tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/henry-viii-25855/articles
Henry VIII – The Conversation
2024-03-25T13:05:18Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221275
2024-03-25T13:05:18Z
2024-03-25T13:05:18Z
How Henry VIII’s grandmother used a palace in Northamptonshire to build the mighty Tudor dynasty
<p>Today, you would be hard-pressed to find any visible evidence that <a href="https://www.royalpalaces.com/palaces/collyweston-house/">Collyweston village in Northamptonshire</a> was once <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Elite_Female_Constructions_of_Power_and.html?id=w7_CvQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">home to a palace</a> presided over by Henry VIII’s grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort. As a royal power base, the palace was an epicentre of Tudor power and propaganda in the 16th century and was a key stopping point for royal visits. This included two royal tours in 1503 and 1541, which were crucial to the making (and remaking) of the Tudor dynasty. </p>
<p>Margaret Beaufort acquired Collyweston manor after her son Henry VII ascended to the English throne following the battle of Bosworth in 1485. There, she set upon expanding the manor house into a palace befitting her status as king’s mother. </p>
<p>Beaufort’s presence at Collyweston formed part of a strategic plan, devised by mother and son, to exert royal influence both locally and nationally. Collyweston was in the heart of the country at a time when most of the royal palaces were clustered in and around London and the neighbouring county of Lincolnshire was the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/urban-history/article/vowesses-the-anchoresses-and-the-aldermens-wives-lady-margaret-beaufort-and-the-devout-society-of-late-medieval-stamford/7046EE13EA0E125BE58676150CAF34F3">epicentre of Beaufort’s influence</a>.</p>
<p>In the early years of the Tudor dynasty, Beaufort’s presence in the area was particularly important as Henry VII had spent much of his youth in exile in Brittany. His mother’s longstanding connections to the local area therefore helped proclaim his legitimacy. </p>
<p>The site was also close to the Great North Road (now partly occupied by the A1), making it an ideal stopping point for royal parties travelling between London and the north.</p>
<h2>Beaufort gets building</h2>
<p>While nothing remains above ground and no drawings of the palace survive, Beaufort’s <a href="https://thetudortravelguide.com/margaret-beaufort-and-the-palace-of-collyweston/">extensive works to the palace</a> over several years, are preserved in numerous volumes of <a href="https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/lady-margaret-beaufort-domina-fundatrix">household and building accounts</a>. </p>
<p>By the early 16th century, the palace was framed around three courtyards and boasted a chapel, great hall, rooms for Margaret and her household, a <a href="https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/jewel-tower/history/#:%7E:text=The%20Jewel%20Tower%20is%20a,much%20of%20the%20historic%20palace.">jewel tower</a> and library. Perched on the crest of a hill, the palace offered spectacular views over the Welland valley. The land falling westwards from the residence included a <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/history/gardens-landscapes/what-is-a-deer-park">deer park</a> of approximately 108 acres, along with ponds, gardens, orchards, summer houses and walkways.</p>
<p>Between 1502 and 1503, Beaufort commissioned significant building works, including repainting the chapel, new walkways through the grounds and a new accommodation block overlooking the deer park. This flurry of work anticipated the arrival of the first of two <a href="https://henryontour.uk/">Tudor tours</a>, known as progresses, which were to stop at Collyweston.</p>
<p>Progresses played a vital role in presenting the king (and his wider family) to his people, publicly displaying him as the people’s sovereign. They gave the king and his retinue an opportunity to hunt, engage with the localities and hear the grievances of the local elites and their people. </p>
<p>The 1503 progress notably celebrated the marriage of Beaufort’s granddaughter (Henry VIII’s sister, Margaret Tudor) to James IV of Scotland. For the fledgling Tudor dynasty, the event was a triumph, creating a political alliance in the form of a peace treaty between England and Scotland. </p>
<p>Beaufort recorded the event in a <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2011/08/the-beaufort-beauchamp-hours.html">prayer book</a> gifted to her by her mother, Margaret Beauchamp, along with other key dates relating to the dynasty’s successes. The wedding party stayed at Collyweston for two weeks, where they enjoyed feasting, hunting, entertainment and services in Beaufort’s repainted chapel.</p>
<h2>Fit for a king</h2>
<p>In 1541, approximately 32 years after his grandmother’s death, Henry VIII returned to Collyweston with his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, during their progress to York. </p>
<p>To travel as far as York was unusual. But Henry intended to secure the region after the Pilgrimage of Grace (a popular revolt that began in Yorkshire in October 1536) in much the same way his father had done in 1486, when he had taken a large force north to secure his reign after the wars of the roses. </p>
<p>Catherine also embarked on <a href="https://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/catherine-howard-thomas-culpeper/">her ill-fated affair</a> with her husband’s friend, the courtier Thomas Culpeper, during the progress and met with him secretly throughout. </p>
<p>Henry VIII and Catherine stayed at Collyweston palace – the queen in rooms known to Margaret Beaufort and once occupied by Henry’s mother – on August 5, on the journey from London to York, and from October 15 to 17 on their return. They had departed from Westminster with their summer court of around 400 to 500 people and a group of 4,000 to 5,000 horsemen – a group larger than most Tudor towns. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570069/original/file-20240118-15-2p9jdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The Field of the Cloth of Gold by Hans Holbein the Younger (1545)." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570069/original/file-20240118-15-2p9jdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570069/original/file-20240118-15-2p9jdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570069/original/file-20240118-15-2p9jdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570069/original/file-20240118-15-2p9jdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570069/original/file-20240118-15-2p9jdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570069/original/file-20240118-15-2p9jdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570069/original/file-20240118-15-2p9jdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Field of the Cloth of Gold by Hans Holbein the Younger (1545) shows the scale of Henry VIII’s progresses.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/405794">Royal Collection</a></span>
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<p>The company was heavily armed, including at least 1,000 soldiers. The king and queen travelled in style, accompanied by an estimated 400 courtiers, officials, musicians and servants.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/sep/22/henry-viii-tent-field-of-cloth-of-gold-reconstruction">Elaborate tents</a> and <a href="https://henryontour.uk/blog/sovereign-2023-royal-progress-1541">the richest tapestries, plates and clothes</a> were brought from London to furnish the royal court on the move. Collyweston would once again have been a hub of activity during the progress, albeit with a different purpose and tone from 1503.</p>
<p>The sleepy appearance of Collyweston village today belies its significance as a stage on which key events relating to the Tudor dynasty were played out. While the site has fallen into relative obscurity, for the Tudors, it was very much on the map as a place of security in the face of uncertainty.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Delman has been researching Collyweston Palace for over a decade. Her doctoral research on the site was funded by a full Arts and Humanities Research Council award at the University of Oxford and she continues to investigate the significance of the palace as a site of female power in early Tudor England. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keely Hayes-Davies receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council for "Henry on Tour", a research project exploring the progresses of Henry VIII. The project is jointly led by the University of York and Historic Royal Palaces in partnership with Newcastle University (henryontour.uk).</span></em></p>
Beaufort’s presence at Collyweston formed part of a strategic plan, devised by mother and son, to exert royal influence both locally and nationally.
Rachel Delman, Heritage Partnerships Coordinator, University of Oxford
Keely Hayes-Davies, PhD Candidate, Early Modern History, University of York
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222298
2024-03-14T13:28:33Z
2024-03-14T13:28:33Z
How the Tudors dealt with food waste
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579929/original/file-20240305-24-2ojthy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1690%2C1295&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Baron Cobham and family around the dinner table, 1567.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Brooke_10th_Baron_Cobham_and_Family_1567.jpg">Master of the Countess of Warwick </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than <a href="https://wrap.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-11/WRAP-Food-Surplus-and-Waste-in-the-UK-Key-Facts-Nov-2023.pdf">ten million tonnes</a> of food is wasted in the UK each year. Leftovers perish in their plastic Tupperware tombs, supermarket bins heave with damaged but perfectly edible produce and fields are littered with spoiled harvests. Preventing good food from ending up in the bin is an important part of the global fight against climate change. </p>
<p>But what about the past? How did our ancestors deal with food waste? Surprisingly, given the pertinence of the issue in modern discourse, very little has been written about the history of food waste. My <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/leftovers-9781803281575/">new book</a>, Leftovers: A History of Food Waste and Preservation, addresses the topic across the last half a millennium, from the Tudor kitchen right up until the present day. </p>
<p>Tudor society was intrinsically religious. Henry VIII’s well-known <a href="https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Henry-VIII/#:%7E:text=Henry%20took%20matters%20into%20his,was%20forced%20to%20leave%20court.">divorce issues</a> ignited the English Reformation, the tumultuous transformation from Catholicism to Protestantantism, heightening religious fervour and shaping attitudes towards food across the country. </p>
<p>In Tudor eyes, food was the ultimate gift from God that literally sustained life on earth. And in the form of the bread and wine, it was food that Christ had chosen to represent his body and blood at the Last Supper. No wonder that wasting food was seen as sinful and immoral. “The least crum, which can be saved, be not lost,” commanded the puritan writer <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A15695.0001.001?view=toc">Ezekias Woodward</a>, “no, not a crum”. </p>
<p>Familiar to many of us today, clergymen taught their parishioners about the feeding of the 5,000. In the Biblical tale, when Jesus went to mourn the passing of John the Baptist, the large crowd that followed him were miraculously fed on just five loaves and two fish. According to the <a href="https://biblehub.com/john/6-12.htm">Gospel of John</a>, at the end of the meal, Christ told his disciples to “gather the pieces that are left over,” so “nothing be wasted,” and they collected 12 full baskets of leftovers.</p>
<p>In another Biblical parable, the rich man Dives went to hell when he denied the scraps of his feast to the poor man <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2016%3A19-31&version=NIV">Lazarus</a>, who instead ascended to heaven. Like Lazarus, the Tudor poor waited at the gates of grand estates to receive the remains of lavish feasts. An almoner (a church official who was responsible for distributing money or food to the poor) collected leftovers but also the first slices of meat to be given in charity. </p>
<h2>Leftovers</h2>
<p>Even those from humbler backgrounds could donate surplus food. Instead of throwing it to the pigs, the whey left over from cheese making, for example, could become a nourishing summer drink for the labourers who toiled in the hot fields. </p>
<p>Charitable housewives who expressed their piety by distributing such leftovers to their poor neighbours would “find profit therefore in a divine place,” according to Gervase Markham in his popular <a href="http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/book%201615%20huswife.htm">1615 cookery book</a>. </p>
<p>As well as being distributed to the poor, the leftovers from large Tudor households went to employees rather than going to waste. In Queen Elizabeth I’s <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_Collection_of_Ordinances_and_Regulatio/yGxBAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1">royal household</a>, workers who cooked meats in the “boiling house” received the “dripping of the roste” and even “the grease… in the kittles (kettles) and pannes” as a benefit for their labour. A waste product to those with plenty, these meat juices could be reimagined to add flavour and nutrition to sauces and gravies. </p>
<p>Still, those at the top of the social scale had access to far more than they could possibly eat. Elizabeth’s table overflowed with elaborate pies, roasted meats, sugar sculptures, imported wines and exotic fruits. </p>
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<img alt="An old painting of a table filled with ornate looking food." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580382/original/file-20240307-20-o5bbbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580382/original/file-20240307-20-o5bbbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580382/original/file-20240307-20-o5bbbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580382/original/file-20240307-20-o5bbbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580382/original/file-20240307-20-o5bbbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580382/original/file-20240307-20-o5bbbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580382/original/file-20240307-20-o5bbbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Still life with turkey pie by Pieter Claesz.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pieter_Claesz._-_Stilleven_met_kalkoenpastei_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">Rijksmuseum/Wikimedia</a></span>
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<h2>Waste and hunger</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, widespread hunger led to rioting across the country in the 1590s after years of devastating harvests. As wealthy landlords closed off their land to common pasture, <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Worlds_Within_Worlds/A_odA1alLoYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">flour prices tripled</a> over the span of just a few years. </p>
<p>In the Bible, Ruth gleaned from the field of a wealthy man named Boaz, in accordance with the <a href="https://biblehub.com/leviticus/23-22.htm">Old Testament law</a>: “when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field…thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger”. With this example, the poorest in Tudor England collected the scraps from the harvest to feed themselves and their families. </p>
<p>Squaring these disparate images of plenty and want is not too hard when we consider that in the UK <a href="https://foodfoundation.org.uk/initiatives/food-insecurity-tracking">9.7 million adults</a> experience food insecurity according to data from September 2022. Meanwhile the richest <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7484/">5% take home 37%</a> of the nation’s total disposable income. On a global scale, <a href="https://www.wfp.org/stories/5-facts-about-food-waste-and-hunger">a third of the food</a> we produce goes to waste while <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Waste_Free_Kitchen_Handbook/Y0IACgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1">842 million people</a> are afflicted with chronic hunger. </p>
<p>Food waste today is a pressing environmental issue. But this foray into Tudor food waste reminds us that it is also a deeply moral issue that reflects the growing inequalities between the rich and the poor. In telling the so far untold history of food waste, my research reflects on our changing moral values, and our relationship with food, people and planet. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eleanor Barnett is the author of Leftovers: A History of Food Waste and Preservation (Head of Zeus, 2024). She receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Cardiff University. </span></em></p>
During the Tudor period, religious beliefs shaped people’s attitudes towards food and food waste.
Eleanor Barnett, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222873
2024-02-06T05:56:16Z
2024-02-06T05:56:16Z
The royals have historically been tight-lipped about their health – but that never stopped the gossip
<p>King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer. This is an unexpected announcement: it is unusual for the royal family to release details of medical conditions to the public.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/2986">Don’t let the daylight in</a>” was how British essayist Walter Bagehot advised the British monarchy to deal with the public in 1867. “[A]bove all things our royalty is to be reverenced […] its mystery is its life,” he wrote. </p>
<p>For Queen Elizabeth II this attitude framed her response to public information about the royals, quipping “<a href="https://www.news24.com/you/royals/news/royal-author-explains-queens-never-complain-never-explain-mantra-20220620">never complain, never explain</a>”. Maybe this explains why Princess Kate’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/05/king-charles-diagnosed-with-cancer-buckingham-palace-announces">recent abdominal surgery</a> has not been disclosed to the public, with media reports saying she is “determined to keep her medical details private”. </p>
<p>In revealing the fragility of the royal body much of the mystique about them as anointed by God fades away. But the royals’ health has, occasionally, been the subject of official news, and, more commonly, the subject of gossip.</p>
<h2>Henry VIII’s ‘soore legge’</h2>
<p>Henry VIII’s (1491–1547) health was well-documented and discussed in state-papers and diplomatic dispatches of the day.</p>
<p>In his early years, he was known for his robust health. In his later years, he would be described as “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2789029/">cursed</a>” by his deteriorating health.</p>
<p>As Henry aged, his access to fine food led to an increase of weight. Doctors today might diagnose him with obesity, and it has been <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2789029/">speculated by contemporary medical historians</a> he suffered from hypertension and Type II diabetes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573685/original/file-20240206-25-8umju3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Portrait of King Henry VIII." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573685/original/file-20240206-25-8umju3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573685/original/file-20240206-25-8umju3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573685/original/file-20240206-25-8umju3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573685/original/file-20240206-25-8umju3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573685/original/file-20240206-25-8umju3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1058&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573685/original/file-20240206-25-8umju3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1058&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573685/original/file-20240206-25-8umju3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1058&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It has been speculated Henry VIII lived with hypertension and diabetes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/holbein-hans-joven/portrait-henry-viii-england">© Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This disease, which can lead to diabetic neuropathy and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/library/features/healthy-feet.html">serious foot complications</a>, could account for the persistent and odorous ulcers on his “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2789029/#:%7E:text=In%20the%20same%20year%20Henry,annual%20salary%20of%2020%20shillings.">sorre legge</a>”, as described by his contemporaries. </p>
<p>Knowledge about Henry’s health was not widespread. The king had sequestered himself in his private apartments. Even his attending <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2388216/pdf/annrcse00840-0011.pdf">physicians did not keep notes</a>, perhaps concerned about being accused of treason in the volatile politics of the time. Most of our knowledge today is gleaned from diplomatic reports sent by diplomats to their own leaders.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/henry-viiis-notes-in-prayer-book-written-by-his-sixth-wife-reveal-musings-on-faith-sin-and-his-deteriorating-health-new-discovery-208767">Henry VIII’s notes in prayer book written by his sixth wife reveal musings on faith, sin and his deteriorating health – new discovery</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Queen Anne’s lupus</h2>
<p>Queen Anne (1665-1714) had 17 pregnancies, 11 of which resulted in miscarriages or stillbirths, with the remainder all dying in childhood. Despite the regularity of her failed pregnancies, her physician, John Radcliffe, repeatedly declared she was in good health and her miscarriages were due to “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1540-6563.1986.tb00702.x">the vapours</a>”, a vague diagnosis often attributed to aristocratic women. </p>
<p>It is <a href="https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA12456274&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=17592151&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7Ee39109f7&aty=open-web-entry">now believed Anne</a> may have been afflicted with the autoimmune condition lupus. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573686/original/file-20240206-17-kpdyk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573686/original/file-20240206-17-kpdyk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573686/original/file-20240206-17-kpdyk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573686/original/file-20240206-17-kpdyk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573686/original/file-20240206-17-kpdyk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573686/original/file-20240206-17-kpdyk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1246&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573686/original/file-20240206-17-kpdyk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1246&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573686/original/file-20240206-17-kpdyk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1246&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Queen Anne by Michael Dahl. Oil on canvas, circa 1702. NPG 6187.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/use-this-image/?mkey=mw08095">© National Portrait Gallery, London</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Anne’s contemporaries, the name of the illness perhaps mattered less than the real political issue it presented: who would become monarch after her? With no heirs, there was real political fear her Catholic half-brother <a href="https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/learning/biographies/jamesfrancisedwardstuart(1688-1766).aspx">James Francis Edward Stuart</a> (“The Old Pretender”) would claim the throne. </p>
<p>But the law <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/parliamentaryauthority/revolution/collections1/parliamentary-collections/act-of-settlement/">excluded Catholics</a> from the taking the crown, and ensured Anne would be succeed by her second cousin, George I of Hanover and Britain.</p>
<h2>George III and mental illness</h2>
<p>George III (1738–1820) famously suffered from bouts of mental illness, more recently been speculated to be caused by <a href="https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/porphyria">Porphyria</a>, a hereditary blood disorder. </p>
<p>Throughout his illness <a href="https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/speccoll/2023/11/01/bulletin-on-the-state-of-king-george-iiis-health-october-2011-2/">bulletins were issued</a> by his doctors informing the public of his condition. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573693/original/file-20240206-25-m54hwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The King sits in an armchair in profile to the left, bending forward to eat a boiled egg, holding the egg-cup in his left hand." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573693/original/file-20240206-25-m54hwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573693/original/file-20240206-25-m54hwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573693/original/file-20240206-25-m54hwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573693/original/file-20240206-25-m54hwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573693/original/file-20240206-25-m54hwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573693/original/file-20240206-25-m54hwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573693/original/file-20240206-25-m54hwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This satirical cartoon of George III was published in 1792.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The Trustees of the British Museum</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These were kept <a href="https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/speccoll/2023/11/01/bulletin-on-the-state-of-king-george-iiis-health-october-2011-2/">deliberately vague</a>, with the aim to reassure the public rather than divulge details. His repeated bouts of illness mean his health was <a href="https://oro.open.ac.uk/92656/3/92656.pdf">a constant in the media of the time</a>, with frequent, at times twice-daily, updates during episodes.</p>
<p>His illness called into <a href="https://oro.open.ac.uk/92656/3/92656.pdf">question his ability to be monarch</a>, a situation eventually resolved by the installing of his son, later George IV, as Prince Regent.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-owns-the-royal-body-public-interest-in-royal-health-reveals-anxieties-about-our-rulers-221534">Who owns the royal body? Public interest in royal health reveals anxieties about our rulers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A family of haemophilia</h2>
<p>Queen Victoria has been called the “<a href="https://hekint.org/2020/02/10/royal-blood-queen-victoria-and-the-legacy-of-hemophilia-in-european-royalty/?highlight=%E2%A3%82%E2%A3%9A%20Buy%20Viagra%20from%20%240.31%20per%20pill%20%3A%20%F0%9F%8F%A5%20www.LloydsPharmacy.xyz%20%F0%9F%8F%A5%20-%20Pharma%20without%20prescription%20%E2%A3%9A%E2%A3%82Viagra%20Cialis%20Levitra%20Staxyn%20Online%20Viagra%20Online%20Information">Grandmother of Europe</a>” due to her many descendants. This also came with a deadly legacy, haemophilia, given the moniker “the royal disease”. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/hemophilia/facts.html">Haemophilia</a> is an inherited disorder which mostly affects males, where the blood does not clot properly. This can lead to severe or spontaneous bleeding which can be dangerous if not treated properly. While the illness can be managed well today, in Victoria’s time little was known about it. </p>
<p>It is believed Victoria passed on the trait to <a href="https://www.hemophilia.org/bleeding-disorders-a-z/overview/history">three of her nine children</a>, at a time when life expectancy for those who had the disease was just 13 years old. Two of her daughters were asymptomatic carriers, however her fourth son Prince Leopold (1853-1884) was afflicted with the disease.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573688/original/file-20240206-21-xy4nfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sepia photograph" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573688/original/file-20240206-21-xy4nfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573688/original/file-20240206-21-xy4nfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573688/original/file-20240206-21-xy4nfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573688/original/file-20240206-21-xy4nfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573688/original/file-20240206-21-xy4nfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573688/original/file-20240206-21-xy4nfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573688/original/file-20240206-21-xy4nfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Queen Victoria with eight of her children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/107NGS">Getty Museum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the royal family were careful to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21764831/">manage what information was publicly released</a> about his illness, his status meant it garnered public attention. It was covered in medical journals of the time, and later in newspapers. </p>
<p>As knowledge of the illness grew, both the public and members of the royal family were able to use it to guide decisions on marriages to limit its spread.</p>
<h2>A new approach</h2>
<p>In the days leading up to Elizabeth’s death on 2022, the media reported her as resting “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/09/08/queen-under-medical-supervision-as-doctors-are-concerned-for-her-health/?sh=42c483e9140e">comfortably</a>” and provided no information on the nature of her illness. Even her <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/News/queen-elizabeth-iis-death-revealed-death-certificate/story?id=90696648">death certificate</a> failed to reveal her cause of death, other than as old age. </p>
<p>Charles has signalled he wants to do monarchy differently than his mother. After his recent prostate surgery, his office stated he wanted to inspire men to look after their prostates. Anecdotal evidence suggests more men have sought medical tests in response which is being called the “<a href="https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/king-charles-effect-spurs-aussie-men-to-consult-their-gp-for-prostate-symptoms/">King Charles effect</a>”.</p>
<p>Now, the announcement of Charles’s cancer diagnosis signals a new approach by the royals. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-happens-if-king-charles-can-no-longer-perform-his-duties-222870">What happens if King Charles can no longer perform his duties?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222873/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
News of King Charles III’s cancer is unexpected: it is unusual for the royal family to release details of medical conditions to the public.
