One of the things that strike you when reading Catherine
Fletcher's excellent book is that she is a courageous person. Anyone who
attempts to find something different to say about a period of English history
that has already been mined to near-death deserves a medal.
The book has been met with favourable reviews. Fletcher
manages to combine the skill of a journalist, the imagination of a novelist and
the intellectual rigour of an academic historian. The book works on many fronts
and would be accessible for an enthusiast of the period or for the more serious-minded
student or academic.
The book received high praise from the author Hilary Mante
who said it an "eye-opening book, an intricate and fascinating story of an
elusive man with an impossible job. A brilliant and impressive feat of original
research, and necessary reading for anyone fascinated by the story of Henry's
divorce... Catherine Fletcher has allowed the story to tell itself, except that
she has been so amusing in the telling of it, cutting through to what matters
without over-simplifying." [1]
The book has a simple premise, and that is to examine the
machinations of the divorce of Henry VIII through the story of Gregorio Casali.
Casili is an obscure figure. Try doing an internet search for him. Historical
records are scarce, and there is no picture of him. Even Fletcher could
not find his birth date.
We meet Casali as a teenager in England. According to
Fletcher, he was a well-connected son of a Bolognese merchant and a Roman
noblewoman. Fletcher met the modern-day family while in Italy. They still live
in Piacenza in northern Italy. Fletcher, in a remarkable piece of skill or luck,
managed to track down the family archive.
Fletcher believes he is a neglected figure in both Tudor and
Papal history. To put it simply, Casili was "Our man in Rome." Henry
used him as part of his covert campaign for an annulment of his first marriage.
As Fletcher writes "Through Casali's eyes, we see England from the
outside: from Rome, from Italy, from Europe. There, Henry VIII is not the
caricature fat tyrant, nor yet the virtuous Renaissance prince, but a
mid-ranking northern monarch, a player on the European stage but far from the
star of the show."[2]
One thing that is not disputed (well not much) by academic
historians is that this was a genuinely revolutionary period in English
history. Writing in the pre-elizabethanengland.blogspot.com Marypana describe Henry
VIII as "an 'iconic figure' to others a tyrant and a madman. Known
throughout the world for marrying six times, breaking from Rome, establishing
the Church of England and responsible for the development of the English
Reformation and according to Marxist historians set us on the road to the
English Revolution of the 1640s."[3]
Catherine Fletcher, to her credit, does try to tell of Henry
VIII's drive for divorce from a "wider, external angle." Fletcher
tackles the subject from a new perspective, drawing on hundreds of
hitherto-unknown archive documents. Her portrayal of the protagonist of this
book as a 'wily Italian diplomat named Gregorio Casali. Fletcher describes in
great detail the ends he went to secure a papal blessing for the divorce.
In an earlier piece of research, Fletcher describes the
skulduggery, bribery, and theft used to achieve the aim of the king's divorce.
Fletcher writes that: "The diplomatic gift-giving detailed in this paper
amply demonstrates Castiglione's maxim that 'those who give are not all
generous.' The gifts are given by, and to, ambassadors, required a return.
Rewards and gifts of all sorts were important tools in diplomatic practice.
Tips would ease an ambassador's way through the stages of a ceremony at the
court of Rome, while bribery could find him politically useful friends.
Gift-giving was also a means through which the social virtue of liberality
could be expressed. Accusations of corruption were not usually prompted by any
intrinsic quality of a particular reward. Corruption, like bribe, was rather a
label with which to declare gift transactions improper or illicit.
In short, a
gift became a bribe when someone cried 'corruption!' In the campaign for Henry's
first divorce, all sorts of gifts were deemed to be corrupting: and they were
defended heartily by their givers as entirely legitimate. In illicit
gift-giving, ambassadors would use much the same rhetoric – that of liberality
and reward – that they employed in more legitimate cases. By labelling gifts in
this way they hoped to avoid being accused of bribery. Underlying the rhetoric
was a shared understanding – in these cases based on or reinforced by the papal
decree – that offering inducements to act against one's conscience was
unacceptable. But when conscience, essentially unknowable, was the determinant
of the legitimate gift, the justification for the gift's presentation became
all-important".[4]
The book has substantial merits. However, it also has some
significant weaknesses. Firstly you get no idea how we reached the period that
Fletcher writes about. The book could have done with a link to the proceeding
history, after all, to understand where we are going we have to know where we have
been.
The fact that the period Fletcher wrote about was "revolutionary" her book could
have done with borrowing a few words from a guy that new quite a bit about
revolution,Karl Marx.
Marx brilliantly describes the period when he writes "The
social system that existed in the late medieval period in which Shakespeare set
his historical plays is often referred to as "bastard feudalism."
Feudalism was in crisis in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries for
reasons that are complex, but which in the final analysis were due to the
increasing importance of the market and the rise of the bourgeoisie. Lords no
longer drew directly on their estates for manpower in war but maintained
private armies of paid retainers. The feudal dues of the peasants were
increasingly turned into cash payments as the market economy became more
important for all social classes.
