Those Terrible Tudors

[selenak]

Having read Sovereign by Christopher Samson yesterday (in short: well written mystery set in Tudor England, great description of York, most chilling cameo of Henry VIII ever, one element of the crucial mystery somewhat implausible historically, third of a series but accessible if you haven't read the others first), it occured to me this is as good a time as any as to set down some impressions about books and tv shows set in that intriguing time. Many, but not all, having Elizabeth Tudor as a central or important character.

My favourite take on Elizabeth herself, novel-wise, is Legacy by Susan Kay, which manages to create a three dimensional portrait, giving room to Elizabeth's flaws and/or darker sides - such as her vanity and ruthlessness - as well as her wit, intelligence and sheer survivor instinct. Kay doesn't try for pseudo-Shakespearean dialogue but she manages the spirit of the time perfectly in her language - the passion for puns, the bawdiness, it's there. Equally as important: the other dramatis personae are given room to breathe as well, so to speak, and she doesn't go for the simplicity of rendering anyone opposed to Elizabeth unsympathically. Her older sister Mary, for example, comes across as courageous, kind, and tragic (without lacking that fanaticism that led to the burnings and Mary, who started out as popular, ending up as Bloody Mary); Kay makes a plausible case for both her and Elizabeth being damaged (in different ways) through their father, Henry VIII., and his treatment of their mothers.

On screen, despite strong competition, I still like the old BBC series starring Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth best. As opposed to virtually any other take on Elizabeth either on tv or on film, it doesn start with an episode of her love life. The first episode, The Lion's Cub kicks off with the arrest of Thomas Seymour, and we only get a brief flashback of the goings-on between him and 14-years-old Elizabeth; what the episode focuses on is Elizabeth with her back to the wall, so to speak, in peril of being accused for treason (which it would have been if she had agreed to marry Seymour without permission of the King's council), and using her wits, courage and her new alley William Cecil to get out of it, then later in Mary's reign actually arrested and in the Tower. It showcases both her loyalty to those she cares about (her governess Kate Ashley and her steward Mr. Parr, both of which might have lost their heads during the Seymour episode otherwise as they were arrested, interrogated and damming themselves with their statements, if Elizabeth hadn't insisted on their reinstallment) and her cold bloodedness when she needed it to survive (that famous statement about Tom Seymour when they told her he had been executed - "Today died a man with much wit and very little judgement"). By introducing Elizabeth this way first and only making the second episode - "The Marriage Game" - about both the way she used her "single" status as a diplomatic asset and her more genuine romantic attachments -, you get the idea why she's interesting and what made her remarkable instead of getting the impression she only was a politician by default and spent most her time mooning/being mooned over by whichever man in her life is the focus of the other narratives. Also? Glenda Jackson has the necessary charisma, radiates intelligence and is attractive without being beautiful, which Elizabeth was not, court poets not withstanding. She also does a believable job of aging Elizabeth from age 15 to the dying queen in her 70s in the course of the series.

Elizabeth the movie starring Cate Blanchett boasts of a great performance, deservedly nominated, but is such historical nonsense that the suspension of disbelief never works for me. I think history_spork did a great job on the movie; perhaps if one knows nothing about the period whatsoever it works better, but I can't watch it without having an ongoing inner commentary of protest in my head.

Then there is the most recent miniseries, starring Helen Mirren as Elizabeth, Jeremy Irons as Leicester, Ian McDiarmid as Burghley and lots of other talented actors besides. This one takes its liberties as well (notably letting Elizabeth meet Mary Stuart - well, join the club, about every dramatist on the planet from Schiller downwards was frustrated by the fact they never met and arranged for a meeting -, letting her be present at Leicester's death and letting her meet James Stuart in the second part), and does focus a bit too less on Elizabeth the politician early on for my taste, but I found it very good nonetheless. Extra points for such details like introducing Elizabeth's court physician Dr. Lopez early on in the first part so that in the second when Essex gets rid of him in a brutal fashion we know who he is, and exploring relationships the other takes on the story hardly do - Essex as Leicester's stepson, for example, and the fact Robert Cecil was raised with Essex for a while. Helen Mirren as Elizabeth has both great charm and a vicious temper, manipulates and is manipulated; what suprised me was that of the relationships presented, what turned out to be the most interesting was the one with Robert Cecil (that's Cecil the younger, son of William, of "she was more than a man and less than a woman" historical quote fame) in the second part, completely unromantic (or for that matter mother/son like) but a very odd bond of its own nature.