Lisa J. Hackett, Lecturer, Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, University of New England
Huw Nolan, Animal Welfare scientist and pop culture researcher, University of New England
Jo Coghlan, Associate Professor Humanities Arts and Social Sciences, University of New England
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213832
2023-09-25T12:32:07Z
2023-09-25T12:32:07Z
Henry VIII’s favourite fool – a new book draws a portrait of the man the Tudor court loved to laugh at
<p>Henry VIII is notorious for his willingness to lop off the heads of anyone who crossed him, including a string of former friends and intimates –even two of his wives. So you might think that, to keep your head on your shoulders at his court, you would need to have your wits about you and to watch your tongue. </p>
<p>And yet, one figure who sailed on apparently effortlessly through Henry’s bloody later years and the equally violent reigns of his successors was Will Somers, the court fool.</p>
<p>Somers died peacefully under Queen Elizabeth I after a long and successful career at the Tudor court. It is this survivor’s tale that the Swedish historian Peter Andersson set out to tell in <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691250168/fool">Fool: In Search of Henry VIII’s Closest Man</a>. </p>
<p>In writing a book about Somers, Andersson faces two pretty serious problems. One, we know almost nothing about Somers. We have a series of off-hand mentions, hackneyed anecdotes and accountants’ notes, none of which add up to much. </p>
<p>Secondly, what we do know is that his purpose was to make people laugh – but Tudor comedy has, to put it kindly, not aged well. The punchline to a number of the jokes remembered here is that a man pisses in his pants. As Andersson says rather apologetically, “you had to be there” – but perhaps you’re glad you weren’t.</p>
<p>Conjuring up a 200-page book out of what little there is on Somers is a tall order, and at times the performance sags. Andersson does invoke quite a lot of historical and literary scholarship to interpret Somers’ world – and while it is learned it is about as entertaining as a Tudor joke-book. He has to cast his net pretty wide, searching not only for solid facts, of which there are precious few, but for “things that ring true”, an alarmingly capacious category.</p>
<p>Still, he’s on to something. The court fool was, as he shows us, a weird category of being. Quite distinct from the clown, who sets out to make people laugh and is in on the joke, the point of the fool was that he stumbles into comedy by mistake. Anyone who wants to know about this oddly central figure in Tudor life will find Andersson’s book worthwhile.</p>
<h2>The king’s pet</h2>
<p>Like many court fools, Somers had a reputation for being hot-tempered, sometimes lashing out at the wrong person when tormented. He also, more unusually, had a reputation for falling asleep at inopportune moments. Neither of those things would be tolerated for a moment in a normal courtier, which is presumably the point. He was an anti-courtier, his misbehaviour indulged like a pet’s. Indeed, there is a story that says he slept with the king’s spaniels. He was, the account books tell us, only an intermittent presence at court, since presumably little foolery goes a long way.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Portrait of Henry VIII and his family." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548850/original/file-20230918-29605-8u04z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548850/original/file-20230918-29605-8u04z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548850/original/file-20230918-29605-8u04z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548850/original/file-20230918-29605-8u04z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548850/original/file-20230918-29605-8u04z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548850/original/file-20230918-29605-8u04z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548850/original/file-20230918-29605-8u04z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Somers is depicted on the far right of this portrait of Henry VIII and his family.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Sommers#/media/File:Family_of_Henry_VIII_c_1545.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Somers was, the portraits tell us, beardless like a boy, with his hair close-cropped like a madman. Sadly, he wouldn’t have worn the cockscomb headdress with bells that we imagine, but expensive and distinctive clothes were made for him, to mark him out visually from the normal humans at court. </p>
<p>Somers mostly wore green and his clothes were apparently covered in brightly coloured silk buttons, which were bought for him by the hundred. As that suggests, he wasn’t there chiefly for his witty banter, but to be looked at, laughed at and mocked.</p>
<p>And, it seems, kicked and punched. This was not sophisticated comedy. One of the later sources has Somers say that the king “gave me such a box on the ear, that struck me clean through three chambers, down four pair of stairs, fell over five barrels, into the bottom of the cellar”. This is Looney Tunes stuff.</p>
<p>As Ian Holm’s Napoleon says in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081633/characters/nm0000453">Terry Gilliam’s film Time Bandits</a>: comedy is about “little things hitting each other”. No wonder Henry VIII’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Heywood">court musician and playwright John Heywood</a> had sour grapes about his own commissions drying up while the court still guffawed at this sort of thing. It would be like Shakespeare being sacked and replaced with a troupe of dwarf-wrestlers.</p>
<h2>Nobody’s fool</h2>
<p>But what made Somers so memorable was that courtiers could never quite make up their minds about him. Was he, they repeatedly asked, truly a “natural fool”, or was he an “artificial fool”? Was the joke on him, or on them? Although Andersson’s book is heavy going at times, this central puzzle animates it and keeps the reader guessing to the end.</p>
<p>Take Somers’ most famous witticism. One day when the king was lamenting his poverty, Somers told him it was because he employed so many “frauditors, conveyors and deceivers”. Was that play on the words “auditors, surveyors and receivers” something that someone had taught him, like teaching a parrot to swear? Or was he sharper than he let on?</p>
<p>In the end, Andersson doesn’t buy it. He reckons Somers really was a “natural fool”, “saying what came into his mind, now and then inadvertently stumbling upon a humorous phrasing or unwittingly saying something that could be imbued with comedy”. I’m not so sure. If those who knew him couldn’t make up their mind what he was, it seems foolhardy for us to make a judgement. </p>
<p>By far the best-attested saying of Somers’, for which we have three independent witnesses, is that he would abide by nothing that he had said: warning us, in effect, not to believe a word from him. It’s worth remembering as you read this book. Is the joke on him, or on us?</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213832/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alec Ryrie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The court would laugh at rather than with the fool.
Alec Ryrie, Professor of the History of Christianity, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/208767
2023-07-04T12:22:50Z
2023-07-04T12:22:50Z
Henry VIII’s notes in prayer book written by his sixth wife reveal musings on faith, sin and his deteriorating health – new discovery
<p>It’s common knowledge that Henry VIII had six wives. But the cataclysmic love triangle between <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Catherine-of-Aragon">Catherine of Aragon</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anne-Boleyn">Anne Boleyn</a> gets all the airtime, while wives three to six are an afterthought.</p>
<p>In director Alexander Korda’s rollicking film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAlabDCkawY">The Private Life of Henry VIII</a> (1933), Katherine Parr (wife six) was reduced to a throwaway joke in the film’s last moments. Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz’s upcoming film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPGNNoaBc8c">Firebrand</a> is the first to bring Parr to centre stage – and not before time. </p>
<p>Right on cue, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/renaissance-quarterly/article/katherine-parrs-giftbooks-henry-viiis-marginalia-and-the-display-of-royal-power-and-piety/8402F8B9E7F8369B47F8C8F7A965BF16">new evidence</a> has come to light giving an intriguing glimpse into Parr’s relationship with her capricious husband. Namely, the discovery of Henry’s notes in a book authored by his wife. </p>
<h2>The bookish queen</h2>
<p>Katherine Parr was unlike her five predecessors. Aged 30 and already twice widowed in 1543, the king made her an offer she couldn’t refuse, forcing her to break off another planned marriage. The increasingly disabled Henry had finally stopped pursuing nubile broodmares and sought out a companion instead. </p>
<p>Parr deftly navigated the tangled politics of the royal family, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Kateryn_Parr.html?id=OmtnAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">brokering a reconciliation</a> between the king and the two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, he had declared to be bastards. <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Kateryn_Parr.html?id=OmtnAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">She may even</a> have helped in restoring them to the line of succession. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534793/original/file-20230629-25-cww47l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534793/original/file-20230629-25-cww47l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534793/original/file-20230629-25-cww47l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534793/original/file-20230629-25-cww47l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534793/original/file-20230629-25-cww47l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534793/original/file-20230629-25-cww47l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534793/original/file-20230629-25-cww47l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534793/original/file-20230629-25-cww47l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A late 16th century portrait of Katherine Parr (1512–1548) by an unknown artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait.php?search=ap&npgno=4618&eDate=&lDate=">National Portrait Gallery</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Henry certainly came to trust her judgment. When he set off for his final, futile war in France in 1544, he made her regent in his absence. Part of the appeal, it seems, was her bookish piety. Parr was the first English queen to publish a book and the first English woman to publish under her own name. </p>
<p>Her three books were pious exercises, beginning with a safe collection of translated texts titled <a href="https://academic.oup.com/chicago-scholarship-online/book/28613/chapter-abstract/239019072?redirectedFrom=fulltext">Psalmes or Prayers</a> (1544) and becoming more daring thereafter. The <a href="https://newwhitchurch.press/parr/lamentation">Lamentation of a Sinner</a> (1547) was written during Henry’s lifetime, but its theology was too assertively Protestant to be published until he was safely dead.</p>
<p>The earlier books, though, seem to have delighted the king. He inscribed the queen’s own copy of Psalmes or Prayers: “Remember this writer / when you do pray / For he is yours”. He had always been theatrically pious and in his last years – brooding, in pain, nurturing his many humiliations – he turned to religion with melancholy intensity.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535343/original/file-20230703-267655-ub4u9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A portrait of Henry VIII in gold finery." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535343/original/file-20230703-267655-ub4u9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535343/original/file-20230703-267655-ub4u9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535343/original/file-20230703-267655-ub4u9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535343/original/file-20230703-267655-ub4u9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535343/original/file-20230703-267655-ub4u9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535343/original/file-20230703-267655-ub4u9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535343/original/file-20230703-267655-ub4u9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henry VIII as painted in 1540 by Hans Holbein the Younger.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.barberinicorsini.org/en/opera/portrait-of-henry-viii/">National Gallery of Ancient Art</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/ref_2002_7_1_004">We know</a> what Henry thought religion should mean to his subjects: a tough, moralistic faith without much room for forgiveness, whose keynote was obedience to himself. But what about his personal faith?</p>
<p>Enter <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/renaissance-quarterly/article/katherine-parrs-giftbooks-henry-viiis-marginalia-and-the-display-of-royal-power-and-piety/8402F8B9E7F8369B47F8C8F7A965BF16">a new discovery</a> by Canadian literary scholar <a href="https://carleton.ca/english/people/white-micheline/">Micheline White</a>. </p>
<p>Queen Katherine ordered a few luxury copies of Psalmes or Prayers printed on vellum, with delicate hand colouring. One of these, now in Buckinghamshire’s <a href="https://wormsley.com/venues/library/">Wormsley Library</a> is festooned with marginal markings and “<a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/manicules">manicules</a>” – little doodled hands with fingers pointing to a passage some reader wanted to emphasise.</p>
<p>White has established, by meticulously comparing these distinctive manicules with others whose provenance we know, that this attentive reader was none other than Henry VIII.</p>
<h2>What Henry VIII’s notes reveal</h2>
<p>It’s no surprise Henry should have taken comfort in the Biblical psalms. They were supposedly the work of a pious but lecherous king, David, with whom <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Early_Tudor_England.html?id=8ER2QgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">he strongly identified</a>.</p>
<p>The passages Henry marked are a telling glimpse of the extent – and the limits – of his self awareness. His illness and other troubles are much on his mind: he marks prayers to “take away thy plagues … turn away thine anger”.</p>
<p>He is also drawn to prayers lamenting sin and asking God for wisdom. “Give me a new heart, and a right spirit, and take from me all wicked and sinful desires.”</p>
<p>The sentiments indicate a man who was serious both about his kingly responsibilities and personal spiritual predicament. Unlike many other murderous narcissists, Henry VIII did know he was a sinner who needed forgiveness. But his confidence “that my sins may be purged” suggests tension between the eagerness with which he sought grace and his refusal to countenance mercy – royal or divine – for his subjects.</p>
<p>Queen Katherine, as the popular rhyme tells us, “survived” her marriage, but it was a close run thing. </p>
<p>In 1546, the last summer of Henry VIII’s life, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-british-studies/article/abs/alec-ryrie-the-gospel-and-henry-viii-evangelicals-in-the-early-english-reformation-new-york-cambridge-university-press-2003-pp-xix306-6500/3E8F6623E049954FD5BD9D4A7853B370">she was suspected</a> – on good grounds – of nurturing a nest of religious radicals at court. Henry allowed himself to be persuaded that all her pious talk was actually an attempt to lure him into heresy.</p>
<p>According to a late <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315253374-27/one-survived-account-katherine-parr-foxe-book-martyrs-thomas-freeman">but well-informed account</a> by the martyrologist John Foxe, she got wind of the danger and immediately threw herself on his mercy. Katherine <a href="https://www.dhi.ac.uk/foxe/index.php?realm=text&gototype=&edition=1583&pageid=1268">protested that</a> she, a “poor woman so much inferior in all respects of nature unto you”, had simply been seeking his religious guidance.</p>
<p>“Not so, by Saint Mary,” Henry replied. “You are become a Doctor, Kate, to instruct us (as we take it) and not to be instructed, or directed by us.” </p>
<p>No, she protested: she had only sought to distract him with talk during “this painful time of your infirmity” and had in the process learned a great deal from his wisdom. With someone else, that might have been laying it on too thick, but she knew her man. </p>
<p>“And is it even so, sweetheart?” Henry replied. “Then perfect friends we are now again.” The arrest warrant was cancelled. </p>
<p>Months later, the king was dead. Unfortunately, Queen Katherine married the man she’d kept waiting with almost indecent haste – only to be cold shouldered when she fell pregnant and left to die in childbirth. History is thin on happy endings.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208767/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alec Ryrie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Henry had always been a theatrically pious king and in his last years he turned to religion with melancholy intensity.
Alec Ryrie, Professor of the History of Christianity, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/200646
2023-05-01T20:01:06Z
2023-05-01T20:01:06Z
Picking up a King Charles III coronation commemorative plate? You’re buying into a centuries-old tradition
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521508/original/file-20230418-26-swntno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C17%2C3982%2C2976&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dutch delftware with a double portrait of William III and Mary II, ca. 1690.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Metropolitan Museum of Art</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mugs and plates celebrating the coronations, marriages and deaths of British royalty are not unusual sights in the Australian home. With the forthcoming coronation of King Charles III on May 6, such memorabilia cluttering our cupboards are only likely to increase. </p>
<p>Guides to “<a href="https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/king-charles-coronation-memorabilia-2023">the best King Charles III memorabilia</a>” are already advising what souvenirs to buy, including commemorative coins, biscuit tins, tea towels, plates and, of course, mugs. </p>
<p>Yet the royal souvenir is not a recent invention. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/weve-been-collecting-souvenirs-for-thousands-of-years-they-are-valuable-cultural-artefacts-but-what-does-their-future-hold-189449">We've been collecting souvenirs for thousands of years. They are valuable cultural artefacts – but what does their future hold?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>History of the royal mug</h2>
<p>The tradition of celebrating royal events with a mug or drinking vessel dates to at least the 17th century when the current king’s ancestor and namesake, Charles II, was restored to the English throne in 1660-1. </p>
<p>Several mugs and cups produced at the time have survived and depict the “<a href="https://www.historyextra.com/period/stuart/charles-ii-guide-restoration-why-merry-monarch-how-many-children-rule/">merry monarch</a>”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521507/original/file-20230418-26-iczhu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521507/original/file-20230418-26-iczhu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521507/original/file-20230418-26-iczhu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521507/original/file-20230418-26-iczhu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521507/original/file-20230418-26-iczhu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521507/original/file-20230418-26-iczhu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521507/original/file-20230418-26-iczhu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521507/original/file-20230418-26-iczhu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cup, tin-glazed earthenware (delftware), with a bust portrait of Charles II, probably Southwark, 1660-1665.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Victoria and Albert Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The restoration of Charles II (after his father Charles I had been executed by order of parliament in 1649) was greeted with rejoicing throughout England, Scotland and Ireland. </p>
<p>The famous social climber and diarist Samuel Pepys embodied the general feeling of this time when he wrote that on the day of Charles II’s coronation he watched the royal procession with wine and cake and all were “<a href="https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1661/04/22/">very merry</a>” and pleased at what they saw. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/beheaded-and-exiled-the-two-previous-king-charleses-bookended-the-abolition-of-the-monarchy-190410">Beheaded and exiled: the two previous King Charleses bookended the abolition of the monarchy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Drinking and eating in celebration may account for why mugs and plates were, and remain, such popular forms of royal memorabilia; they were used to <a href="https://stuarts.exeter.ac.uk/education/objects/delftware-cup-c-1661/">drink loyal toasts</a> of good health to the monarch on special days of celebration. </p>
<p>While a strong ale was the preferred liquid for 17th-century toasts, as the British Empire expanded tea drinking became a common pastime. Teacups became popular royal souvenirs during the reign of Queen Victoria in the 19th century. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521513/original/file-20230418-21-mdh86q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521513/original/file-20230418-21-mdh86q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521513/original/file-20230418-21-mdh86q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521513/original/file-20230418-21-mdh86q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521513/original/file-20230418-21-mdh86q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521513/original/file-20230418-21-mdh86q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521513/original/file-20230418-21-mdh86q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521513/original/file-20230418-21-mdh86q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Commemorative teacup for Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee, 1896.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">McCord Stewart Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fostering support</h2>
<p>The earthenware mugs made for Charles II’s coronation were relatively inexpensive, but not produced on a mass scale. </p>
<p>With the industrial revolution of the 19th century and the rise of souvenir culture, royal memorabilia in all forms became more <a href="https://theconversation.com/royal-family-why-even-a-charles-and-diana-divorce-mug-is-important-for-the-monarchy-176588">popular and widespread</a>. </p>
<p>Since 1900, royal births, deaths, marriages and coronations have been big money for manufacturers of royal memorabilia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522239/original/file-20230420-20-eguqhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522239/original/file-20230420-20-eguqhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522239/original/file-20230420-20-eguqhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522239/original/file-20230420-20-eguqhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522239/original/file-20230420-20-eguqhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522239/original/file-20230420-20-eguqhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522239/original/file-20230420-20-eguqhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522239/original/file-20230420-20-eguqhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mug celebrating the coronation of Edward VII in 1902.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Te Papa (CG000043/B)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The pitfalls of mass production were realised in 1936 when Edward VIII abdicated from the throne just months before his planned coronation in May 1937. Manufacturers were stuck with <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/178313173?searchTerm=%22coronation%20mug%22">thousands of mugs</a>, plates and other items celebrating the coronation of a king that would not happen. </p>
<p>Many of these mugs still made their way out to the market, while other manufacturers such as Royal Doulton <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_2012-8022-5-a-c">adapted existing designs</a> and used them for the coronation of his brother, George VI.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522238/original/file-20230420-14-55n4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522238/original/file-20230420-14-55n4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522238/original/file-20230420-14-55n4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522238/original/file-20230420-14-55n4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522238/original/file-20230420-14-55n4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522238/original/file-20230420-14-55n4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522238/original/file-20230420-14-55n4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522238/original/file-20230420-14-55n4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mug commemorating the planned coronation of Edward VIII.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Powerhouse collection. Gift of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1981. Photographed by Bob Barker.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>English monarchs were not the only royals to encourage the use of their image on objects collected, worn or used by their subjects. </p>
<p>Renaissance Italian princes popularised the <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2016/renaissance-portrait-medals/exhibition-themes">portrait medal</a> and the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, Charles V, fostered support in his vast territories using mass-produced medallions <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/197126">bearing his image</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521515/original/file-20230418-24-ua1317.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521515/original/file-20230418-24-ua1317.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521515/original/file-20230418-24-ua1317.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521515/original/file-20230418-24-ua1317.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521515/original/file-20230418-24-ua1317.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521515/original/file-20230418-24-ua1317.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521515/original/file-20230418-24-ua1317.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521515/original/file-20230418-24-ua1317.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An enamel medallion depicting Emperor Charles V (1500–1558), ca. 1518–20.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Metropolitan Museum of Art</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Objects with images of royalty served similar functions in the 20th century. Australian school children were often <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/141777602?searchTerm=%22coronation%20mug%22">given medals</a> to commemorate coronations, while children in England were gifted pottery mugs to drink to the sovereign’s health. </p>
<p>When Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953, <a href="https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/coronation-of-hm-queen-elizabeth-ii">English children</a> received mugs, tins of chocolate and a spoon or coin. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hkPyG-xbyg8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Measuring popularity</h2>
<p>Royal memorabilia don’t just foster support but act as a barometer of the popularity of the royal family around the globe. </p>
<p>Coronation mugs became popular in the reign of Charles II in 1661 because these objects captured the joyous feeling of a nation that had endured 20 years of warfare and political chaos. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521518/original/file-20230418-24-d6yi11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521518/original/file-20230418-24-d6yi11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521518/original/file-20230418-24-d6yi11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521518/original/file-20230418-24-d6yi11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521518/original/file-20230418-24-d6yi11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521518/original/file-20230418-24-d6yi11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521518/original/file-20230418-24-d6yi11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521518/original/file-20230418-24-d6yi11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Delftware featuring Charles II and Catherine of Braganza, likely commemorating their wedding. ca. 1662-1685.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Victoria and Albert Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Support for the royal family has often been shown through royal weddings and marriages: plates depicting Charles II and his Portuguese bride, Catherine of Braganza, were made to celebrate their union in 1662.</p>
<p>Recently a <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/metal-detectorist-discovers-rare-gold-pendant-celebrating-henry-viiis-first-marriage-180981557/">gold pendant</a> inscribed with the initials of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, likely worn by a supporter, was also discovered. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521521/original/file-20230418-26-gm1q8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521521/original/file-20230418-26-gm1q8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521521/original/file-20230418-26-gm1q8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521521/original/file-20230418-26-gm1q8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521521/original/file-20230418-26-gm1q8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521521/original/file-20230418-26-gm1q8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521521/original/file-20230418-26-gm1q8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521521/original/file-20230418-26-gm1q8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gold pendant associated with Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, ca. 1509-1530.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Birmingham Museums Trust</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Prince William and Kate Middleton’s highly anticipated wedding in 2011, thousands of types of mundane and wacky <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/gossip/la-et-royal-wedding-souvenirs-pictures-photogallery.html">souvenirs</a> were produced, such as plates, mugs, magnets, graphic novels, toilet seat covers and PEZ dispensers.</p>
<p>Over 1,600 lines of official merchandise were produced for the marriage of Princes Charles to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981. <a href="https://issuu.com/accpublishinggroup/docs/june_july_2022_mag/s/15960301">Less than 25 lines</a> were produced for Charles’ unpopular second marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521468/original/file-20230418-24-g103gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521468/original/file-20230418-24-g103gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521468/original/file-20230418-24-g103gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521468/original/file-20230418-24-g103gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521468/original/file-20230418-24-g103gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521468/original/file-20230418-24-g103gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521468/original/file-20230418-24-g103gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521468/original/file-20230418-24-g103gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Charles and Diana cup to commemorate their wedding on July 29 1981.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Charles may not be <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2023/03/01/celebrities-dont-care-to-perform-for-king-charles-iii/?sh=56487b7a20f8">as popular</a> as his mother, coronation fever has most definitely taken hold in the United Kingdom. Royal fans are set to spend £1.4 billion (A$2.6 billion) on <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/21911733/shoppers-spend-billion-king-coronation-may/">coronation parties and souvenirs</a>. </p>
<p>The availability of coronation souvenirs and party supplies in Australia is somewhat more limited – perhaps an indicator of Australia’s diminishing appetite for the royal family amid increased calls for another <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-24/king-charles-australias-head-of-state-alternative-republic/101470156">vote on a republic</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-king-charles-iiis-coronation-quiche-tells-us-about-the-history-of-british-dining-203362">What King Charles III's coronation quiche tells us about the history of British dining</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Bendall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
From lockets for Henry VIII’s wedding to tea cups for Charles III’s coronation, there is a long history of royal souvenirs.
