The Idea of Justice in Historical Fiction – by Anna Mazzola

Dostoyevsky famously said: ‘The degree of civilisation in a society is revealed by entering its prisons.’ Winston Churchill said, ‘The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country.’ Or, of course, it’s lack of civilisation. Look at the rising prison numbers in America and the system’s treatment of black people in particular; look at the crisis in our own criminal justice system, and you understand a lot about society and government. Look at the treatment of crime and criminals in a crime fiction novel and you’ll learn a lot about what the author is trying to say, and about the historical era in which they’re writing.

No matter what my novels are ostensibly about – and my second one is about dark folklore on the Isle of Skye, and my next one is about moving clockwork dolls and Versailles – I always end up talking in them about justice and what it means to obtain justice for the victims and survivors. That may be because I’m a criminal justice solicitor, but then again perhaps I ended up in that field because I’m fascinated by how society treats its criminals and its victims.

I’m not alone in finding the topic compelling. We all have highly personal beliefs and emotions about what constitutes a crime; when someone is responsible for their crimes; and how the legal system ought to deal with them. Defining and punishing crime, and protecting citizens from crime, are key roles of government and often lead to public debate: who should we imprison and where and how? How much of a role should victims have in the system? Are there ever circumstances where capital punishment or torture are justifiable? These are debates we’ve always had, only the answers have varied across the ages.

That leads to a rich subject to explore in fiction, where we can walk readers through a search for justice, and through the ambiguities and frustrations along the way.

Window onto the past

What constituted a crime, who constituted a criminal, and how those people were dealt with gives us a unique window onto the past. And punishment of crime can of course be one of the most terrifying uses of state power, capable of ruining lives, producing serious injustice, and sure-ing up the authority of oppressive regimes.

Part of the reason the Tudors have always held such fascination for us is the bloody and tyrannical nature of their so-called justice system, which was as much about settling scores and seeking revenge as it was about attaining justice, something which is depicted most brilliantly in Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy.

Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose showed us the complex and shady power exercised by the Church in the 14th century. Robert Harris’s An Officer and a Spy exposed the corrupt system that, in late 19th century France led to Alfred Dreyfus being false convicted of espionage, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. Antonia Hodgson’s Devil in the Marshalsea and Sarah Waters’ Affinity showed us the injustice and inhumanity of the prisons of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The protagonist as finder of justice

As well as exploring the justice systems of the era in which they are set, many historical novels seek to attain justice or revenge or payback or some kind of catharsis for their characters within the terms of the novel.

This is of course in line with the classical detective story model, which gives us the story of the crime, followed by the story of the investigation, involving enquiry, revelation and closure. The rise of detective fiction happened at about the same time as the beginning of detective policing i.e. in the mid 19th century. If crime was the problem, then the solution was the capture and removal of the criminal. That was how justice would be achieved. So in fiction, removing the offender from the scene healed the breach in the social fabric. The problem was solved, be it by Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple or Jackson Brodie.

The assumption of the detective genre is that not only is there a motive and a true meaning to the crime, but the detective can uncover it, deliver the criminal, achieve justice and narrate the story in a form that transmits that coherence to the awaiting reader. And that is why it’s so satisfying. Because of course real crime is usually not like that, and I say this as someone whose day job is dealing with where things go wrong in criminal investigations and prosecutions. Even if a crime is reported, it may not be properly investigated. Even if it is, the Crown Prosecution Service may decide not to charge. Even if it gets to court, it may collapse. Even if a conviction is secured, the criminal may refuse to explain why they acted as they did, or the sentence they are given may fail, in the eyes of the victim, to reflect the severity of their crimes. There is rarely any neat conclusion to real criminal cases, rarely any feeling among victims that justice has been achieved and normality restored. Often the detective figures are too busy doing other things or too hampered by funding cuts, poor training and huge caseloads to go about achieving a cathartic ending for the victims.

Not so in detective fiction. Or at least, not usually. Many of the detective figures in modern historical mysteries are focussed on achieving justice for victims. ‘Justice, Sergeant Shardlake. I know you have always believed in it, and have sometimes sought it in dark corners.’ So says Lady Elizabeth to CJ Sansom’s Shardlake who is always questing to find justice for the underprivileged. The same is true of Mick Finlay’s Arrowood, forever fighting for the underdog.

Alternative forms of justice 

Of course obtaining justice within a novel does not always meaning sending the criminal to jail and throwing away the key. Particularly where the justice system is shown to be corrupt and unfair, justice may have to be achieved in a different way.

In my second novel, The Story Keeper, I wanted one of the evil characters to be punished, but – because this was the 19th century and the character was an upper class man of status - I knew there was no chance he would ever be arrested, never mind prosecuted, for sexual offences against poor girls. (Looking at some recent cases, it’s arguable things haven’t changed hugely). I spoke to an academic who suggested that, instead, I use the divorce courts that were beginning in that era: the police might not arrest the man, but his crimes could be aired in a different kind of court.

Other historical authors have found other solutions. At the end of Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith, Maud also destroys the thing that she knows will destroy the wicked uncle who has abused her: his library. In The Crimson Petal and the White, Sugar never lives out the bloody revenge she has described in her own writings, but she frees the other woman William Rackham has tormented - his wife, Agnes - and she escapes with the little girl to whom he’s never shown any love.

In some novels, the possible injustice or unfairness of the character’s fate is the point of the novel. When Burial Rites opens, Agnes has already been convicted and sentenced to death for murder. In Jill Dawson’s Fred & Edie and Emma Flint’s Little Deaths, both based on real women, unpick the emotional climate of their times and show us – whatever the truth of these cases – these women were damned before their trials even began.

