Sunday Radical Roundup: The Power Of The Purses In Tudor England, More Conference News, and A Fond Farewell To Howard Zinn

Book of the Week: Those of you jonesing for Season 4 of The Tudors will be able to make do temporarily with 2009 Man Booker Prize winner Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Henry Holt, 2009; 532 pp.) Praised by Washington Post reviewer Wendy Smith as "a brilliant and deft antidote to the otherwise trite and shopworn" retellings of Henry VIII's six marriages, it is truly one of the best historical novels I have ever read.

Of course, as constant readers of this blog know, I find virtually no recounting of this story trite or shopworn, and one might have to ask Smith: what do you think brings readers back repeatedly to the events of 1531-1535, when a sexy little nobody succeeded in changing the history of the western world forever? There are plenty of subplots in this bloody tale that seem to recur in our political and cultural life -- not to mention in countless, anonymous, personal lives. What is greater -- our empathy for the discarded Queen Katherine, or for a vain king who justified his middle-aged lust for a canny woman with a dubious insistence that England required a male heir? Do we admire Ann Boleyn for using the one bit of power she had (as Shakespeare would put it, the purse) to deny the king the fulfillment of his lust until he brought her and her scheming family to power? Indeed, one of the more interesting and subtle questions Mantel raises in this novel is whether the male heir that Henry Tudor claimed was his sole desire was truly necessary. The extent of the king's folly is pointed up by the fact that he not only already had a female heiress, the Princess Mary, who was the descendent of a powerful reigning queen of Spain; but a healthy bastard son, the Duke of Richmond, who would have been more easily legitimized than Katherine was divorced.

In fact, in Wolf Hall what is at stake is a form of legitimacy that we are far more familiar with in the modern world: the political legitimacy of the state. Thomas Cromwell, usually the scheming villain of the tale, is the hero of this one as he carefully pries the state away from an increasingly dissolute nobility and towards its modern foundation in capitalism and the law. Why is this a different Cromwell? The answer is linked to previous authors' dedication to his villainy. In Wolf Hall, Cromwell is a template for what the English middle class (it was Napoleon, following Adam Smith, who would fatally underestimate the state born at this moment as a nation of shopkeepers) would become, as it first seized the reid of credit, and then power, in the face of the solipsism, hypocrisy and vanity of its nobility and the Catholic Church. As Christopher Taylor of The Guardian writes:

Mantel's Cromwell is an omnicompetent figure, "at home in courtroom or waterfront, bishop's palace or inn yard. He can draft a contract, train a falcon, draw a map, stop a street fight, furnish a house and fix a jury." Fluent in many languages, learned, witty and thoughtful, he's also an intimidating physical presence; Wolsey fondly compares him to "one of those square-shaped fighting dogs that low men tow about on ropes". This makes him an ideal emissary for Wolsey's project of liquidating some smaller monasteries to fund a school and an Oxford college. But self-advancement isn't Cromwell's only motive. He's disgusted by the waste and superstition he encounters, and takes a materialist view of relics and indulgences. The feudal mindset of Wolsey's rival grandees seems equally outdated to him: jibes at his lowly origins bounce off his certainty that noble blood and feats of arms now count for less than lines of credit and nicely balanced books.

As Henry Tudor steers the ship of state unthinkingly towards political and economic disaster (egged on by the Howards and and Ann Boleyn who steers the monarch's reason southwards), Cromwell steps in to guard England's borders, keep the country solvent, rein in the nobility by literally putting them in his debt, and become the architect of a new secular law that reins in the King's worst excesses. The interior Cromwell is beautifully drawn by Mantel, as is his strategic insinuation into the King's confidence following the death of their mutual mentor in statecraft, Cardinal Wolsey. In her search for a new political story, Mantel also links Cromwell to the revolution of the domestic sphere that the break with Rome would unleash. A skillful sub-theme of the novel is Cromwell's dedication to a new kind of shared authority within his family, to female autonomy and intelligence, and to the importance of love in marriage, all hallmarks of the political consolidation of the bourgeoisie. Cromwell, more generally portrayed as a political despot by historians and novelists, is perceived by Mantel as a nationalist who worked behind the scenes to relieve the effects of despotism, in public and in private, and lay the groundwork for the future of enlightened government.

And have I said it is an outstanding read? In other news:

Extended Deadline for submissions to World History Association Annual Meeting, 24-27 June 2010, San Diego: Why do I know this? Because the WHA would particularly like more LGBTQI submissions. Go here for the CFP. The dual theme is "Gender in World History" and "The Pacific in World History" (extra points for intersections between the two, I imagine.) The deadline has been extended to February 28th, 2010. In fact, while you are at it queer historians, help take our work to the next level and re-imagine those nationalistic conference proposals that compare three lesbian bars in three different United States cities (sometimes changed up with a paper on a Chicana softball league in San Francisco) for all your submissions to Meetings of Learned Societies. Just an idea.

Margaret Fuller Conference: "Margaret Fuller and Her Circles, April 8-10, 2010, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, MA." OK, I'm such a sap that I go to the MHA just to drink in the atmosphere, but I also have to say that they do a great mini-conference. I went to a New England American Studies Association Meeting there a while back and it was one of the most fun conferences I ever attended, with small groups of people meeting in an intimate setting and carrying over an increasingly more complex conversation from session to session.