Sarah Bendall, Research Fellow, Gender and Women's History Research Centre, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/202744
2023-04-02T20:02:56Z
2023-04-02T20:02:56Z
Far from the ‘ludicrously capacious’: what the fashion of Succession tells us about the show – and about society
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518620/original/file-20230330-911-2047pr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C1917%2C1273&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Kramer/HBO</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine if the person you’re dating invites you to their great-uncle’s birthday party. This is not just any family gathering. The great-uncle in question is a billionaire and the party is at their New York City penthouse. To fit in, you wear your best dress and carry your most expensive handbag – a large, <a href="https://handbag.yournextshoes.com/expensive-handbag-brands/">four-figure</a> Burberry tote. </p>
<p>Unbeknown to you, your Burberry tote is a major fashion faux pas. It immediately distinguishes you as someone who is not part of this super elite. It is not the price tag or brand that has betrayed you: it’s the size of the bag. </p>
<p>This is what unfolded in a scene from the season-four premiere of HBO’s Succession. While attending patriarch Logan Roy’s birthday, Cousin Greg is mercilessly mocked by Tom Wambsgans for his date’s “ludicrously capacious” handbag. Bridget’s handbag, Tom scoffs, is “monstrous” and “gargantuan”. </p>
<p>The biting humour between Tom and Greg is an entertaining and engaging feature of Succession. In this scene, however, their repartee reveals much about the power structures within elite society. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-succession-feeds-the-hidden-fantasies-of-its-well-to-do-viewers-201936">How 'Succession' feeds the hidden fantasies of its well-to-do viewers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Money talks, wealth whispers</h2>
<p>While many would consider Bridget’s Burberry tote the epitome of luxury and elegance, the functionality of bag and its iconic check pattern was entirely gauche to the Roys. </p>
<p>The size of the bag implied Bridget did not have staff catering to her every whim. She must carry everything she needs for the day with her. According to Tom Wambsgans, this includes her lunch (implying she can’t afford to dine at restaurants) and appropriate shoes for the subway (indicating she doesn’t have a driver). </p>
<p>This is a stark comparison to Shiv Roy, who is rarely seen with a bag or any accessory except her phone. Unlike Bridget, Shiv is not plagued with the stresses of life. She has people for that. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518617/original/file-20230330-23-knlmie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Shiv talks on the phone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518617/original/file-20230330-23-knlmie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518617/original/file-20230330-23-knlmie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518617/original/file-20230330-23-knlmie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518617/original/file-20230330-23-knlmie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518617/original/file-20230330-23-knlmie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518617/original/file-20230330-23-knlmie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518617/original/file-20230330-23-knlmie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shiv Roy is rarely seen with accessories, other than her phone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Claudette Barius/HBO</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The iconic Burberry tartan that covered Bridget’s bag was also, according to Tom, an “enormous faux pas”. Visible brand names and patterns have <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/quiet-luxury-trend">become associated</a> with people who try to emulate wealth but are not familiar enough with elite society to understand its sartorial nuances. The upper elite favour quiet but luxurious fashions. </p>
<p>This style is often referred to as the old money aesthetic. </p>
<h2>The old money aesthetic</h2>
<p>Since the early 20th century, the old money aesthetic has been a symbol of wealth and privilege. Characterised by polo shirts, chinos and a knit sweater over the shoulders, this style romanticises country club, yacht and equestrian cultures. Think Ralph Lauren and the Kennedys.</p>
<p>The old money aesthetic is also deeply entwined with notions of nobility. </p>
<p>Historically, royals and aristocrats were considered superior to all others. This social hierarchy was enforced by laws that regulated what people could wear based on their class. Clothing was an immediate visual representation of social standing and power. In 16th-century England, only kings, queens and dukes were allowed to wear gold cloth. If you weren’t part of the nobility, you weren’t allowed to wear <a href="https://www.thecollector.com/what-are-sumptuary-laws/">crimson or blue</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518656/original/file-20230331-28-63syle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Oil painting of the Tudors" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518656/original/file-20230331-28-63syle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518656/original/file-20230331-28-63syle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518656/original/file-20230331-28-63syle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518656/original/file-20230331-28-63syle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518656/original/file-20230331-28-63syle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518656/original/file-20230331-28-63syle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518656/original/file-20230331-28-63syle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">If you weren’t part of the nobility, you weren’t allowed to wear crimson or blue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dressing above your station had serious ramifications. Henry VIII’s Acts of Apparel made it illegal for anyone except “The King and his Family” to wear <a href="https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/tudor-fashion">purple</a>. In 1513, one of Henry’s noblemen defied this law to signal his own claim to the English throne. Not long after, Henry had him <a href="https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-figures/10-henry-viii-executions.htm">executed for treason</a>.</p>
<p>In more recent times, the nobility’s penchant for tailored jackets, woollen sweaters and tweeds have become reflective of a leisure class who are exempt from work. The innate historical connection between dress and class has resulted in these items becoming inseparable from notions of social superiority. They are seen as timeless, stylish and sophisticated. </p>
<h2>The Roys and everyone else</h2>
<p>The intrinsic connection between dress and social superiority is regularly deployed in TV shows like Succession. Costume is an important tool by which creators can demonstrate hierarchy between characters. While almost all the characters in Succession belong to the wealthy upper class, they are clearly not equal. </p>
<p>Cousin Greg’s date, Bridget, is wealthy enough to afford a four-figure bag. Its size and loud pattern, however, mark her as <em>nouveau riche</em> and tawdry.</p>
<p>Tom’s mockery of Bridget is somewhat ironic, given he too was ridiculed for his sartorial inferiority. Tom always presents a polished, buttoned-up appearance in designer suits and ties. This is contrasted against Kendall and Roman, who rarely wear ties, often pair suits with sports shoes and baseball caps and, in more recent episodes, have favoured a combination of jeans, t-shirts and blazers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518654/original/file-20230331-18-3s01tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Kendall in a suit jacket, white shirt and baseball hat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518654/original/file-20230331-18-3s01tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518654/original/file-20230331-18-3s01tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518654/original/file-20230331-18-3s01tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518654/original/file-20230331-18-3s01tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518654/original/file-20230331-18-3s01tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518654/original/file-20230331-18-3s01tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518654/original/file-20230331-18-3s01tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kendall is unlikely to be seen in a tie – he doesn’t need to impress.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Macall B. Polay/HBO</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tom’s refined and agreeable appearance reflects his eagerness to please Logan and secure position in the family. When mocking his suit in season two, the Roy children allude to this desperation and reaffirm his status as less than their own.</p>
<p>The costumes of the Roy family situate them firmly at the top of the social elite. They are often in cashmere knitwear and tailored blazers. When in the country, caps and Barbour jackets are in keeping with their casual, conservative, old-money appearance. </p>
<p>Unlike those outside the family, they don’t need to impress anyone. Their clothing denotes a stealth wealth, and its historical significance infers social superiority. </p>
<p>Next time you tune into Succession, pay close attention to subtleties in the characters’ costumes. They reveal much about the fabric of society. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/celebrity-money-and-power-tvs-obsession-with-the-murdoch-family-dynasty-146113">Celebrity, money and power: TVs obsession with the Murdoch family dynasty</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202744/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grace Waye-Harris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
When is a four-figure handbag a fashion faux pas? When you’re a character in Succession, rubbing shoulders with some of the richest and snobbiest elitists ever committed to screen.
Grace Waye-Harris, PhD Candidate in History, University of Adelaide
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/191839
2022-10-06T12:16:50Z
2022-10-06T12:16:50Z
Dude food is not patriotic – vegetables and moderation are more deeply rooted in the nation’s early history
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488168/original/file-20221004-14-983iyd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C24%2C8167%2C5420&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Neither George Washington nor Thomas Jefferson would have approved of this bacon cheeseburger. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/bacon-cheeseburger-with-salad-in-bun-served-on-royalty-free-image/1374703509?phrase=beef%20barbecue&adppopup=true">zoranm/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dude food is on a roll in America. Gargantuan pizzas, footlong subs, high-stacked burgers and extra-loaded nachos remain <a href="https://www.fatherly.com/health/dude-food-masculinity">a basic choice for any real or pretend He-Man</a>.</p>
<p>Eating dude food conjures not just manliness, however. There’s patriotism, too. <a href="https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/guy-fieri-food-network-salary-shows-interview-1235388817/">TV networks keep churning out shows</a> that celebrate the quasi-magical equation between <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469660745/diners-dudes-and-diets/">generous portions, masculinity and devotion to country</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.foodnetwork.com/profiles/talent/guy-fieri">Guy Fieri, the multimillionaire guru of dudeism</a>, has a clear-cut philosophy. His barbecues and other cooking performances are a means to celebrate American patriotism, counteracting what he describes as a lot of “<a href="https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2022/04/28/guy-fieri-serves-lunch-military-members-ahead-stagecoach/9561740002/">infighting and democratic craziness that goes on</a>” in the U.S. </p>
<p>Dude food, Fieri says, would remind Americans about “what a great country we are and how lucky we are to be <a href="https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2022/04/28/guy-fieri-serves-lunch-military-members-ahead-stagecoach/9561740002/">the greatest country in the world</a>.”</p>
<p>But as an author of a new book on George Washington, notoriously <a href="https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12786/first-among-men">the first among men</a>, I can assure you that there was a time when dude food was not celebrated as either masculine or patriotic.</p>
<p>At that moment in American history, devouring heaping helpings wasn’t considered manly by the country’s leaders. It was seen as grotesque, perhaps even a vestige of aristocratic British habits: “I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1785, “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-06-02-0120">which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C13%2C2995%2C2447&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A bleached blond man with a goatee and wearing a camo shirt grills steaks over a fire, which is flaming high." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C13%2C2995%2C2447&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488165/original/file-20221004-19-jugmvt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chef Guy Fieri demonstrates how real men cook real meat in real fire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chef-and-television-personality-guy-fieri-prepares-food-at-news-photo/957632110?phrase=guy%20fieri%20food&adppopup=true">Ethan Miller/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Revolution meets the kitchen</h2>
<p>After gaining independence, one of the founders’ main concerns was to make the new “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-04-02-0363">experiment</a>,” as they called the nation, as little “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=corrupt%20Author%3A%22Jefferson%2C%20Thomas%22&s=1111311111&r=7&sr=">corrupt</a>” and as little British as possible.</p>
<p>It was in the kitchen, Jefferson joked, that a “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-06-02-0120">reformation must be worked</a>.” He wasn’t entirely joking. Educating Americans to eschew gluttony, to cut down on red meat and to model their manliness upon ideals of moderation, self-control and other <a href="https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2785&context=cklawreview">republican virtues</a> was serious stuff to Jefferson and his fellow founders.</p>
<p>Self-styled manly men, today as well as a couple of centuries ago, eat a lot. And, as author Carol J. Adams writes in “<a href="https://caroljadams.com/spom-the-book">The Sexual Politics of Meat</a>,” they do not eat vegetables, berries or <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780826404558">ingredients that can be easily cultivated or foraged</a>. </p>
<p>But eating roast beef as King <a href="https://owlcation.com/humanities/Henry-VIIIs-Kitchens">Henry VIII</a> did wasn’t a habit American leaders sought to imitate, or in any way encourage. We are what we eat, an old adage says, and in the eyes of the founders, those who indulged in humongous servings or blood-soaked chunks of flesh couldn’t become a good model for the nation.</p>
<p>John Adams, the second president, found it “humiliating,” “degrading” and “mortifying” that Americans should excel in intemperance, regarding food or when it comes to their drinking habits. </p>
<p>“Is it not humiliating that Mahometans and Hindoes,” Adams asked, “should put to shame the whole Christian world by their superior examples of Temperance? is it not degrading to Englishmen and Americans that they are so infinitely exceeded by the French in this cardinal virtue and is it not mortifying beyond all expression that we Americans should exceed all other and millions of people in the world in <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=Is%20it%20not%20humiliating%20that%20Mahometans%20and%20Hindoes&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=">this degrading beastly vice of Intemperance</a>?”</p>
<p>Washington, for one, stood up as an example of temperance. He largely adhered to “a vegitable and milk diet,” eating only small amounts of red meat. Washington’s alimentary philosophy was to avoid “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-13-02-0033">as much as possible animal food</a>.” </p>
<p>Medical doctors, similarly, frowned upon the consumption of meat. In November 1757, for example, Washington was bedridden with dysentery. As the doctor arrived, he pronounced his therapy. “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-05-02-0035">He forbids the use of meats</a>,” Washington wrote in one letter.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A tidy and large garden, with a group of visitors in the middle of it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488169/original/file-20221004-24-guw299.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Jefferson believed in a diet dominated by vegetables, more than 300 varieties of which were grown in his garden at Monticello, shown here in 1987.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/guide-talks-with-a-group-of-visitors-in-the-garden-at-news-photo/142770631?phrase=Monticello%20garden&adppopup=true">Robert Alexander/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a whole, Washington never turned his meals into occasions during which he would promote his masculinity. He always aimed for moderation – even if, by today’s standards, he does not appear ascetic.</p>
<p>Washington was fond of fish. On Saturdays, especially during his time as president, <a href="https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12786/first-among-men">he usually had what was called a “salt fish dinner</a>,” a potpourri of boiled beets, potatoes and onion mixed with boiled fish, fried pork scraps and egg sauce. </p>
<p>His soldiers as well had to learn the habit of temperance – and to learn it the hard way. </p>
<p>“The health of the army,” one of Washington’s orders goes, “cannot be preserved without a due portion of vegetable diet. This <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=cannot%20be%20preserved%20without%20a%20due%20portion%20of%20vegetable%20diet&s=1111311111&sa=&r=2&sr=">must be procured whatever may be the expense</a>.”</p>
<p>Washington’s officers were expected not only to supervise the “cleanliness of the camp” but above all “to inspect the food of the men, both as to the quality and the manner of dressing it.” It was crucial to push soldiers “to accustom themselves more to boiled meats and soups and less to broiled and roasted, which, as a constant diet, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-09-02-0584">is destructive to their health</a>.”</p>
<p>It wasn’t only “destructive to their health”; it was a bad example for the nation. Many people could see the famous general and later the president <a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820328249/life-of-general-washington/">eating moderately</a>. Washington thus established a clear-cut difference between himself, a civilized and modern man, humble and calm, and those hapless creatures who were trapped at an inferior stage of civilization.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An 18th century family, consisting of a well-dressed boy and girl, and their parents, at a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488170/original/file-20221004-18-3s15jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Washington, seen here in a family portrait, believed in eating ‘a vegitable and milk diet’ and avoiding ‘as much as possible animal food.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.561.html">Edward Savage painter, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, National Gallery of Art</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Moderation and self-control</h2>
<p>The founders’ culinary preferences were a political act. They were inviting men to repudiate one of their allegedly essential masculine privileges, the craving to sate their vast appetites.</p>
<p>“I have lived temperately,” old Jefferson explained to Dr. Vine Utley, “eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-14-02-0144">condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet</a>.”</p>
<p>Adams, Washington and Jefferson didn’t fear that by abstaining from dude food they would have been seen as weak. They didn’t dread exclusion from male company. For them, moderation and self-control were more important manly assets.</p>
<p>Moderation and self-control, the founders believed, would give Americans a clearer mind to think about the future of their nation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maurizio Valsania does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The celebration of generous portions, meat and fat as masculine and patriotic would have been alien to Washington and Jefferson, who advocated vegetables and moderation as American ideals.
Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di Torino
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/191282
2022-09-23T17:28:15Z
2022-09-23T17:28:15Z
Hilary Mantel was one of the great voices of historical fiction – and so much more
<p>Dame Hilary Mantel was a writer of immense skill and originality, and her death represents an incalculable loss to British literature. She will be chiefly remembered for her trilogy on the life of the Tudor politician <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-mirror-and-the-light-hilary-mantel-gets-as-close-to-the-real-thomas-cromwell-as-any-historian-133091">Thomas Cromwell</a>.</p>
<p>The grace and vigour of these gripping novels transformed our understanding of what historical fiction can do. They were extraordinarily successful. <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/wolf-hall">Wolf Hall</a> (2009) and <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/bring-up-the-bodies">Bring Up the Bodies</a> (2012) both won the Booker Prize (she was the first woman to win the prize more than once), and <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/the-mirror-the-light">The Mirror and the Light</a> (2020) was longlisted. I was a member of the jury that awarded the Booker Prize to Bring Up the Bodies, and we were of one mind about the superb quality of that novel.</p>
<p>Adaptations for both television and stage followed, and it is a tribute to the power of Mantel’s exploration of the ambiguities surrounding Cromwell’s dramatic life that these versions brought many enthusiastic new readers to her novels. She became, relatively late in her life, a literary star.</p>
<p>The popularity of Mantel’s trilogy should not overshadow the remarkable range of her achievement. Her treatment of Thomas Cromwell brought a mass readership, but the accomplishment of her earlier novels had already won critical recognition. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5yJNKtSTizc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>A writer’s life</h2>
<p>Mantel graduated from LSE and Sheffield University, and married Gerald McEwan, a geologist, in 1972 (they divorced in 1981, and remarried in 1982). A short spell of employment as a social worker lay behind her first published novel, the darkly comic <a href="https://www.independentreviewofbooks.com/every-day-is-mothers-day-by-hilary-mantel/">Every Day is Mother’s Day</a> (1985), and its sequel <a href="https://readeratlarge.com/2010/04/04/vacant-possession-by-hilary-mantel-contains-plot-spoilers/">Vacant Possession</a> (1986).</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Book cover" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486331/original/file-20220923-15071-4oxn6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486331/original/file-20220923-15071-4oxn6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486331/original/file-20220923-15071-4oxn6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486331/original/file-20220923-15071-4oxn6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486331/original/file-20220923-15071-4oxn6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486331/original/file-20220923-15071-4oxn6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486331/original/file-20220923-15071-4oxn6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Place of Greater Safety.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A major historical novel, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/jan/09/review-hilary-mantel-a-place-of-greater-safety">A Place of Greater Safety</a> (completed in 1979, but not published until 1992) is a characteristically innovative interpretation of the French Revolution. Here, as throughout Mantel’s writing, a far-sighted grasp of the sweep of history and politics was fused with the inward particularities of individual experience.</p>
<p>Mantel had a lyrical sense of the irreducible strangeness of the world, with its vivid moments of beauty and threat, but this was never removed from her understanding of the moral imperatives of our shared responsibilities. She was never a neutral observer of the ebb and flow of history.</p>
<p>Mantel spent extended periods of her life overseas – notably in Botswana and Saudi Arabia – and she was always alert to a world beyond Britain. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/sep/11/featuresreviews.guardianreview23">Eight Months on Ghazzah Street</a> (1988) is a tense account of misunderstandings between westerners and Saudis living in Jeddah. <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/book-review-evil-weathered-under-african-skies-a-change-of-climate-hilary-mantel-viking-15-pounds-1431912.html">A Change of Climate</a> (1994) draws on her life in Botswana, and the traumatic social divisions she had witnessed in southern Africa.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Book cover" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486332/original/file-20220923-13704-hqtm9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486332/original/file-20220923-13704-hqtm9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486332/original/file-20220923-13704-hqtm9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486332/original/file-20220923-13704-hqtm9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486332/original/file-20220923-13704-hqtm9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486332/original/file-20220923-13704-hqtm9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486332/original/file-20220923-13704-hqtm9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fludd.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mantel had an unusually wide and well-informed grasp of social and cultural politics, but she never lost her interest in lives that unfold on the edge of what might be perceived as normality. <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780805062731">Fludd</a> (1989), describes a quasi-supernatural stranger whose arrival turns a dismal Catholic community upside down. It is never quite clear who Fludd is, or where he has come from, or whether he is an agent of good or evil.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780805044287">The Giant, O’Brien</a> (1998), based on the Irish giant Charles Byrne and the Scottish surgeon John Hunter, is in part a rueful reflection on Mantel’s own Irish roots. The legacies of Irish Catholicism also shadow <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/11/specials/mantel-experiment.html?scp=28&sq=%2522The%2520Rime%2520of%2520the%2520Ancient%2520Mariner%2522&st=cse">An Experiment in Love</a> (1995), a novel that looks back on the lives of girls of Mantel’s postwar generation - eager to take advantage of new opportunities for education, but still haunted by the constraints of the past.</p>
<h2>A rich legacy</h2>
<p>The sense that another world exists, its presence flickering just past our everyday vision, underlies all of Mantel’s work. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/apr/30/featuresreviews.guardianreview30">Beyond Black</a> (2005) is an unsettling and brilliantly entertaining account of the life of a medium, who may or may not be a fraud. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Book cover" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486333/original/file-20220923-17-oc8rfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486333/original/file-20220923-17-oc8rfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486333/original/file-20220923-17-oc8rfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486333/original/file-20220923-17-oc8rfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486333/original/file-20220923-17-oc8rfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486333/original/file-20220923-17-oc8rfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486333/original/file-20220923-17-oc8rfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Giving Up The Ghost.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/may/10/featuresreviews.guardianreview18">Giving up the Ghost</a> (2003), a searing memoir, repeatedly returns to the ghosts that stalked her early years – family ghosts, ghosts of unborn children, ghosts of lives that might have taken a different shape. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/21/books/review/learning-to-talk-hilary-mantel.html">Learning to Talk</a> (2003), published in the same year, is a collection of short stories that turn on the same theme.</p>
<p>These stories are in part autobiographical recollections of Mantel’s childhood in Glossop, as she began to remove herself from the divided world of her family. Here too, it is the sharply observed details that linger – Miss Webster, for instance, the elocution teacher, with her careful accent – “precariously genteel, Manchester with icing”.</p>
<p>More recent short stories have been openly political, and sometimes controversial – notably <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/the-assassination-of-margaret-thatcher-review-hilary-mantel-collection-short-stories">The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher</a>, the provocative title story in a collection published in 2014.</p>
<p>This shining stream of writing has now come to an end. It’s good to know that Hilary Mantel experienced and enjoyed all the success she had so richly earned, and that we are left with such a rich body of writing to relish and revisit. But the sense of immediate loss is painful. She was a unique and generous talent, and she will be hugely missed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191282/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dinah Birch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A short guide to the Wolf Hall author’s remarkably varied back catalogue.