Going back to the written word and going back a bit in time: A series of novels I've read with interest but increasing annoyance is written by Philippa Gregory. The Other Boleyn Girl has at its central character Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne and like Anne Henry VIII.'s mistress before she was discarded. On the one hand, it's well-written, suspenseful, and a great look at the ruthlessness and cynicism of the Tudor Court. On the other, it starts what the later novels do increasingly more blatant, playing for favourites by editing out historical facts or changing them to suit the author's sympathies. Mary in most biographies is presented as Anne's older sister, though with Anne's exact birth date being uncertain, I suppose a case could be made for what Gregory states, which is Mary as the younger. Though I strongly suspect Mary is the younger in The Other Boleyn Girl simple because it makes the Howard/Boleyn clan look that much more ruthless in the way they use her, and her that much more innocent. Equally gone is Mary's reputation for several affairs pre-Henry, for what I suspect pretty much the same reason. As for Anne, if Mary is an innocent victim, Anne is presented as basically being guilty of everything her enemies ever said against her (with the exception of a six-fingered hand and warts as the sign of the witch, which probably was too much even for Philippa Gregory), down to and including what even at the time, let alone in later biographies, was mostly seen as a ridiculous accusation, the incest charge. (This is made even more difficult to swallow when you read Gregory's justification in an interview, which is that Anne knew she needed a son and her brother George was the only man she could trust. As motivations to break a taboo that was even stronger in those times than it is today go, that's just not enough.) Gone is any favourable trait, including, among many others, Anne's genuine interest in theology and reform. She's basically a soap opera villainess.

The next novel, The Queen's Fool, takes us to the next generation and comes close to a repeat performance with Mary and Elizabeth Tudor, as Elizabeth, like Anne, is presented of being guilty of pretty much everything she's accused of in the period (a couple of attempts to dethrone Mary, plus the Seymour affair in the days of their brother Edward is presented as teenage Elizabeth seducing Tom Seymour with no thought at all about her stepmother Katherine Parr; by itself, it's as viable a reading as the different one by other writers, though I'd argue Elizabeth's letters to Katherine later argue that she must have been at the very least conflicted, plus, you know, the basic situation of what was legally her stepfather putting the moves on her makes it a bit hard for me to swallow that the teenager should have been the main party to blame in that situation). But she is given somewhat grudging credit for intelligence, and as the main character, the fool of the title, Hannah, is a secret Jewess, she does see one downside in the otherwise completely sympathetic Mary as well, once the burnings start. (The portrait of Mary isn't that different from Legacy, though this Mary is more willing to believe in Elizabeth before Elizabeth disappoints her than Kay's is, who despite her pity for her younger sister as a child can't forget for a minute whose daughter she is and is just waiting for Elizabeth to prove it.) Still, of the four Tudor novels I've read of Gregory, this one has the most shades of grey, and the situation of the Jews in England - officially, they had been expelled since Edward II, inofficially, due to a lot of Portuegese and Spanish refugees, there were some in the country again - is very well drawn.

The Virgin's Lover, on the other hand: oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What annoys me most is that this Elizabeth is presented as utterly spineless, putty in the hands of either Robin Dudley (the later Leicester) or William Cecil (the later Burghley), depending on whom she meets last. How this computes with Elizabeth the ruthless survivor whom even Gregory acknowledged in the previous volume beats me; this woman couldn't govern her own household, let alone a state. Grrr, arggh.

And then we have The Constant Princess, going back in time to present a young Katharine of Aragorn, who already made an appearance in The Other Boleyn Girl, of couse, in the way Katherine in middle age usually gets presented, as dignified, sympathetic and deeply wronged by Henry. I think the only writer I came across who didn't like and pity Katherine of Aragorn was the poet Heinrich Heine, who in his comments on Shakespeare's female characters says he can't quite believe the sympathetic Katherine in Henry VIII. because after all, this was the daughter of Isabella the Catholic and the mother of Mary, and where, pray, was the fanaticism? (Oh, and then there is David Starkey who as kathyh tells me called her the Princess Diana of her day. Though whether that's a compliment or an amusing malice depends on your take on Diana, I guess.) While "daughter of and mother of" aren't exactly characterisation criteria, I had to think of Heine as The Constant Princess asked me to swallow a politically correct Katherine who admires and respects Jews and Muslims alike. Despite, you know, having grown up in a country that had just expelled them both, had enforced conversions before that and had brutal punishments if a family descending from forcibly conversed Jews or Muslims was suspected of still following their old religion. I'm just about ready to give up on Gregory after that one.