My first novel, The Unseeing, was also based on the life of a real woman, Sarah Gale, who was convicted with her lover of murder in London in 1837. The focus of the novel is whether or not she did in fact carry out the crime she is accused of and if so, why. That is because when I first read about the case I began to wonder whether – due to the inadequacies of the justice system particularly in relation to women, and particularly in relation to so called ‘fallen women’ - there had been a miscarriage of justice. One of the key themes of the novel is what constitutes justice, and the detective character, who is the lawyer appointed to investigate her appeal, must determine what justice means for Sarah.

Perfume by Suskind subverts the ‘justice must be done’ formula altogether. Grenouille escapes the scaffold for the murders he’s committed, but then pours an entire bottle of his final perfume on himself, leading to a group of criminals being so overcome by what they later claim is ‘love’ that they tear him to pieces and eat him.

The impact of the justice system

For Antonia Hodgson, author of the Thomas Hawkins series, it’s not so much about getting justice for her characters as looking at what ‘the pursuit of justice and revenge does to them, how dangerous it can be for their souls (to use an eighteenth-century term). How their life experiences and character lead them to make certain choices, and the consequences of those actions.’

In each of Hodgson’s books, Tom is confronted with a by a (real) authority figure – the Marshalsea keeper William Acton, Queen Caroline, magistrate Sir John Gonson, former chancellor of the Exchequer John Aislabie - only to discover they are self-serving, corrupt, and/ or hypocritical. ‘In a corrupt world, the question becomes - do you take justice in your own hands? How does that look, and what does it do to you?’ We see Kitty and Tom both impacted by the actions they take, and the abuses that have been done to them. By the time we reach the latest in the series, The Silver Collar, the whole question of justice and revenge becomes central - particularly in the final act. Once Jeremiah and Tom know they have found the enemy, Lady Vanhook, they have to decide what they are going to do. How do they punish her? And in fact Hodgson plays a rather clever game to bring the reader into the story. We must ask what we ourselves think is right.

Punishment without crime

And then there are novels where people are punished, but their punishments don’t fit their crimes, or they aren’t remotely guilty at all.  Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell brings offenders to account, but usually not for the crimes they’ve actually committed. People pay for crime, but not necessarily their own. And Cromwell often commits crimes of his own in order to secure their convictions – surveillance, torture, deceit, fraud. The trilogy is so fascinating because we are never quite sure who to root for – the endlessly resourceful outsider, Cromwell, or the more or less innocent but unlikeable people whose heads end up on the chopping block.

A Place of Greater Safety, Mantel’s first work of historical fiction, is a fascinating study of how what started as a just revolution became a bloody massacre, where the so-called justice system descended - by Robespierre’s era - into an arena for different factions to send each other to the Guillotine. She begins one of her chapters with this quote from Robespierre: ‘Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue.’

In fact, by that point, so-called justice was terror and retribution, and it wouldn’t be long before it came for Robespierre himself.


Anna Mazzola is a writer of historical crime fiction. She spoke about justice and revenge in historical crime fiction at St Hilda’s Crime Fiction Festival and the video will be available until 31 August 2020. 

Featured image: 'Waiting for the Verdict' by Abraham Solomon (1857) 

The Warlow Experiment review by Mary Hoffman

It's not often you get a Press Release for a book, with a quotation from Hilary Mantel. Here it is in full:
"Alix Nathan cuts against cliché, against the received version, against cosiness. She leaves her reader restless, curious, wanting more. She is an original, with a virtuoso touch."

Alix Nathan author photo by Jan Klos

Having read Nathan's adult novel, The Warlow Experiment, I wouldn't disagree, though I do have some reservations, which I'll get to later.

The starting point for the book was a snippet Nathan found in which Herbert Powyss advertised, in 1793, for someone to live solitarily underground for seven years, without human contact, in return for £50 a year for life.

A tame hermit wasn't a rarity in the eighteenth century but this was not a request for some sort of human ornament to a formal garden. It was a scientific experiment. Alix Nathan takes that advertisement and runs with it. History doesn't relate what actually happened but the novelist fleshes out the situation, the character of Herbert Powyss, John Warlow, who takes up the offer, his wife, Powyss' servants and the relations between them all.

A German "garden hermit" in the 18th century

 As she tells it, the only person to apply for the "job" is John Warlow, a labourer with a wife and several children, some living, some dead. He must agree, as the original ad stated, not to cut his hair or fingernails and toenails for the full seven years. His meals are sent down to him on a dumb waiter and he gets the same food as Powyss. His bodily waste is sent back up in the same dumb waiter; the details are not for the squeamish.

The apartment created for the experiment in the cellar is comfortable, well-furnished, with books Warlow can scarcely read and a chamber organ he certainly can't play. He has a comfortable bed, plenty of candles and fuel for his fire, tobacco as needed and a laundry service for his clothes.

The bath has only a cold water feed but, as Warlow barely washes, this is hardly a problem. 

It is clear that Powyss was expecting a very different subject to respond to his offer. One of the tasks for the confined man is to keep a journal; another to keep the clock wound every eight days. Both tasks prove equally impossible for Warlow.

Powyss, a single man in possession of a fortune but with no inclination to marry, lives in a big house, where he is obsessed with having a paper published by the Royal Society, of which he is an enthusiastic member. his passion is gardening. He collects seeds and other specimens, like many another eighteenth century amateur botanist.

But the incarceration of John Warlow is going to be the subject of his projected paper: Investigation into the Resilience of the Human Mind Without Society.

It is clear from the beginning that the concept of the experiment does not allow for the individual response of the subject: Warlow gradually deteriorates over four years from even the degree of civilisation he had at the beginning. He has literally nothing to do; at least nothing he is capable of doing. In such a situation, the book suggests, a man with gradually run mad and destroy his surroundings.

Meanwhile, up in the rest of the house, Powyss sees Hannah Warlow once a week to give her money for herself and the children. He becomes attracted to her and she to him. And his degeneration parallels that of the man living in the cellar.

