December 2021
In John Hatcher’s article “Fiction as History: The Black Death and Beyond”, Hatcher reminds us that “history and fiction are distinct disciplines with disparate objectives, and when they come into contact, they are usually at odds with each other”.[1] Hatcher is correct; the two disciplines combat one another. Despite their contradicting nature, history and fiction are “ceaselessly combined” in creative writing.[2] British revisionist history novelist, Hilary Mantel, has fearlessly experimented with how to combine the two subjects – in fact, it is her authorial purpose. In an interview, Mantel claimed that she “can only envisage things embedded in a society.”[3] Her 1992 novel, A Place of Greater Safety, tells the story of the French Revolution and three of its revolutionaries (all of whom are real): Robespierre, Danton, and Desmoulins. It has been described as a historical novel, bringing “to light when happened to [the French] people.”[4] Mantel, however, is most known for her novels that center around the life of Thomas Cromwell, the chief minister of King Henry VIII of England. The novels in the trilogy, Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, and the Mirror and the Light, detail Cromwell’s involvement with Henry’s first four wives (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived).
While historical fiction is nothing new, Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies (2012) has many readers wondering what is real and what is not. An “Anne Boleyn Fan Page” of sorts, titled the Anne Boleyn Files, has a whole section of its website dedicated to identifying “the facts behind the fiction.” The author of the site tells us: “I have been inundated with emails asking me […] whether certain things are true.”[5]Where does all this conflation between history and fiction come from? It is more than the fact that the readership’s grasp of history might need some fine tuning, and rather that Mantel speaks with such a confident historical voice that it is difficult to distinguish between truth and fiction. Alongside the production of Mantel’s historical novels, there has been a call for experimentation in the history discipline. John Hatcher’s 2012 article criticized historians: “The nearest historians have come to considering the past at first hand is the genre of ‘What if?’ or ‘virtual history.’”[6] Thus, there is a fascinating dichotomy between historical fiction writers who carefully tamper with what is too historical or too real, and historians who dare not tamper with new or challenging historical discourses.
This paper will explore Mantel’s 2012 novel, Bring Up the Bodies, through the lens of historical literature. Mantel’s third person and second person narrative as well as her inclusion of historically renowned moments make her novel read more truthful than it really is. Mantel’s novel is not necessarily the most fascinating nor the most literary, but it offers many lessons for contemporary historians. In addition, this paper will explore a contemporary researcher, Ian Mortimer, as a case study of what is gained when historians learn from fictional authors.
Contemporary historians are being called on to experiment outside of traditional historical discourses. A traditional discourse may include a textbook, a formal article, a biography, or anything in between. There is no doubt that Western society is naturally interested in historical events – three of the ten films nominated for the 2011 Oscar’s award “Best Picture” were rooted in real events. And five of the six novels nominated for the 2009 Booker Prize were also rooted in real events.[7] Thus, the call for experimentation in historical discourse is not a call to make history more interesting, but rather a call to change how history is taught and reach a larger audience. Other “historical” disciplines are already attempting such changes; “Museum curators […] have reconstructed old houses and their interiors, filling them with the furniture of a past age. […] Re-enactment societies, attempting to discover what it was like to live in a different time through the bold, practical experiment of donning period clothing and cooking with a cauldron on an open fire”.[8] We see historian’s lag when we compare Hilary Mantel’s “biography” of Thomas Cromwell (Bring Up the Bodies) to Diarmaid MacCulloch’s very accurate biography of Thomas Cromwell (Thomas Cromwell: A Life).[9] Mantel’s novel has 92,098 ratings on Goodreads whereas MacCulloch’s biography has 716.[10] MacCulloch’s material is the same as Mantel’s, but perhaps one author leans into the art of storytelling more than the other. Mantel, thus, has a lot to offer.
