Having now gotten around to watching Wolf Hall episode 4, aka the one where they reach the ending of the first novel, I was reminded again of one of the most gruesome events of the Tudor era. No, nothing about More or Cromwell. I mean the fate of Margaret Pole, the countess of Salisbury. Her arrest is very minor matter in the episode, but typical of how Mantel, at least in the first Cromwell novel, avoids or rewrites anything which could make Cromwell actually look bad. In the episode, Margaret is presented as part of a group of several aristocrats who use Elizabeth Barton, aka the maid of Kent, in preparation of boosting their own claims for the throne. (It's mentioned briefly in dialogue, but in a blink and you'll miss it way: Margaret Pole was Margaret Plantagenet, the daughter of the Duke of Clarence, niece to Edward IV. and Richard III.; which made her and her children and grandchildren the last scions of the previous dynasty. Not a safe thing to be with the Tudors in general.) In the episode, Margaret & Co. are depicted as foolish conspirators Cromwell easily traps by having used several of their servants as spies, overhearing treacherous conversations. There is also no mention of them having had any trouble with Henry VIII. before the current era. In reality, the family had been in and out of favour for a while. Margaret, who'd served as Princess Mary's governess, was very loyal to her and when Mary's household was broken up had asked to serve her at her own cost, but had not been permitted. Her son Reginald Pole, destined for a career in the church but not yet ordained, was busy making trouble from abroad/taking a principled position, depending on your pov. In 1531, he warned of the dangers of the Boleyn marriage. The Imperial ambassador, Chapuys, suggested to the Emperor Charles V that Pole marry the Lady Mary and combine their dynastic claims. Chapuys also communicated with Reginald through his brother Geoffrey. Now Pole replied to books Henry sent him with his own pamphlet, pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione, or de unitate, which denied Henry's position on the marriage of a brother's wife and denied the royal supremacy. (BTW, that pamphlet makes the point that Henry's sole justification for ditching Katherine of Aragon is that she's his brother's wife, while he simultanously pursues, then marrieds a woman whose sister he has already bedded, which says something about how well known the fact Henry used to have an affair with Mary Boleyn before Anne was at the time.) Pole also urged the princes of Europe to depose Henry immediately. Henry wrote to the Countess Margaret, who in turn wrote to her son a letter reproving him for his "folly." This did not save her. Margaret and her other sons were arrested. The evidence Cromwell then produced wasn't servants' talk. It was a tunic bearing the Five Wounds of Christ, supposedly symbolising Margaret's support for Roman Catholicism and the rule of her son Reginald and the king's Catholic daughter Mary. Incidentally, as opposed to the series, by now we're already past Anne Boleyn's own execution, so no, Anne really couldn't be blamed for this one. But a shirt that looks like a classic frame would not look like clever spying and more like something every thuggish and corrupt police officer in a film noir would do.

What makes Margaret Pole's fate gruesome, though, had nothing to do with Cromwell anymore as she survived him. (Which did not help her.) She lived for the next two and a half years under a death sence in the Tower, and the only thing known about her life there is that Henry's wife No. 5, Katherine Howard, took pity on her and sent her some furred clothing for the winter. And then, when she was 67, Henry did have her executed. The execution was famously botched, even worse than Cromwell's own had been. According to Ambassador Chapuys, her executioner was a "blundering youth" who "hacked her head and shoulders to pieces". There's an even worse account, not from Chapuys, in which she refused to put her head on the block, and that's why the first stroke hit her shoulder, with ten more blows necessary until the old lady was finally dead. (A century later, there were legends that she got up and the executioner had to chase her around the block, but this is definitely fable.) There was no reasonfor her execution on Henry's part other than to punish her son Reginald abroad (a Cardinal by then), and/or lingering anger for the support she'd shown Mary. And there hadn't been a reason to arrest her in the first place other than to put pressure on the absent Reginald (didn't work). Oh, and of course monetary gain; she was the fifth richest noble in England. But there's really no way to spin her arrest and execution in a way to make the men involved in it look good - unless you do the "foolish aristo/wannabe conspirator" thing and have Cromwell advise her to ask the king for mercy, without mentioning subsequent events.