The servants are curious about Warlow and one of them, Abraham Price, the gardener, is a follower of Tom Paine, who feels the immured man is being deprived of his rights. As a result of a chain of events, it is Price who releases Warlow ahead of time, a liberation which leads to violence, madness  and deaths.

And here is where my reservations lie. Nathan's novel is an experiment in itself, a forensic study of the effect on solitude on a human being, which pre-empts whatever Powyss might have written in his paper. And every human relationship in the story ends tragically. It is this lack of redemption or any kind of hope which made the book for me something short of great.

Thomas Cromwell by Mary Hoffman (review)

Thomas Cromwell by Hans Holbein the Younger 1534

In Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, Thomas Cromwell shows this portrait to his son Gregory. It has recently come from the painter, Hans Holbein the Younger. Cromwell tells Gregory that someone has told him he looks like a murderer. "Didn't you know?" the boy responds.

Holbein has not flattered his subject, it's true, but we see here the real man, with a firm grasp on his work, and on England. It is the man that Dairmaid MacCulloch gives us in his thorough biography, Thomas Cromwell: a Life.

Especially during the last decade of his life, while working for the king, Henry Vlll, Cromwell was everywhere, as a civil servant and politician, a man with considerable power both in secular life and over the church. He was incredibly hard-working, intelligent and with an impressive attention to detail. As one of his servants says on looking at the portrait earlier, according to Mantel, he was not and did not look like a man to cross.

What characterises his work and his personality is what MacCulloch describes as his "omnicompetence." That made me ache with longing for such a politician to take today's situation in hand. (Although it is unlikely he would have let us get into today's situation in the first place). At the height of his career, no-one bothered to write an address of correspondence to the king's secretary, later Lord Privy Seal: "His name would find him more easily than his exact location."

MacCulloch is generous in acknowledging the interest in his subject generated by Hilary Mantel's two novels. In a rare appreciation of historical fiction by a "straight" historian, he says, "to call them 'historical novels' does them an injustice; they are novels which happen to be set in the sixteenth century, and with a profound knowledge of how that era functioned.'

Coming fresh to biography from fiction, I was surprised to discover that Cromwell's father was possibly not a blacksmith but definitely a brewer and, though he was a bit of a thug, there is no evidence that he was brutal to his son. Thomas, as a teenager at the turn of the sixteenth century, took himself off to the continent, ending up in Italy, but not to escape his father. It looks more as if he was escaping Putney, in order to spread his wings and learn more about the wider world.

If that is the case, he succeeded brilliantly well; his facility with the Italian language and with continental mores came in very useful later.

MacCulloch has scrutinised what remains of Cromwell's vast correspondence. You might naturally expect that to consist of what was in his in-box but in fact in Tudor times it was customary to keep copies or at least drafts of letters out as well. In Cromwell's case, there are massive gaps, attributable to his loyal servants having hastily burned many documents at the time of his fall from grace in 1540. It must have been hasty as Cromwell's downfall unfolded as rapidly as any he had brought about for others.

For all of what is missing, MacCullough has meticulously sifted through whatever was available and constantly turns the figure of Cromwell round to cast light on unexpected facets. There is a salutary reminder that it was Cardinal Wolsey, not Cromwell, who started the programme of systematic dissolution of the monasteries, so closely associated with Henry Vlll and his right hand man.

Because Cromwell had been Wolsey's right hand man until the cardinal's fall, as inevitable as, though less speedy than Cromwell's own a decade later. Cromwell's loyalty to his former patron is as unshakeable as it is occasionally unwise. Take the coat of arms (above) he took up to reflect the importance of his position in court in 1532, when he was granted lands in Wales. If you compare it with that of Cardinal Wolsey (below) you will see the similarity.

Cromwell took the 'chief'  (the headband) of Wolsey's coat and made it his 'fess,' (central band). In both cases there is a red rose, symbol of the king, between two Cornish choughs. MacCulloch calls this "a defiant statement of support" for the cardinal. (The chough, with its heraldic associations with Thomas Becket, had become the appropriate symbol for all Thomases).

In spite of his competent organising of events like Queen Anne's coronation in 1533 or the meeting with the French court in Calais and Boulogne in 1532, Cromwell was not made so much as a knight until after Anne Boleyn's death. No glamorous titles and robes for him; instead he was put in charge of sewers.

That meant something different in 16th century England from what it does today. It included weirs and waterworks and Cromwell tackled the commission with the energy and attention to detail he seemed to bring to every project that passed through his hands. As well as becoming the most powerful and dangerous man in England, he was certainly one of the busiest in Europe.

But what we want to know about is his relationship with Anne Boleyn and her fate. In spite of the profound effect Cromwell had on the running of England, some of which is apparent to this day, it is his involvement in the king's marital affairs that dominate the life of this remarkable man.

MacCulloch says that Henry's first marriage was "for dynastic reasons," which is a bit harsh. It was honourable and conscientious of the teenage prince to take on his late brother's widow and it seems as if that was not in accord with his father's wishes, whose treatment of Katherine of Aragon was less than kind.

However, there was no doubt by the end of the 1520s that Henry had set his mind on a new young wife, to give him the longed-for heir and this time the match was not dynastically valuable. Cromwell was as energetic in pursuing ways the king could annul his marriage as he was about every task he was given. But he and Anne had a complex relationship.

For a start, Cromwell could not forgive her the role she played in the downfall of his old mentor Thomas Wolsey. Then there was the fact that in all political manoeuvrings she favoured France, where Cromwell leaned more towards the Holy Roman Empire. In the delicate seesaw of continental politics and with the history of Anglo-French hostilities, the queen's personal preferences sometimes caused Henry to be at odds with his Secretary's advice.