Although the peasant's revolt of 1381 was brutally
suppressed, peasants were able to use the acute labour shortage after the Black
Death killed an estimated third of the population in the mid-fourteenth century
to win concessions and greater freedom. What resulted was not a nation-state, but
the more powerful Tudor monarchy. In many ways what is remarkable about the
nation-state in England is just how long it took to develop. Capitalist
property relations had permeated feudal society for centuries before a crucial
clash came in the seventeenth century. Even then the construction of a
nation-state was a slow and piecemeal business. The nation-state took so long
to make because it did not spring ready-made out of the mind of some
Anglo-Saxon genius like Bede or Alfred, as Hastings would have us believe, but
was constructed in the course of protracted class struggles and revolutionary
upheavals ".[5]
This very concept of a transition period between the fall of
feudalism and the rise of capitalism has been challenged by modern-day
revisionist historians.[6]
These historians believed that the Reformation pursued by Henry VIII in the
mid-1530s had nothing to do with contending class forces or contending economic
interests. However, was the result of "the deficiencies of Henry's
reproductive system."
As David Walsh points out "Henry VIII initiated the
Reformation in England by breaking with the Catholic Church in the early 1530s.
The decisiveness of Henry's act indicated the growth of economic forces
incompatible with feudal social organization and the emergence of a national
consciousness. In 1534 he replaced the Pope's authority by his own Act of
Supremacy, creating the Church of England. This church became distinctly
Protestant under his son, Edward VI. Mary officially reestablished Catholicism,
married Philip II of Spain and persecuted Protestants as heretics, but she died
childless, and the crown fell to her half-sister".[7]
Despite their protestations, these were dangerous times. We
witness an abrupt change in religion. Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five
Theses to the church door in Germany, denouncing the practices of the Roman
Catholic Church, the opening shot of a new revolution which would sweep across
Europe and conclude with the English revolution.
The Vatican did not stand idly by and responded with the
Counter-Reformation which attacked anyone who challenged Catholic doctrine? A
by-product of the Counter-Reformation was the Roman Inquisition which was
backed up by torture and execution. It oversaw the torture and ultimate death
of hundreds maybe even thousands of so-called 'heretics,' the highest-profile
being Thomas More. However, again for the revisionists, the significant change
in property relations that resulted from the dissolution of the monasteries was
merely the result of Henry's sexual proclivities.
Henry VIII's support for the Reformation was not just a
change of mind after all he had formerly defended the Catholic Church in his
book (Henry VIII His Defence of the Faith and of the Seven Sacraments)
According to one writer His break with the Catholic Church in the early 1530s "Indicated
the growth of economic forces incompatible with feudal social organization and
the emergence of a national consciousness. In 1534 he replaced the Pope's
authority by his own Act of Supremacy, creating the Church of England. This
church became distinctly Protestant under his son, Edward VI. Mary officially
reestablished Catholicism, married Philip II of Spain and persecuted
Protestants as heretics, but she died childlessly, and the crown fell to her
half-sister".[8]
A lot of historical questions remain unanswered by Fletcher's
book. As Christopher Hill, who pertinently asked "Why did Henry become
tyrannical? Why did the wealthy and commercial classes represented in
Parliament have to fight for their liberties? During the sixteenth century,
under the Tudor rulers, the grandfathers of the Parliamentarians of 1640 were
the monarchy's stoutest supporters. What had happened to change their outlook?
Parliament had supported Henry VII and Henry VIII and Elizabeth in their
efforts to police the country against the anarchy and brigandage of over-mighty
subjects, of feudal potentates with their private armies, and England had been
made safe for commercialism. Parliament had also supported Henry VIII and
Elizabeth in their successful struggle against the universal Catholic Church:
money no longer went from England to Rome".[9]
To conclude, Fletcher's book is very well written and is
extensively researched. I recommend her book without reservation? The book is
not the final word, and Fletcher could have consulted a few more left-wing
historians to give the book a better balance.
[1]
http://www.mwpweb.eu/CatherineFletcher/news_290.html
[2]
http://pre-elizabethanengland.blogspot.com/2012/04/divorce-of-henry-viii-untold-story-from.html
[3]
http://pre-elizabethanengland.blogspot.com/2012/04/divorce-of-henry-viii-untold-story-from.html
[4]
EUI Working Papers MWP 2011/15 Max Weber program Catherine Fletcher "Those
Who Give Are Not All Generous: Tips and Bribes at 16th Century Papal
Court".
[5]
Karl Marx. Capital Volume One
[6]
See G W Bernard The Dissolution of the
Monarchies Volume 96 issue 4 Number 324
History published by The Historical Association
[7]
Elizabeth and a weakened historical sense-By David Walsh
3 December 1998- www.wsws.org/en/articles/1998/12/eliz-d03.html
[8]
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1998/12/eliz-d03.html
[9]
The English Revolution 1640; Written: in 1940; by Christopher Hill Published:
by Lawrence and Wishart.
