Catherine Fletcher latest book is called Our Man in Rome
is set in the six-year period of Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon.
It's the story of Gregorio Casali, Henry VIII’s ambassador in Rome from 1525 to
1533, but also the first book-length account of the diplomatic intrigues behind
the divorce for several decades.
Q. What made you tackle an already crowded field of
historical study of the Tudor's especially Henry viii? My interest was
originally focused on Renaissance Italy and the way today’s diplomatic system
grew up there. I started looking at Henry VIII’s ‘divorce’ from Catherine of
Aragon as a case-study of how monarchs negotiated in Rome, and realised that
the Italian side of the story really hadn’t been told before in any detail. I
found so much fascinating material that I thought it would be worth writing up.
Q How would you described your historiographical style.
Who were your mainly influenced as a younger historian/writer.
?
Writing The Divorce of Henry VIII I was influenced by microhistories
that take one small example – in my case the ambassador in Rome – and use it to
tell a bigger story. Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms and Natalie
Zemon Davis’s The Return of Martin Guerre are a couple of the classics.
Microhistories tend to focus on people lower down the social scale, but I don’t
see why they can’t be used to look at the experience of elite figures like
ambassadors too. I also had Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana at the back of my
mind (my book was first published as Our Man in Rome). That’s a great book
about diplomatic duplicity – and makes an important point for historians that
you can never be quite sure that envoys’ letters are telling the truth.
Q What advice would you give to an upcoming historian.
First, I’d say go and explore the archives. There’s a
huge quantity of documentation out there – in local record offices, family
holdings, and the like – that’s never been properly sorted through. Find a
story that interests you and follow it through. And second, I’d say that it’s
well worth taking the time to learn languages other than your own. Being able
to read material in other languages can give you a very different perspective
on historical issues.
Q How do you view the development of history blogs and
other internet based historical resources.
History blogs are a great way for historians to discuss
work in an informal way – and to find out what’s going on in the world of
history. I wish I had more time to read them! They can make for much wider
interaction between members of the public and academic historians than would
otherwise be possible. The internet has also allowed the creation of some great
digital databases of original source material. The Medici Archive Project in
Florence has put thousands of letters online, and the Old Bailey Online site is
a brilliant resource for anyone researching English legal and social history.
My only concern is that we may now see a bias towards research on those themes
that have good online resources at the expense of areas which don’t.
Q What are you working on now.
I’m trying to finish an academic book about the
development of diplomacy in Renaissance Rome. After that, my plan is to write
another book based in Renaissance Italy, and I’m working through the options
for that now. There are so many good stories to tell about the great dynasties:
the Borgias and the Medici, for example. I’m trying to make up my mind which
one to write first!