Nevertheless, Cromwell did everything he could to bring the king's first marriage to an end and to facilitate the new union with Anne Boleyn. This was Cromwell as fixer and he was of course successful. After a clandestine wedding in at the end on January 1533 (and possibly an earlier even more clandestine ceremony), there was a triumphant coronation for Anne in May. All organised by Henry's most efficient minister.

There was a blip in Henry's plans in September when his first child with Anne was a girl (not knowing that "blip" would be one of England's most successful monarchs).

But opposition to the marriage didn't stop with the coronation and it was Cromwell's job to make sure that everyone fell into line with the king's decision to place his position of head of the Church in England above any ruling from the Pope. He had been excommunicated in July.

The recalcitrant clerics Thomas More and John Fisher, who baulked at signing the oath of Supremacy, did not stand a chance against Cromwell. In early 1535 he had been made "Vice-Gerent in Spirituals (note: not Vice-Regent, though the anagram has had an irresistible pull over the centuries), which enabled him to act for Henry in church matters. And this he did by means "complex and crabwise."

Fisher and More were beheaded in the summer of 1535, only months after the new Pope, Paul lll, had made Fisher a cardinal. This seems to have incensed the king even more against the stubborn bishop.

So, now we come to the central event of Henry's downward spiral into tyranny and cruelty (my words, not MacCulloch's) and this where I feel there is a lack in this biography. Just one chapter of 24 pages and of those only 17 devoted to the the most tumultuous four months of the king's reign, dispatch Queen Anne almost as rapidly and cursorily as happened to her in real life.

So Anne's life comes to an end but not Cromwell's - not yet - and in the summer of 1536 he is made Lord Privy Seal, the pinnacle of his secular influence. Henry has already re-married, to quiet, compliant Jane Seymour and is once gain enjoying marital happiness. Cromwell is created a baron and therefore a knight; there are even rumours that he might marry "Lady Mary," the deposed princess, now declared illegitimate but with the blood of kings and queens in her veins.

But Cromwell was pursuing evangelical reformation rather than marriage. It was his son Gregory, now seventeen, who was on the market – and he made a match almost as daring as his father's to Mary would have been: he married the king's sister-in-law.

Elizabeth Seymour, Queen Jane's younger sister, aged about twenty at the time, had been married and widowed already and had two children. In one swift stroke, Thomas Cromwell had made himself part of the Royal Family, not exactly the king's uncle, but pretty close. Not bad for the brewer's son from Putney.

Holbein, portrait of a lady, possibly Elizabeth Cromwell

In October, Queen Jane gave birth to Henry's longed for legitimate son and heir, Prince Edward. (His illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, had died shortly after witnessing Anne Boleyn's execution). The general joy was soon mitigated by the death of the queen. It was a blow for the king but it put him back on the market as a still very eligible groom.

Perhaps the death of Jane Seymour marks the beginning of Cromwell's slide down the ladder of his considerable achievements? Although further ennoblement awaited, it was the negotiations for a fourth queen that began the process that would lead rapidly to his disgrace and death.

Cromwell favoured a foreign wife for Henry, Archbishop Cranmer an English one. As we all know from the endless Tudor studies in school curricula, Cromwell backed the wrong horse. It was an uncharacteristic false step for such a shrewd man. Henry did not like his new bride. More specifically, he didn't fancy her.

In mid-March 1537, Cromwell was created Earl of Essex and Lord Great Chamberlain but two months later he was in the Tower for treason. What happened? The unsuccessful marriage to Anne of Cleves was part of Henry's deep disappointment with his chief minister – the king launched an annulment in early July – but also significant was the build up of Cromwell's enemies at court.

The king was cracking down on evangelicals too, which made Cromwell's position vulnerable. And Henry was already eyeing up a fifth wife, making presents to a pretty young lady-in-waiting called Katherine Howard, another niece of the Duke of Norfolk, by now Cromwell's sworn enemy. In the hectic spring and summer months of 1540, Cromwell's fate could have gone either way, honours and titles one minute, imprisonment the next.

Holbein Henry Vlll in 1540

But once Henry did make up his mind against someone he was implacable, as Cromwell had good reason to know. In spite of begging letters from the man himself and a defence by Archbishop Cranmer, who had also argued in vain for Anne Boleyn's life, Cromwell was executed on 28th July.

On the same day the king married Katherine Howard.

Everything else is aftermath but MacCulloch certainly hurries the new queen Katherine off the scene, without discussing the causes of her fate, and turns to the "eirenic" Katherine Parr. (It means something like "seeking peace" but also has a technical meaning in church matters involving the reconciliation of different denominations).

Gregory Cromwell was made a baron and was one of the six stave-bearers who upheld the canopy over the king's coffin in February 1547 and was made a Knight of the Bath at Edward Vl's coronation, the flow of honours not halted by the fate of his father. Indeed there is evidence that Henry soon regretted getting rid of his most competent and diligent minister.

Diarmaid MacCulloch saves any summing up of Cromwell's life to the last page and a bit of this 552 page book but sees his legacy as the confirmed Protestantism of first Edward and then Elizabeth l. He even suggests that this paved the way for the birth of the British Empire. It seems that Thomas Cromwell has a lot to answer for.


(Many thanks to Ann Jungman for lending me her copy when I had to send mine back to the London Library).

 









 

Ancient or modern: language in historical fiction by Carolyn Hughes

A couple of years ago, I joined a panel of published writers (a mix of historical novelists and crime/thriller writers) at an event held at the University of Portsmouth, before an audience of fellow writers and readers. One of the questions asked of me was how I dealt with language, given that my (then newly-published) novel, Fortune’s Wheel, is set in the 14th century, a time when people didn’t speak English as we know it, but spoke either Middle English, a form of French, or Latin, depending on their social status and education.