Just Received in the Mail: NYU Latin American historian Greg Grandin has the cover of this week's issue of The Nation on The Pentagon's New Monroe Doctrine that maps US military deployment in the Caribbean basin and the eastern Pacific.

And of course, if you think as I do that Grandin's combination of political savvy, scholarly acuity and ability to write for a general public is of star quality, you will also have spent a moment this week saying:

Farewell to Howard Zinn: A historian who was the essence of cool in a generation of pretty cool historians. Once again, The Nation has a nice obit with some video of the man.

The Past Revealed: Why Sex Matters to Political History

I am doing my best to catch up on all the television I have TIVO'd, but it won't really be possible until I have finished grading the set of papers on my desk. And perhaps not even then, given that classes do not end until next week and I have not even begun handicapping the Kentucky Derby.

However, everyone has to eat dinner. So last night I got to the next episode of "The Tudors," where I learned an astonishing fact: the wheels of fate began to turn for Henry the Eighth only partly because of his urgent political need for a son. Indeed, in episode two he gets a son by Lady Thingumajig, Henry Fitzroy, who could have been made legitimate down the line if necessary. This convinces the lusty monarch, as he says at the top of his lungs while galloping back to court from the lying in, that Katherine of Aragon's difficulty conceiving "Is Not My Fault!" This is arguable, of course, since he doesn't seem to have sex with the Queen very much, and frankly, she was a lot nicer looking than than anyone said, though a bit longer in the tooth than all her voluptuous attendants, so this would not have been such a chore. But it was also pretty well established in episode one that Katharine lied about whether her marriage to Arthur, Henry's elder brother had been consummated, a fact which Henry seems to have suspected was pretty much not true to begin with. This has clearly been a nagging thought, as many years of marriage had produced only a daughter and a dead son. If you don't get why this is significant, the theory was that because the marrriage was incestuous, the royal pair had incurred God's wrath. But because of Baby Fitzroy, the kernal of a thought forming in Henry's mind in this episode is that God is punishing Katherine and not him.

Well, as we should have learned during the Monica Lewinsky business, there is more afoot than meets the eye. One woman's sorrow is another woman's opportunity, no? Do you remember that episode one ends with Thomas Boleyn, the French ambassador, telling his daughters Mary and Ann that they will have the chance to meet the King at the Val d'Or summit to be held with the French King? Well. Episode two reveals that Boleyn suspects that his daughters have learned more than the French language during study abroad. They have also learned (ahem) "french ways." This is best said with a gentle leer: perhaps raised eybrows and a smile playing around the corner of one's mouth. The mouth, of course, being key.

It is Mary who first dons the royal kneepads, having been previously the mistress of the French king. We know this because as Henry is staring at Mary during a state dinner, Francois, the King, leans over and says "Eye call hair my Inglish mayre b'cause eye ryide hayr so offen." This inflames Henry, irrationally to be sure, but he determines on the spot that he must possess the girl. Initially he sees to it that Mary is called to his tent, where -- to his surprise and ecstasy -- she performs the foreign act with skill and finesse. But his irritation is so great that even the unexpected novelty of Mary's French ways do not mollify him, and the seed has been planted in his mind (so to speak) that he doesn't want a French alliance after all, a political disaster that is complete by the end of the episode, when he repudiates the Treaty of Perpetual Peace in favor of a more bellicose treaty against the French. This negotiation is completed with one of Katharine's cousins, Charles, King of Spain, otherwise known as the Holy Roman Emperor. This, of course, will put the formation of the EU off for 500 years. And it will only compound the insult and injury a few episodes hence when Henry tries to explain to Charles that the Spanish Katherine is cursed by God and needs to get herself to Vegas -- I mean Rome -- for a divorce.

And it began with those French ways. No wonder the Anglicans are sensitive on the gay issue.

But back to Mary Boleyn, and this is the point of my story: apparently Henry the VIII had never experienced this particular sex act before! I understand that this is hard to believe, as it is now commonly performed in truck stops and high school locker rooms, but there you go! And while he tires of Mary quickly (would you date the French King's ex? Not likely. You would just want to show that you *could*) all is not lost for her scheming family. Luckily for the Boleyns and, as it turns out their relatives the Norfolk bunch, who will pony up yet another wife for Henry a decade or so down the line, Mary's younger sister Ann is prepared to step up (or down) to the plate. And she has the same skill set. We know this because her father suggests she make herself available to the King, and says to her with a highly incestuous grin, "I presume you learned the French ways when you were at court."

Indeed. And they will take her far. Although someone needs to remind Henry that doing it the English way (No, not THAT way! THAT way! There you go!) is more likely to result in conception.

The Tudors and the Radical

I was ecstatic when I learned a few months back that Showtime had produced an entire series on Henry the VIII. Conceivably, if it works out (since they named it “The Tudors” and there were lots more Tudors before and after Henry VIII), there will be sequels and prequels. My guess is that it will be a great success, since the Tudors are more like "The Sopranos" (and "Entourage") than you might think. Personally, I think Showtime would do well to go back and start with the Wars of the Roses, a ripping story if there ever was one, and a must-know for comprehending later events, such as why the Duke of Buckingham was endlessly irritable and the Norfolk bunch so insinuating.

