I've been reading a good deal of history lately - and along with it, some historical fiction. Sets the brain cells a-churning.
The most recent book to have filtered its way through my brain is C.J. Sansom's Dissolution, purchased on a whim at Kalamazoo. It's set in Tudor England under Henry VIII just following the death of Jane Seymour (that's after the Reformation and after the execution of Anne Boleyn for those of you who don't keep tabs on 1500s England). The subject, rather unsurprisingly, is the dissolution of a monastery - more specifically, the dissolution of a monastery following a series of gruesome (of course) murders which must be solved by the main character.
When I started it, I hated it. I thought the writing was flat and uninteresting. But, since I was on a plane, I made myself keep going. Turns out it was one of those books that gets you hooked and then you can't put it down. And it was well-researched, as I'm discovering in reading Derek Wilson's In the Lion's Court, which is about the reign of Henry VIII.
But that's not the point. The point is that we have - as a friend and I talked about a couple weeks ago - this fascination with the early modern period in England. Henry VIII, Mary, and Elizabeth, to be specific.
Sure, there are reasons. Henry's six wives, the Henrician Reformation, the Golden Age of England... But, as my friend pointed out, we don't seem to be nearly as interested in one of the most ground-breaking and soul-shattering instances in English history: the public execution of Charles I.
Why is that? What do we find so utterly fascinating about Henry and his two daughters that we don't find in Charles? There was depravity, disillusionment, and corruption in the Caroline court. Religious upheaval, even a civil war. But we're drawn to the Tudor dynasty like flies to honey. And believe me, the Stuarts have their fair share of scandal and strangeness. But we aren't interested in them.
Is it charisma? The figure of the magnificent, leontine Henry VIII, strutting about in his ruff and puffy sleeves; "Bloody" Mary who executed more people in five years than Elizabeth in forty-five, wearing severe black, subject to cancer and false pregnancy; and Elizabeth, Gloriana, the greatest ruler (supposedly) to ever sit on the throne of England. We can't let go of our fascination with them. TV, movies (Elizabeth, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Tudors, Blackadder II), and books (again, The Other Boleyn Girl, Firedrake's Eye, Unicorn's Blood, Six Wives, the list goes on). And that doesn't even mention Shakespeare in Love.
I say - though I'm a bit biased - that it's propaganda. Portraits (Elizabeth had dozens), pamphlets, pageants, progresses, plays, poems (there are an awful lot of Ps there)... all dedicated to the Tudors. Designed and very often censured or sanctioned by them. And this is what has passed to posterity. The images they wanted us to remember. Yes, we also recognize that Henry was something of a nasty bastard, cutting of two of his wives' heads, divorcing one, annulling another. But he was good at what he did. It all comes down to publicity.
And from this, we learn that the power of media is ancient. It isn't that FoxNews has just figured out the influence they have over us (okay, maybe they just figured it out), it's that we the audience has suddenly recognized what the early moderns knew very well: we are subject to the things given to us. To subvert the system, we must recognize it as as system. And once we understand the mechanisms directed toward us, the tools and tricks of the trade, then we can learn to read between the lines... and to write between them.
Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spencer, Chaucer... the list goes on. They all knew how to write between the lines. To contain in something seemingly innocent or propagantist the message that you don't always have to believe what you're told. Sometimes, you should. But simply knowing that the choice is yours to accept or condemn...
It causes a revolution.
The reason we look at Tudor England? Because without the Tudors, I'll bet you anything Charles I would have kept his head.
3 comments:
I've been thinking more about this topic- "The Tudors" has just introduced Jane Seymour as a character, and it got me to thinking. Because our interest in the Tudors (the family, not the show) is so limited. Anne Boleyn is going to die at the end of this season, and I found myself thinking, how are they going to continue. All of the Henry VIII biopics you've cited spend their time focusing on the conflict between Katherine and Anne. Jane comes on at the end, usually in the background, and as a "pure" foil to underscore Anne's downfall. And that's generally where these things end. I can't think of any popular representations of Jane (after Anne Boleyn), Anne of Cleves, or the other Catherines, despite Catherine H's adultery/execution.
So this brings me back to the question I asked the other day. Why are we so fascinated specifically by the Katherine/Anne conflict? I think you were right when you said it has to do with the cult of Elizabeth and of course the English Reformation. But I would go a step further and say that our interest in the story really has very little to do with Henry and English religion-- "The Tudors" can still work even with a crappy Henry because the girl who plays Anne is quite good-- and I don't even think it can even be fully linked to our fascination with Elizabeth. Our interest in the story stems, I think, from our fascinaton with the good woman/bad woman dichotomy. Anne Boleyn is the ultimate unruly woman, and the whole wheel of fortune is implicit in her story. I still wonder if there's there a misogynist undertone to our enjoyment of watching Anne's downfall? Even if we start to pity her when Henry turns on her, we usually spend the first half of the story gleefully anticipating her fall.
That said, if film and television are fascinated with the Tudors, romance novels have long been fascinated with the Regency. Why? What is so fascinating about that particular 10 year period that it's launched 1000s of novels? It can't be only due to romance's debt to Jane Austen, I think.
I totally think you're right about the Catherine/Anne thing. But I also think that Anne has the possibility of NOT having been an evil whore. Unlike Catherine Howard, who most certainly was a whore (if not evil). Both Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn *could* be victims, but they are also in some way vilified. Catherine is a Spanish papist, and everybody loves to hate them just a little because of the Inquisition. Anne... well, she was a hussy, and maybe she was worse, but maybe she was made a victim of Henry's ego... just like Catherine. In a way, each of them embodies the good/bad woman dichotomy.
Whereas Anne of Cleves was naive and clearly the victim and Catherine Howard was clearly in the wrong. Catherine Parr... boring. She tended a dying old man. Not interesting.
Also, by the time we get to Jane dying uninterestingly of post-partum complications... Henry's wife thing ceases to be novel. Even to his contemporaries it became "okay, he's doing it again." With Catherine and Anne, it was new and interesting. Besides, by the time we get past Jane, Henry's old and fugly and fat.
PS
I know shit about the Regency era. But from what wikipedia tells me... it has all the necessities: war, extravagance, and the Romantics. Maybe romances are set then because of the Romantic movement? I dunno.
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