Mantel includes events that are commonly understood as factual throughout Bring Up the Bodies. Perhaps the most notable: Anne Boleyn’s final words. Anne Boleyn's final speech is renowned. From English Tudor history websites to Anne Boleyn pages, online historians tell their readers that Anne ended her life saying: “Good Christian people, I am come hither to die, for according to the law, and by the law I am judged to die […] I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never”.[11] This quote, from an “English History” website, is not the only one to cite this material. “On the Tudor Trail”, “History of Yesterday”, and “The Anne Boleyn Files”, (among others), claim that Anne Boleyn did in fact say these words. It seems to be common knowledge amongst Boleyn fanatics, even though it is not true.[12] Mantel includes this speech, though gently corrupted, in Bring Up the Bodies. Before her execution, Anne states: “... pray for the king, for he is a good, gentle, amiable and virtuous prince”.[13] To an extent, Mantel’s version follows what is popularly known: “pray for the king” mimics “I pray God save the King” and “virtuous prince” resembles “merciful prince.” Perhaps furthering her audience to conflate truth and fiction, Mantel corrects any error in her author’s note; she writes: “Eloquent and lengthy speeches, put into Anne’s mouth at her trial and on the scaffold, should be read with skepticism, and so should the document often called her ‘last letter’, which is almost certainly a forgery or (to put it more kindly) a fiction.”[14] Why should Mantel include a version of this speech then, if she herself questions its historical basis? Mantel is tuning in to her audience; she has placed a widely accepted speech in the text, relying on its legitimacy to imbue a certain license to the rest of the story she tells -- that lonely “truth” resonates and gives credence to the whole of the tale. Thus, Mantel’s use of historical events is deceptive. She leverages accepted facts into fiction, blurring the distinctions between the disciplines. Mantel has demonstrated a tool worth learning from: storytelling and history are easily conflated and do not necessarily have to contradict. A commonly known truth (not including Anne Boleyn’s final speech) can be utilized to tell a story and establish its authority as a factual source.
Mantel oscillates between the second person and third person engaging her readers within the story but maintaining Bring Up the Bodies’ historical accuracy. Though the third person perspective does not always work, confusing at times and difficult to decipher who exactly Mantel is writing about, it does endow the novel with a historical quality. Its lack of a first-person narrative leaves the novel less victim to emotion, impulsivity, and rambling thoughts, aspects not associated with a historical piece of literature. Mantel interjects a second person perspective, referring to her readers as “you” throughout; she writes: “Do not expect consistency from him. Henry prides himself on understanding his councilors […] he is resolved that none of his councilors shall understand him. He is suspicious of any plan that doesn’t originate with himself or seem to. You can argue with him but you must be careful”.[15] A mix of historical observation and an instruction manual, this quote represents Mantel’s larger approach to her revisionist histories. Mantel presents her story as matter of fact through this third person narrative – by keeping a “safe distance” the novel remains fact, not fiction. Yet, if the whole novel were to remain in the third person, it is safe to say it would be less interesting. The “you” narrative traps the reader in, forcing them to reckon with their own presence in history (and the novel). Thus, while the third person can be choppy at times, Mantel does master the balance between third and second person, teaching us how to use historical material in a reader friendly manner.
There is a historian dabbling with fictional tools in historical writing: Ian Mortimer. Mortimer and Mantel are on two sides of the same coin – Mortimer applies fiction’s storytelling manual to historical discourses and Mantel applies historical discourses to her fictional writing. Mortimer’s 2012 history the Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England is “written in the present tense and takes readers back to the fourteenth century to experience first-hand what they would encounter, see, hear, taste and smell […] it is not a fiction; for the most part it is consummately factual.”[16] Mortimer begins his novel with: “Imagine you could travel in time; what would you find if you went back to the fourteenth century?”[17] Reading more as a story than as a textbook, Mortimer’s experimentation is intriguing. He continues: “It is the cathedral which you will see first. As you journey along the road you come to a break in the trees and there it is, massive and magnificent, cresting the hilltop in the morning sun”.[18] Just as Mantel places the reader in her revisionist history, Mortimer places the reader in his research of Medieval England. Both do it using the second person narrative. Mortimer invites us to participate in his story, not to memorize it nor to study it, but to experience it. This is undoubtedly inspired by fictional authors who are tasked with the challenge of inviting their readers into a less realistic world. Thus, when Mantel tells her readers in her author’s note: “This book is of course not about Anne Boleyn or about Henry VIII, but about the career of Thomas Cromwell, who is still in need of attention from biographers” her voice reaches historians such as Mortimer who are willing to challenge traditional historical discourses.[19]
Hilary Mantel’s revisionist novel about Thomas Cromwell gives historians much to think about: how can we educate an audience about history through storytelling? Mantel’s tactful use of second and third person as well as her use of deceptive truths leave a lot to consider. Ian Mortimer provides an insight into how contemporary histories are changing – a Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England is a fascinating mix of fictional structures and historical events. Alas, while Mantel’s novel has not necessarily rocked the literary world, it may rock many historian’s world, giving them a lesson or two in how to tell a story.
