History Man
Mary Wellesley
A few days before telling Shami Chakrabarti to ‘shut up’ about the Human Rights Act, David Starkey gave a lecture on Magna Carta at the British Library. Asked his opinion on Hilary Mantel’s portrayal of Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall, he said that it was historically inaccurate and ‘lady novelists need a hero’. (Earlier this year he called the novel a ‘deliberate perversion of fact’.) To hear Starkey tell it, you’d think Wolf Hall was full of scenes of a shirtless Cromwell scything in the summer heat. His view isn’t only misogynist, but completely misses the point. It’s a bit like saying Shakespeare’s history plays are bad history.
The subject of the lecture was billed as ‘Magna Carta and Us’, but he said he was actually going to talk about ‘Magna Carta: the Missing Century’, because in his view the BL’s exhibition had missed out the Tudors in telling the story of Magna Carta’s reality and myth. So far, so ungracious.
The ‘missing’ material in the exhibition was never really explained. (The first printed edition of the charter, from 1508, is on display.) But Starkey seemed determined to hammer a Reformation-shaped peg into a Magna Carta-shaped hole. He went into a long explanation of the distinction between ecclesiastical and common law, without fully accounting for how Magna Carta fitted in.
For Starkey, the performance comes first. He goes in for low melodrama. ‘And then your private parts are cut off before your eyes,’ he said, describing hanging, drawing and quartering. Then he paused, surveyed the room: ‘It’s wonderful.’
‘I first took to the stage with the confidence you see here tonight,’ he said, ‘in my portrayal of Thomas Beckett in a school play of Murder in the Cathedral.’ (He didn’t comment on Eliot’s historical credentials.) The swaggering schoolboy was still evident in his snickering comments about Mantel.
Comments
This is a monumental work, and will be read for a very long time into the future.
Mantel's reputation can only grow in time, not diminish.
Will David Starkey's star last as long?
Mantel seems to be not only well informed about the Tudor era, she’s also taken a very shrewd approach to the depiction of character. Anyone familiar with Machiavelli’s advice to his Prince will have no difficulty in squaring that peculiarly secular outlook of the era with the way people involved in public affairs think and act today, so Cromwell is not “anachronistically” characterized in his thinking about the affairs of Henry VIIIth and his abettors and foes – rather he is very plausible, comparable to a very well-tested and worldly adviser who can keep a "poker face". Historical novels (and films based on them) can never be totally accurate or exactly “just right” in all their details or their ability to present the mind-set of a very different time, but Mantel’s series gets about as close to this ideal as possible. In this respect Starkey’s dismissive remarks are born of either ignorance or envy.
There is a clip of Starkey and Mantel discussing Henry VIII on Youtube, and Starkey just could not stop talking. I am not sure it was sexism as much as he was terrified the brilliant Mantel would get a word in. I don't blame him; Mantel's voice and perspective are fresh and intelligent whereas Starkey is just an echo chamber of dated opinions relayed in slightly histrionic tone. Is he related to the Starkeys of the Tudor time?
Re the books, I think Mantel swung the pendulum a tad too far in reverse of 'A Man for All Seasons" and I don't buy it, but how funny that she is the born Catholic and Bolt was not. I don't think that is a coincidence. Someone is going to have to do an objective read on her interpretation of More vs Cromwell and what exactly she thinks she is rejecting vs embracing. I don't think she completely knows which makes it all the more fascinating.
As an American, I cant help but notice the scent of continued class warfare in all this. I kind of love it, actually.
First off, how fun to say "Hello Harry" to a Brit. Makes me think of Hoorah Harry. We just don't get to say that over here.
Okay, then basically you are telling me I am right to sense it. Thank you!
And to be clear, I pick it up in all 3 issues:
1) More vs Cromwell
2) How Mantel describes each
3) Starkey vs Mantel if he indeed comes directly from the old family and claims some kind of superiority of assessment based on the bloodline. If he does, I find that amusing. I admit it.
Does that help?
Wellesley, whose assessment I agree with, said this:
Asked his opinion on Hilary Mantel’s portrayal of Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall, he said that it was historically inaccurate and ‘lady novelists need a hero’. (Earlier this year he called the novel a ‘deliberate perversion of fact’.) To hear Starkey tell it, you’d think Wolf Hall was full of scenes of a shirtless Cromwell scything in the summer heat. His view isn’t only misogynist, but completely misses the point. It’s a bit like saying Shakespeare’s history plays are bad history.
