Quote from Babe, or L.A. Confidential?
The Queen
It’s theorized that the reason that San Francisco became a Mecca for LGBTQ+ people and the politically rebellious is that sailors and soldiers who were dishonorably discharged during WWII and afterwards were disembarked at the port there.
He’s the subject of the PBS series Wolf Hall, running now, and well worth the watch. Thomas Cromwell was certainly amoral in some ways, but the series makes him human and relatable.
My mental picture of CRomwell was shaped by Leo McKern’s portrayal of him in the movie version of A Man for All Seasons, in which he’s amoral and not so relatable – a political apparatchik who “does what’s necessary”. He acts as lawyer at the end, and it’s disconcerting to see Rumpole almost lose his case, and only win it because his witness perjured himself at his insistence.
I haven’t seen any of theses series, but I judge Thomas Cromwell by the infos I learned from TV documentaries about Henry VIII and his times. They described his leading role in the sham trial for adultery against Anne Boleyn and her alleged lovers (among them her brother), and in the dissolution and outright plundering of the Catholic monasteries, which went hand in hand with persecution of Catholics and monks and nuns especially, and the destruction of invaluable pieces of literature and art. That was enough to convince me that he was an asshole. That he was an apparatchik and did his deeds at his desk doesn’t make it better. “Schreibtischtäter” (desk perpetrators) as we call them in Germany are the worst, see also Adolf Eichmann.
Wolf Hall is absolutely brilliant television… worth a watch as it’s considered a very accurate depiction of the time (the first season especially).
Wolf Hall may be brilliant TV, but here’s a British historian’s summary: "the historian in me has revolted – I have had enough. Thomas Cromwell is portrayed as an angelic family man: calm, measured, patient, prudent, sage, self-effacing, softly-spoken; no matter he’s also a wily, calculating, sycophantic, bullying, side-kicking, yes-man operator. Most of the other characters look like figures from a sub-Scorsese Mafia movie. . . In sum historically-speaking it is a travesty of a highly complex and nuanced period "
I chose my words carefully: an accurate depiction of the time. The interpretation of the characters, perhaps not so much. Though you could argue you can’t have one without the other.
Since this is an interesting facts thread I will post a related fact:
Thomas Cromwell’s daughters were believed to have died from Sweating Sickness, as was Henry VIII’s older brother Arthur who would have otherwise inherited the throne. Nobody knows what Sweating Sickness was. Some consider it to have been a virus passed to humans from a bat such as hantavirus, though other theories exist including the thought that it was mass anthrax poisoning from the use of raw wool or infected animal carcasses.
It was noted for its mortality rate, estimated at 30%-50%, and for its ferocity. You could start feeling ill before dinner and be dead by morning. The only solace was that if you survived for 24 hours, you would usually live. Thomas Cromwell himself survived three bouts.
Arranging show trials is a risky business if Great Leader decides he needs to blame “out of control”, “traitorous” underlings for them, as Genrikh Yagoda and Nikolai Yezhov found out.
That sounds to me more like assassination via poison, especially if it predominately affected royals and those close to them.
Any candidates for what poisons match the symptoms?
Aconite would be my guess:
From the article
According to a review of different reports of aconite poisoning in humans, the following clinical features were observed:[21]
- Neurological: paresthesia and numbness of face, perioral area and four limbs; muscle weakness in four limbs
- Cardiovascular: hypotension, palpitations, chest pain, bradycardia, sinus tachycardia, ventricular ectopics and other arrhythmias, ventricular arrhythmias, and junctional rhythm
- Gastrointestinal: nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea
- Others: dizziness, hyperventilation, sweating, difficulty breathing, confusion, headache, and lacrimation
Compare this with what Fiendish_Astronaut wrote:
IANAToxicologist, of course.
Fourth one if you include his incompetent son Richard “Tumbledown Dick” Cromwell.
Symptoms of Sweating Sickness (according to a 16th century physician called John Caius)
(copied from Sweating sickness | Description, Symptoms, Treatment, & History | Britannica)
The illness began with rigors, headache, giddiness, and severe prostration. After one to three hours, violent, drenching sweat came on, accompanied by severe headache, delirium, and rapid pulse. Death might occur from 3 to 18 hours after the first onset of symptoms; if the patient survived for 24 hours, recovery was usually complete. Occasionally there was a vesicular rash. Immunity was not conferred by an attack, and it was not unusual for patients to have several attacks. Each epidemic lasted for only a few weeks in any particular locality.
Because it killed tens of thousands of people it is unlikely this was merely used as a poison to murder someone, but if a poison was responsible then it’s possible; however that would mean somebody had a good understanding of it which doesn’t seem to be the case. But a victim not gaining immunity after infection also seems unusual to me. I’ve no idea if that’s likely with a virus-like disease.
I am not claiming all cases of Sweating Sickness were aconite poisoning, but as Chronos has observed, in some politically interesting cases Sweating Sickness may have been used as a smokescreen for poisoning. And the symptoms look similar enough. Medicine back then was still in the age of blood-letting.
A fair point. Cromwell getting “infected” three times is certainly suspicious, especially with the mortality rate as it was.
Just think how different history would be had Arthur not succumbed to whatever it was. Probably no (or a very different) Protestant Reformation for one.
Along those lines, one may wonder how different history might have been had the leech who treated Richard the Lionheart’s wound at Châlus been a tad more careful. Richard had no legitimate offspring, and at one point was trying to groom his nephew Arthur to succeed him.
Or perhaps not: Arthur’s mother despised the English and was deeply suspicious of Richard, and conspired to keep Arthur on the move and out of his uncle’s hands. At some point, even if Richard had lived, he may very well have given up and named John his heir.
(Random fact to avoid a complete hijack: Richard’s wife, Berengaria of Navarre, is the only English queen who never set foot in England).
And a pathogen that kills its host within hours would have a very difficult time spreading.
That may (or not) be the reason why sweating sickness is not around anymore. So it is not even wrong: it is undecidable.
Not if it didn’t spread person to person. Or if it spread asymptomatically.