Film-wise, you have Anne of the Thousand Days, a movie version of the Maxwell Anderson drama, with a young Genevieve Bujold as Anne and Richard Burton as Henry VIII. (Oh, and sci fi genre fans get treated to John Colicos (aka Kang on Star Trek and Baltar on old BSG) and Patrick Throughton, the Second Doctor, in minor roles.) Several dramatic liberties - notably Henry being present, though hiding, at Anne's trial - and occasionally too much music, but it holds up amazingly well. The basic premise of the drama - Anne's initial refusal of the king being genuine, then turning into strategy, with her starting to love him only at the very moment when he starts to stop loving her - works well enough, and Burton's Henry is a refreshingly individual take when compared to everybody and their dog modelling themselves after Charles Laughton otherwise. This Henry is a work in transition; you can still see why he charmed such a lot of people in his youth, and you can see the ruthless tyrant slowly being revealed. My favourite period detail is Cardinal Wolsey's mistress, because of the way the scene is staged, in such a matter of fact way: Wolsey is lying in bed, reading, with the woman ( middle aged, not young) lying next to him, people knock, and he tells her to leave, state business, which she does. No "omg, the Cardinal is a mistress!!!!" here; that's the Renaissance for you.

Then there's Keith Mitchell, who played Henry VIII. in both the biopic and in the BBC series The Six Wives of Henry VIII. The biopic, while using several of the same actors as the series, suffers from simplication; it tries to hard and is too obvious in deciding that the one way Henry can be kept sympathic is to make Jane Seymour (aka the one wife who died of natural causes after giving him his male heir and wasn't divorced or beheaded) his great love, Anne Boleyn an evil seductress and Katherine Howard a heartless little minx. No sign that Katherine Parr, his last wife, was almost arrested once; instead, he marries her to have a nurse and for the children's sake, and has a gentle autumm. Oh, please. The series is more subtle, the Anne Boleyn episode in particular, with that Anne, played by Dorothy Tutin, being more mature than the Genevieve Bujold version, more sophisticated; you can see both why she made so many enemies and why, on the other hand, so many other people were charmed and fascinated. She's allowed her moment of breakdown and fear after her arrest but then rallies and stands her ground magnificently at her trial. Mitchell as Henry here is chilling throughout, as this version of the story has him entirely aware that Cromwell is collecting false evidence against Anne and making the whether or not to use it completely dependent on Anne's second pregnancy which ends with a stillbirth; feelings for Jane Seymour do not factor in one way or the other.

Back to the pages again: as far as detective stories set in Tudor England go, P.F. Chisholm (who as Patricia Finney wrote some other novels set in the same period) still rules with her novels about Sir Robert Carey, starting with A Famine of Horses. These novels, set in the borderline territory between England and Scotland, use some historical characters - Carey (grandson of Mary Boleyn) is real, as is his sister Philadelphia - but none of the very famous of the period; Elizabeth herself, for example, never appears, though she's often talked about. Part of the charm of the novels is a riff on what you could all the Western motif of the sophisticated gentleman from the city among the frontier folk, turning their expectations upside down (sophistication being reconcilable with tough guyness when the later is in demand). As opposed to most of the other novels and films mentioned, these make a point of showing the poorer and middle class people as well as the nobility, and have something of Terry Prattchet in them in their depiction of the Watch; their leader, Carey's frequent foil, is a clear soulmate of Sam Vimes. Great fun to read, and to relax with if the royal dramatics in other depictions are too much to bear at times.

Comments

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Gosh, was Troughton in Anne of the Thousand Days? It's years since I saw that. I remember him playing Norfolk in Six Wives, in which my favourite episode is Anne of Cleves; I'm not sure that I believe a word of it, but it's highly entertaining, and makes her into the cleverest of the bunch. (Didn't Anne eventually become a Catholic, and Mary's best mate?)

But, yes, Six Wives and Elizabeth R, which are really companion pieces, with a lot of the same actors carrying forward their roles, are my favourite screen versions.