Meanwhile, the meat of the actual episode is More's downfall, and here I have again the same old problem I had from the novel onwards. The show kept the line from the novel where Cromwell tells More "I respected you, I respected you all this time", but neither book nor show have given Mantel's Cromwell any reason to do so, as Mantel's More is stripped of all More's virtues and retains only More's dark side. What, in Mantel's version, was there to respect? The actual blame for going after More (and Fisher) is shifted entirely to Anne, which is at the least questionable. Mind you, I really liked the scene where Damian Lewis' Henry tells Cromwell "do you think I keep you for your company?", making it clear just what he expects of Cromwell, and we see for the first time a despot unleashed. Though I found it frustrating again that the show gives Cromwell a fictional line comparing Henry to a lion when talking with More but avoids one of the more famous More quotes, that one should only ever tell the king what he ought to do, not what he could do; for if the lion knows his own strength, no man could control him. (As Thomas Cromwell would eventually find out in a lethal way.) Fisher's death isn't in the episode (he was so old and fragile that he had to be carried in a chair to the block), but I don't recall it being in the novel, either, so I'm not surprised. (Also since Fisher hasn't been built up as a boo-hiss villain before, it might look our hero bad.) What I hadn't remembered but looking up is straight from the novel is the spin on Richard Rich's role in More's trial. Now both More and Cromwell have their partisans, but Richard Rich (reallly his name!) doesn't; the man was one of the most gifted turncoats of the era, always knowing exactly which way the wind was blowing and whom to follow. He would later dump Cromwell the moment Cromwell started to lose Henry's favour and go over to the conservative Catholic faction led by Gardiner and Norfolk. And how. Other than his testimony in More's trial, the other thing Richard Rich is most famous for is torturing Anne Askew after she'd already been condemmed to burn. (Why, yes, England under Henry continued to burn heretics.) This was regarded as particularly revolting even for the hardened contemporaries because a) the woman had already been condemmed, b) two noblemen - Rich and Henry Wriothesly, aka Call-me-Risley from Wolf Hall doing the torturing instead of leaving this to the people whose job it was in the Tower was highly irregular, and c) the political motivation was blatantly obvious. (What Richard Rich and Henry Wriothesly wanted Anne Askew to admit was that she'd had direct contact with Queen Catherine Parr and her ladies. Catherine Parr was definitely aligned with the reformist cause and Stephen Gardiner was trying to get rid of her, hence Rich doing his dirty work there.) Since it didn't work, Richard Rich, ever the survivor, reviewed his options and went over to the reformers again just in time for Henry's death and Edward Seymour becoming Lord Protector. And of course under Mary, he remembered being Catholic once more, and so on, and so forth. The man made it all the way to the top, became Lord Chancellor and died in bed, arguably the best profiting political survivor of the Tudor age. But nobody ever suspected him of having had any principles whatsoever - this makes him a very effective recurring villain in the Shardlake novels, btw - , which is why the question as to whether he told the truth or perjured himself in the More trial continues to be debated. How to make look More bad in this one? Why, by depicting him as a snob towards poor Richard Rich as part of a general pattern of More snubbing people (hence also the invented backstory of young More snubbing young Cromwell). (BTW, since Rich later also was one of the chief witnesses against Cromwell, I wonder what the reason there will be in the third novel. Surely not snobbery?)

More's death sequence (silent, no jokes with the executioner as opposed to history) cross cut with the boy Cromwell looking longingly at boy More and being rejected makes it look as if in the Mantelverse, poor Cromwell had a life long unrequited crush, which would definitely work for me if More had been shown in any way as someone worthy to be crushed on. But he wasn't. (Which, now that I think of it, is on a par with Anne being shown as charmless and harsh towards everyone, so just why not only Henry but a lot of other people found her incredibly compelling is something of a mystery.)