Dinah Birch, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Cultural Engagement, Professor of English Literature, University of Liverpool
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155256
2021-04-22T12:24:47Z
2021-04-22T12:24:47Z
Shakespeare’s musings on religion are like curious whispers – they require deep listening to be heard
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396365/original/file-20210421-17-if17cq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C177%2C6927%2C5153&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Caliban implores his fellow island dwellers to listen to the noises in "The Tempest."</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/act-i-scene-ii-from-the-tempest-c19th-century-miranda-news-photo/507137240?adppopup=true">The Print Collector/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>William Shakespeare’s role as a religious guide is not an obvious one. </p>
<p>While the work of the bard, whose <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/when-was-shakespeare-born/">birthday is celebrated on April 23</a>, has been scoured at various times over the past four centuries for <a href="https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/clare-asquith/shadowplay/9781541774308/">coded messages about Catholicism, Puritanism or Anglicanism</a>, the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/shakespeare-and-religion-9781904271703/">more common view</a> is that his stunning explorations of humanity leave little space for serious reflection on divinity. Indeed, some Shakespeare scholars have gone further, suggesting that his works display an <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo6021785.html">explicit atheism</a>.</p>
<p>But as a scholar of theology who has published <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Shakespeare-Theology-and-the-Unstaged-God/Baker/p/book/9780367784836">a book exploring Shakespeare’s treatment of faith</a>, I believe the playwright’s best religious impulses are displayed neither through coded affirmations nor straightforward denials. Writing at a time of great religious polarization and upheaval, Shakespeare’s greatest pronouncements on faith are more like curious whispers – and, like whispers, they require deep listening to be heard.</p>
<h2>Religious noises</h2>
<p>I see an invitation to this deep listening in one of Shakespeare’s most unusual plays, “<a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/tempest/">The Tempest.</a>” “Be not afeared,” the half-man, half-beast Caliban tells his companions as they arrive on the island where the play is set, “the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.”</p>
<p>It is a striking passage, made all the more so coming from a foul-smelling creature accused of attempted rape and repeatedly called “monster.” But in it, Shakespeare seems to be suggesting that there are dimensions of reality that many of us miss – and we might be surprised to find out who among us is paying attention.</p>
<p>Subtleties like this show up differently across Shakespeare’s plays. “Romeo and Juliet” is not in any overt sense a theological play. But as the tragedy comes to a somber denouement, we have the line “See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.”</p>
<p>While there is no clear naming of gods or fates, Shakespeare implies that some great power transcends the destructive feud between the Montagues and Capulets, the families of the two lovers. He calls into question the earthly power of the two houses – heaven, he implies, is also at work here.</p>
<h2>Tumultuous times</h2>
<p>Shakespeare was, I believe, in constant search of subtle ways to imagine divine intervention within the human realm. This is all the more impressive given the fraught religious times in which he lived.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="An etching of William Shakespeare." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Closet Catholic or atheist? Or is it more complicated?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/english-dramatist-william-shakespeare-circa-1600-news-photo/51165673?adppopup=true">Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The late 16th century witnessed religious and political polarization greater, even, than our own. Decades earlier, King Henry VIII had <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-349-22586-6">separated the Anglican church from Rome</a> and created a Protestant England. His daughter Elizabeth, who sat on the throne for the first half of Shakespeare’s writing career, was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/stc.2016.13">excommunicated by Pope Pius V</a> for continuing in her father’s footsteps. The queen responded by making the practice of Catholicism a crime in England. </p>
<p>So even before Elizabeth’s successor, James I, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/res/article-abstract/61/251/495/1564755">outlawed overt theological humor or criticism on stage</a>, artists hoping to engage in religious themes were under considerable restrictions. </p>
<p>These upheavals affected Shakespeare directly. Shakespeare’s <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/shakespeare-religion/">family had deep ties to Roman Catholicism</a>, as likely did some of his closest associates. For any one of them to express doubts about the Anglican prayer book, or even to avoid the Anglican parish on Sunday, was to put themselves under suspicion of treason. </p>
<p>There is little in the way of biographical detail to help scholars looking for Shakepeare’s religious beliefs. Instead, they have generally relied on explicit references to familiar religious language or character types – the Catholic priest in “Romeo and Juliet,” for instance – in speculating about Shakespeare’s faith. Some have suggested that clues and codes in his play suggest the <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/news/shakespeare-closet-catholic">playwright was a closeted Catholic</a>. But to me it is more in what he doesn’t say, or where he finds new ways of saying something old, that Shakespeare is theologically at his most interesting. </p>
<h2>‘God’s spies’</h2>
<p>Shakespeare’s faith and how he expresses it are explored in a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24712408?socuuid=9b85877c-589a-4256-a51b-711cfbc818fb&socplat=email">2017 play</a> by poet Rowan Williams, a theologian and former head of the Church of England. In it, Williams imagines a young Shakespeare in search of a new language for things religious, and dissatisfied with the heavily politicized options before him.</p>
<p>In a pivotal scene, “young Will” explains to his Jesuit mentor that, despite the attractiveness of their radical Catholic cause, he cannot join: “The old religion is the only, the only – picture of things that speaks to me, yes, but it’s as if there were still voices all around me wanting to make themselves heard and they don’t all speak one language or tell one tale, and all that – it would haunt me if I tried what you do, and it would make me turn away from the pains and the question, because I’d know that there’d always be more than the old religion could say and it still had to be heard.”</p>
<p>In other words, while Catholicism “speaks” to young Will, he believes there is more that “still had to be heard.”</p>
<p>The voices that Williams’ Shakespeare wants to hear are similar, I believe, to those that Caliban talks of in “The Tempest.” So young Will does not join the Catholic cause; instead, he goes off in search of ways to stay with “the pains and the question.” Williams is suggesting that Shakespeare’s subsequent plays are an attempt to let all these complex and difficult voices “be heard.”</p>
<p>They are his attempt to give voice to religious noise beyond the range of the religious certainty of his age.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>We see this in “King Lear.” Lear spends the entire play cursing the gods for the lack of love and respect his children show him. But when the heaven-cursing rants finally subside, the play gives its audience a beautiful and painful reconciliation scene with his daughter Cordelia. He discovers in his daughter’s forgiveness a kind of higher vantage point, one from which they might both “take upon’s the mystery of things, As if we were God’s spies.”</p>
<p>Like Caliban in “The Tempest,” Lear learns to hear those voices just out of human range.</p>
<p>Similarly, Shakespeare asks his audience to listen and watch differently, as if we too are God’s spies or Earth’s monsters.</p>
<p>
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<div>
<header></header>
<p><a href="https://www.ats.edu/">Seminary of the Southwest is a member of the Association of Theological Schools.</a></p>
<footer>The ATS is a funding partner of The Conversation US.</footer>
</div>
</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155256/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony D. Baker funding in the form of a grant from The Conant Foundation, through The Episcopal Church, for travel research on Shakespeare. </span></em></p>
Scholars have scoured the works of the great playwright for clues about his faith. A scholar of theology and Shakespeare’s works says it isn’t as simple as that.
Anthony D. Baker, Professor of Systematic Theology, Seminary of the Southwest
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155511
2021-02-19T11:38:26Z
2021-02-19T11:38:26Z
There’s no such thing as a ‘faithful retelling’ of the Arthurian legend
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385057/original/file-20210218-20-165qj0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C32%2C3082%2C1275&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon by Edward Burne Jones.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Sleep_of_Arthur_in_Avalon#/media/File:Burne-Jones_Last_Sleep_of_Arthur_in_Avalon_v2.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Justice League director Zach Snyder has said he is interested in working on a “<a href="https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/zack-snyder-says-he-developing-a-king-arthur-film/">faithful retelling</a>” of Arthurian myth. Cut to a small horde of Arthurian scholars (myself included) entering stage left to loudly proclaim that there is no such thing as a “faithful retelling” of the King Arthur myth. King Arthur is one of the most pervasive legends <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-king-arthur-became-one-of-the-most-pervasive-legends-of-all-time-71126">of all time</a>. What scholars call the “Arthurian mythological concept” has developed over several centuries – and over several cultures. Indeed, what makes the Arthur legend so enduring is its very lack of fidelity. </p>
<p>Although many of us today get our first taste of the Arthurian legend from films such as Guy Ritchie’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1972591/?ref_=ttmi_tt">King Arthur: Legend of the Sword</a> (2017) or TV shows such as the BBC’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1199099/">Merlin</a> (2008-2012), the core elements of the story that we recognise remain largely medieval. </p>
<p>Arthur’s name first appears in the work of ninth century Welsh historian <a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/nennius-history-of-the-britons">Nennius</a>. However, the legend as we know it today – knights in shining armour, damsels in distress, Round Table, Holy Grail etc – gallops into view from around the 12th century onward. This heralds the start of what is now known as the “<a href="https://www.bl.uk/medieval-literature/articles/the-legends-of-king-arthur">Romance Tradition</a>”.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Painting of Merlin being seduced." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385059/original/file-20210218-13-isnr6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385059/original/file-20210218-13-isnr6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385059/original/file-20210218-13-isnr6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385059/original/file-20210218-13-isnr6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385059/original/file-20210218-13-isnr6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1323&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385059/original/file-20210218-13-isnr6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1323&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385059/original/file-20210218-13-isnr6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1323&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Beguiling of Merlin by Edward Burne Jones depicts the wizard being seduced by the Lady of the Lake.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beguiling_of_Merlin.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Chances are that if you’ve read a version of the Arthur story today it is likely to be one of these Romances – most likely Thomas Malory’s 15th-century <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1251"><em>Morte D'Arthur</em></a> or an early 20th-century re-telling such as TH White’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jun/03/featuresreviews.guardianreview4">The Once and Future King</a>. The tradition also proved very popular with the Victorians – especially with the Pre-Raphaelites, whose visual depictions of Arthurian legend frame the way we see the legend today. </p>
<p>For example, their paintings popularised captivating female figures such as the virginal <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/waterhouse-the-lady-of-shalott-n01543">Maid of Astolat</a> (or Shallot), the dangerous enchantress <a href="https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/morgan-le-fay-33655">Morgan Le Fay</a> and the beguiling Lady of the Lake, the temptress Nimue. </p>
<p>One thing that remains consistent throughout the centuries however is the Arthurian myth’s ability to remain relevant to the people, countries, and eras in which it is being retold. </p>
<h2>Reworkings and re-imaginings</h2>
<p>In the late 17th-century, for example, Arthur was enlisted in the wake of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as a means of bolstering support for the new Protestant regime and their political allies. Physician-poet Richard Blackmore wrote two lengthy epic poems – <a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/blackmore-prince-arthur-1">Prince Arthur</a> (1695) and <a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/blackmore-king-arthur-I">King Arthur</a> (1697) – comparing the new King William III to Arthur and praising the way in which the monarch’s religious (and, crucially, Protestant) piety would “<a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/blackmore-prince-arthur-1">fresh Life to Albion […] impart</a>”. </p>
<p>This was certainly not the first time Arthur had been associated with the English throne. Both the Tudors and the Stuarts adopted the mythical king to suit their own political purposes, with Henry VII going so far as to repaint the <a href="https://www.hants.gov.uk/thingstodo/greathall/whattosee">Winchester Round Table</a> with a Tudor Rose at its centre. The paint job was probably in honour of a state visit by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1522 and – just to ensure that Charles got the message – Henry also had himself depicted on the table, sitting in Arthur’s place. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The Winchester Round Table, showing Henry VII sitting in Arthur's seat and with a Tudor Rose at its centre." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384761/original/file-20210217-13-rcou0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384761/original/file-20210217-13-rcou0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384761/original/file-20210217-13-rcou0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384761/original/file-20210217-13-rcou0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384761/original/file-20210217-13-rcou0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384761/original/file-20210217-13-rcou0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384761/original/file-20210217-13-rcou0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Winchester Round Table, showing Henry VII sitting in Arthur’s seat and with a Tudor Rose at its centre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_Table#/media/File:Winchester_Round_Table.jpg">Wikimedia/Mike Peel</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Nor was it the last time that Arthur would find himself so conscripted. Elements of the Arthurian story – most notably the figure of Merlin – were used in the early 18th-century by the Hanoverian monarchs and their supporters to bolster their own claims to an inherently “British” identity. </p>
<p>Queen Caroline, a clever and well-informed curator of her own public image, capitalised upon the 18th-century’s rediscovery of its national history through ancient heroes. In collaboration with architect William Kent, she developed <a href="https://thegardenstrust.blog/2016/01/16/queen-caroline-merlins-cave/">Merlin’s Cave</a> – a name suggestive of a grotto but in reality more of a thatched folly (a round house with a thatched roof) designed around the Merlin myth – in the gardens at Richmond in 1735. </p>
<p>Numerous panegyric poems – poems designed to publicly praise and flatter – followed including two by “a lady subscribed Melissa”. The first praises “<a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/melissa-merlin-a-poem">Her Majesty Queen Guardian</a>” as the inheritor of Merlin’s legacy. The second, entitled <a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/melissa-merlins-prophecy">Merlin’s Prophecy</a>, envisages Frederick, Prince of Wales as “Ordain’d, to wield the Sceptre Royal […] And rule o'er Britons, Brave, and Loyal”. </p>
<p>As these examples illustrate, the one thing we can really say with any certainty about the Arthurian mythos is that fidelity is – as with any myth – an impossible concept. </p>
<p>Arthur has come a long way <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-arthurian-legend-64289">since his ninth century origins</a> and our modern interpretations show no signs of altering that trend. Whether it’s making us laugh about the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/">Monty Python and the Holy Grail</a> (1975) or <a href="https://theconversation.com/cursed-retelling-of-arthurian-legend-puts-women-centre-stage-in-an-era-of-female-leadership-143865">putting women centre stage</a> in <a href="https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80199393">Cursed</a> (2020), the appeal of Arthur’s mythical world is its adaptability. </p>
<p>He might be “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Once_and_Future_King">The Once and Future King</a>”, but there’s no such thing as faithful in Arthur’s mythical world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155511/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Louise Blaney receives funding from the Northwest Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). </span></em></p>
It’s a malleable mythos that has been adapted by kings and queens as well as artists and filmmakers.
