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You can see why the critics have fallen for it.
There's no tedious archaic diction. There's all the human interest of David Starkey's take on Henry the Eighth without the strict limitations of historical fact. There's absolute self-assurance in the narrative, especially because it rehearses so much really good tittle-tattle from the period and, heavens, there was any amount of it around. Hilary Mantel's Tudor novel, Wolf Hall is a kind of one-volume compensation for all the times the Man Booker prizewinner has been bought and not read.
And that's the trouble. Because it's so readable, so convincing, it risks being taken as a true version of events. And that's scary. Because one of the things it does is to reverse the standing of two Thomases: Cromwell and More. The novel does a grave disservice to More who was, whatever else you say about him, one of the great men of the Renaissance.
In Wolf Hall, you don't get the author of Utopia, Erasmus's favourite companion (these things are mentioned but with a sneer). You don't get the humanist and the humorist. What you get is a heretic-hunter, whose wit is turned to dry sarcasm and whose world view is simple religious fanaticism. This is Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons turned on its head. Granted, Bolt's play wasn't historical verity either but it was, in depicting Thomas More as the martyr of conscience, truthful.
All right, historical fiction is just that: fiction. But nowadays, we know so little history, the Wolf Hall version may well pass for reality, especially when it's true to some extent (the sympathetic portrait of Cardinal Wolsey is perfectly credible). Certainly its prejudices are congenial to the liberal-individualistic mindset that dominates our intellectual life. We may read the novel, or at least the reviews; and that's what's going to stick. (Most novels are given to literary critics to review, not historians, with the honourable exception of this paper where the historian John Guy reviewed Wolf Hall, with a bracing eye on reality.)
For the simple-minded dinner-party liberal, the Thomas Cromwell that Hilary Mantel depicts is infinitely attractive: secular-minded, tolerant, contemptuous of superstition, sneery about religious credulity, a meritocrat of humble origins, fond of children and animals, multilingual, handy in a fight. Indeed, if the prevailing mindset in Britain right now is a kind of secular Protestantism then Thomas Cromwell as drawn by Hilary Mantel is its man.
Trouble is, there is a reason why Cromwell has had a longstanding reputation as a complete bastard. The tally of the executions over which he presided - including those for heresy - far surpassed More's. And unlike More, he was unlikely to have been swayed by the notion that what he was doing was for the good of souls.
Fiction, poetry and art can be enormously powerful as a way of moulding our understanding of history. For instance, our entire idea of the Crusades is, directly and indirectly, powerfully influenced by Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe - the distinguished Crusader historian Jonathan Riley-Smith has made that clear. Our notion of the First World War as a conflict in which lions were led by donkeys owes an awful lot to the war poets and it sturdily withstands the efforts of some contemporary historians to suggest the generals didn't do such a bad job. Our view of Thomas Becket is shaped by Murder in the Cathedral and the Jean Anouilh play, Becket. Shakespeare's Henry V is the reason why most of us nowadays know about Agincourt.
The strength of art is that it posits its own reality; the trouble is when that version is partial, distorted or untruthful, consciously or unconsciously. And the general credulity of our age, based on historical and theological ignorance, makes it more difficult for us to distinguish between the virtual reality of fiction and the reality of reality. I mean, there are people out there who didn't just read the Da Vinci Code; they bought right into the notion of a Vatican conspiracy to hide the marriage of Christ and Mary Magdalene. By comparison, Hilary Mantel's partiality for Thomas Cromwell is neither here nor there.
Anyway, you want context for Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell? More presided over the execution of six heretics and was personally involved in proceedings against a number of others. But as the Tudor historian Richard Rex points out, castigating More started in 1535 and continued thereafter. Damning him as a heretic hunter has been old hat for historians for generations.
As for Cromwell, his period as chief minister coincided with hundreds of executions. Along with More, Fisher and Anne Boleyn, there were 10 Carthusians he starved in Newgate Gaol; there were the rebels in the Pilgrimage of Grace; there was John Lambert, burned for denying the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, upon whom Cromwell personally pronounced the death sentence; there was John Forest burned for Catholicism, with Cromwell watching; there were 14 unfortunate Anabaptists. Not quite the reluctant executioner, then.
None of this needs matter to the Man Booker judges. But it would be genuinely sad if our view of Thomas More, one of the really great men of English history, were to be distorted by the caricature in Wolf Hall. It's a novel, remember?
Reader views (4)
Two quotes from Ms. McDonagh's article:
"More presided over the execution of six heretics . . ."
"Thomas More, one of the really great men of English history . . ."
Perhaps it's a symptom of my "liberal-individualistic mindset," but I can't quite see how those two statements fit together. How can an individual who condemned fellow humans to be burned alive because he didn't agree with their religious views be considered--in ANYONE'S history--a "great man"?
Constancy in the upholding of one's beliefs is not in itself a virtue. It rather depends on the nature of those beliefs.
- Paul, Los Angeles, U.S., 16/05/2010 22:58
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I findk it interesting that the previous commentators ignore Melanie McDonagh's outline of the executions More and Cromwell presided over and instead criticise her Catholicism. I thoroughly enjoyed Wolf Hall but having studied the period was well aware of it's inaccuracies. Yes, More fought what he regarded as hereticism ferociously but in his own lifetime he also established a strong reputation for merciful interpretation of the law, care of the poor, learning, insight and good humour. He was comprised of attractive and unattractive qualities - no doubt just like Cromwell, just lie the rest of us. The real danger of Wolf Hall and what I took to be the main point of the article is that those who don't know the history will take the novel as accurate - and it simply isn't (though it's a great novel).
- Cate, Canberra, Australia, 20/02/2010 11:45
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I have just finished Wolf Hall - a truly brilliant novel. Of course it winds up traditionalist catholics like Melanie McDonagh as the whole concept of sainthood puts individuals such as More beyond criticism. Is Wolf Hall the real More (possibly) is it the real Cromwell (probably not). The book places a secular modern in an age of fanatical religious belief an so illuminates the period.
- Peter, Edinburgh, 26/10/2009 11:57
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I read Ms McDonagh's piece (ES, 17 September 09) on Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and her treatment of Thomas More, with interest and curiosity. I am delighted that Mantel has won the Man Booker prize and am looking forward to reading the novel.
Ms McDonagh may be interested to read the interview with Hilary Mantel (Times Book section, 25 April 09) and also Vanora Bennett's review of Wolf Hall. Vanora Bennett has also portrayed More (negatively) in one of her novels, so Mantel is not the only writer taking a different view.
Thomas More is a saint in the Roman Catholic Church but not to anyone else. Ms McDonagh mentions "the prevailing mindset of a kind of secular Protestantism" in Britain nowadays - something she obviously finds distasteful. Religious tolerance is something to be prized, not sneered at and not everyone would hold your views. Ms Mantel's novel will probably sell extremely well and readers will make up their own minds about Cromwell, More and Henry VIII.
- Karen, London, UK, 07/10/2009 18:54
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