Why am I thrilled about this well-known tale being re-packaged, you might ask? As my mother always says about a series or movie like this one, “Why watch? I know how it will turn out.” Not. You might just as well argue, why be interested in history at all? In my view, figuring out why it turned out the way it did is always the fun part, and having the hideous, tragic scab of a “known end” to pick at until the tale unfolds as you know it will adds a certain frisson to many well-explored topics: the Confederacy, all of twentieth century German history, Nicholas II, and Richard Nixon are but a few good story lines in this regard. A fine argument and good writing is what makes an academic book sell to academics; knowing that it will All End Badly is what causes the general public to buy and read -- or watch -- history.

Unbeknownst to my mother, I can boast of a long relationship with the Tudors that was exactly facilitated by her. When I was a child, my maternal unit was a volunteer for the Bryn Mawr Book Sale, an event that under her guidance and that of a friend became a permanent book store on the Bryn Mawr campus for many years. What her volunteer activity gave me access to was endless numbers of books on any topic under the sun. After school, my sister and I would walk over to whatever faintly moldy location the operation was occupying, and after our homework was done, we were free to burrow around in boxes and on shelves completely unsupervised and uncensored until our mother was ready to leave. It was in this way that, at age ten, I came upon Mary McCarthy’s “The Group,” which was ripped from my grasp after I wandered out and asked the (mostly elderly) volunteers, “Can anyone tell me what a pessary is?” After that I learned to look things up in the dictionary, a valuable skill for a future scholar.

Anyway, shortly thereafter, I discovered the novels of Jean Plaidy, a.k.a Victoria Holt, and on her tax forms, Eleanor Alice Burford. According to Wikipedia, “She wrote over eighty historical novels, which nowadays tend to be disparaged by serious enthusiasts of history and more elevated historical fiction, but which served the useful purpose of bringing historical figures and events to a wider readership.” I began with the Tudor series, and soon began to impress others with my firm grasp of British political history. I moved on to her other series’ on Queen Victoria, the Stuarts, and so on, but it was the wives of Henry VIII that I came back to repeatedly, perhaps because I found the business of having so many wives and disposing of them quite remarkable, even in the ‘sixties. In fact, Burford/Plaidy wrote most of her novels through the eyes of women who had a real political role, sometimes as schemers and as vehicles for the schemes of men, but a role all the same.

I am sure this struck a chord that was only truly activated later by the committee system at Zenith. It’s hard to generalize, but reading these historical novels where women’s heads were rolling off their shoulders also probably turned me into a historian and turned me off marriage, permanently, although I may have been wired for that outcome to begin with.

Anyway, I am pleased to re-make the acquaintance of Henry VIII, in the form of Jonathan Rhys Meyers, as well as all of the wives, although I only watched the first episode yesterday and have TIVO’d the rest. And it is fabulous: as people enter the action, I sing happily, “And you will be executed! And YOU will be executed! Buckingham, old fellow – does your head feel loose on your shoulders?”

I also have several observations that I will make as a professional historian, temporarily deserting my preferred role as a History Fan.

The website for the show notes: “The young Henry VIII was an artist, musician, theologian and sportsman — the perfect Renaissance prince — but the failure of his first wife Katherine of Aragon to produce a male heir brought out his darker side.” This is one way of putting it. Another would be to say that most royalty more or less did what they wanted (at least the interesting ones) until Cromwell lopped off Charles I’s head. And it took a second lesson to the French monarchy a century and a half later to drive the point home in a way no one but the Romanovs could ignore.

In another moment drawn straight from the Pages of History, before Henry ravishes yet another of Katharine of Aragon’s (a.k.a, the Queen of England’s) attendants (as the Queen is praying in her chapel for a son), the King asks this gentlewoman: “Do you consent?” “Yes,” she groans huskily, and he rips off her gown from the shoulders. Do not try this at home, children. All I can say about the historical likelihood of this having occurred is that the Antioch rules were not, to the best of my knowledge, originally articulated in fifteenth century England.

But apparently the European Union was! The show posits that the E.U. was an idea that Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey (played by Sam Neil) floated to Henry, partly as an appeal to the monarch’s “humanism” (a theme which gets a lot of play in episode one) that might help forestall a financially and politically disastrous war with France; and partly as one feature of a complicated, secret scheme to get himself elected Pope. “Won’t happen Wolsey!” I crowed at the screen. “An international alliance of all the nations of Europe,” Henry muses in response to the proposal, oblivious to me as usual. “It appeals to my humanism.”

And my favorite part so far is at the end of episode one, where Thomas Boleyn comes home to inform his family that they are all going to France with the King to negotiate the “Treaty of Universal Peace,” and the best part, he says, as he turns to his pubescent daughters and hands them each a glass of wine, “is that you girls will meet the King!”

Heh, heh, heh. Anne dearest, – have you experimented with a coiffure that gets your hair off your neck?