Amy Louise Blaney, PhD Candidate and Associate Lecturer in English Literature, Keele University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/143765
2020-08-13T10:13:04Z
2020-08-13T10:13:04Z
How Thomas Cromwell used cut and paste to insert himself into Henry VIII’s Great Bible
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352544/original/file-20200812-14-albovd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=94%2C249%2C2507%2C2560&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian McKee/St John’s College</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Great Bible is often seen as a monument of English reform – but could it also contain the first known example of political photoshopping in early modern England? Printed in 1538-9, it was to be purchased by every parish church in the realm. Its creation was overseen by Henry VIII’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell. The Great Bible ushered in the English parish Bible and its large size and meticulous printing set the bar for centuries to come. Nowhere is its iconic appearance more evident than in a unique presentation copy made for the Tudor court. This copy was printed on vellum and hand-coloured by highly skilled illuminators. </p>
<p>I encountered this lavish copy while carrying out an <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-material-history-of-the-bible-england-1200-1553-9780197266717?view=Standard&facet_narrowbyproducttype_facet=Print&facet_narrowbybinding_facet=Hardback&facet_narrowbyprice_facet=50to100&lang=en&cc=gb#">in-depth study</a> of the production and use of Bibles in late medieval and early modern England. Researchers have long known about the Great Bible and used its striking title page for illustration. But little or no scientific analysis has ever been carried out on it. So I asked Paola Ricciardi, scientist in residence at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, to help me with a new investigation which utilised the latest technology to study the Bible in forensic detail. The results blew us away.</p>
<p>Our analysis revealed a new – and hitherto unknown – plot by Cromwell to literally change the balance of power on the Bible’s front page, just one year before his execution for high treason. We plan to publish our research results in full later this year.</p>
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<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p>As Lord Privy Seal and Vicegerent in Spirituals (Henry’s deputy in matters relating to the church), Cromwell was the most powerful man in Henry VIII’s court. Henry’s break from the Catholic Church and the dissolution of the monasteries became an opportunity for Cromwell to advance religious reform. For Cromwell, support for a vernacular Bible (translated into English for the general population) was linked with obedience to the King. But he had to counter a strong opposition and a substantial conservative faction in court and within the church. Henry’s support for religious reform was always limited. His stance on religion was influenced more by his political aims, rather than faith, so his support for a vernacular Bible was hesitant from the start.</p>
<p>Cromwell thought that the best way to ensure royal support was to produce a Bible worthy of royal patronage – both in its content and in its material grandeur. Such a Bible would combine Cromwell’s own evangelical leanings with the political aim of consolidating Henry’s control over the English church. Production began in Paris. English printers were simply not equipped to produce a book of the magnitude sought by Cromwell.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A photograph of the Great Bible's title page." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352489/original/file-20200812-14-5xwsdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352489/original/file-20200812-14-5xwsdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352489/original/file-20200812-14-5xwsdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352489/original/file-20200812-14-5xwsdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352489/original/file-20200812-14-5xwsdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1110&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352489/original/file-20200812-14-5xwsdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1110&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352489/original/file-20200812-14-5xwsdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1110&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The title page of the Great Bible, which has yielded its secrets after more than four centuries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian McKee/St John’s College.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A letter to Cromwell from the production team in Paris dated June 23, 1538, reveals that two luxurious vellum copies of the Bible were being prepared. It reads: “We have here sent unto your lordship two examples, one in parchment, wherein we intend to print one for the King’s grace, and another for your lordship.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351279/original/file-20200805-239-1b67g2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The Great Bible on display at a library." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351279/original/file-20200805-239-1b67g2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351279/original/file-20200805-239-1b67g2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351279/original/file-20200805-239-1b67g2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351279/original/file-20200805-239-1b67g2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351279/original/file-20200805-239-1b67g2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351279/original/file-20200805-239-1b67g2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351279/original/file-20200805-239-1b67g2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Great Bible in the Old Library of St John’s College, Cambridge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian McKee/St John's College</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Printed on parchment and meticulously hand-coloured, these copies have survived – one at the National Library of Wales and the other in St John’s College, Cambridge. In November 2019, with the kind assistance of St John’s College, we engaged in a technical and scientific investigation of their copy of the Great Bible. </p>
<h2>Scientific analysis</h2>
<p>We employed various non-invasive analytical techniques to examine the St John’s Bible, including X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy, reflectance spectroscopy (in the ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared range), high-resolution digital microscopy and advanced technical imaging. Scientific investigation of works of art has much to offer and is more reliable for material identification than visual analysis (historically the primary identification method for painting materials and techniques).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352982/original/file-20200814-22-kg6jnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352982/original/file-20200814-22-kg6jnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352982/original/file-20200814-22-kg6jnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352982/original/file-20200814-22-kg6jnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352982/original/file-20200814-22-kg6jnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352982/original/file-20200814-22-kg6jnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352982/original/file-20200814-22-kg6jnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>The focus of our technical examination of the Bible was the decoration. Knowledge of the painting materials and techniques used to decorate books can provide a wealth of information on production methods and artists’ skills –and, occasionally, on their identity. All of the hundreds of black-and-white images printed in the Bible were painstakingly hand-coloured by a group of talented artists for this special presentation Bible. In some cases, the artists did not simply colour in the print, but made significant changes to the black-and-white printed images used in the regular editions of the Bible.</p>
<p>Our investigation focused on 14 images, spread out across the volume. First, we used a range of spectroscopic methods to analyse a selection of small areas in each image, allowing the identification of individual pigments. The pigments identified throughout the volume were consistent with what is known about the materials used by Continental painters and illuminators during the 16th century. One of the most interesting results of this investigation was the fact that different “palettes” can be identified in different images, which suggests the presence of no less than six (and quite possibly more) artists at work on the decoration of this Bible.</p>
<p>The spectroscopic analysis was followed by high-magnification digital microscopy (in direct as well as <a href="https://www.hki.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/about/services/photographicservices/lightingtechniques">raking and transmitted light</a>). The close-up images captured using these methods not only provided greater insight into the stylistic preferences and working methods of the artists, but were also crucial in revealing the extent to which the printed images were modified at the painting stage. </p>
<h2>From black and white to colour</h2>
<p>We paid special attention to the Bible’s title pages. Each of the book’s five parts is preceded by a full, illustrated and meticulously hand-coloured title page. The title pages depict scenes from the parts of the Bible they precede (historical books, the words of the prophets, or the New Testament). We discovered that the St John Bible’s main front page was actually a hand-coloured adaption of the printed black-and-white version which would have been present in all the mass-produced Bibles. But this luxurious front page – meant for the eyes of King Henry VIII – contained some key differences, as the slider image below illustrates. </p>
<iframe frameborder="0" class="juxtapose" width="100%" height="900" src="https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=cfebea46-dc9a-11ea-bf88-a15b6c7adf9a"></iframe>
<p>The main black-and-white title page depicts an ideal scenario in which the majestic Henry VIII distributes bibles to lay and religious subjects, assisted by two of his faithful ministers – <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/cranmer_thomas.shtml">Thomas Cranmer</a>, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Cromwell. Renowned art historian <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Art-and-Communication-in-the-Reign-of-Henry-VIII/String/p/book/9780754663058">Tatiana String</a> believes the printed title page was the visual manifestation of Henry’s authority. Henry reigns at the top of the page, distributing bibles to laypeople and clerics, aided by Cromwell to his left and Cranmer to his right (each identified by his coat of arms). The Word of God then reaches the general public in the lower part of the page, who duly proclaim “<em>vivat rex</em>” and “God save the king” (apart from those in prison, who are seen on the bottom right and shout nothing). </p>
<p>This black-and-white title page of the Bible masterminded by Cromwell, distilled his theory of scripture and obedience. The dissemination of the Bible was from top to bottom (literally), resulting in greater submission to the monarch. Its details reveal, however, that it moves away from the more radical reformation ideal of putting the Bible “<a href="https://rsc.byu.edu/vol-17-no-2-2016/william-tyndale-john-foxe-boy-driveth-plough">in the ploughboy’s hands</a>”. The laity at the bottom of the page do not hold the Bible, they simply listen to the Word of God preached from the pulpit. This was a nuanced and hierarchical way to disseminate the book and it reflected the unease Henry had with common people reading the Bible.</p>
<p>In the St John’s copy, the printed title pages were carefully hand painted, with the original print at times peeping through. For example, in the hand-coloured version the prison was obliterated and replaced by a dedication scene. The original brick background is still visible through the red stockings of the green-clad figure. </p>
<h2>Cut and paste politics</h2>
<p>The most striking modification we found has so far been hidden from scholars working on this Bible. Under a microscope with raking light, it becomes evident that some of the faces were painted on separate pieces of vellum and pasted over the existing page. A thin line can be seen under Cromwell’s face where the image was pasted in. This was done in a highly professional manner, covering much of the border area with paint overlapping the edges and creating the impression of a single image. This major modification applied to Cromwell and another key figure.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Close up of Thomas Cromwell image on Great Bible" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351276/original/file-20200805-22-y3voc3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=113%2C30%2C4644%2C3532&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351276/original/file-20200805-22-y3voc3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351276/original/file-20200805-22-y3voc3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351276/original/file-20200805-22-y3voc3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351276/original/file-20200805-22-y3voc3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351276/original/file-20200805-22-y3voc3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351276/original/file-20200805-22-y3voc3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The edges of Cromwell’s portrait are barely noticeable but reveal it was painted separately and glued on to the vellum page.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">St John's College</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We believe that the instigator of this modification was Cromwell himself and the change had much to do with his representation on the page – a page which illustrates Henry’s complex attitude towards the lay readership of scripture, wavering between distribution and retraction. The same phenomenon, more nuanced but equally powerful, is evident in this careful modification. The pasting of Cromwell’s portrait had reshuffled political powers and affinity to the monarch.</p>
<p>In the original black-and-white design, Cromwell is affiliated with distributing the Bible to the laity – his coat of arms is in the middle of the page, below the figure whose features resemble Cromwell, handing the Bible (inscribed <em>verbum dei</em>, or “the Word of God”) to lay nobility. He mirrors Cranmer’s image, on the other side of the page, distributing a similar book to the clergy. This accorded with Cromwell’s central role in lay administration, as with his reformed leaning and his support for the printing of the Great Bible. In this image, then, Cromwell is on the level below the King and positioned in the middle of the page.</p>
<p>In the painted version of the title page, on the other hand, Cromwell is moved up a level and transformed into the person receiving the book from Henry’s left hand. This serves two purposes. It enhances the affinity between Cromwell and Henry, placing them next to each other. It also renders Cromwell in a more passive position, receiving the book from Henry rather than actively distributing it. Given Henry’s ambivalence towards the lay readership, this was a much less hazardous position. The careful and extensive modifications of the title page demonstrate Cromwell’s political prowess and his ability to read the political map and manipulate the visual image accordingly.</p>
<p>This transformation was both careful and premeditated. A back-light exposure reveals that the faces underneath the pasted elements had not been previously painted in, but rather left blank – anticipating the subsequent pasting. The scientific analysis reveals that the two faces were painted at the same time, most likely in a setting different from the painting of other features in the Bible. Very similar pigment mixtures were used across the two faces and they differ from those employed for flesh tones in the rest of the Bible. </p>
<p>Similarly, the pigments used in the uppermost sections of the fur garments in which the two figures are cloaked (those closest to the faces) differ from those identified in the lower portions of the garments. The same is true for the green brushstrokes surrounding the faces, painted with posnjakite (a copper sulphate mineral) unlike the rest of the grassy landscapes, which were painted in a different sulphate of copper. </p>
<p>This all suggests a targeted campaign. The separation between the painting of the other elements of the presentation copy and the faces reveals that the latter was carried out in a different location and at a later time – most likely in England – after the Bible had arrived from Paris. Reallocating the painting of the faces to London ensured greater accuracy, especially for those whose likeness was less well known outside of England.</p>
<p>In London, very few artists were capable of such skilled and intricate work. The workshops of either <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp07130/lucas-horenbout-or-hornebolte">Lucas Horenbout</a> or <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp07116/hans-holbein-the-younger">Hans Holbein</a> are the likely location where these portraits were painted and inserted into the title page. The involvement of artists with such close ties to Henry’s court (Horenbout was King’s Painter and court miniaturist from 1525 until his death in 1544, and Holbein was also painting for the court by the mid-1530s) would have guaranteed great accuracy in the depiction of key people. The features of the upper pasted face on the title page closely resemble known depictions of Cromwell. The image of him in the hand-coloured title page is probably his last accurate portrait.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Portrait of Thomas Cromwell." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351296/original/file-20200805-22-1psrnjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351296/original/file-20200805-22-1psrnjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351296/original/file-20200805-22-1psrnjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351296/original/file-20200805-22-1psrnjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351296/original/file-20200805-22-1psrnjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351296/original/file-20200805-22-1psrnjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351296/original/file-20200805-22-1psrnjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex – watercolour on vellum by Hans Holbein, 1537.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/use-this-image.php?mkey=mw09423">National Portrait Gallery</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Machiavellian manoeuvring</h2>
<p>But who was the second person, distributing Bibles below Cromwell? There is no obvious answer. Based on court politics at the time, and the iconography of the portrait, we believe that this could be <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hatfield-forest/features/sir-richard-rich">Richard Rich</a>, Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations (responsible for dissolving English monasteries) and Speaker of the House of Commons. A comparison between Rich’s known portrait and the pasted face supports this hypothesis.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A comparison of a portrait of Richard Rich with a close up image in the Bible." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352501/original/file-20200812-24-1plbz0z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352501/original/file-20200812-24-1plbz0z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352501/original/file-20200812-24-1plbz0z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352501/original/file-20200812-24-1plbz0z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352501/original/file-20200812-24-1plbz0z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352501/original/file-20200812-24-1plbz0z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352501/original/file-20200812-24-1plbz0z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hans Holbein’s portrait of Richard Rich compared to a pasted in face in The Great Bible.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/912238/sir-richard-rich-later-1st-baron-rich-14967-1567">Wikimedia/Royal Collection Trust/St John’s College</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This would demonstrate, once again, Cromwell’s political manoeuvring. Rich, once an affiliate of Cromwell and a leading politician at the court, would have been a natural ally in the dissemination of the Bible to the laity. By placing him underneath, further removed from Henry and closer to the more tricky endeavour of empowering the lay readership, Rich was presented as subordinate to Cromwell (which was not the case at the time) and with a clearer evangelical stance (again, this was not the case).</p>
<p>Rich was instrumental in facilitating the execution of Cromwell soon after and this may attest to Cromwell’s distrust of him. A few years earlier, Rich’s testimony was key in the executions of John Fisher and Thomas More.</p>
<h2>Jane Seymour</h2>
<p>The image of the woman on the bottom right of the page (and in front of the prison in the black-and-white page) was also changed in the painted copy. In the printed image, a woman is sitting next to a group of children, her hair in curls, possibly with a white undercap. Her hands instruct the children, while she is facing the man on her left (who appears to be the prison warden).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white and colour Jane Seymour image side by side" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352509/original/file-20200812-22-w8po8t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352509/original/file-20200812-22-w8po8t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352509/original/file-20200812-22-w8po8t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352509/original/file-20200812-22-w8po8t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352509/original/file-20200812-22-w8po8t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352509/original/file-20200812-22-w8po8t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352509/original/file-20200812-22-w8po8t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The female image believed to represent Jane Seymour evolved from black-and-white into a more ornate figure decorated in gold leaf.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cambridge University Library/St John’s College</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the painted image, however, this was completely transformed. The woman now faces the children and her features are more distinct and more subtle. Her headgear has been turned into a lavish gable hood, worn by nobility and royalty. This sumptuous gable, trimmed in gold and possibly jewelled, together with the distinctive facial features are reminiscent of Holbein’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hans_Holbein_the_Younger_-_Jane_Seymour,_Queen_of_England_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">portrait of Jane Seymour</a>, painted in 1536.</p>
<p>The portrait was well known at the time and served to inspire other <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315253374/chapters/10.4324/9781315253374-18">depictions of Jane Seymour</a>, who was Queen of England from 1536 to 1537 as Henry’s third wife. One such portrait was made in 1539 – the same year as the hand-painted title page. The importance of this figure is revealed when looking at the materials used for its creation. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Portrait of Jane Seymour from 1536." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351780/original/file-20200807-14-bojdo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351780/original/file-20200807-14-bojdo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351780/original/file-20200807-14-bojdo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351780/original/file-20200807-14-bojdo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351780/original/file-20200807-14-bojdo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1224&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351780/original/file-20200807-14-bojdo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1224&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351780/original/file-20200807-14-bojdo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1224&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hans Holbein’s portrait of Jane Seymour, 1536.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wga.hu/html_m/h/holbein/hans_y/1535h/02seymou.html">©KHM-Museumsverband</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The woman’s headdress and collar are the only instances where gold leaf was used on the page. Every other gilded area was decorated using “shell” (or powdered) gold. Pigment analysis also reveals the dress, which appears white with dark grey lines, contained tarnished silver. This combination of dazzling gold and silver makes the woman a truly spectacular addition to the colour title page.</p>
<p>Cromwell and Cranmer had previously used the King’s affinity to Seymour to elicit his support for the English Bible. In 1537, they evoked her pregnancy in the dedication to Henry which prefaced the <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/matthews-bible">Matthew Bible</a>. The title page of that Bible proclaimed: “Set forth with the King’s most gracious licence.” Seymour’s pregnancy led to the birth of the future Edward VI – Henry’s much sought-after male heir. It is little wonder then that the woman in the painted title page is instructing a group of children, with her gaze directed to them – unlike the turned head of the woman in the original image. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352516/original/file-20200812-14-67ou34.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352516/original/file-20200812-14-67ou34.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352516/original/file-20200812-14-67ou34.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352516/original/file-20200812-14-67ou34.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352516/original/file-20200812-14-67ou34.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352516/original/file-20200812-14-67ou34.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352516/original/file-20200812-14-67ou34.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ‘Jane Seymour’ figure’s dress under a microscope.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian McKee/St John’s College</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Seymour died shortly after labour on October 24, 1537. Henry grieved for her and cherished her memory. Her loss permeated throughout the remainder of his life and he was subsequently buried at her side at Windsor Castle. A further change of mind about this female portrait is evident in the hand-painted title page. The analysis of the woman’s dress reveals an additional layer of modification, which attests to a later transformation of the figure. Under a microscope, it becomes evident that the white of the upper part of the dress conceals a red layer of paint. </p>
<p>The dress was therefore originally red with a low neckline, mirroring the dress worn by Seymour in the Holbein portrait and was later modified. The motivation for this later transformation is not yet known.</p>
<h2>Political upheaval and betrayal</h2>
<p>The importance of this presentation copy of the Great Bible – and its sister copy held in Wales – should not be underestimated. These copies were most likely the first ones seen by Henry and his court. </p>
<p>The modifications we have uncovered provide a unique insight into Cromwell’s thought process. Between the design of the printed title page and the hand-colouring, he has grown more cautious and more wary of Henry’s support of the English Bible and reform in general. As a result, he wished to distance himself from the role of distributing Bibles and instead put in his place the person who was to play a key role in his downfall and execution. </p>
<p>The Great Bible was reprinted in six subsequent editions, all produced in quick succession between 1539 and 1541. Henry approved of the printed title page, which was kept in all editions – and later even replaced the title page to the New Testament. However, further transformations to the title page reveal the political upheavals which were to come and the ultimate fate of Cromwell.</p>
<p>Shortly after the appearance of the Great Bible, Cromwell devised Henry’s ill-fated <a href="https://englishhistory.net/tudor/monarchs/anne-of-cleves/">marriage to Anne of Cleves</a> in January 1540. The conservative faction in court used this opportunity to move against Cromwell, leading to his execution in July 1540 – in which the perfidious testament of Rich was instrumental. </p>
<p>The printers of subsequent editions of the Great Bible faced the problem of retaining the image of a convicted traitor. The solution was not to replace the woodcut used for printing altogether (a cumbersome and very costly endeavour). Instead of erasing Cromwell’s image entirely, they erased his coat of arms from the fourth edition of November 1540 and all subsequent editions thereafter.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white image of title page with coat of arms blanked out." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352513/original/file-20200812-20-s0ma9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352513/original/file-20200812-20-s0ma9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352513/original/file-20200812-20-s0ma9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352513/original/file-20200812-20-s0ma9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352513/original/file-20200812-20-s0ma9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352513/original/file-20200812-20-s0ma9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352513/original/file-20200812-20-s0ma9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Image shows how Cromwell’s coat of arms was erased.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Pennsylvania</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rather than completely obliterating Cromwell’s memory, the blank circle reminded readers of the fate of traitors to the Crown. Henry also grew disillusioned with the dissemination of bibles to the laity. He came to realise that reality was different to the ideal of the printed title page, and that reading the Bible did not necessarily lead people to shout “long live the king”, but rather to think for themselves. </p>
<p>Cromwell’s fear, leading him to rejig the images, became a reality. Henry’s distrust of lay reading led to legislation in 1543, prohibiting lay women and men of the lower classes from accessing the Bible. Our analysis reveals how key players reacted to political and religious changes. The image modifications have laid bare the truth of the English Reformation period and illustrated just how dangerous and political 16th-century England was – especially in the court of King Henry VIII.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eyal Poleg receives funding from The British Academy (PDF/2008/601). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paola Ricciardi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
New scientific research reveals how Thomas Cromwell’s Machiavellian manoeuvring influenced his own depiction on the front of The Great Bible.
Eyal Poleg, Senior Lecturer in Material History, Queen Mary University of London
Paola Ricciardi, Senior Research Scientist, The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/133091
2020-03-09T15:01:28Z
2020-03-09T15:01:28Z
The Mirror and the Light: Hilary Mantel gets as close to the real Thomas Cromwell as any historian
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319257/original/file-20200309-58017-1y2x6sb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C310%2C2747%2C2569&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thomas Cromwell by Hans Holbein.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Frick Collection</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Thomas Cromwell has had a remarkable and lasting impact on English history. The role that Henry VIII’s chief minister played in the country’s break with Rome and Catholicism and the focusing of power in the hands of the king’s government continues to have repercussions today as modern states debate their place in the world. </p>
<p>The question of Cromwell’s influence on the king and his role as backroom mastermind continues to fascinate modern audiences, holding up a mirror to more recent discussions over the role in today’s political sphere of special advisers such as Dominic Cummings or Alastair Campbell and their influence on modern-day leaders.</p>
<p>Cromwell’s life was lived largely in the shadows, so what can we make of his character and what is the truth of his existence? Historical evidence is limited and we catch only glimpses of Cromwell’s inner life in his own letters and the words that others said and wrote about him. </p>
<p>The basic skeleton of the historical record gives us a remarkable life, and yet it is a life that has – until relatively recently – been little discussed beyond the historical arena. Historians never anticipated that they would be able to capture a richer sense of Cromwell as a human being, so the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/02/wolf-hall-hilary-mantel">publication of Hilary Mantel’s Booker prize-winning Wolf Hall</a> in 2009 came as something of a shock to the world of Tudor history. </p>
<p>To suddenly encounter a fully realised individual, reliving the experiences of his childhood and violent father and grieving the shocking and sudden loss of his wife and daughters, formed a remarkable intervention in our understanding of a man who was described by Geoffrey Elton, the historian who admired him most, as being “<a href="https://www.historyextra.com/period/tudor/wolf-hall-author-hilary-mantel-talks-tudors-and-thomas-cromwell/">unbiographical</a>”. </p>
<p>The subsequent publication by Bring up the Bodies, which <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/resources/media/pressreleases/2012/10/16/bring-bodies-wins-2012-man-booker-prize-second-triumph">won Mantel a second Booker prize</a>, and Diarmaid MacCulloch’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/22/thomas-cromwell-life-diarmaid-maccolloch-review">2018 biography</a> completed Cromwell’s rehabilitation as someone we can make sense of when placed within his time and the events in which he took such a central role. But it has taken until now – more than seven years after volume two – for Mantel to tell the final phase of the story that she has transformed.</p>
<p>Mantel has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jun/03/hilary-mantel-why-i-became-a-historical-novelist">firmly stated</a> that it was not her aim to write a history. Yet her Cromwell is so real, so compellingly lifelike, that it has become very difficult to think about him without her interpretation coming into mind. For historians it is an important reminder that the figures we study were real people who lived and died – often in painful, even horrific, circumstances. </p>
<h2>Mantel’s small world</h2>
<p>It is easy, of course, for historians to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/31/students-take-hilary-mantels-tudor-novels-as-fact-hay-festival">find problems with Mantel’s account</a>. Mantel telescopes some events and adds to others for dramatic effect, providing Cromwell with motivations and a rich emotional inner life, all of which remains within the fictional realm.</p>
<p>What she really gives us is a version of what may have been possible. Just as historians disagree over the reading of a particular letter or incident, so we are free to engage with Mantel’s version of Cromwell. Her books are – and will continue to be – vital to the teaching of the subject and to the development of our understanding of Cromwell and his world. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pE0jqwttxn8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Historians have been increasingly drawn to thinking of the past not only in terms of the textual, material and visual records that survive, but also in terms of the architectural and geographical worlds in which people operated. The Tudor court was a small world of confined spaces and intimate relationships – an intense environment in which remarkable events took place. We can now add an imaginative reconstruction of that world, grounded in careful detail accrued from the years of research carried out by Mantel. </p>
<p>It is about as realistic a depiction as we could hope for and it provides a valuable frame for understanding how a whispered exchange might carry vital information or how Henry VIII’s sudden anger might terrify his subjects into compliance. While we can never be certain of the precise nature of Cromwell’s relationship with the king, we can now offer a range of possible interpretations, from shared memories of early military campaigns to a monarch requiring effective service of his subject, finding him wanting and therefore disposable.</p>
<h2>Decline and fall</h2>
<p>The question of Cromwell’s fall is one that has troubled historians. How did a man so immersed in the Tudor court, who had witnessed the destructions of Thomas Wolsey and of Anne Boleyn, miscalculate badly enough to end up on the scaffold? </p>
<p>Mantel offers us some possible routes into making sense of Cromwell’s miscalculation. The courtly world that Mantel depicts is acutely dangerous. From the start of The Mirror and the Light we see Cromwell surrounded by rumours of his fate in the aftermath of the fall of Boleyn – someone to whom he had been so close. Later on he squabbles with her uncle the Duke of Norfolk and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer – ignoring the latter’s warning not to get too deeply involved in the matter of the king’s marriage after the death of Jane Seymour. </p>
<p>Cromwell’s trust in Henry, and his belief that the king will stand by his assertions of loyalty and the signs of warmth that Henry gives, prove to be his downfall. In the face of the warnings from those around him, Cromwell follows his role to its natural end. Elevated to become Earl of Essex, Cromwell holds “the shining bowl of possibility … all is mended” – a final cruel miscalculation. </p>
<p>When it comes, Cromwell’s enemies physically closing in on him to strip him of rank and title, this provides a fundamental truth about power and about the reality of being a king’s councillor or special advisor: in the end, everyone falls.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133091/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janet Dickinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Mantel’s prize-winning novels put imaginary flesh on the skeletal historical record and gives us the complete picture of the Tudor courtier.
