“Making the reader a proposal”

A stitched representation of graffiti in the Beauchamp Tower, Tower of London. Photographer: © Michael Wicks

In the Beauchamp Tower, at the Tower of London, there are walls covered in graffiti, left by former prisoners. One such piece is of a bird, standing within a shield shape. By tradition, this picture is supposed to be a picture of Anne Boleyn’s symbol - the falcon. Historian Eric Ives wrote that this is Anne’s

“most poignant memorial… Which of her ‘lovers’ made it we do not know, but the image is unmistakable. The tree stump is there – the barren Henry – the Tudor rose bursting into life, the perching bird whose touch wrought the miracle. But there is one change to the badge which Anne had proudly flourished in the face of the world. This falcon is no longer a royal bird. It has no crown, no sceptre; it stands bareheaded, as did Anne in those last moments on Tower Green.”

Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, (Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2004) p.364.

But is it “unmistakable”? The Tower’s own description, to be found on the wall near the carving, does not commit itself. Instead it reads “Unknown. The shield is thought to be Anne Boleyn’s falcon carved by one of her supporters”. I’ve read speculation that it might have been carved by Anne’s brother George, or by the poet Thomas Wyatt, both prisoners at the Tower, and probably the best known of Anne’s supporters. It’s a nice story, but really we cannot know who left this carving. Much of the historical record that covers the period of Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell Trilogy is contradictory, partial, confusing, and uncertain.

On the closing pages of Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary provided an Author’s Note, which touches on the differing accounts of the fall of Anne Boleyn. She writes:

I am not claiming authority for my version; I am making the reader a proposal, an offer.

This is an important point: the Cromwell Trilogy is fiction, and Hilary was a novelist; she was very careful to draw a distinction between the kind of research that she carried out, and the kind of research undertaken by a professional historian. In 2019, she took part in a fascinating joint discussion with historian Diarmaid MacCulloch, hosted by the Church Times, which covered the way in which a novelist can fill in “gaps” in the historical record, in a way that a historian cannot.*

I have been thinking a lot about the the historical record this week, as I went on my monthly archive visit. These visits are a combination of joy and frustration: I am a trained historian, I know how to use an archive, how to evaluate and analyse documents, how to reference. There’s History and History: I wrote my PhD thesis about the early career of British film director Maurice Elvey, with a particular focus on the biographical films he made during the First World War. I could take a document from the Ministry of Munitions from one archive, correspondence from Lord Beaverbrook from another, a diary entry about the availability of studio space from somewhere else, and come up with a convincing argument about the political and propaganda ramifications of a particular motion picture.

But when it comes to original source materials for Sixteenth Century England, I’m working on instinct rather than analysis - and not paying proper attention to my training. I can’t pick up a sixteenth century roll relating to Thomas Cromwell as Clerk of the Hanaper and tell you what it contains. There’s unrolling it for a start (a challenge in itself); then attempting to decipher Secretary Hand; and then finding it’s written in Latin.

But over the last couple of years, I have got better at deciphering 1530s documents (provided they are written in English), and I’m learning more and more about what I am looking at. What started as an activity to complement my stitchery is becoming more focused, more definite, more informed. And it is having an impact on what is and isn’t included in my Cromwell stitchery. When I started my Cromwell stitching project years ago, I was very strict and ensured that the only content came from Hilary Mantel’s Trilogy. But the archive, and traces of material culture, are now finding their way in.

The Beauchamp Tower Falcon

The Beauchamp Tower Falcon plays no part in the Trilogy. Hilary did not present a scene any of Anne’s alleged lovers (Henry Norris, William Brereton, Francis Weston, Mark Smeaton, brother George, or Thomas Wyatt) carving this uncrowned falcon. In her telling, in Bring Up the Bodies, George Boleyn is imprisoned “in his light circular room in the Martin Tower”. Thomas Wyatt is seen by Richard Cromwell “looking down from a grate in the Bell Tower”; and as she notes in The Mirror and the Light, Wyatt’s own poetry references the Bell Tower. And the exact location of the other four prisoners is not present in the text.

In fact there is just one mention of the Beauchamp Tower in the Trilogy, and that is by Cromwell himself. After his arrest, in The Mirror and the Light, he is held in the Queen’s Apartments, before being moved to the Bell Tower. “Can I not go to the Beauchamp Tower?” he asks, to be told that it is already occupied.

Hilary’s “proposal” is a convincing one. It is supported by extensive research, undertaken over many years. But it’s a work of fiction, albeit a work of fiction that draws on the historical record. I remember a Q&A session in 2014, when she was asked by an audience member what she thought of Anne. Her response (as it has stuck in memory) was instructive:

“It doesn’t matter what I think of Anne. It’s what Cromwell thinks of Anne that is important.”

Historians can still disagree about what Cromwell through of Anne, and indeed they do. But Hilary was concerned with what HER Cromwell thought. And that is her fictional “offer” that is left to us.

In my studio

Today I have been stitching eels. I’m actually scared of eels so it wasn’t especially comfortable. I’m working on my Cromwell Narrative Cloth, and I wanted some little devices to go along the top and bottom - and eels fitted the bill today.

I keep worrying that piece I am currently stitching (Young Thomas on the ground) isn’t quite right - it’s too sparse and a bit tentative - and I have to keep reminding myself that it will form part of a much bigger piece of work. One section alone won’t have the impact of a much larger whole. Next week I should move on to something else and come back to it at a later point.

What caught my eye?

Last week, in a sequence of odd happenings, I unexpectedly saw one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I’m still not sure how it happened - and it felt almost supernatural - but I am very glad it did.

I saw a volume of the Valor Ecclesiasticus - the 1535 valuation of property belonging to the English church - and quite by chance it happened to cover the area where I grew up. I was very excited to see the word “Mottram” contained within. But I was even more excited to see some beautiful illuminated initials contained within this huge book. I don’t think I have quite recovered yet.

* This discussion forms the second part of a two-part podcast and is well worth listening to. In the first part, Mantel and MacCulloch each present their view of Thomas Cromwell.