However, speaking of crushes: this reminds me, after concluding last week it's really tricky to find a historical, non-fictional person in that particular age who wasn't a religious fanatic (or a sell out a la Rich) and made it to fame I belatedly remembered that there was such a man: Erasmus (of Rotterdam), the most famous humanist and scholar of the age. In fact what bad press Erasmus got then and now is precisely because he thought that Luther had some good points (and said so) but still didn't side with the emerging Protestants and instead believed in reform from within the Catholic church. He, gasp, suggested compromise. Which was as dirty a word then as it is to today's American Republicans. Luther, who was a really good hater and had gone from venerating Erasmus to calling him a coward for not declaring hiimself pro-Luther, famously said "he who squashes Erasmus squashes a bug which even stinks when dead", while on the other hand the Pope said that Eramus' mockery had done more damage than Luther and put a lot of Eramus' work on the Index. (This was so not the age for someone who could see both sides' pov.) Erasmus, of course, did have a crush on More (and vice versa); there's a famous letter of Eramus to Ulrich von Hutten (von Hutten later, like Luther, went from admiring Eramus to hating hiim for not declaring himself Protestant) about Thomas More which is about as positively biased a depiction as Wolf Hall's More is negatively biased, leaving out anything negative. But it is a contemporary and very vivid account of More, and written while More was still alive (so there's no martyr's death sentiment in it; the bias is rather that towards a living friend). Now the man Erasmus describes actually does sound worth crushing on, so here are some excerpts of what's basically a (completely biased) love letter to a third party:

"You ask me to paint you a full-length portrait of More as in a picture. Would that I could do it as perfectly as you eagerly desire it. At least I will try to give a sketch of the man, as well as from my long familiarity with him I have either observed or can now recall. To begin, then, with what is least known to you, in stature he is not tall, though not remarkably short. His limbs are formed with such perfect symmetry as to leave nothing to be desired. His complexion is white, his face fair rather than pale, and though by no means ruddy, a faint flush of pink appears beneath the whiteness of his skin. His hair is dark brown, or brownish black. The eyes are grayish blue, with some spots, a kind which betokens singular talent, and among the English is considered attractive, whereas Germans generally prefer black.

"His countenance is in harmony with his character, being always expressive of an amiable joyousness, and even an incipient laughter, and, to speak candidly, it is better framed for gladness than for gravity and dignity, though without any approach to folly or buffoonery. The right shoulder is a little higher than the left, especially when he walks. This is not a defect of birth, but the result of habit, such as we often contract. In the rest of his person there is nothing to offend. His hands are the least refined part of his body.

"He was from his boyhood always most careless about whatever concerned his body. His youthful beauty may be guessed from what still remains, though I knew him when be was not more than three-and-twenty. Even now he is not much over forty. He has good health, though not robust; able to endure all honourable toil, and subject to very few diseases. He seems to promise a long life, as his father still survives in a wonderfully green old age.

"I never saw anyone so indifferent about food. Until he was a young man he delighted in drinking water, but that was natural to him (id illi patrium fuit). Yet not to seem singular or morose, he would hide his temperance from his guests by drinking out of a pewter vessel beer almost as light as water, or often pure water. It is the custom in England to pledge each other in drinking wine. In doing so he will merely touch it with his lips, not to seem to dislike it, or to fall in with the custom. He likes to eat corned beef and coarse bread much leavened, rather than what most people count delicacies. Otherwise he has no aversion to what gives harmless pleasure to the body. He prefers milk diet and fruits, and is especially fond of eggs.

"His voice is neither loud nor very weak, but penetrating; not resounding or soft, but that of a clear speaker. Though he delights in every kind of music he has no vocal talents. He speaks with great clearness and perfect articulation, without rapidity or hesitation. He likes a simple dress, using neither silk nor purple nor gold chain, except when it may not be omitted. It is wonderful how negligent he is as regards all the ceremonious forms in which most men make politeness to consist. He does not require them from others, nor is he anxious to use them himself, at interviews or banquets, though he is not unacquainted with them when necessary. But he thinks it unmanly to spend much time in such trifles. Formerly he was most averse to the frequentation of the court, for he has a great hatred of constraint (tyrannis) and loves equality. Not without much trouble he was drawn into the court of Henry VIII. (...). By nature More is chary of his liberty and of ease, yet, though he enjoys ease, no one is more alert or patient when duty requires it.

"He seems born and framed for friendship, and is a most faithful and enduring friend. Neither is he afraid of that multiplicity of freinds, of which Hesiod disappproves. He is easy of access to all; but if he chances to get familiar with one whose vices admit no correction, he manages to loosen and let go the intimacy rather than to break it off suddenly. When he finds any sincere and according to his heart, he so delights in their society and conversation as to place in it the principal charm of life. He abhors games of tennis, dice, cards, and the like, by which most gentlemen kill time. Though he is rather too negligent of his own interests, no one is more diligent in those of his friends. In a word, if you want a perfect model of friendship, you will find it in no one better than in More. In society he is so polite, so sweet-mannered, that no one is of so melancholy a disposition as not to be cheered by him, and there is no misfortune that he does not alleviate. Since his boyhood he has so delighted in merriment, that it might seem jesting was the main object of his life; yet he does not carry it to buffoonery, nor had ever any inclination to bitterness. When a youth he both wrote and acted some small comedies. If a retort is made against himself, even without ground, he likes it from the pleasure he finds in witty repartees. Hence he amused himself with composing epigrams when a young man, and enjoyed Lucian above all writers. Indeed, it was he who pushed me to write the "Praise of Folly," that is to say, he made a camel frisk.