Janet Dickinson, Senior Associate Tutor in History, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/115908
2019-05-02T03:37:37Z
2019-05-02T03:37:37Z
The exhibition Tudors to Windsors is an uncritical glorification of empire
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270645/original/file-20190424-19276-ulhq0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits, exhibition view. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bendigo Art Gallery</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When visitors first enter the exhibition <a href="https://www.bendigoregion.com.au/bendigo-art-gallery/exhibitions/tudors-to-windsors-british-royal-portraits">Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits</a> at Bendigo Art Gallery, they are greeted with soaring sounds of coronation anthems. These genteel songs entice patrons into an exhibition that is ultimately conservative in both content and style.</p>
<p>The exhibition opens with portraits of Henry VIII, whose long-term legacy is difficult to deny. Printed on the first main wall is the memorable, yet reductive, children’s rhyme “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”. Viewers are quickly drawn into the Crown and court’s power, and the brutality and risk that was associated with being married to Henry VIII.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270601/original/file-20190424-19272-1cz4zke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270601/original/file-20190424-19272-1cz4zke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270601/original/file-20190424-19272-1cz4zke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270601/original/file-20190424-19272-1cz4zke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270601/original/file-20190424-19272-1cz4zke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270601/original/file-20190424-19272-1cz4zke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1180&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270601/original/file-20190424-19272-1cz4zke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1180&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270601/original/file-20190424-19272-1cz4zke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1180&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Queen Elizabeth I, (The ‘Ditchley’ portrait), by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, c.1592.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© National Portrait Gallery, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Best viewed by standing between the portraits of his wives Anne Boleyn and Katherine of Aragon is the first of many two-sided timelines, linking significant moments in the United Kingdom’s history to world events. This suggests that the British monarchy should be understood as a politically powerful force. </p>
<p>It soon becomes clear that this is an exhibition seeking to represent the Empire as a “Great Power”. The two and a half metre “Ditchley Portrait” of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) illustrates a towering, divine force. </p>
<p>In this highly symbolic work, Elizabeth stands on a world map, her feet firmly planted on Oxfordshire. We see that she was the great hope of her people at the time – a stormy sky is swept away into oblivion by the sunshine that only this Queen can bring. </p>
<h2>A romantic narrative</h2>
<p>The sections on the Stuarts (1603 to 1714),and the Georgian period (1714-1837) are dominated by similar formal portraits, but the curators are obviously wary of contemporary viewer fatigue. The chamber music fades and extravagant portraits disappear as patrons enter the 18th century era of “Empire and Exploration”. It is here that we see this is truly an exhibition adhering to an romanticised narrative of monarchy. </p>
<p>An introductory note explains that The Crown supported three expeditions led by Captain James Cook during the 1760’s and 1770’s “in search of an undiscovered continent in the Pacific Ocean”. It is a great disappointment to see this choice of wording, which erases the significant political issues of Australia’s colonisation. </p>
<p>Had the exhibition acknowledged contemporary historical discussions in Australia, delivering on the curator’s promise to illuminate “key figures and important historical moments”, there might have been a more inclusive and engaging narrative.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270602/original/file-20190424-19286-vsktr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270602/original/file-20190424-19286-vsktr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270602/original/file-20190424-19286-vsktr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270602/original/file-20190424-19286-vsktr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270602/original/file-20190424-19286-vsktr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270602/original/file-20190424-19286-vsktr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270602/original/file-20190424-19286-vsktr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270602/original/file-20190424-19286-vsktr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Queen Victoria, by Alexander Bassano, 1887 (1882).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© National Portrait Gallery, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, we move on to a new era of portraiture and monarchy. The advent of photography during Queen Victoria’s (1819-1901) reign provided a new style of intimacy, and a substantial series illustrates her life as both a woman and the British Queen that “reigned but never ruled”.</p>
<p>Critical examination of these images disrupts the romantic representation of this family. Most striking is a carbon print produced by John Jabez Edwin Mayall (1863) illustrating the Queen with her daughter-in-law, Alexandra, on the latter’s wedding day. Here, Alexandra stands over the seated and heavily cloaked Queen Victoria. </p>
<p>Rejecting the demands of the photographer’s lens, her audience, and her daughter-in-law, Victoria instead gazes at a marble bust of her late husband. The idealised representation of a unified family is somewhat disrupted as we are offered the stark black and white image of a mother turning her back on her child on their wedding day, no less. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270603/original/file-20190424-19307-n9f9b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270603/original/file-20190424-19307-n9f9b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270603/original/file-20190424-19307-n9f9b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270603/original/file-20190424-19307-n9f9b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270603/original/file-20190424-19307-n9f9b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270603/original/file-20190424-19307-n9f9b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270603/original/file-20190424-19307-n9f9b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270603/original/file-20190424-19307-n9f9b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">King George VI, by Meredith Frampton, 1929.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© National Portrait Gallery, London / private collection. Lent by Trustees of Barnardo’s, 1997</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Reaching the age of the Windsor family, beginning with George V in 1917 and continuing today, patrons are invited to walk under a glorious chandelier to peruse photographs, film clips, paintings and display cases containing riding gloves and dresses. </p>
<p>These items are enchanting, but there is no sense of the glorious political or military power as displayed in the rooms of the Tudors, Stuarts and Georgians. </p>
<p>Rather, we see the continuing evolution of the monarchy’s “soft power”: images from popular women’s magazines adorn the walls, illustrating a monarchy with significant popular culture influence, but little else. </p>
<p>The complexity of this position is superbly indicated in portraits concerning Queen Elizabeth II. A 1971 print by Patrick Lichfield shows a delighted regent relaxed, clapping, after a formal dinner. This rests in sharp juxtaposition with Chris Levine’s (2007) holographic portrait, “Lightness of Being”, of a crowned Elizabeth II. In this image, artist Levine states, there is “an aura about it, a power”. </p>
<p>Perhaps this moment captured a monarch working hard to continue a long tradition of conveying, through art, a sense of remote authority to an adoring public.</p>
<p>In Tudors to Windsors, through various forms of portraiture, visitors see the monarchy’s transition from a male dominated, politically powerful institution to the celebrity status of more recent female reigns. An unexpected highlight of the exhibition is the history concerning artistic technologies relative to portraiture. </p>
<p>Yet patrons should be aware this is an exhibition that does not apply a critical gaze to the British monarchy. Consequently, idolised images reign. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits is at Bendigo Art Gallery until July 14.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115908/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deb Lee-Talbot does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A new exhibition illustrates the British monarchy’s transition from global powerhouse to modern celebrities. But idolised images reign.
Deb Lee-Talbot, PhD candidate, History, Deakin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/101744
2018-08-23T10:01:59Z
2018-08-23T10:01:59Z
Humphrey Llwyd: the Renaissance scholar who drew Wales into the atlas, and wrote it into history books
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233149/original/file-20180822-149490-1ueyhja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Abraham Ortelius's 1570 world map.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OrteliusWorldMap1570.jpg">The Library of Congress/Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a small country with less than 5% of the UK population, Wales faces major challenges in making its presence felt in the wider world – but this is something that scholars, politicians and the people themselves have been concerned about for centuries.</p>
<p>August 2018 marks the 450th anniversary of the death of Humphrey Llwyd, a remarkable Renaissance scholar who believed that Wales was fundamental to the history and identity of Britain. Llwyd not only drafted the <a href="https://www.library.wales/discover/digital-gallery/maps/maps-of-wales/cambriae-typus/">first published map of Wales</a> – which literally set the country on a global stage – but was the first person to write a history of Wales and a topographical account of Britain. </p>
<p>Born to a gentry family in Denbigh in 1527 and educated at Oxford, Llwyd went on to make his career in England, being employed in the household of the cultured and book-loving Henry Fitzalan, the 12th Earl of Arundel. This gave Llwyd the opportunity to develop his interest in learning. It also led to his marriage to Barbara, sister of the earl’s son-in-law, Lord Lumley (who himself was another enthusiastic book collector). </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233136/original/file-20180822-149490-ihx0ww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233136/original/file-20180822-149490-ihx0ww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233136/original/file-20180822-149490-ihx0ww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233136/original/file-20180822-149490-ihx0ww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233136/original/file-20180822-149490-ihx0ww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233136/original/file-20180822-149490-ihx0ww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233136/original/file-20180822-149490-ihx0ww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Humphrey Llwyd, as depicted in the 1799 book The Royal Tribes of Wales.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Philip Yorke/Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By 1563 Llwyd had set up home back in Denbigh, within the walls of the town’s medieval castle. As MP for the borough, he reportedly facilitated the passage, through the parliament of 1563, of the bill <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=J90cWIBoAPcC&lpg=PA152&dq=An%20Act%20for%20the%20translating%20of%20the%20Bible%20and%20the%20Divine%20Service%20into%20the%20Welsh%20tongue&pg=PA152#v=onepage&q&f=false">authorising the translation</a> of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer into Welsh.</p>
<p>In 1566–7 Llwyd joined Arundel on a journey to Italy. However, a little over a year after his return to Denbigh, he fell seriously ill, and died on August 21 1568. He was buried just outside the town at the church of Llanfarchell, where the fine monument erected to his memory can still be seen.</p>
<h2>Mapping Wales</h2>
<p>Like other Welsh Renaissance scholars, Llwyd welcomed the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/wales_tudors_01.shtml">so-called “union”</a> of Wales and England under Henry VIII. Yet precisely because the future of Wales lay in the wider orbit of Britain Llwyd was determined to promote its history and culture as integral parts of the island’s heritage. </p>
<p>That determination was sharpened by his experiences outside Wales. It is no coincidence that the first work conceived of as a history of Wales – Llwyd’s <em>Cronica Walliae</em> (“The Chronicle of Wales”) of 1559 – was written in England, very probably at Arundel’s palace of Nonsuch near London for antiquarian-minded members of the earl’s circle. (Despite its Latin title, the work was written in English.) </p>
<p>The chronicle struck a defiant tone: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was the first that tocke the province [Wales] in hande to put thees thinges into the Englishe tonge. For that I wolde not have the inhabitantes of this Ile ignorant of the histories and cronicles of the same, wherein I am sure to offende manye because I have oppenede ther ignorance and blindenes thereby … </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Llwyd’s final works resulted from commissions by the great Flemish cartographer and “inventor” of the atlas, <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/eAISufJvjgUVJA">Abraham Ortelius</a>, whom Llwyd met at Antwerp on his way home from Italy in 1567. These included two maps, one of Wales, the other of England and Wales, which were eventually published in a supplement to Ortelius’s atlas, <em>Theatrum Orbis Terrarum</em> (“Theatre of the World”), in 1573. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233133/original/file-20180822-149469-b54zri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233133/original/file-20180822-149469-b54zri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233133/original/file-20180822-149469-b54zri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233133/original/file-20180822-149469-b54zri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233133/original/file-20180822-149469-b54zri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233133/original/file-20180822-149469-b54zri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233133/original/file-20180822-149469-b54zri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233133/original/file-20180822-149469-b54zri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The map of Wales printed as part of Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cambriae_Typus_NLW.jpg">National Library of Wales</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Llwyd sent drafts of these from his deathbed in Denbigh, along with notes on the topography of Britain – <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IhY6AAAAcAAJ&source=gbs_similarbooks"><em>Commentarioli Britannicae descriptionis fragmentum</em></a> (“A Fragment of a Little Commentary on the Description of Britain”) – written in Latin and published in Cologne in 1572. This was soon followed by Thomas Twyne’s English translation, The Breviary of Britayne (1573). Significantly, about half of the work was devoted to Wales. </p>
<h2>Defending history</h2>
<p>One aim of the Breviary was to defend the traditional British history <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/wales/entries/a7346096-d405-348c-9c45-413df250ed57">popularised by Geoffrey of Monmouth</a> – which traced the earliest kings of Britain to the Trojan exile Brutus – against the Italian humanist historian <a href="https://thehistoryofengland.co.uk/resource/polydore-vergil-and-historia-anglia/">Polydore Vergil</a>, “who sought not only to obscure the glory of the British name, but also to defame the Britons themselves with slanderous lies”. Like his compatriot <a href="http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s-PRIC-JOH-1502.html">Sir John Prise of Brecon</a>, Llwyd not only cited numerous classical sources but stressed the importance of sources in Welsh, which Vergil could not read. </p>
<p>The <em>Cronica Walliae</em> also took the truth of British history for granted. The work drew heavily on the medieval Welsh chronicles known as <a href="https://www.library.wales/discover/digital-gallery/manuscripts/the-middle-ages/chronicle-of-the-princes/">Brut y Tywysogyon</a> (“The Chronicle of the Princes”), which were designed as continuations of Geoffrey’s history, though Llwyd also used other sources and imposed his own shape on the whole. In particular, he divided the history by the reigns of the kings and princes whose deeds he related, from <a href="http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s-CADW-APC-0615.html">Cadwaladr the Blessed</a> in the late seventh century to the failed <a href="http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s-MADO-APL-1294.html">revolt of Madog ap Llywelyn</a> in 1294–5. This allowed Llwyd to present the history of medieval Wales as an unbroken succession of legitimate rulers. It also allowed him to insert the first account of Prince Madog’s alleged discovery of America in the 12th century. </p>
<p>His final sentence made clear, however, that a separate Welsh history was long over: after 1295 “there was nothinge done in Wales worthy memory, but that is to bee redde in the Englishe Chronicle”. Nevertheless, by commemorating their ancient and medieval history, Llwyd insisted that the Welsh could boast a unique pedigree and status as “the genuine Britons” in the Tudor realm.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101744/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Huw Pryce receives funding from the AHRC for his contribution to the major project, "Inventor of Britain: The Complete Works of Humphrey Llwyd", led by Professor Philip Schwyzer (Exeter University), in collaboration also with Professor Keith Lilley (Queen’s University Belfast), which will publish new critical editions of Llwyd’s works and throw fresh light on their significance.</span></em></p>
Humphrey Llwyd quite literally put Wales on the map.
Huw Pryce, Professor of Welsh History, Bangor University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/86330
2017-10-31T14:30:50Z
2017-10-31T14:30:50Z
Brexit to Bonfire Night: why the Reformation still matters
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192617/original/file-20171031-18689-1l7wkg8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Monument of Martin Luther in Eisleben, Germany, the town of his birth. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/monument-martin-luther-on-town-square-586275236?src=xuKu_SmTjTS_ksq1zEi2_Q-1-10">Shutterstock/dugdax</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Five hundred years ago <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-martin-luthers-reformation-tells-us-about-history-and-memory-85058">Martin Luther</a>, a German monk, attacked the Catholic Church in a move that sparked the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/english_reformation_01.shtml">Protestant Reformation</a>. The effects are still being felt in Britain today – from the celebrations of Bonfire Night to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/law-expert-where-the-brexit-battles-over-the-repeal-bill-will-be-fought-in-parliament-80980">powers that parliament</a> have to deal with Brexit. </p>
<p>In parts of Europe Reformation Day commemorates the moment Martin Luther produced his <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/martin-luther-and-the-95-theses">95 Theses</a> that criticising the Catholic Church. As Luther and his followers developed their ideas, they created Protestant churches independent of the Pope in Rome. </p>
<p>Although almost 60% of people identified themselves as <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/articles/religioninenglandandwales2011/2012-12-11">Christians in the 2011 census</a> in Britain only 5% of the population regularly <a href="https://faithsurvey.co.uk/download/gb-church-attendance-1980-2015.pdf">attend church</a>. But the Reformation affected more than people’s religious lives. When Henry VIII used some of Luther’s ideas to break away from Rome, he created <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-henry-viiis-break-with-rome-tells-us-about-parliaments-role-in-brexit-70078">new powers</a> that are still relevant today.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192619/original/file-20171031-18686-1x6ksv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192619/original/file-20171031-18686-1x6ksv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192619/original/file-20171031-18686-1x6ksv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192619/original/file-20171031-18686-1x6ksv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192619/original/file-20171031-18686-1x6ksv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192619/original/file-20171031-18686-1x6ksv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192619/original/file-20171031-18686-1x6ksv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henry VIII engraved by W.T.Fry and published in Lodge’s British Portraits encyclopedia, United Kingdom, 1823.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/henry-viii-14911547-engraved-by-wt-81842377?src=jN8kZi_uloq9Es5C2Un0MQ-1-1">Shutterstock/GeorgiosKollidas</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Henry VIII became interested in creating an independent church in England when the Pope refused Henry a divorce to allow him to marry <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/anne_boleyn/">Anne Boleyn</a>. In 1529, Henry VIII and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/zttdjxs">Thomas Cromwell</a> called parliament to pass legislation that transferred all the powers and wealth of the Pope and the Catholic Church into the hands of the King. </p>
<h2>Henry’s power-grab</h2>
<p>Over the next few years, as Henry dismantled the power of Catholicism, a new rhetoric of English independence emerged. In 1533, parliament argued that “this realm of England is an empire”, with no political or legal obligations to the European Church. Taxes that went to Rome now stayed in England, and Henry declared himself Supreme Head of the Church. His successors, Edward VI and Elizabeth I used many of those powers to make that church Protestant. </p>
<p>The process of breaking with Rome also granted Henry VIII huge powers. In 1539 Henry effectively transferred these to himself with an act that allowed the King – without parliament – to amend or make new laws. This is the basis of the <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/henry-viii-clauses/">“Henry VIII powers” in the Brexit Repeal Act</a>, which allow ministers to adopt European laws without parliamentary scrutiny. </p>
<p>The ripples of that power-grab from 1539 were felt in Westminster in August when Ministers were urged to put extra checks in place to limit “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40868285">sweeping powers</a>” included in the EU Withdrawal Bill. The bill aims to repeal the European Communities Act and convert EU law into UK law. It also enables the government to make changes further down the line without presenting new legislation to Parliament – known as “delegated powers”. Labour’s Hilary Benn, chairman of the Brexit select committee, suggested this could amount to “a blank legislative cheque”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lRJGA7mezaA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>The Reformation did more than change our relationship with Europe and the Catholic Church – it changed how the English viewed themselves. In the conflicts of 16th-century Europe, religious identities were politically charged. Protestantism became part of the national identity, contrasted with Catholicism that the Elizabethans portrayed as dangerous and foreign. </p>
<p>When the Spanish Armada <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/adams_armada_01.shtml">failed to invade</a> in 1588, the English claimed they were saved by a Protestant wind. When Robert Catesby (played by Kit Harrington in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-bloody-truth-why-bbcs-gunpowder-had-to-be-so-violent-86264">Gunpowder</a>) and Guy Fawkes failed to blow up parliament, once again it was argued that God was looking after the English. Celebrations on November 5 over the following decades celebrated God’s protection from foreign and treacherous Catholicism. As Gunpowder shows, the truth was far from this simple. But Bonfire Night became an indelible part of the national calendar. </p>
<p>Events are being held throughout Europe in 2017 to mark the 500-year anniversary. It is a national holiday in Germany, with <a href="https://www.luther2017.de/en/">concerts, pageants</a> and church services planned. At Westminster Abbey, the Church of England is celebrating “the start of the Reformation” <a href="https://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2017/09/2017/10/archbishop-to-mark-agreement-with-catholic-and-lutheran-churches-on-500th-anniversary-of-the-reformation.aspx">in a service</a> that includes an act of reconciliation between Lutheran and Catholic Churches. The BBC is showing a range of programmes, including a documentary by David Starkey and a drama about Catholic plotters in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05j1bc9">Gunpowder</a>. </p>
<p>Not only did the Reformation change English politics it changed the perception that the English had of themselves. While church attendance may have <a href="https://faithsurvey.co.uk/uk-christianity.html">declined</a>, we can see the legacy of the Reformation in many areas of our lives in 2017.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86330/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosamund Oates does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Martin Luther’s Reformation resulted in Henry VIII making law changes which are still having an effect on today’s Brexit negotiations.