There is no doubt this is sexist. But having seen the man in action in Mantel’s company, I sensed another thing at play as well: fear -driven arrogance. I sense from Starkey that he is quite jealous of his own spot, thinks it comes as his due in some manner, and I was guessing it partially had to do with the long history of the name Starkey. For example, had the truly wonderful writer Antonia Frazer penned Wolf Hall (completely impossible, I know) would he have quite the level of rancor and fear, or would he be first in line to applaud her for being a lady of wit?
I could be wrong here re the name. I do know the name Fiennes was around then and they were highly ranked. I have seen the name Starkey and assumed the same may be true, but I don’t know and no one seems to want to say. I just think the idea of a More v Cromwell and Starkey v Mantel on the same relative power positions would be an interesting subject to ponder. Though, of course, neither reflects either man himself. I just meant symbolically.
I take all that and apply it to the book itself, which looks at the same history as Starkey has written and performed, with a fresh eye. Wrong or right, it is a breathtaking evaluation. As someone who isn’t a fan of historical novels in general, I can only laugh at Starkey’s absurd comment on Wolf Hall, and tell him if his view is so off on so brilliant a novel I am rather astonished anyone would buy in to his other assessments regarding content and character.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify why I posted the comments I did prior. You are welcome to find them off target or not quite up to the LRofB, but this is the blog and perhaps allowances can be made.
Patronising US reference to English class warfare comes good from a citizen of a country where you have to be a millionaire to become or pick a president
Interestingly though, the money in the Clinton and Obama families was earned, not inherited, through their own brilliance. Same as Mantel's hard earned success. ;-)
So perhaps you could answer my question rather than name call? We are all grown-ups here, aren't we?
While I appreciate your defense, and you are indeed correct that I was not being "patronizing", I am actually not educated merely by means of television, though I would agree that people on both sides of the pond get a lot of their history from it, and, in the case of the beeb, their financial lifeblood. I was commenting herein on an actual book. Hardcover. Some of us do read them still and actually subscribe to newsletters about them.
I was, however, pointing out the obvious that England still has a class system and that it comes out in interesting and entertaining ways. I do believe that Mantel associates More with just the same arrogant blowhards as seem to rule certain topics today, and Cromwell with the educated made wo/men who claw their way to "knighthoods" based on more skill and intellect than their supposed "betters". In that light, Wold Hall is all about England today, I think.
Ralph Fiennes, of that equally long established name, has stated the same re the continuation of the inherited vs earned status in England.. He did not find it as amusing as I do for obvious reasons. He is also not on TV unless you count Netflix.
Cheers to all.
I came back to sincerely congratulate you on tempering your annoyance by simply calling me "patonizing". As I noted, I really have many a Brit's quotes to support my assessment, as well as my own impressions. I have also been to many parts of Great Britain, some more than once, and loved them all. Wales is especially beautiful.
On another site, I referred to the England of Henry Tudor as "small" compared to France and Spain at the time. They knew I was American and I was told I came from a "mongrel nation" and was personally insulted while being asked to apologize for calling England "small".
There has to be a place where people can discuss history without resorting to quoting Adolf Hitler or getting squeamish and enraged about factual statements. "The Economist" magazine just printed the stat that The US has 5% of the world's population and 25% of its jails and you don;t see American pitchforks outside their offices. I don't know if that stat is accurate, but if I had reason to think it was wrong I would counter them without resorting to nazi sentiments.
We have our own problems here in the US - recent hate crimes are devastating reminders that we need to do a lot of work. But the person who called my country full of "mongrels" was a Brit and she was called "lovely" by the site owner. I know of no other history site where that would be the case outside of what I suspect I would see on a KKK or neo-nazi recruiting board.
So, in conclusion, I will be careful when expressing amusement about your cultural heritage and perhaps you can continue to show people how courteous people, when annoyed, can express themselves in a less than toxic way.
Thank you.
Being English, I come from a nation which has been invaded at one time or another by half of Europe and for that reason has a language which is basically a Germanic creole (and like most creoles inflection has largely dropped out) comprising elements of Norman French, Old Norse and the various Celtic languages which the Angles, Saxons and Danes pushed over into the North and West. Our present monarch is descended from the Elector of Hanover. From the 11th century until well into the Plantagenets, 'English' monarchs were basically Normans. At one point our king was a Dutchman (who was invited to invade us). One has to smile at those who can talk of the 'purity of the English race' and keep a straight face. I suspect your attacker was one of those.