It was a question that had exercised me – and undoubtedly many other writers of historical fiction – a good deal, particularly in the early days of my career as an historical novelist, though I do still think about it now, a few books down the line.

When I began writing historical fiction, I asked myself whether I should attempt to give my 14th century characters “authentic”-sounding voices, or put modern language in their mouths. I made my choice, and have since been very happy with that choice.

However, in my PhD, completed at the same time that my first historical novel was published, and which addressed “authenticity” in historical fiction, I had given specific thought to this matter of language, weighing up the “ancient or modern” alternatives and assessing the pros and cons in terms of how I perceived they might affect “authenticity”.

When historical novelists (of any period) choose to have their characters speak in modern (20th/21st century) English, might that give the impression that the characters also have modern mindsets? Conversely, if characters are given dialogue that purports – or even contrives – to sound like, say, 14th century English, does that somehow give the impression that the characters also have authentic 14th century mindsets? I don’t believe that either case is necessarily true. But, from all my reading of historical novels, I have realised that by far the majority are in fact written in reasonably straightforward modern English – often with a touch of archaic phrasing or period terminology – and whether the mindsets that the words convey seem “authentic” often depends on other factors.

The 19th century novelist Henry James famously disparaged historical fiction. It was not the practicalities of the past that James thought difficult to describe, but imagining with any degree of realism, or perhaps “naturalism”, the inner lives of those who lived in earlier times. It was “mindset” he was talking about – people’s ideas, values and beliefs. Of course there’s no such thing as “a” mindset for a period: people in past times didn’t hold a single set of values and beliefs, any more than they do now, but there is undoubtedly a generalised difference between the inner lives of 14th century people and our own. It’s this difference that James apparently considered impossible to bridge, but from my reading of historical fiction I’ve deduced that most writers do in fact give the impression of bridging the gap pretty well. For imagining the inner lives of characters (historical or fictional) for readers to experience is surely exactly what historical novelists attempt to do.

Some years ago, in Clio’s Children, a blog for historical novelists, the writer John Yeoman raised this matter of language in historical fiction thus: ‘…to what degree can we legitimately – or even intelligibly – use language or literary forms authentic to a given period?’ (my italics). (‘Can the language of historical fiction ever be “authentic”?’, <clioschildren.blogspot.co.uk/2010_06_01_archive.html>)

Yeoman said that readers expected writers to have done their historical homework and, if they believed the language used was somehow wrong, their illusion would be shattered, regardless of whether their belief had any foundation. Perhaps the shattering of illusion applies particularly when the language is deemed too “modern”? Yet, said Yeoman, ‘how else can an historical writer communicate with a modern reader, except in a modern idiom?’, although this view is not universally held.

Of course, Yeoman is only one of many to have addressed this problem.


Hilary Mantel once said that ‘[historical novelists] don’t want to misrepresent our ancestors, but we don’t want to make the reader impatient.’ Too much period flavour, she said, slows the story and may even make readers laugh. When we have little idea how people actually spoke in the distant past – because we have no audio or even written records – we must simply imagine it. Mantel recommended ‘a plain style that you can adapt…not just to [your characters’] ages and personalities and intelligence level, but to their place in life.’ (Quoted in Writing Historical Fiction, Celia Brayfield and Duncan Sprott, p.135. Adapted from Hilary Mantel’s article ‘The Elusive Art of Making the Dead Speak’, Wall Street Journal, 27/04/12.)

The late Barry Unsworth said much the same: ‘You can’t make your characters speak in the language and idiom of their own time if the language of the period would seem archaic. It would put too much strain on the understanding and would seem false in any case.’ (Arlo Haskell, ‘Intensity of Illusion: a conversation with Barry Unsworth’, Key West Literary Seminar, Littoral (28/06/08) www.kwls.org/littoral/intensity_of_ilusiona_conversa/).

Unsworth, too, recommended using straightforward English, though he advised also ‘a certain kind of tactful formality’ and an avoidance of contracted forms (isn’t, don’t etc). (Arlo Haskell, ‘Barry Unsworth: The Economy of Truth’, Key West Literary Seminar, Audio Archives (7/10/09) www.kwls.org/podcasts/barry_unsworth_the_economy_of/) 

None of these writers has advised the use of “authentic-sounding” period language, perhaps because it is difficult to make such language sound right, and also to keep readers engaged with what might be a difficult read. As I have already said, my reading has shown me that most writers do not attempt to present voices in anything other than more-or-less modern English, although there are certainly (if surprisingly few) exceptions.

But I have concluded that, in most of the historical novels I’ve read that were set in the “Middle Ages”, the characters’ thought-worlds did seem acceptably mediaeval, what they spoke about reflected the social context of the time, and that held true regardless of the modernity or otherwise of the language used.

However, certain aspects of language can, at the very least, detract from the seeming authenticity of the characters’ words, and these include archaic or “difficult” language, and anachronistic language or ideas, both of which, in their different ways, can throw the reader out of the illusion the novelist is trying to convey.

For example, Ken Follett is one novelist who has been accused of using overly modern language in his mediaeval historical novels (Pillars of the Earth and World Without End). For some of his readers, their impression of undue modernity in the novel’s language does matter:

‘Obviously, a novel set around the 12th [sic – should be 14th] century could never be written in contemporary prose… But some concession needed to be made in order to emphasise antiquity, or it might as well be set in the present. …I found myself jerked out of the spell by the kind of prose and dialogue that I can hear on the street every day. And because it was written in modern English, it inevitably portrayed 20th century thinking.’ (An Amazon review from March 2011)

This reader doesn't quote any examples but does make an interesting point: is it “inevitable” that modern language portrays modern thinking? Not, presumably, according to the majority of historical novelists who use it. And it’s also true that a significant majority of Follett’s readers are evidently so engrossed in the story that the modernity or otherwise of the language is of little importance:

‘From the first page Follett conjures up the earthiness and superstition of those times. I can’t comment on how accurate it is as I wouldn’t know, but it certainly rings true and even if it wasn’t all completely correct, I don’t think it would really matter.’ (An Amazon review from November 2007)

This reviewer doesn’t mention language, but for them the authenticity comes in the small details of daily life. It “rings true” and, for them, that is what matters. For most of his readers, Follett’s language doesn’t detract from their enjoyment of his books, but if the language a writer uses does make readers stop and question the authenticity of the mindset that “thought” the words they have read, this will surely destroy the illusion the writer was trying to create.