Rosamund Oates, Senior Lecturer in History, Manchester Metropolitan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/77495
2017-05-10T23:04:24Z
2017-05-10T23:04:24Z
What I discovered inside Edinburgh’s museum of musical instruments
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168750/original/file-20170510-28075-1nvsx94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">St Cecilia's Hall.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Cecilia%27s_Hall">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You can’t often travel around the world, traversing six centuries in just ten paces. But that’s the offering at Edinburgh’s Musical Instruments Museum, one of the world’s leading collections of its kind. Situated just off the Royal Mile in the Scottish capital, it reopened on May 11 after three years of refurbishment. </p>
<p>The museum is housed in St Cecilia’s Hall, the oldest purpose-built concert hall in Scotland. This Georgian grande dame of British music history has just completed a <a href="http://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/library-museum-gallery/museums-and-galleries/musical-instrument-museums/sch">£6.5m redevelopment project</a>. I arranged a sneak preview of the collection ahead of the opening to see what it has in store. </p>
<p>The study of musical instruments, known as organology, is an often overlooked branch of music. Yet in the age before sound recording, nothing can get us as close to the musical soundscapes of Mozart and Bach as the actual tools of their time. </p>
<p>St Cecilia’s Hall consolidates a collection it previously shared with another building. Spread over four galleries, it displays a selection of some 6,000 instruments (there’s also an online repository of sounds <a href="http://www.euchmi.ed.ac.uk/ujia.html">here</a>). </p>
<h2>Peacocks and sax appeal</h2>
<p>Stepping from the entrance vestibule into the Laigh Hall gallery on the ground floor, you are whisked from the Renaissance to the 21st Century, from North America to Asia and back again. A small violin with no sides, made before the shape we know today became the norm, is by the Bassano family – a famous group of Italian instrument makers employed at the court of Henry VIII. </p>
<p>A few paces to the right is the visually enticing Indian mayuri. From the 19th century, and also probably from a courtly setting, it is carved and richly decorated to look like a peacock to represent <a href="http://www.sanatansociety.org/hindu_gods_and_goddesses/saraswati.htm">Saraswati</a>, the Hindu goddess of music. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168719/original/file-20170510-28078-rkp1th.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168719/original/file-20170510-28078-rkp1th.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168719/original/file-20170510-28078-rkp1th.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168719/original/file-20170510-28078-rkp1th.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168719/original/file-20170510-28078-rkp1th.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168719/original/file-20170510-28078-rkp1th.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168719/original/file-20170510-28078-rkp1th.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168719/original/file-20170510-28078-rkp1th.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 19th-century mayuri.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/detail/UoEart~2~2~73102~164129:Peacock-vina---top-view?qvq=q%3Apeacock%3Bsort%3Awork_creator_details%2Cwork_title%2Cwork_display_date%2Cwork_technique&sort=work_creator_details%2Cwork_title%2Cwork_display_date%2Cwork_technique&mi=16&trs=23#">University of Edinburgh</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Through into the Wolfson gallery, you are accosted by a four-and-a-half-foot serpent: a wind instrument. Originally devised in the late 16th century, it was meant to be used for church music, but was also included in orchestral works by composers such as Mozart and Wagner. This <a href="http://collections.ed.ac.uk/mimed/record/18242?highlight=contrabass+serpent">oversized example</a>, known technically as a contrabass serpent, is a more recent creation made around 1840. </p>
<p>Keeping the serpent company is a quartet of saxophones from the workshop of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antoine-Joseph-Sax">Adolphe Sax</a>, the Belgian who invented them in the 1840s. Like the serpent’s influence on the bass range of the orchestra with the ultimate creation of the tuba, Sax’s invention had most impact on jazz and pop. Behind these somewhat clunky originals is a sad story, however: Sax died in poverty in 1894 at the dawn of jazz.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168723/original/file-20170510-28092-5d0pbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168723/original/file-20170510-28092-5d0pbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168723/original/file-20170510-28092-5d0pbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168723/original/file-20170510-28092-5d0pbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168723/original/file-20170510-28092-5d0pbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168723/original/file-20170510-28092-5d0pbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1299&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168723/original/file-20170510-28092-5d0pbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1299&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168723/original/file-20170510-28092-5d0pbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1299&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ye olde Gibson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/detail/UoEart~2~2~51942~104337:English-guitar--W-Gibson----FRONT?qvq=q%3Agibson%3Bsort%3Awork_creator_details%2Cwork_title%2Cwork_display_date%2Cwork_technique&sort=work_creator_details%2Cwork_title%2Cwork_display_date%2Cwork_technique&mi=6&trs=101">University of Edinburgh</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the other side of the gallery, a selection of plucked and bowed western instruments display a variety lost to 19th-century orchestral standardisation. An English guitar by William Gibson from 1772 sits beside an electric Fender Telecaster: the former used mainly by women to display their talents and attract an eligible husband, and the latter vice versa two centuries later. </p>
<p>A tiny dancing-master’s fiddle from the mid-17th century, known as a pochette, was used to accompany dance lessons in preparation for the frequent balls and assemblies – essentially an early form of speed dating. </p>
<p>There’s also a clutch of <em>violas d’amore</em>, or violas of love. As well as the name and eye-catching design, additional resonant strings create an unusual sweet and enveloping sound that would undoubtedly have been used to woo the opposite sex. </p>
<h2>Ebony and ivory</h2>
<p>The two upstairs galleries house countless keyboard instruments, many still frequently used in concert. Dressed in slightly unsympathetic red leather panels, the Binks gallery exhibits instruments from the famed <a href="http://www.ruckersgenootschap.be/HIS.php">Ruckers workshop of Antwerp</a>, the <a href="http://aviolinslife.org/stradivari/">Stradivari</a> of the harpsichord world. </p>
<p>Beside these examples of perfection sit fakes and forgeries, such as the Goermans harpsichord of 1764, altered in the 1780s by the French craftsman <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pascal-Taskin">Pascal Taskin</a>. Taskin made the instrument appear not only a hundred years older, but to also hail from the Ruckers family. That Goermans was still making harpsichords in Paris at the time just a short walk from Taskin’s workshop raises questions of his complicity. </p>
<p>Next door in the 1812 gallery is a clavichord made in Hamburg by Johann Adolph Hass, one of the best makers of his generation. Made in 1763 – the year St Cecilia’s Hall was built – it would effectively be impossible to reproduce today with its use of tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, rosewood, kingwood and ivory. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bJyTjttTrGc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>There is also a dinky harpsichord known as an octave spinet. Reminiscent of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuQBjuySvyw">Schroeder’s toy piano</a> in Peanuts, it could be easily transported for use during travel, or moved around the home to accompany singing – quiet instruments such as spinets and clavichords were designed for domestic use. </p>
<p>It sits next to the Burkat Shudi harpsichord of 1766, an impressive instrument with two keyboards. It had a variety of stops to vary its tone, which was used before the more versatile piano became the parlour mainstay. Believed to have been owned by the Duke of Hamilton in Naples, the below painting by the Italian artist Pietro Fabris places the duke and Kenneth MacKenzie, 1st Earl of Seaforth, at a concert party with Mozart and his father Leopold. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168742/original/file-20170510-28100-e9qvmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168742/original/file-20170510-28100-e9qvmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168742/original/file-20170510-28100-e9qvmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168742/original/file-20170510-28100-e9qvmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168742/original/file-20170510-28100-e9qvmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168742/original/file-20170510-28100-e9qvmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168742/original/file-20170510-28100-e9qvmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168742/original/file-20170510-28100-e9qvmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pietro Fabris: Kenneth Mackenzie at home in Naples.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Hamiltons were musical, and it is <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2002/mar/04/entertainment/et-swed4">noted that</a> the Mozarts visited their home in 1770 and that Hamilton’s first wife, Catherine, performed on the harpsichord for the great composer. She is likely to have played on this Shudi, which raises the possibility that Mozart himself may have passed his hands over its keys. The instrument is still playable today, so it is possible to briefly inhabit Mozart’s Neapolitan soundscape on a visit to the museum. </p>
<p>In sum, Edinburgh boasts a thrilling collection of bygone instruments. Most museums let us passively observe history, but the musical palettes on display here are a chance to truly step back in time. It shows how organology can improve our understanding of the past from a more cultural perspective than most museum artefacts. This is not just a collection of musical instruments, it is a snapshot of who we were before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77495/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachael Durkin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Scottish capital is reopening a well kept secret: one of the world’s finest collections of vintage sound machines.
Rachael Durkin, Lecturer in Music, Edinburgh Napier University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/70078
2017-01-04T10:18:00Z
2017-01-04T10:18:00Z
What Henry VIII’s break with Rome tells us about parliament’s role in Brexit
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151653/original/image-20170103-18668-1iptokv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C33%2C2011%2C1187&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hans_Holbein_d._J._074.jpg">The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Britain awaits a ruling from its supreme court on whether the government can trigger Article 50 to leave the European Union without consulting parliament, the relationship between law and politics has come under intense and sometimes hostile scrutiny. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37861888">Gina Miller</a>, the lead claimant bringing the case against the government, and the high court judges who decided in favour of parliament’s involvement, have been derided as <a href="https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/politics/gina-miller-report-online-trolls/">“traitors”</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/enemies-of-the-people-mps-and-press-gang-up-on-the-constitution-over-high-court-brexit-ruling-68241">“enemies of the people”</a>. </p>
<p>The situation has also exposed an ambiguity about where executive power properly lies in a representative democracy: with the government, acting by royal prerogative, or with parliament. Yet parliament and a distinctive legal system have long been a focus for English national identity. They were particularly important at a formative moment for English sovereignty: when Henry VIII broke with the Church of Rome in the early 1530s.</p>
<p>Despite Labour leader <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/28/jeremy-corbyn-you-are-not-henry-viii-theresa-may-brexit-deal-commons-vote">Jeremy Corbyn’s recent caricature of history</a>, when he accused the prime minister, Theresa May, of acting like Henry VIII, the mechanisms that the Tudor king used to break with Rome were far from autocratic. </p>
<h2>Parliament and Rome</h2>
<p>Masterminded by his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, the split from Rome relied on a series of acts of parliament. These bolstered royal powers: England became the only nation where the head of state was also head of its church. However, the acts did so by embedding the authority of the crown within parliament and by celebrating the common law. While the rest of Europe – including Scotland, then a separate kingdom – followed the civil code, based on Roman law, common law was distinctively English. </p>
<p>The 1533 <a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924030504322">Act in Restraint of Appeals</a> was a foundation in this process. Its opening statement asserted the monarch’s independence from foreign authorities:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>By diverse, sundry old, authentic histories and chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an empire.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But even as it proclaims royal supremacy, it endorses the role of parliament – a tripartite body, comprising king, nobility, and commons – in making the “sundry ordinances, laws, statutes, and provisions” which ensure English liberties. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151654/original/image-20170103-29222-9n81h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151654/original/image-20170103-29222-9n81h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151654/original/image-20170103-29222-9n81h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151654/original/image-20170103-29222-9n81h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151654/original/image-20170103-29222-9n81h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151654/original/image-20170103-29222-9n81h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151654/original/image-20170103-29222-9n81h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Parliament’s place became central.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/uk_parliament/2700549757">UK parliament, via flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cromwell’s appeal to history (the old, authentic chronicles) was a legal fiction, but – in its reliance on precedent – it demonstrates how the statute was shaped by common-law thinking.</p>
<h2>Move against foreign influence</h2>
<p>Cromwell ordered that the act be widely disseminated: <a href="http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol6/pp599-613">by preachers, proclamations, and printed copies affixed to every church door</a>. As a result, it had a far-reaching effect. It established the sovereignty of the crown in parliament, and it enshrined a concept of Englishness which was suspicious of the interference of supranational jurisdictions and which took pride in the autonomy of its crown, church, and idiosyncratic legal system. </p>
<p>When the ballad-maker Martin Parker listed the institutions which would protect England from the foreign influence of Jesuit priests in a <a href="http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/25000/23505.gif">broadside ballad</a> circa 1624, it was quite usual that – alongside “our king” – he should name “our laws” and “our Parliament Royal”.</p>
<p>This conception that England was a “mixed” constitution was not novel. The lawyer <a href="http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9944">John Fortescue</a> outlined it nearly a century earlier in the late 1460s in <em>De laudibus legum Angliae</em> (In praise of the law of England), which explains that royal authority derived from parliament: parliament passed laws, which were upheld by judges, operating independently of the monarch.</p>
<p>Fortescue’s theory gained purchase under the Tudors. <em>De laudibus</em> was first printed in 1545-6 and eight further editions followed before 1600. It was translated into <a href="http://estc.bl.uk/F/588NA7XRX99NQLC2HRUIN3Y7P7HHSLA8YUG9RP8G1H7YGMQEK1-28141?func=full-set-set&set_number=004874&set_entry=000006&format=999">English in 1567</a>, adorned with a title page celebrating the exceptionalism of English law as excelling “all other laws of the world”. </p>
<h2>Not above the law</h2>
<p>The conviction that English monarchs were not above the law became integral to English political identity. In the early 17th century, as tension between crown and parliament grew, one <a href="http://searcharchives.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=IAMS032-002036453&indx=4&recIds=IAMS032-002036453&recIdxs=3&elementId=3&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&dscnt=0&frbg=&scp.scps=scope%3A%28BL%29&tab=local&dstmp=1483186190916&srt=rank&mode=Basic&&dum=true&vl(freeText0)=philopolites&vid=IAMS_VU2">manuscript dialogue</a> argued for holding annual parliaments, thus removing from royal prerogative the right to summon parliament. </p>
<p>Its anonymous author compared the law to the “sinews” that “knit … the body in perfect unity” and parliament to the “heart … whereby the body is nourished and maintained”. Within the logic of this metaphor, the king (“the politic head”) cannot “change the laws of that body, or withdraw from the people their proper substance”. </p>
<p>Belief in the primacy of law and parliament entered popular discourse. Around 1555, during the reign of Mary I, a short pamphlet, printed on a single sheet of paper, posed <a href="http://estc.bl.uk/F/588NA7XRX99NQLC2HRUIN3Y7P7HHSLA8YUG9RP8G1H7YGMQEK1-24554?func=full-set-set&set_number=004616&set_entry=000002&format=999">“certain questions”</a> to be “demanded … by the noble realm of England”. The pamphlet delegitimised Mary for violating the laws of the land and positioned parliament as a representative body, constituted not to do the “pleasure … of his prince”, but to “speak … for the profit of the poor man and the wealth of the realm”.</p>
<p>When newspapers attack judges as traitors and Corbyn compares May’s Brexit strategy to Henry VIII’s, both the papers and the Labour leader would be well-advised to revisit their Tudor history. Henry’s break with Europe was enacted through parliament. It also endorsed English common law, determined according to precedent by an independent judiciary. Miller’s case, now being reviewed in the supreme court, is not a betrayal of British democracy: it embodies it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cathy Shrank receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust for a project on dialogue 1475-1675; her PhD (which looked at the Reformation and sixteenth-century national identity) was funded by the British Academy. During the referendum, she campaigned for Stronger In.</span></em></p>
Under the Tudors, parliamentary sovereignty became paramount.
Cathy Shrank, Professor of Tudor and Renaissance Literature, University of Sheffield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/69254
2016-11-24T12:45:12Z
2016-11-24T12:45:12Z
Sweet potatoes, Donald Trump – and the Special Relationship
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147363/original/image-20161124-15348-9naota.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Two Hungry Dudes</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two days after the US presidential election, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/president-donald-trump-theresa-may-special-relationship-world-leaders-call-downing-street-a7409301.html">The Independent reported</a> that “Donald Trump has spoken with nine world leaders but has yet to call Theresa May, throwing her claim of a ‘special relationship’ into tatters.” </p>
<p>Eventually, the phone call was made. “Concerns over ‘special relationship’ allayed as Trump calls May,” read the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/10/concerns-over-special-relationship-allayed-as-may-speaks-to-trump">headline in The Guardian</a> a few days later. Time magazine <a href="http://time.com/4566395/donald-trump-theresa-may-special-relationship/">reassured US readers</a> that “Donald Trump and Britain’s Theresa May Affirm ‘Special Relationship’.” </p>
<p>It seems especially apt, as people in the US gather to celebrate Thanksgiving, to ponder the nature of the relationship between the two countries. After all, Thanksgiving forms part of an origin myth about how English settlers began the slow process of transforming themselves into Americans. The holiday commemorates the <a href="https://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/homework-help/thanksgiving/thanksgiving-history">1621 celebrations</a> held at the Puritan settlement in Plymouth, which included, apparently, a large meal, some parading and a short religious service. </p>
<p>Scholars (<a href="https://medium.com/the-nib/you-dont-want-your-thanksgiving-to-go-like-this-48b966892d7b#.ozsztw17j">and cartoonists</a>) have deconstructed the holiday comprehensively, noting the <a href="http://mysite.du.edu/%7Elavita/anth-3135-feasting-13f/_docs/siskind-thanksgiving_new.pdf">invented nature of many of its core elements</a>, its <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-6443.00182/epdf">sporadic celebration before the 20th century</a>, its erasure of <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/american-thanksgiving-a-pure-glorification-of-racist-barbarity/5359622">European violence towards Native Americans</a> and many other aspects. Overall, it’s clear that this holiday, like all national holidays, is an invented tradition based not only on collective remembering but also collective forgetting.</p>
<p>At the same time, while Thanksgiving masks a range of troubling and enduring aspects of US history, one feature merits some serious celebration: the sweet potato. Sweet potatoes in some form or another are now a structural element in the canonical Thanksgiving menu. </p>
<p>The authoritative <a href="http://cooking.nytimes.com/tag/sweet%20potato">New York Times cookery section</a> recommends 14 different sweet potato side dishes, from classic maple-candied sweet potatoes to less traditional takes such as roasted sweet potatoes with horseradish butter. And that’s not even starting on sweet potato pies and puddings. This year, I plan to bake <a href="http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/6235-paul-prudhommes-sweet-potato-pecan-pie">Paul Prudhomme’s sweet potato pecan pie</a>. (After that, I will hibernate for an entire year while my digestive system processes the 4m calories it has ingested.)</p>
<h2>A tart that is courage</h2>
<p>The sweet potato is in fact part of a transatlantic food alliance that predates the original Thanksgiving feast. Sweet potatoes originated in the Americas, and formed a staple of the diets of Caribbean islanders. Columbus had <a href="http://www.sweetsp.com/sweet-potato-looking-back-to-the.html">never seen anything like them</a> when he landed in the Bahamas in 1492. He compared them to African yams; others thought they tasted like turnips or chestnuts. </p>
<p>Once introduced into Europe, however, sweet potatoes quickly spread. By the late 16th century, they were grown on a commercial scale in the area around Malaga, Spain, and were considered “a good thing to eat” – in the words of one <a href="https://archive.org/details/naturalmoralhist61acosrich">Spanish Jesuit</a>.</p>
<p>But when did the sweet potato reach the British Isles? The English herbalist John Gerard included an illustration in his <a href="http://blog.hrp.org.uk/gardeners/history-of-sweet-potato/">1597 Herball</a>. “Howsoever they bee dressed, they comfort, nourish, and strengthen the body”, he reported enthusiastically. Sweet potatoes quickly became popular in England, and many of the earliest recipes for “potatoes” may in fact refer to sweet potatoes. They were even grown at Hampton Court, for the delectation of Henry VIII, who reportedly learned to enjoy their honeyed delights from the ill-fated Catherine of Aragon. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147354/original/image-20161124-15348-7bams1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147354/original/image-20161124-15348-7bams1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147354/original/image-20161124-15348-7bams1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147354/original/image-20161124-15348-7bams1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147354/original/image-20161124-15348-7bams1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147354/original/image-20161124-15348-7bams1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147354/original/image-20161124-15348-7bams1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sweet potatoes: ‘they comfort, nourish, and strengthen the body’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Gerard's 'Herball' (1596)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After their marriage disintegrated, Henry had to rely on home-grown sweet potatoes, rather than Spanish imports. Gardeners at Hampton Court have recently demonstrated that sweet potatoes <a href="http://blog.hrp.org.uk/gardeners/history-of-sweet-potato/">grow perfectly well</a> in our scarcely tropical climate. The first printed recipe containing sweet potato is probably the description of how to make “a tart that is a courage to a man or woman”, which appeared in the <a href="http://www.medievalcookery.com/notes/ghj1596.txt">Good Huswife’s Jewell</a>, a cookbook published in London in 1596.</p>
<h2>Before NATO … the sweet potato</h2>
<p>Ironically, while Henry VIII enjoyed sweet potatoes in Tudor England, pilgrims in 1621 New England almost certainly did not feast on maple-candied sweet potatoes, or any sweet potatoes at all. Early records of the settlement make no mention of them and they were not native to the chilly shores of the north Atlantic. The oldest documents in the US that refer to sweet potatoes are actually from England. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.folger.edu/">Washington’s Folger Library</a>, which holds a major collection of Shakespeariana, has recently unearthed an <a href="http://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2016/11/15/archive-oven-sweet-potato-pudding/">early recipe for sweet potato pudding</a> from … Warwickshire! The pudding calls for potatoes (sweet or ordinary), eggs, sugar and a good dose of sherry. So new world sweet potatoes have been criss-crossing the Atlantic since the 16th century, forming a special relationship of eaters and growers that long predates NATO.</p>
<p>But what about Donald Trump? Does he have anything to do with this long history? Not really, although the internet is replete with images of sweet potatoes that resemble the president-elect and critics have called him a “<a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/12/11/xenophobic_sweet_potato_donald_trump_the_ultimate_supercut_of_the_best_trump_insults/">xenophobic sweet potato</a>”. Will Trump tuck into a traditional sweet potato pie or candied sweet potatoes for his Thanksgiving dinner? I don’t know and I certainly don’t care. But the sweet potato, unlike Trump, is unquestionably one of the new world’s gifts to Britain – and the world.</p>
<p><strong>A recipe for sweet potato tart from Charles Carter, The Complete Practical Cook (London, 1730)</strong>.</p>
<p><em>POTATOE TORT.<br>
TAKE a Pound and half Spanish Potatoes [sweet potatoes]; boil them and blanch them, and cut them in Slices, not thin; sheet a Dish with Puff-paste, lay some Citron in the Bottom, lay over your Potatoes, and season them with Ginger, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, and Sugar; then take the Marrow of two Bones, cut it into Pieces as big as Walnuts, roll it in Yolks of Eggs, and season it as the Potatoes; lay it on them, and between the Lumps of Marrow lay Citron and Dates slic’d, and Eringoe Roots [I’d use candied angelica], sprinkle over some Sack and Orange-flower Water; then draw up a Quart of Cream boil’d with the Yolks of ten Eggs, and pour all over, bake it, and stick over some Citron, and serve it.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69254/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Earle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Henry VIII’s Spanish queen, Catherine, introduced him to them and he is said to have eaten 20 at one sitting. Food for thought this Thanksgiving.
Rebecca Earle, Professor of HIstory, University of Warwick
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/64924
2016-09-08T09:26:53Z
2016-09-08T09:26:53Z
The Mary Rose artefact scans are a new way of analysing history
<p>As a sports and exercise biomechanist who has traditionally worked with professional athletes, it came as something of a surprise when the Mary Rose Trust contacted me back in 2011. The charity asked me to analyse the skeletons of men who drowned aboard the Mary Rose battleship in 1545. But these were no ordinary men, they were professional archers, and so could also be considered elite, or even ultra athletes, trained to go into battle for the then King of England, Henry VIII.</p>
<p>The research involved scanning the bones to produce very precise, virtual replicas. We analysed these replicas, minimising the need to handle bones directly. Our aim was to determine if, by precisely measuring the bones, we could identify which of the remains were the archers. This work – which was later used to put together a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22907996">reconstruction of one archer’s face</a> from a skull scan – was the very beginning of research which we now hope will unlock the past for scientists and historians all over the world.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1GafuXkLFaY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/mary-rose-tudor-painting-and-tidal-analysis-offer-clues-as-to-why-it-sank-64987">Mary Rose lay at the bottom of the Solent</a>, the strait that separates the south of England from the Isle of Wight, for nearly 450 years after its sinking – until 1982. Since then some 19,000 artefacts have been recovered from the site of the wreck, ranging from <a href="http://www.maryrose.org/discover-our-collection/story-of-the-ship/image-galleries/nggallery/image/316">cannons</a> to <a href="http://www.maryrose.org/discover-our-collection/story-of-the-ship/image-galleries/nggallery/image/277">fiddles</a>, <a href="http://www.maryrose.org/discover-our-collection/story-of-the-ship/image-galleries/nggallery/image/earscoop/">earscoops</a> to <a href="http://www.maryrose.org/discover-our-collection/story-of-the-ship/image-galleries/nggallery/image/118">hilted swords</a>. Due to the conditions in the Solent, the ship very quickly became covered in silt and mud after it sank. This meant that it, the artefacts and the skeletons of the crew were incredibly well preserved. In fact, the state of preservation was such that some of the longbows recovered from the ship were still usable.</p>
<p>Yet like any item with historical merit, these are still incredibly delicate objects, which need to be handled carefully so as not to damage or contaminate them. They are in much demand for examination, meaning that researchers may struggle to get time with the items in person. However, by creating a <a href="http://www.virtualtudors.org/">virtual 3D database of detailed scans</a> that can be accessed by researchers the world over, we hope that more experts with different areas of knowledge can access the items, and contribute to the analysis of them.</p>
<h2>History in 3D</h2>
<p>Using 3D scanning and imaging to produce models is not, it has to be said, a new concept. Museums have been using this innovative way of displaying artefacts for some time. Others, like Toby Jones, curator of the <a href="http://newportship.org/">Newport medieval ship project</a>, have even used imaging as a tool to accurately reconstruct the dimensions of and preserve whole ships digitally, piece by piece. We are taking this one step further with our Mary Rose work, and making not only a full database of the artefacts, complete with 3D images, but a resource for the scientific community to access and study. Our scans of items and skeletal remains from the ship are being produced to challenge the research community and, in particular, see if a full analysis of the bones – the likes of which has only been achieved with a first hand examination in the past – can be achieved from a digitised archive.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iFDFdNDJlMk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>When we examined the archers’ skulls, a laser scanner was used to create exact three-dimensional virtual replicas. For this latest work, we decided to do things differently, instead opting for photogrammetry as the means of digitising the artefacts. Photogrammetry is the use of photography to map and survey objects, here resulting in <a href="http://www.virtualtudors.org/Mary-Rose-3D">3D digital models of each artefact</a> recovered from the Mary Rose. We chose photogrammetry over the previously used laser scanning as this time we were not interested in measuring dimensions of the skulls, but in the visual data. Photogrammetry is ideal for this as the photo-realistic images can be manipulated by the user.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"761145066245292032"}"></div></p>
<p>The project’s PhD student Sarah Aldridge took the task on, carefully photographing every skull around 120 times each, using a 39 megapixel camera. Items with higher aspect ratios, or different shapes, required many more photos: around 400 images of the heavily detailed carved wood panel were taken. The photos were then edited and combined using software to create <a href="http://www.virtualtudors.org/Mary-Rose-3D">detailed representations of them</a>.</p>
<h2>Digital vs. real life</h2>
<p>As our work progressed, we asked a group of archaeologists to analyse the scans of real skulls, and virtual skulls made using photogrammetry. Though this study is not yet complete, our initial results are very promising and showed which traits were recognised well and not so well using the photo technique. </p>
<p>Some skull properties, for example, are typically analysed to determine gender or ancestry, and are more tactile, traditionally requiring a close examination. The upper edge of the eye socket is one such feature: the sharper the edge, the more feminine it is considered. By conducting the study in a controlled environment, we were also able to optimise the method for viewing the digitised image. This was achieved by ensuring that the laptops used were correctly calibrated and of sufficiently high resolution to faithfully reproduce the nuanced 3D models. </p>
<p>At present only those working in the field of bone science – osteologists, forensic anthropologists, bone biologists and the like – have access to the research sections that we have published on our website, however, we hope that more will be open to the public in the future. Going forward, the work that we have done on the Mary Rose artefacts could open up a whole new method of scientific analysis, allowing researchers to examine any artefact from anywhere in the world at any time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64924/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Historical insight is not the only thing that has been raised with the Mary Rose.
