I would definitely agree with this. Mantel has a very clear view on Cromwell that not everyone would accept!
The Shardlake books are great but they are set in the later part of Henry VIII’s reign (obviously as Cromwell features!) so do not touch on the OP and Elizabeth.
On the OP’s question of why did the catholic nobles not just kill Elizabeth, another factor was that she was well protected. Walsingham and his secret service were very efficient at detecting plots against the Queen; it was Walsingham who uncovered (manufactured?) the evidence of the Babington plot that led to Mary’s execution.
I am not an expert on the subject but I understand that what you say is correct, based on various things I have read. However, it’s almost not the point in this context: Mantel writes Cromwell more sympathetically than many would say he deserves. However, in the context of the OP’s question, it’s what Cromwell did to give a veneer of respectability to his King’s manoeuvrings rather than *whether he should have done it *that is illustrative.
A fair point, they do have a good sense of place and time but I have to say I found them very hard work to read. The Shardlake books, which are a lot easier to read, are set in the same period but the viewpoint is from a much lower level - not the grand politics but the individual humans caught up in the Cromwell’s machinations. To my mind, Wolf Hall does give a false view of Tudor politics and history because it takes out Cromwell’s religious fanaticism. Mantel’s Cromwell is a semi-secularist breaking from Rome for political ends in the service of his king, with sound pragmatic reasons for dissolving the appallingly corrupt monasteries. Mantel does not really bring out how much religion mattered at this time. Cromwell and his allies were actually religious fundamentalists as well as politicians with a strong sense that they were saving souls and that the end justified the means.
Without this sense of the importance of religious belief any discussion of Elizabethan politics is deeply flawed.
Though I understand that C.J. Sansom plans to carry on with these novels, into Elizabeth’s reign (“Shardlake” #6, the latest, ends with Henry VIII’s death). I greatly hope that the author achieves this intention – I find the books compulsive reading.
Amen to that. Although once I got into her style I actually ended up quite enjoying Mantel’s game which is - I assume - to attempt to give her characters such distinctive voices that you can tell who’s speaking even though she doesn’t tell you.
It’s a matter of emphasis, but I don’t agree. I think this was clear. I’m atheist* and despite Mantel’s efforts to make me sympathise with her Cromwell, one area in which I couldn’t connect with him was his strong religious motivation.
*Ignostic, technically, but that’s not important right now
No, she was Northumberland’s preferred candidate. Big difference. John Dudley was playing king-maker and maneuvered Edward into signing a new Act of Succession that made Lady Jane Grey (incidentally his daughter-in-law) the first in line. I doubt very much Edward has the slightest inkling what was going on, or if he did, was so trusting of Dudley that he played along.
There is quite a bit of dissent to this view, to be honest. Some say it was Edward’s doing, others blame Dudley. I blame Dudley.
You can blame whoever you like. But the upshot of the extended scholarly discussion on the subject is that most of the experts now credit Edward with the main responsibility. He was no longer a little boy who was just being told what to do but a teenager with strong views of his own who had increasingly discovered that he get his way if he asserted himself.
I think the situation was in between. I think Dudley was Edward’s preferred successor.
The indications are Edward inherited his father’s misogyny. He didn’t think a women was capable of being a real monarch. So he passed over both his sisters.
So why did he choose his cousin Jane? Because he expected her to be a figurehead for John Dudley, who would actually run the country.
Sorry to go off on a tangent, but Henry VIII was not misogynistic, at least not for the period. His daughters were the greatest educated women of the Age(even when both girls were in political and familial disgrace) and both were legally placed by him in the line of succession.
Sure, Henry’s attitude to women was an entire clusterfuck of conflicting emotions, but accusing him of misogyny is missing out some very important pro female attitudes in the man.
It’s also ignoring the fact until Mary, there’s was no ruling English Queen. Up to that point, the last woman who claim the throne in her own right was Empress Maud, and that caused a civil war. And the war was settled by giving English throne went to her son.
Henry isn’t wrong to worry that even if he left the throne to Mary, she won’t be able to keep it and it’ll lead to another civil war.