"In human affairs there is nothing from which he does not extract enjoyment, even from things that are most serious. If he converses with the learned and judicious, he delights in their talent; if with the ignorant and foolish, he enjoys their stupidity. He is not even offended by professional jesters. With a wonderful dexterity he accommodates himself to every disposition. As a rule, in talking with women, even with his own wife, he is full of jokes and banter.

"No one is less led by the opinions of the crowd, yet no one departs less from common sense. One of his great delights is to consider the forms, the habits, and the instincts of different kinds of animals. There is hardly a species of bird that he does not keep in his house, and rare animals such as monkeys, foxes, ferrets, weasels and the like. If he meets with anything foreign, or in any way remarkable, he eagerly buys it, so that his house is full of such things, and at every turn they attract the eye of visitors, and his own pleasure is renewed whenever he sees others pleased.

"When of a sentimental age, he was not a stranger to the emotions of love, but without loss of character, having no inclination to press his advantage, and being more attracted by a mutual liking than by any licentious object. He had drunk dep from Good Letters from his earliest years; and when a young man, he aplied himself to the study of Greek and of philosophy; but his father was so far from encouraging him in this pursuit, that he withdrew his allowance and almost disowned him, because he thought he was deserting his heridatary study, being himself an expert professor of English Law. For remote as that profession is from true learning, those who become masters of it have the highest rank and reputation among their countrymen; and it is difficult to find any readier way to acquire fortune and honour. Indeed a considerable part of the bility of that island has had its origin in this profession.

Methinks Erasmus wasn't pro-lawyers per se. Incidentally, while that letter is never critical, he does include information from which a present day reader can find material for a look at More's darker sides if one wishes, as in this explanation as to why More didn't become a priest, which he for a while wanted to be as a young man:


(...) Meantime he applied his whole mind to religion, having some th ought of taking orders, for which he prepared himself by watchings and fastings and prayers and such like exercises; wherein he showed much more wisdom than the generality of people who rashly engage in so ardous a profession without testing themselves beforehand. And indeed there was no obstacle to his adopting this kind of life, except the fact that he could not shake off his wish to marry. Accordingly he resolved to be a chaste husband rather than a licentious priest.

In other words, he knew he wouldn't be able to live without sex and he didn't want to be a hypocrite breaking vows, so he remained a layman. At least one modern biographer speculates that feeling guilty for not becoming a priest may be part of the root of More - who as a younger man like Erasmus did see need for reform within the church - in his later years, once the battle with Luther & Co. was on, throwing himself into first pamphleteering and later, once he had the power to do so, into the persecution of heretics with such a vengeance. Incidentally, what did Erasmus make of his easy-natured friend turning zealot? There's no direct surviving direct quote from Erasmus to More, but in June of 1523, Cuthbert Tunstall, now bishop of London, had written to ask Erasmus to join the battle against Luther; Erasmus replied urging moderation:

In Luther's writings are some things I hear reproved which, in sober debate among the learned and the honest, might strengthen the spiritual and evangelical life from which the world has surely fallen as much as it can.

(Luther, as I said, wasn't impressed by this. He wanted compete and unquestioning support, or nothing.)

There isn't a direct More to Erasmus quote surviving re: Luther, either, but there is one from More to Tyndale when Tyndale charged that More attacked those who were trying the very ills Erasmus had exposed in "In Praise of Folly" (aka the earlier mentioned Erasmus work which is dedicated to More and which More had encouraged him to write). Wrote More back: "I have not contended with Erasmus my darling, because I found no suche malicious entente with Erasmus my darling, as I fynde with Tyndall."

When More was executed, Erasmus was horrified and declared it was as if he'd died with More and Fisher. He didn't survive them by many years, and even in death refused partisan claims on himself: he died as a Catholic priest in the Protestant city of Basel.