Bibliography
Arias, Rosario, and Hilary Mantel. "AN INTERVIEW with HILARY MANTEL." Atlantis 20, no. 2 (1998): 277-89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41055527.
"Bring Up the Bodies." Good Reads. Accessed November 15, 2021. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13507212-bring-up-the-bodies.
Claire. "Bring up the Bodies – The Facts Behind the Fiction." The Anne Boleyn Files. Last modified June 26, 2012. Accessed November 15, 2021. https://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/bring-up-bodies-fact-versus-fiction/.
Hanson, Marilee. "Anne Boleyn's Speech at Her Execution." English History. Last modified February 8, 2015. Accessed November 15, 2021. https://englishhistory.net/tudor/anne-boleyn-speech-at-her-execution/.
Hatcher, John. "Fiction as History: The Black Death and beyond." History 97, nos. 1 (325) (2012): 3-23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24429362.
Jernigan, Jessica. "What Does Henry Want?" The Women's Review of Books 30, no. 3 (2013): 11-13. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24430451.
Mantel, Hilary. Bring up the Bodies. London: Fourth Estate, 2015.
Mortimer, Ian. A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century. London: Vintage, 2009.
Moseley, Merritt. "MARGINS of FACT AND FICTION: THE BOOKER PRIZE 2009." The Sewanee Review 118, no. 3 (2010): 429-35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40801307.
"Thomas Cromwell: A Life." AbeBooks. Accessed November 15, 2021. https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9781846144295/Thomas-Cromwell-Life-MacCulloch-Diarmaid-1846144299/plp.
[1] John Hatcher, "Fiction as History: The Black Death and beyond," History 97, nos. 1 (325) (2012): 3, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24429362.
[2] Hatcher, "Fiction as History," 3.
[3] Rosario Arias and Hilary Mantel, "AN INTERVIEW with HILARY MANTEL," Atlantis 20, no. 2 (1998): 281, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41055527.
[4] Arias and Mantel, "AN INTERVIEW," 277.
[5] Claire, "Bring up the Bodies – The Facts Behind the Fiction," The Anne Boleyn Files, last modified June 26, 2012, accessed November 15, 2021, https://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/bring-up-bodies-fact-versus-fiction/.
[6] Hatcher, "Fiction as History," 2.
[7] Hatcher, "Fiction as History," 4.
[8] Ian Mortimer, A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century (London: Vintage, 2009), 2.
[9] "Thomas Cromwell: A Life," AbeBooks, accessed November 15, 2021, https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9781846144295/Thomas-Cromwell-Life-MacCulloch-Diarmaid-1846144299/plp.
[10] "Bring Up the Bodies," Good Reads, accessed November 15, 2021, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13507212-bring-up-the-bodies.
[11] Marilee Hanson, "Anne Boleyn's Speech at Her Execution," English History, last modified February 8, 2015, accessed November 15, 2021, https://englishhistory.net/tudor/anne-boleyn-speech-at-her-execution/.
[12] Hilary Mantel, Bring up the Bodies (London: Fourth Estate, 2015)
[13] Mantel, Bring up the Bodies, 470.
[14] Mantel, Bring up the Bodies, 483.
[15] Mantel, Bring up the Bodies, 248.
[16] Hatcher, "Fiction as History," 10.
[17] Mortimer, A Handbook, 1.
[18] Mortimer, A Handbook, 6.
[19] Mantel, Bring up the Bodies, 484.