks, ‘What kind of Putney enquiry is that?’[9]

[1] Pity in responding to More’s patronising of his (second) wife)

[2] Could this be a hint of evil – coming from the underworld?

[3] One of the many ways Mantel draws us into the scene

[4] This is nice little’ trick’ Hilary Mantel sometimes uses. On the surface it is a simple misunderstanding, but it provides an opportunity for Mantel to show us what Gardiner is thinking and provide historical detail, but also show us that here Cromwell is more interested in the way Thomas More treats his wife than in politics.

[5] This refers to part of the dinner conversation, where More says about his daughter-in-law Anne: ‘Anne craved’ – shall I tell them my dear? – she craved a pearl necklace. She did not cease to talk about it, you know how young girls are. So when I gave her a box that rattled, imagine her face. Imagine her face again when she opened it. What was inside? Dried peas’.  More wears a hair shirt for self-mortification but others must suffer as well!

[6] Cromwell doesn’t reply partly because it is personal. But we now enter his mind in a more intimate way than conversation.

[7] A physical representation of a cool feeling.

[8] Again we almost physically feel the pause as both men become aware of their surroundings

[9] Half-jokingly, Gardiner refers to Cromwell’s humble origins as the son of Putney blacksmith.