Last year I read a historical non-fiction book called "Six Wives: The Queens of King Henry VII" by David Starkey and since then I've become really interested in the minor historical figures of Tudor England, particularly...
These two were some of the most influential figures in the rise of the Church of England.
Cromwell was a big figure in secular transition, although he was learned in scripture of his day and disenchanted with a lot of the corruption he saw in the Catholic Church of the time, and Cranmer was a leader of the religious reformation.
As David Starkey tells it, it seemed like these men were kind of using the situation of their King being unhappily married, seeking an annulment/divorce/prosecution (or whatever would work to get the undesired wife out of his life...) to further their own social, political, and religious ends.
It's a fascinating story! And a lot more complex than I would have imagined.
Thomas Cromwell
and...
Thomas Cranmer:
These two were some of the most influential figures in the rise of the Church of England.
Cromwell was a big figure in secular transition, although he was learned in scripture of his day and disenchanted with a lot of the corruption he saw in the Catholic Church of the time, and Cranmer was a leader of the religious reformation.
As David Starkey tells it, it seemed like these men were kind of using the situation of their King being unhappily married, seeking an annulment/divorce/prosecution (or whatever would work to get the undesired wife out of his life...) to further their own social, political, and religious ends.
It's a fascinating story! And a lot more complex than I would have imagined.
However, it wasn't until I was getting a little bored of this years Children's Reading Challenge that I decided to delve back into Tudor-era history. This time in Historical Fiction.
I watched the miniseries, "Wolf Hall" (Which is a compilation of two novels: Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel) on amazon prime, and then listened to the book series on CD.
If you're into Tudor history, this is a pretty intense retelling. It's about the rise of Thomas Cromwell in King Henry Tudor VIII's court, and his role in the prosecution of two major historical figures:
Thomas More
And Anne Boleyn
Surprisingly, most of the brutality does not come from people getting executed in horrible ways (Although that does happen). This is not "Game of Thrones", violent and illicit content is off-screen (and for the most part off page).What's really messed up is the psychological aspect: Henry and Co rationalizing every selfish maneuver, and Cromwell's systematic, "guilty even when proven innocent" approach to investigating trumped-up charges (particularly in book 2).
I can't speak for the historical accuracy of either the novels or the miniseries, but as stories I thought both versions of the story were pretty well told. I watched the mini-series (which covers both books) first and I felt like the narrative was a little disjointed at the start; where they just barely introduced characters to us, and then do a flashback with them meeting each other for the first time, that was a little confusing. But it turns out they were just trying to follow the format of the book. The book is able to get inside Cromwell's head really well and follows the flow of his thoughts so he becomes a really engaging, personable character. That doesn't work very well in film format, but fortunately they do have an excellent actor: Mark Rylance, who does a fantastic job with his chillingly understated portrayal of the character. In both adaptions, the result is the same: you become seduced by the persona of this man so completely, you start to forget about all the evil stuff he did until it's staring you in the face.
Notes:
More Alignment posers I made for this book:
William Tyndale-
Henry Tudor-