For myself, I decided early on that I wouldn’t attempt to mimic the speech patterns of the 14th century, because I felt that “pseudo-mediaeval” dialogue might actually inhibit modern readers’ enjoyment, rather than give the narrative any greater credibility. I followed the advice of other writers, such as Hilary Mantel and Barry Unsworth, referred to earlier. The language I put into my characters’ mouths is broadly modern English, with some slightly “old-fashioned” phrasing just to give a sense of the past. However, I don’t follow closely Unsworth’s advice about formality and avoiding contractions. Rather, my choice is to use more formal, non-contracted, forms for higher status or educated characters, but to reflect the voices of the peasantry by using contractions (it’s, isn’t, shouldn’t). I accept that this is a relatively crude distinction and that, to some, the contractions may give the voices too modern a tone, but I’m satisfied that it works – for me, at least.

If you accept, as I have, that putting broadly modern language into the mouths of “historical” characters works fine, the question then might be how far it matters to the average reader if the language, and especially the dialogue, is littered (or even lightly sprinkled) with anachronistic words. (This is central to John Yeoman’s blog post on “authentic” language, referred to earlier.)

It’s obviously important to ensure that anachronisms of fact are kept at bay, but linguistic anachronisms, where words had not yet come into use or, more importantly, where they imply ideas that had not yet entered anybody’s mind, are equally likely to throw a reader out of the illusion. In the same article referred to earlier, Hilary Mantel said ‘[characters] mustn’t express ideas they could not have had, and feelings they would not have had. They did not draw metaphors from a scientific worldview, but from a religious one. They weren’t democrats. They weren’t feminists… The reader should be braced by the shock of the old; or why write about the past at all?’

In Mistress of the Art of Death, by Ariana Franklin, set in the 12th century – a favourite read of mine, by the way – occasional anachronistic expressions or metaphors creep in. For example, in ‘…it seems his guts...are giving him gyp’ (p.11), the expression “giving gyp” was possibly not used until the 19th century. And there is a perhaps more overt type of anachronism in: ‘The deer ran, scattering among the trees, their white scuts like dominoes tumbling into the darkness.’ (p.16). This is a really nice image but, as I understand it, dominoes had not arrived in Europe by the 12th century, so the story's narrator (a 12th century person) would presumably not think of using such a metaphor?

In his mediaeval novel The Ill-Made Knight, Christian Cameron occasionally uses words and expressions that are neither 21st nor 14th century. Both ‘...cooling my heels...’ (p.184) and ‘...swashbuckle...’ (p.32) are 16th century.

Both these novels, which use mostly modern and very accessible language, include a few anachronistic words and expressions that might destroy a reader’s illusion of the mediaeval world. One might say that an expression like “cooling one’s heels” is not exactly anachronistic, but more a “translation” of what the character was thinking about being kept waiting. Similarly, “giving gyp” is perhaps an accessible rendition of the narrator’s thought about a character’s pain. However, looking at it another way, both “cooling my heels” and “giving gyp”, while not being mediaeval, are also not really current expressions either, and therefore somehow draw attention to themselves. I suppose this can often be a problem with anachronisms – one might slip through unnoticed, yet if something sounds wrong, a critical reader will spot it and feel obliged to check up on it.

Anachronisms may be subtler. For example, in Julia Blackburn’s The Leper’s Companions, set in 1410, mentions of “kitchen”, “bedroom” and a fire burning in the “grate” don’t quite ring true for the period, when such room designations hadn’t yet reached peasant homes, and fires were generally still hearths in the middle of the floor. But is this perhaps to be too exacting?

One might ask, then, how far a degree of anachronism in a novel’s language, especially in the use of individual words, matters? How far does it detract from a novel’s “authenticity”? I have noticed these anachronisms, but many readers wouldn't, or not care much if they did. However, of those readers who do notice such things, some may not thereafter trust the writer's grip on the period, while, for others, at the very least their pleasure in the book might be diminished.

So one could say that, whereas anachronism does “matter”, perhaps the degree to which it matters is largely a question of taste?

In my own writing, I do try to avoid anachronism in language as well as in fact. I make an effort not to use words and phrases that first came into use much later than the 14th century. However, I’m not overly exacting with myself: I allow myself to sense when a word is not right, and, if necessary, replace it with something more suitable, but I do not examine every word. And I know that I use the occasional word that is anachronistic. Indeed, one I can think of is “hubbub”, a 16th century word of Irish origin and therefore in principle quite unsuitable for a novel about 14th century England! But I kept it in because I thought it had a mediaeval “feel” to it and I suppose I hoped that few readers would notice my gaffe. So, having allowed myself this latitude, perhaps I should not criticise others too harshly!

My Top Historical Novels - Celia Rees

Like many writers, I have a lot of books. They are threatening to take over the house. It is time for some sorting out and that inevitably means some will have to go. How am I going to decide which to keep and which to throw? The shelves need cataloguing. I'm not talking Dewey Decimal but it would be helpful if the books were in some sort of order. Relevant titles would be easier to find and that would save time. 