In any case, you are quite right that England by the reign of Henry VIII was a small place compared with what it had been under the Plantagenets. I can't see that anyone could take issue with that.
I would be fascinated to know which site it was, but I guess you don't want to post it here.
Thanks for your response. I am a mix of all the Danes and Celts and Gauls you can stir in a lovely pot We have been adding Native American, Jewish, Italian and now Chinese to the blend and the results are lovely with more ethnicities on the way. Yummy.
England was not a player either size or wealth wise at the time compared to her super power neighbors but she knew how to make great use of what she did have. When Henry started funding the Navy the world changed. We all know that. It's sort of 101 over here at least when I went to private school (your public). My point was that one could not ignore that when assessing Henry's motivations and those of Cromwell etc. and even those of Elizabeth I, Not sure how that could lead to mass hysteria as it isn't exactly historical rocket science. They did seem to have some odd reasons for taking offense, although I admit to being caustic about Tudor bodice ripper novels. Bird cage liners.
In all seriousness, after seeing what happened in my country last week I have zero tolerance for comments like the Adolf Hitler quote, and I agree that since the site owner left it up for two weeks - no doubt waiting for me to see it - that I may have unwittingly been debating with some Unity Mitford fangirls. I pointed out it was a Hitler quote and the owner told me I was wrong. So really either completely ignorant or malicious, you get your tasty pick.
In closing on a positive note, I had really wanted to come over and see the exhibitions re Waterloo but am tied to home for awhile. But knowing GB, there will be something else to come over for next year and
I look forward to again spending time with the charming and warm people of all the Isles.
Cheers & cheerio,
JS
"hey did seem to have some odd reasons for taking offense, although I admit to being caustic about Tudor bodice ripper novels. Bird cage liners."
A play, if you will, on Starkey's comment. I certainly wasn't putting Wolf Hall in that column.
I will say that I thought perhaps Stan, whom I do not know at all, was aping Starkey's fake answer above re Mantel with one of his own to me. I always prefer the charitable view, so I am going to take it as Stan making a rather witty joke on how some men get in a tizzy by a forward "dame".
Happy trails.
"Mantel’s chief method is to pick out tableaux vivants from the historical record – which she has worked over with great care – and then to suggest that they have an inward aspect which is completely unlike the version presented in history books. The result is less a historical novel than an alternative history novel."
Yes, I read that and it was brilliant review.
Cheers.
Secondly, three things have afflicted the academic discipline of History, the first in the early 1970s, the latest the catastrophic plague of post-Modernism. In between came the ever-increasing narrowing of historian's interests and writings, so that now it is widely acknowledged that they write only for each other. Let us not forget that Starkey is also an academic historian, not, in my view, and good one by any stretch. Further, academic historians who 'go popular' mostly go into decline where the quality of their work is concerned. Thus, Starkey, I should say, is a C-grade academic who has become a D-grade popularizer. But most relevant here, also a narrow one. like most He did indeed try to ram a Magna Carta peg into a Reformation hole (I think Mary got that metaphor backwoods) because that period is all he has any grasp on.
His 'thesis' is missing because there isn't one to be had. Ecclesiastical and Common Law and their distinctions have nothing to do with it. There are surely myths about MC, the most obvious that it gave new rights and liberties to the populace at large. In reality, it stated rights bestowed on the highest orders which limited the King's powers. But the main point relevant here is that it was in short order ignored by every succeeding monarch wholly through the next 350 years, and partially for a period thereafter. RE MC during those 350 years, there really isn't much to say except that it might just as well not have been. The one period Starkey knows about was missing from the exhibition because it was of no significance in that period. Starkey just meandered around what he knows something about, an actor as always, and I deplore most that he was selected to give this lecture. Well, it occurs to me wasn't, in a sense. He was supposed to be speaking on 'Magna Carta and Us'. One of the reasons he couldn't do that was because it would lead to talk of liberties and rights, and he's not too keen on those, apparently. Except his own, of course.
A fine discussion,and I thank you, Timothy.
Your subsequent comments are interesting additions and I am enjoying them.
Is it because he is the only historian many under-educated researchers have ever heard of?
Because he in the tradition of ornamental British twits who have so added to the delectation of the nation for as long as most of us can remember?
Because he virtually guarantees that most valuable publicity commodity, clickbait?
Some combination of the three?