Nicholas Owen, Sport and Exercise Biomechanist, Swansea University
Sarah Aldridge, PhD researcher, Swansea University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/64987
2016-09-07T06:01:21Z
2016-09-07T06:01:21Z
Mary Rose: Tudor painting and tidal analysis offer clues as to why it sank
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136767/original/image-20160906-25272-olfcxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Illustration of the Mary Rose, c. 1546.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Skulls, the ship’s <a href="http://uopnews.port.ac.uk/2016/07/20/experts-recreate-mary-rose-figurehead/">figurehead</a> and other artefacts from the wreck of a 1545 Tudor warship <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37250413">have been made available</a> to peruse online in 3D reconstructions. But why did she sink? The answer is more elusive than you might assume.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.maryrose.org/discover-our-collection/story-of-the-ship/history-of-the-mary-rose/">Many people think</a> that disaster hit on her maiden voyage, sailing out of Portsmouth Harbour into the Solent. This is simply not true. The Mary Rose sank at the front of an English fleet of about 80 ships which were doggedly defending England from a French invasion. The French fleet of around 200 ships, carrying an army <a href="http://www.hampshire-history.com/southsea-castle-and-the-battle-of-the-solent">30,000 strong</a>, was anchored just off the eastern end of the Isle of Wight. The fate of England, and King Henry VIII’s crown, hung in the balance on July 19 1545 – a calm, hot, summer Sunday.</p>
<p>Henry’s main army was in France, defending the English possession of Calais and the town of Boulogne. So all he could muster at Portsmouth was a scratch force of inexperienced militia and farm-hands – <a href="http://www.hampshire-history.com/southsea-castle-and-the-battle-of-the-solent">12,000</a> ill-equipped and untrained men. The English were outnumbered nearly three to one on both land and sea, so the only way of thwarting a full-scale invasion was to prevent the French from landing.</p>
<p>Traditional thinking says that she was blown over by a freak gust of wind <a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/spain/vol8/pp184-195">as reported by an eyewitness</a> to the events, while <a href="http://www.maryrose.org/discover-our-collection/story-of-the-ship/why-did-the-mary-rose-sink/">another contemporary account</a> suggested that the crew were incompetent and unwilling to follow orders. More recently it <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2480411/Mary-Rose-sank-because-Spanish-crew-did-not-understand-orders.html">was said</a> that many aboard were Spaniards who could not understand English instructions, leading to confusion and chaos. But these seem to me to be very unsatisfying reasons for the catastrophic loss of Tudor England’s finest ship and consequently I attempted to develop a better understanding of the Battle of the Solent and the events that surrounded the loss of the Mary Rose.</p>
<h2>Reconstructing the battle</h2>
<p>I did so by assimilating both geographical and historical records in order to reconstruct the the battle. In addition to the written accounts, a contemporary painting of the event – the original of which was more than 20ft long and once adorned the dining parlour of Cowdray House in Sussex – has proved remarkably useful. It depicts the entire battle scene and was probably painted between 1545 and 1548. The original was lost to fire in 1793 but luckily copies had been commissioned 20 years earlier.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136768/original/image-20160906-25266-cx3t4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136768/original/image-20160906-25266-cx3t4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136768/original/image-20160906-25266-cx3t4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=184&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136768/original/image-20160906-25266-cx3t4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=184&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136768/original/image-20160906-25266-cx3t4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=184&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136768/original/image-20160906-25266-cx3t4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136768/original/image-20160906-25266-cx3t4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136768/original/image-20160906-25266-cx3t4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Battle in the Solent, July 1545.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Kester Keighley</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The picture shows the French invasion fleet off the Isle of Wight on the left and the English fleet arranged across the Solent to the right. Henry VIII is shown riding towards Southsea Castle (followed by Sir Anthony Browne, Master of the King’s horse, who commissioned the painting) and right in the middle of the picture the masts of the Mary Rose can be seen breaking through the surface of the sea, with a sailor waving very animatedly from a platform at the top of the main mast. Surrounding him are the floating bodies of drowned sailors and several small boats trying to rescue any survivors.</p>
<p>Using the Cowdray picture and modern digital mapping technology it was possible for me to recreate and map the positions of all of the ships, troops and installations across the Solent battlefield. The picture is <a href="http://www.myoldmap.com/dominic/maryrose/">remarkably accurate</a> in its presentation of the geography of the Solent. Known landmarks, such as forts, churches and creeks, still visible in the modern landscape, enable good positions for the ephemeral elements such as ships and troops to be determined. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136769/original/image-20160906-25231-pj56az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136769/original/image-20160906-25231-pj56az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136769/original/image-20160906-25231-pj56az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136769/original/image-20160906-25231-pj56az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136769/original/image-20160906-25231-pj56az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136769/original/image-20160906-25231-pj56az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136769/original/image-20160906-25231-pj56az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henry VIII detail.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Kester Keighley</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was also possible to reconstruct the tidal currents for the day of the battle. Consequently we can work out how the two opposing fleets likely conducted the action between them. This ties together the written accounts from the time and the archaeological evidence and places it within the geographical context of the Solent.</p>
<h2>Tidal tales</h2>
<p>A tidal reconstruction shows that from 8am to around midday, the Solent’s flow was westerly. As the day was calm and sunny and there was no wind, the English ships would not have been able to move, and so would have remained anchored at Spithead, the tide shifting their bows to face towards the French. This detail is crucial, because the English ships did not have any guns that could fire directly forwards, only off to the port or starboard sides. This means that for four hours in the morning, the French would have been favoured by the tide, able to send in their advance attack of five galleys directly towards the bows of the English ships without the English being able easily to return fire. </p>
<p>These Mediterranean galleys were fitted with either two or four large guns firing directly forwards and could shoot from a relatively long range. In the morning, the French therefore had the advantage. Unlike the English, French galleys were powered by oars, rowed by prisoners-of-war and convicts, and could move independently of wind or tidal current. So, for at least four hours the French could have been firing at the English ships’ bows, relatively safe themselves. Together, these details suggest that it is likely that the Mary Rose would have sustained damage to her bow in the morning. An account by French eyewitness Martin Du Bellay records:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Favoured by the sea, which was calm, without wind or strong current, our galleys were able to manoeuvre at their pleasure and to the disadvantage of the enemy who, not being able to move for want of wind, remained exposed to the fire of our artillery.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It seems unlikely, given that they could get close to the English ships, that they would have missed their targets, so they may well have damaged the bow of the Mary Rose. (At this point in time, much of the bow structure of the Mary Rose is yet to be excavated from the seabed and so there is no archaeological evidence of such damage.) Of itself, a damaged bow wouldn’t be too much of a problem, although she may have been shipping considerable water into her hold. Intriguingly, the Mary Rose’s pump was not found in its proper position when excavated and it had been partly dismantled, not functional at the moment the ship sank – perhaps it broke through overuse?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136770/original/image-20160906-25231-11zpqjd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136770/original/image-20160906-25231-11zpqjd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136770/original/image-20160906-25231-11zpqjd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136770/original/image-20160906-25231-11zpqjd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136770/original/image-20160906-25231-11zpqjd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136770/original/image-20160906-25231-11zpqjd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136770/original/image-20160906-25231-11zpqjd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mary Rose detail.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Kester Keighley</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>On the attack</h2>
<p>By mid-afternoon <a href="http://www.cowes.co.uk/Solent-sea-breezes-and-Norris-nadgers.aspx">it is normal</a> for a sea breeze to blow up in the Solent. This would have afforded the Mary Rose the opportunity to set sail and bring her broadside armament to bear against the attacking French galleys. At about 4pm or 5pm the Mary Rose embarked on a northerly passage, the direction in which she was travelling when she sank, across the Solent to engage the French. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Weapons_of_Warre.html?id=EJsrPQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Archaeological evidence</a> tells us that some of the starboard guns were fired, so she must have encountered the enemy. She continued passage northwards but would have been rolling and sailing sluggishly if she had been hit earlier in the day and shipped water. Having fired their guns, the crew of the Mary Rose would have known that they were in trouble, feeling the uneasy movement of the ship beneath their feet. I suspect that it was their aim to run her aground on Spitbank, just 600 metres ahead of where she sank.</p>
<p>Six minutes more sailing and she would have been safe. But had she rolled just a little bit too far and for a little too long, allowing the open gun ports to dip below the sea, the sudden inrush of a mass of water onto the main gun deck would have completely destabilised the ship and she would have sunk within seconds.</p>
<p>The sinking of the Mary Rose claimed the lives of around 500 men on board. Only 35 were reported saved. I believe that the crew of the Mary Rose have been unfairly maligned by previous suggestions for the cause of the sinking. No evidence suggests that they were incompetent or ill disciplined, and on such a calm day a freak gust of wind seems unlikely. But until – or if – the bow is recovered, my theory remains just one of a number of possibilities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64987/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic Fontana was employed by The Mary Rose Trust from 1983-1987.</span></em></p>
An assimilation of artistic, geographical and historical records offers the best reconstruction of the battle in which the Mary Rose sank yet.
Dominic Fontana, Senior Lecturer in Geography, University of Portsmouth
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/59832
2016-05-27T09:08:18Z
2016-05-27T09:08:18Z
It’s Remain not Leave that captures the independent spirit of the Reformation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123635/original/image-20160523-11025-rwt7ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>On May 5, my old friend Giles Fraser used his regular <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2016/may/05/brexit-recycles-the-defiant-spirit-of-the-reformation">column in The Guardian</a> to assert that “Brexit recycles the defiant spirit of the Reformation.” </p>
<p>“Here also we find the intellectual roots of Euroscepticism,” he argued, talking of “grassroots empowerment” and “a stubborn commitment to English independence” as being of the essence of what happened in the 16th century. </p>
<p>Oh dear, Giles, how wrong can you be, about both the English Reformation and the wider movement across Europe? After its first explosion in northern Germany in 1517, the European Reformation was a completely international movement, transcending and breaking down local boundaries. The lesser Reformations of England and Scotland – distinct from each other, remember, Giles – were just part of this greater whole. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124016/original/image-20160525-25231-134qruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124016/original/image-20160525-25231-134qruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124016/original/image-20160525-25231-134qruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124016/original/image-20160525-25231-134qruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124016/original/image-20160525-25231-134qruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124016/original/image-20160525-25231-134qruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124016/original/image-20160525-25231-134qruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124016/original/image-20160525-25231-134qruu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Cranmer, 1545.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There was no idea of little Englandism in such Protestant reformers as the main author of England’s Book of Common Prayer, Thomas Cranmer, who is absent from Giles’s argument. Cranmer, the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, was aiming for the English Reformation to resemble as closely as possible his favourite movement in Europe, that of a mainland European city called Strasbourg (though German Reformers, and Cranmer, the English Archbishop with a German wife, would have called it Strassburg). </p>
<p>Why did Cranmer admire Strassburg’s Reformation? Partly because he got on well with its chief reformer, a former friar from Alsace called Martin Bucer, but mainly because Bucer and his Strassburg colleagues were especially energetic in their efforts to stop Protestants across Europe quarrelling. They saw that all reformers needed to unite against the common Roman enemy if they were going to achieve their aim of founding a properly Catholic, universal Church.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124017/original/image-20160525-25209-1hacr6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124017/original/image-20160525-25209-1hacr6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124017/original/image-20160525-25209-1hacr6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124017/original/image-20160525-25209-1hacr6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124017/original/image-20160525-25209-1hacr6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124017/original/image-20160525-25209-1hacr6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124017/original/image-20160525-25209-1hacr6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124017/original/image-20160525-25209-1hacr6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Martin Bucer, 1560.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This unity is also seen in the language of the Reformation: Latin, an international language. It is a mistake to think of Latin simply as the language of Roman Catholicism and its liturgy. It was more truly a universal language, a genuinely effective Esperanto, than English is today. You needed to learn it, certainly, but learning Latin was the main point of schools at the time, and once you had it, you truly were a citizen of a single culture. Without Latin, Protestantism simply couldn’t have spread across local boundaries.</p>
<p>How else would such star Protestant refugees in King Edward VI’s England as Strassburg’s Martin Bucer or Poland’s Johannes à Lasco have talked to their English hosts or indeed to each other, if not in Latin? Latin was the secret weapon of Protestant reformers just as much as it was the language of the Pope. Indeed, it helped either side in the great quarrels of the Reformation understand each other properly when they were insulting each other (which they did, a lot).</p>
<h2>Remain and reform</h2>
<p>So it is the Remain camp which represents the European and British Reformations, not Brexiteers. Remainers are the people who resist breaking the natural, wider ties in our continent. True, they know the system needs radical reform – and that was the starting point for many Protestants attacking the old Church, including <a href="http://www.luther.de/en/95thesen.html">Luther himself in 1517</a> – but once the corruption and the mistakes have been remedied, the prospect then as now is to look to a new continent-wide unity, not a muddle of division and weakness. </p>
<p>Both the Church of England and the Church of Scotland were part of a continent-wide Protestant movement which had gone further than Martin Luther in its break with the past. Reformed (that is, non-Lutheran) Protestant churches, saw the reformed churches of Europe – in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Poland and as far east in Europe as Transylvania – as their partners in an international movement.</p>
<p>Giles: you might have a slight point in characterising King Henry VIII of England as a Brexiteer. He broke with the Pope in 1533. Through force of personality plus quite a lot of threats and bluster, he bullied his parliament into pretending that his Church’s independence had actually always been there in English history, just hidden from sight by Romish cunning.</p>
<p>But do remember that Henry VIII was emphatically not a Protestant; in fact, he burned some of them for heresy. The Reformation here flourished in spite of him, not because of him. Henry VIII is definitely not my idea of an acceptable leader, either for the Reformation, the Church of England or modern Britain in general. Giles, do you really want the image of Brexit to be that of Horrible Harry – Donald Trump with a bit more style and a Holbein bonnet?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59832/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diarmaid MacCulloch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Giles Fraser thinks that ‘Brexit recycles the defiant spirit of the Reformation’. How wrong can he be?
Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/56386
2016-03-17T10:44:30Z
2016-03-17T10:44:30Z
Refugees and riots in Shakespeare’s England
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115299/original/image-20160316-30244-1ryjxei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">After The 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day massacre many Protestants fled France for England.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Francois_Dubois_001.jpg">Francois Dubois</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How many refugees should a country take? Between 1535 and 1550 citizenship was granted to <a href="https://flemish.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2014/02/07/flemish-religious-emigration-in-the-16th17th-centuries-2/">5,000 Flemish and Walloon refugees</a> from the Low Countries to settle in Britain. They were fleeing the wars of religion that ravaged Europe throughout the 16th and 17th centuries after Martin Luther’s 1517 demand for reformation of the church. </p>
<p>Henry VIII, a monarch <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/02/henry-viii-voted-worst-monarch-in-history">not normally known</a> for his open-minded tolerance, started the process, and welcomed Protestant refugees after his break with Rome. The king of Spain, Charles V, Henry’s principal ally and niece of his queen, Catherine of Aragon, was outraged but Henry stuck to his principles and continued to grant religious asylum. The population of England in 1517 was around 3m people; today it is more than 53m. David Cameron has pledged that Britain will take <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34171148">20,000 Syrian refugees by 2020</a>, a considerably smaller figure in real terms than Henry managed 500 years ago.</p>
<p>There was sometimes ill feeling towards foreigners. The most significant outbreak of xenophobia was the “Evil May Day” riot of 1517. Angered by the presence of wealthy German merchants in London, a mob of more than a thousand gathered in Cheapside, attacking foreigners and freeing prisoners convicted of rioting. They refused to listen to the pleas of the under-sheriff of London, Thomas More, but were eventually dispersed by the king’s troops. Thirteen were executed and many more would have been but for the intervention of the queen, who pleaded for mercy to spare the suffering of the wives and children of the convicted.</p>
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<span class="caption">A low point for race relations in England.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?partid=1&assetid=302568001&objectid=685547">British Museum</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>This dangerous moment in English history has assumed added importance because it appears as a pivotal moment in the manuscript play, “<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1547/pg1547-images.html">Sir Thomas More</a>”, in lines that may have been written by Shakespeare and have just been <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/15/william-shakespeare-handwritten-plea-for-refugees-online-sir-thomas-more-script-play-british-library-exhibition">digitised for the first time</a>. </p>
<p>But the Shakespeare association should not be allowed to obscure the truth that, despite intermittent outbreaks of xenophobic violence, 16th-century England was generally welcoming to foreign refugees. </p>
<p>London, like so many big cities and ports, had a large immigrant population, especially concentrated beside the docks and the area around the Tower of London. There were economic motives in allowing foreigners to settle, and the crown periodically did well from wealthy foreigners who could be relied on to contribute significant taxes when required. </p>
<p>But the most significant reason was religion and a desire to support fellow Protestants fleeing persecution. Settlers had to belong to a church and the first of the “Stranger Churches” was established by the Dutch in London in 1550 and, as more refugees arrived, churches were set up in regional towns like Sandwich, Norwich, Southampton or Canterbury. These religious centres become the focal points of migrant cultures, preserving the identities of Flemish, Walloons, Huguenots (French Protestants), and Germans in England.</p>
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<span class="caption">The world’s oldest Dutch-language Protestant church is in London, though the original building was destroyed in World War II.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brayley(1820)_p3.023_-_The_Dutch_Church,_Austin_Friars,_London.jpg">Edward Wedlake Brayley / British Library</a></span>
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<p>Refugees came in waves. Many arrived in the wake of the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule in the 1560s, settling in the Kent and Sussex Weald where they had an influence on English agricultural practices with their sophisticated market gardening techniques and knowledge of the need for crop rotation. </p>
<p>Another significant group fled France after the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day, August 24 1572, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew%27s_Day_massacre">when Huguenots were slaughtered</a> in Paris and cities in the French provinces as a concerted plan to reassert Catholic ascendancy in a divided nation. The event played its role in making England more Protestant and vigilant against a perceived Catholic threat, but also inspired sympathy for persecuted co-religionists. English Protestantism has always been both national and international in character.</p>
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<span class="caption">Catholic nobles inspect the aftermath: up to 30,000 died in several weeks of assassinations and mob violence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Édouard Debat-Ponsan</span></span>
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<p>Many refugees had an impact on English life. The eccentric Italian ex-Dominican friar, Bernardino Ochino (1487-1564), converted to Protestantism and fled to England where he became part of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s circle and wrote influential satires of the Catholic church, representing the Pope as a devil. Major writers such as Jan Van Der Noot (1539-95), often regarded as the first Dutch Renaissance poet, settled in London and influenced English poets such as Edmund Spenser, whose tomb established “Poets’ Corner” in Westminster Abbey. </p>
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<span class="caption">Gheeraerts: the refugee who became a successful artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wenceslas_Hollar_-_Mark_Gheeraerts.jpg">Wenceslaus Hollar (1627)</a></span>
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<p>Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (1561/2-1636), famous for <a href="http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw02079/Queen-Elizabeth-I-The-Ditchley-portrait">the Ditchley portrait</a> of Elizabeth I standing on a map of England, arrived as a small boy when his father fled Bruges to escape Spanish persecution. English <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/fi/academic/subjects/history/british-history-after-1450/britain-and-dutch-revolt-15601700">farming</a>, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/edmund-spenser-9780199591022?cc=gb&lang=en&">writing</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Painting-Britain-1500-1630-Production-Influences/dp/0197265847">painting</a>, and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/english_reformation_01.shtml">religious culture</a> would all have been impoverished without the influx of refugees from Europe in the 16th century.</p>
<p>Movement was strictly controlled in Tudor England. Unchecked travel within the realm was viewed with suspicion and travel abroad required special permission. But it was also a nation that did not find it difficult to open its borders to refugees, that understood what they had to offer, and encouraged many to settle and contribute to English life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Hadfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
David Cameron has pledged that Britain will take 20,000 Syrian refugees – but how did Henry VIII manage those in need 500 years ago?
Andrew Hadfield, Professor of English, Centre for Early Modern and Medieval Studies, University of Sussex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.