As I'm a writer of historical fiction, I thought I might begin with those titles, collect them all together and put them in author order.  These are some of the titles I will be keeping. These are books that mean something to me. Books that changed my perceptions of historical fiction, that have stayed with me, some for a very long time. Books that I discovered as a young reader and as an adult long before I even thought of writing, let alone writing historical fiction. Some are books that I simply admire, that I go to when I think my own writing needs a boost, by writers who leave me in awe to wonder:  'How do they do that? I couldn't do that!'

Here are ten of my 'keepers': 

Margaret Atwood - alias grace

Emily Brontë - Wuthering Heights

Charles Frazier - Cold Mountain

William Golding - To the Ends of the Earth Trilogy

Cormac McCarthy -  Border Trilogy

Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall, Bringing Up the Bodies and A Place of Greater Safety

Annie Proulx - Accordian Crimes

Mary Renault - The King Must Die, The Bull From The Sea

Rosemary Sutcliff - Eagle of the Ninth

Leo Tolstoy - War And Peace

Celia Rees

www.celiarees.com

'CRINGING' HISTORICAL NOVELISTS: Elizabeth Fremantle on Mantel at the Oxford Lit Fest

There has been a ruffling of feathers amongst the authors of historical fiction since Claire Armistead's piece in The Guardian suggested that Hilary Mantel, speaking at The Oxford Literary Festival, 'appeared to let slip the dogs of war against her fellow historical novelists'. Armistead's inflammatory article, it turns out, was based on a single comment about bibliographies, in a talk rich with fascinating detail about Mantel's writing, Cromwell, history and the imagination.

Mantel

I was there, in the god's at the Sheldonian Theatre, listening to Mantel and, as one of those historical novelists Mantel was supposed to be attacking, I couldn't have been less aware of the alleged assault. Indeed, I felt that Mantel was mounting a lively defence of historical fiction and its authors, implying that the novel about past events has a legitimacy all of its own. In her opinion it is not necessary for novelists to 'burnish their research credentials' with a lengthy bibliography, or engage in what she termed 'apologetic cringing' because they think they are 'some inferior form of historian.' She seemed to me to be saying that, far from inferior and purveying a misleading version of the past, much historical fiction stands on equal footing with the work of academic historians.

Armistead's piece had many of my historical novelist friends mounting their own defence of their use of bibliographies in their work and their reasons for doing so: all legitimate. Personally, with regards to my own work, I felt Mantel had hit the nail on the head. My first two novels included vast and unwieldy bibliographies precisely because I felt I needed to prove the depth of my research – was a little ' apologetic' and 'cringing', if you like. As my confidence has grown I have felt more able to allow my fiction to stand alone.

Of course Mantel's comments must be seen in the context of the talk itself which was a discussion with Diarmaid McCullough, the foremost Reformation specialist, whose biography of Thomas Cromwell will be out in the autumn. McCullough is one of those academic historians whose research must be backed up by a lengthy bibliography, that is the way academia works, and Mantel was bound to take an opposing position in the name of fiction. The novel, she said, interpreting the same material through the prism of the imagination, 'is not about misleading, it is seeing something differently' and tends toward 'symbolic application'. Research, for her, 'is not looking things up' but is dependent upon 'a whole other state of imagination being entered into,' that has its own 'authority'.

MacCullough

I understood this as a defence against those who suggest that historical fiction is an inferior form and I for one appreciated such defiance from someone with Mantel's illustrious credentials. I also enjoyed the fact that she referred to herself as a 'historical novelist', a term that is often sneered at, when she might just as easily called herself a literary novelist. So far from launching her attack dogs she seemed to me, in her own idiosyncratic way, to be using her considerable traction to support the genre.

What Armistead didn't mention is that those present were offered a tantalising glimpse of the long awaited third book in Mantel's Cromwell trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, which she made clear is still very much unfinished. She read the opening passage, which returns to the ending of Bring up the Bodies and the execution of Anne Boleyn but with a different emphasis, looking towards the fallout for Cromwell's part in the downfall of the Queen. It points to a satisfying intention to book-end The Mirror and the Light with execution scenes, as surely it will end with Cromwell's.

I for one am eagerly anticipating part three and will leave you with this line to whet your appetites: 'The blade cut through her neck with a sigh, easier than scissors through silk.'

Elizabeth Fremantle is the author of four Tudor set novels. Her latest, The Girl in the Glass Tower, is published by Penguin. You can find out about her work on elizabethfremantle.com

Henry the Eighth's jousting accident by Mary Hoffman

"Henry's the Eighth's jousting accident" and other things we think we know about

This is a post about the minutiae of historical research and how you can't take anything on trust.

One of the things we think we know is that Henry the Eighth had a very bad jousting accident on January 24th 1536. He lost consciousness for two hours and the news of his injury and possible imminent death, conveyed to his queen, Anne Boleyn none too gently by the Duke of Norfolk, caused her to miscarry a male child of 15 weeks.

From then on, his ulcerated legs, his weight gain and his irascible mood swings led to the executions of Anne and of wife number five, Catherine Howard and his divorce (or annulment) from wife number four, Anne of Cleves, the execution of his right hand man Thomas Cromwell etc. etc.

Here is a Documentary from 2014 called Inside the Body of Henry Vlll, which attempts to find out what his medical conditions and injuries might have been. The jousting episode is about 25 minutes in. Note the images of two heavily armed men hurtled towards each other with lances levelled.

Yes, we all know what a Tudor joust looked like - or think we do.

But there is no evidence that this is what happened. The only contemporary record of this accident is found in two letters.

One, from Katherine of Aragon's physician Doctor Ortiz to the Empress Isabella, wife of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, spent most of its length on how the late queen, who died on 9th January, comported herself in the face of death. But at the end he adds:

"The French King says that King of England had fallen from his horse and been for two hours without speaking. "La Ana" was so upset that she miscarried of a son. This is news to thank God for."
(Calendar of Letters & Papers Foreign & Domestic Henry Vlll 1887, Vol X no. 427)

Ortiz' source was "a letter from the ambassador in France, dated 15 Feb."