I think it is because he has made a lot of TV shows that are shown on youtube and PBS. Simon Schama is also a name a lot of people know, but he is wise enough to temper his views with a caveat if he is not an expert..
To be fair, the Tudors are pitched by GB as a tourist attraction to get Americans visiting ie the site poor Anne Boleyn lost her head, the gruesome tower of London etc. Which is fine. My first trip over I did the Tudor tour and it was a blast. But you can't then blame people for being entertained by your entertainment. We don't all have time to read extensively about the Reformation unless personally fascinated or an academic by trade.
We all know the big names who flashed like blinking lights on departmental marquees: Barthes (whose writing I actually like, without believing for a moment in many of its broader claims – he should have realized that the traffic signs about stepping off the curb were not actually “self-referential discourse” in the universe of text but rather a real warning), Derrida (the Deconstruction movement’s likeable general apologist), de Man (the Belgian falsifier of his own life and career), Foucault (not bad at times, interesting and suggestive, but often zany and untrustworthy when it comes to cherry-picking facts and overgeneralizing his interpretive schemas), Lacan (only the insanity plea can save him, while only a special code-descrambler can make him intelligible to those outside his cult), Baudrillard (fantasist, vastly funny at times), and the entirely despicable Althusser (a Marxist philosopher who admitted late in life that he had only read a little bit of Marx and that he didn’t really understand it but needed to appear to be a Marxist in order to advance professionally). Leszek Kolakowski has done the major demolition job on this “soft Marxist” crew. There are others of the second order whose special mission is to “debunk science”, but while they influence academic social science departments in the training of disciples, they have no influence on the real world as most of us know it (family life, politics, jobs, sexual relations, economic institutions and practices, cultural pursuits or other avocations and enthusiasms, etc.) – or on science, which keeps chugging along, whether or not we like all of its practical applications (the scientists’ “explanatory paradigm” is still effective and productive).
Needing a term of convenience, most of their readers (whether pro or con) view these writers/thinkers as post-modernists. This isa nonce term, anyway, and one which the American novelist and non-fiction writer, D. F. Wallace, worried about its at times obnoxious influence on fiction and his own writing, said was more or less anything its users wanted it to mean; one might as well call them “late modernists with a special twist” who were slaying their intellectual moms and pops or merely “contemporary thinkers who have formed a school of thought and are involved in what they conceive to be a common project”). A melange of their ideas congealed into all-purpose (social or critical) “Theory” – its sharpest and most bellicose expression over here would be in articles published by the journal Social Text, victim of the hilarious Sokal hoax, while its more moderate and occasionally plausible expressions can be found in fiction and commentary in the nice little literary journal n+1. Obviously there are many other venues for their ideas. The true believers in the tenets of post-modernism have serious problems with writing, their specialized jargon and clotted syntax (and bad prose in general) being indicative of muddy thinking (often with a nod to the alleged profundity of that lederhosen mystic, Heidegger) and perhaps of a certain lack of self-confidence in their own stated beliefs. Anyway, this is my evaluation of the movement and its version of “Theory”, based on my own reading of many of its signal works. Others will no doubt beg to differ.
My mistake, perhaps, was to assume that the theories conveyed by the above-indicted affected history-writing as well, assuming that history professors are no more immune to the intellectually trendy than anyone else. I still read a lot of recently published history put out by academic departments, and much of it is good, so my shaft seems to have been misaimed, or I overstated my case. Mea maxima culpa. I’m not going to go on the hunt for specific titles that might illustrate my hunch about some historians being infected by “the French bug” – why would I spend any of my fast-dwindling time on earth in such a pursuit?
So, that’s it, in a capacious nutshell. And, three cheers for (good) history writing. Because this discussion has drifted so far from its pretext (Starkey as historian-critic), for which I am partly responsible, I believe we should end it here.
The solution of the post-Modernist practitioners is simply to declare everything relative and any approximation of the truth impossible to achieve. This throws the door open to using the historical past as a repository of examples used in the service of other subjects, much as political scientists in some fields use it, or in the service of other agendas altogether. Identity Studies and Gender Studies would be two such fields, both valid in themselves, but potentially with agendas in the cause of which History is used but as a handmaiden. Such is how things have developed, and the result has been so-called History further and further removed from any attempt to elucidate what actually happened in the historical past and why in historical context. In short, opinion pieces with bits of decontextualised history used as examples. As for the origins of all this, I think you summed it up superbly in your capacious nutshell.