I haven't read any of the Gregory; I heard her read a paragraph of The Other Boleyn Girl on the radio, and it sounded so simplistic I wouldn't touch it.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Didn't Anne eventually become a Catholic, and Mary's best mate?

Yes, she did (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Cleves). And the Gregory is no must. Check out Samson, though, whom I mentioned at the start of these ramblings; not perfect, but highly readable. Also? The author is clearly a Ricardian.*g* (Henry's progress to York is pointedly compared to Richard's reception in York 60 years earlier in that novel...)

[miladygrey.livejournal.com]

I thought I was the only person ever to have read Legacy! I also thought, after the library's copy mysteriously vanished, that perhaps I had imagined it. So good to know that I didn't.

I enjoy Karen Harper's Elizabeth I murder mysteries. The series starts shortly before Mary's death, and gives Elizabeth a circle of friends (some fictional, some not) that keep track of various intrigues in the court. They're fluffy, but historically accurate so far as I can tell. The first book is The Poyson Garden.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

No, you most definitely didn't. I just checked at Amazon.uk, and they have some copies in store (though it's out of print), so you could order one of your own.

Harper series: noted, and I'll look into it.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

I pretty much agree with you on all of this, except that I like the Sansom novels even more than you - I had to review Sovereign and read the others for background- for their sense of Henrician England as a police state that eventually disillusioned its supporters. I am also very fond of the non-Carey Finney novels in spite of the creepy mystical bits.

Elizabeth pretty much redeems the Tudors who are otherwise a fairly appalling bunch, but alas! she let us in for the Stuarts, who win that coveted prize, worst British dynasty ever.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was impressed by the Sansom (and I haven't read the first two yet, but mean to now!), and I definitely agree on the police state (oh, and both reformers and Catholics being present as able of extreme fanaticism); what I did have a bit of a problem with was the MacGuffin, i.e. the Blaybourne & Cecily Neville story, because that's something both the pro and the anti Ricardian historians I've read dismiss. Though I do see it's a necessary MacGuffin for this particular mystery.

Elizabeth pretty much redeems the Tudors who are otherwise a fairly appalling bunch, but alas! she let us in for the Stuarts, who win that coveted prize, worst British dynasty ever.

He. Well, about the only way she could have stopped that was by going through with the Anjou marriage (and producing an heir of her own, of course), and given the Tudor & Valois genes, I'm not sure whether the results would have been better... Re: Stuarts, well, they have Charles II. who always struck me as a sensible fellow as well (though you can argue that by making his brother his heir, he loses points, big time). Otherwise: quite. And there's competition!

[rozk.livejournal.com]

He never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one, as the old joke goes. Given he was Henri IV's grandson, he ought to have been better and has no excuse for his stupidity in not producing from somewhere a better successor than the pious well-meaning dolt James.

I have a soft spot for Anne, of course, as our one dyke monarch, and she was harmless enough.

And the other Sansoms are less McGuffiny

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Especially since he actually did make that accurate prediction about James not being able to keep the throne for more than two or three years. So he knew and did it anyway. Mind you, I'm not sure legitimizing Monmouth would have been better, because Monmouth while being Protestant doesn't strike me as too bright, either, but maybe he could have pressured James to step aside in favour of Mary (his daughter, after all) and make William his heir right away? (Thus precluding three years of disaster.)

[wabbitseason.livejournal.com]

Fascinating post. Elizabeth is one of those I keep acquiring biographies and related books about. I usually wind up disappointed by the novels I've read though. *notes Sansom books to read* But new books I didn't know about!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Same here (i.e. aquiring biographies etc.), and I promise, the S. is worth reading!

[kathyh]

Having read Sovereign by Christopher Samson yesterday

I know all the other books you mentioned here, but I haven't come across this so I'll look out for it as it sounds very interesting. Great summary of the Tudors in historical fiction, TV and film. I have got a Philippa Gregory on my To Be Read pile but it doesn't sound as if I'm going to like it from your description!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Go for the Samson, I say!

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on the Philippa Gregory books. Just no.

And I really liked Anne of a Thousand Days when I first saw it, but that must have been 25 years ago. I hope it's as good as I remember.

I haven't read Legacy. Clearly that's the one I need to get!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Aside from having the irritating habit of signaling every single appearance by Anne with the romantic theme in the first thirty minutes or so, music wise, Anne of the Thousand Days holds up very well, still.

Legacy: absolutely!