The other source is from Eustace Chapuys, the Imperial ambassador, to his employer Charles V:

"On the same day that the Queen was buried this King's concubine miscarried of a child, who had the appearance of a male about three months and a half old, at which miscarriage the King has certainly shown great disappointment and sorrow. The concubine herself has since attempted to throw all the blame on the duke of Norfolk, whom she hates, pretending that her mishap was entirely owing to the shock she received when, six days before, he (the Duke) came to announce to her the King's fall from his horse. But the King knows very well that it was not that, for his accident was announced to her in a manner not to create alarm; besides which, when she heard of it, she seemed quite indifferent to it...."
(Calendar of Letters, Despatches and State Papers Spanish vol 5ii Henry Vlll 1536-1538, 1888) 

Even after the passage of nearly five hundred years, the partisanship is vivid. The divorced Katherine is "the queen"; the new Queen Anne is "the concubine" or "La Ana." Her loss of a child is something to give thanks to God for.

But on the accident, that's it. No opponent mentioned, no confirmation that Henry was actually jousting.

I was writing my latest YA novel, The Ravenmaster's Boy (forthcoming April 2017, The Greystones Press) when I wrote the scene and it was as normally imagined: two armed men thundering towards each other, lances in hand, the clash of bodies, armour, horses. It's dramatic, especially since it's followed by the grim-faced Duke of Norfolk brutally telling the pregnant queen how close to death her husband is.

In Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies, the accident is described thus:
"Rafe says 'the contests had not begun, he was running at the ring, the point of his lance scooped the eye of the circle. Then the horse stumbled under him, man and rider down, horse rolling with a scream and Henry beneath it."

I had read that book twice and yet  the old images were stronger. Maybe I was thinking of the play, also seen twice. Mike Poulton's excellent playscript has the accident happen offstage, after we have seen Henry arming for a joust. Rafe Sadler announces to Cromwell, "It's the King ... King Henry is dead.

At Cromwell's reaction ("Ah.") the curtain falls for the interval and our imagination does the rest.

I've changed the scene in The Ravenmaster's Boy. Once I'd been back and checked those original letters, I saw it as indifensible  to have the King unhorsed by an opponent. Who would that opponent have been, after all? Just because we know Henry sustained an earlier jousting injury in a bout with Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, in 1524, that's not enough justification to put Brandon back in the lists.

In fact a recent PhD thesis by Emma Levitt, cleverly demonstrates, from the use of 16th century tournament score cards that Brandon was super careful never to defeat Henry, though he might have been the better jouster.

All this has made me wonder about the other historical "myths." I knew that Cnut wasn't trying to halt the waves, rather to demonstrate that he couldn't. I know that Marie Antoinette didn't say "let them eat cake!" But what are the others?

Here are some links:

The 20 Greatest Historical Myths ~ Write Spirit

www.writespirit.net/greatest-historical-myths/

The 20 Greatest Historical Myths. If more people knew the facts, a few of the great history-makers would be recognised (anyone heard of Ub Iwerks?), some ...

You visited this page on 29/11/16.

12 Common History Myths, Debunked - BuzzFeed

www.buzzfeed.com/patricksmith/history-myths-that-you-probably-believe-are-true

12 Common History Myths, Debunked. Don't believe everything you learned at school. posted on Feb. 19, 2014, at 4:10 a.m.. Patrick Smith. BuzzFeed News ...

10 American History Myths You Probably Believe - All That Is Interesting

all-that-is-interesting.com/american-history-myths

2 Sep 2016 - The United States has given us a number of important figures and events to assess. These American history myths challenge your ...

10 Myths About Historical Figures We Still Believe - Listverse

listverse.com/2014/07/11/10-myths-about-historical-figures-we-still-believe/

11 Jul 2014 - When you are famous, people expect a little extravagance and peculiarity from you. The weird, outrageous, or simply unusual stories about ...

Historical Myths - A World History Encyclopedia

www.localhistories.org/histmyth.html

Here are some common myths about history debunked.

Top 13 Historical Myths Debunked - European History - About.com

europeanhistory.about.com › ... › Reference and Resources › Historical Myths

There are an awful lot of known 'facts' about Europe's history which are actually false. Everything you read below is widely believed, but click through to find out ...

15 Popular Historical Myths Busted - TheRichest

www.therichest.com/rich-list/most-popular/15-popular-historical-myths-busted/

23 May 2014 - However, history as we know it is filled with false myths and personalities that have nothing to do with the facts and records attributed to them.

History Myths Debunked | The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

https://historymyths.wordpress.com/

Reenactors tell me they get this question all the time. As the women work around the campfire, on-lookers ask whether their hems are wet. Costumed ...

11 Biggest Myths About American History - Mic

https://mic.com/articles/85693/11-biggest-myths-about-american-history

20 Mar 2014 - 11 Biggest Myths About American History Image Credit: WikiMedia Commons. In 2012 the American Council of Trustees and Alumni ...

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Myths of the American Revolution | History | Smithsonian

www.smithsonianmag.com/history/myths-of-the-american-revolution-10941835/

Perhaps more than any defining moment in American history, the War of ... Here, in order to form a more perfect understanding, the most significant myths of the ...

Viking History: Facts & Myths - Live Science

www.livescience.com/32087-viking-history-facts-myths.html

Modern perception of Vikings often cast these historic people as savage raiders with horned helmets. In truth, the Scandinavian people were ...

History: Great myths die hard : Nature News & Comment

www.nature.com/news/history-great-myths-die-hard-1.13839

History: Great myths die hard. Héloïse D. Dufour; & Sean B. Carroll. 02 October 2013. Finding that part of the story of Louis Pasteur's rabies vaccine is false, ...

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