Celebrating Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall Trilogy

In June 2024 The Wolf Hall Weekend will celebrate Dame Hilary Mantel’s magnificent trilogy describing Thomas Cromwell’s rise and fall as Henry VIII’s chief administrator at the beautiful 16^th century Cadhay House, Devon.^[1]

Sir Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch’s superb biography of Cromwell, published in 2018, was described by Dame Hilary as the ‘biography we have all been waiting for, for 400 hundred years.’  In answer to Alex Preston’s question posed to Professor MacCulloch in July 2019: Reading your book alongside Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall series is fascinating. How do you view the differences and affinities between the two?”  Professor MacCulloch replies: “We have not got tired, Hilary and I, of talking about the fascinating difference of looking at the same person from two points of view – one the historian, one the novelist. I might have got bored of the comparison if I didn’t think Hilary was brilliant, and not really a historical novelist, but just a brilliant novelist who in this instance has decided to write a novel about the 16th century.^[2]

In that interview the distinguished professor went on to reveal how Dame Hilary’s final book, The Mirror and the Light, was influenced by his own research into Cromwell’s life. Prior to this new biography, our view of Cromwell had been dominated by the research of the eminent political and constitutional historian, the late Sir Geoffrey Elton and others who had focused on Cromwell’s political and bureaucratic contributions to history.  Through their research both MacCulloch and Mantel explore the man, ‘warts and all’ (to quote Thomas Cromwell’s equally famous descendant, Oliver, when he was discussing how he would like to be depicted by 17th century miniaturist Samuel Cooper).^[3]

In the Preston article, we learn how Dame Hilary has brought to life aspects of Thomas Cromwell that a writer of non-fiction cannot.  Professor MacCulloch points out how the historian is unable to use the word ‘probably’, because historians have to rely on facts, whereas a novelist can fill in the gaps created by the absence of documentary evidence.  This is all well and good, and I totally agree with Prof MacCulloch (who wouldn’t!) that documentary evidence is key to all historical research for non-fiction. When it comes to fiction, Dame Hilary’s trilogy is a master class in how dedicated research is vital for those wanting to write convincing historical fiction.  

However, having been trained as both historian and art historian beyond a basic Bachelor’s degree, I see another source of evidence that is very often ignored. Visual evidence of political and social history, and in some instances personal thoughts and events, can be gleaned from elements contained in portraits and paintings. These may have been included at the request of the sitter, or are the result of discussions between the sitter and the artist.  For example from illuminated Flemish religious manuscripts and paintings of the 15^th and early 16^th centuries we have various scenes that provide visual records of cultural and social history of those periods. As society developed after the Black Death of 1348, by making a study of the writings of humanist philosophers such as Mirandolo, Reuchlin and Agrippa, it is possible to glean even further insight into the visual statements conveyed in various panel paintings and late 16^th century portrait miniatures.^[4]

Today photography supplies us with a record of what people looked like and how people and places have changed over time.  We have become lazy and lost the ability to think about what those talented artists of the 16th century onwards might be portraying beyond the realistic rendition of what he, or she, had before them. Tokens of love are obvious additions in various late 16th century portrait miniatures painted by Nicholas Hilliard. As for making a political statement Hilliard was famous for his miniature portraits portraying Elizabeth I as a virgin goddess by focusing on the queen’s jewels of crescent moons, and the masses of pearls embroidered on her gowns or worn as strings. The pearls symbolised purity and lunar goddesses such as Diana and Cynthaea were always virigins. The use of these elements has reinforced our concept of our nation’s second queen regnant as England’s Virgin Queen from the deliberate visual propaganda programme that starts in the 1580s up to the present day. In 1598 Hilliard stated that he had been inspired by Holbein, but since he was born in 1547 – three years after Holbein’s death, this inspiration could have only come from his having seen the royal portraits or other Holbein works in the homes of Hilliard’s patrons.   

Holbein’s immense portrait of the French ambassador, Jean De Dinteville and the cleric Georges de Selves is an early example of how an artists provides clues about his sitters interests by including the various instruments – scientific and musical, on the shelving that separates, but also connects, the two individuals. The Ambassadors (click on this link to view) it now hangs in London’s National Gallery.

We acknowledge the German émigré, Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8 – 1543) who arrived in England in the mid 1520s with letters of introduction to Sir Thomas More from the scholar Erasmus, as a genius.  From this decade we have his portraits of Erasmus, Chancellor Sir Thomas Moore (Frick Collection, New York), Sir Henry Guildford, comptroller of the royal household (Royal Collection Trust) and others, yet our knowledge of what Henry VIII and his queen, Katharine of Aragon, looked like come from the brushes of other artists such as the Horenbout siblings, Joos van Cleve and various copyists of the van Cleve portrait of the king.  At the end of the 1520s Holbein was obliged to return to Basle and when he returned in 1532 Cardinal Wolsey has fallen from grace, as had Sir Thomas More.  The King’s Great Matter had yet to be resolved and the lawyer Thomas Cromwell was becoming the dominant power behind the throne. It is through Holbein’s portrayals of Thomas Cromwell that we know his face and get a feeling of something of the character of the man.^[5]

Throughout Mantel’s trilogy the artist and bureaucrat have an interesting relationship, and when Cromwell receives his appointment as Master of the Jewel House Holbein paints his portrait in celebration.  There are three known versions, the most famous being in The Frick Collection, New York.  The version (below) includes a banner declaring Cromwell’s elevation from Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon (created 8th July 1536) to Earl of Essex, which took place in April 1540.

This version (NPG 1727) originally belonged to the Cromwell family and is thought to have been copied either to replace the original that was sold, or perhaps to hang in one of the other Cromwell properties.

However, there are also surviving portrait miniatures and an oil sketch in Petworth House discovered by chance by Dr Bendor Grosvenor in 2012, that emanate from Holbein’s workshop.  The Petworth oil sketch, by a follower of Holbein, had been sloppily inventoried in 1953 as being of an Unknown Man and it was only Dr Grosvenor’s sharp eyes that rescued this work from obscurity.^[6] 

What few scholars have considered is the relationship between Thomas Cromwell and Hans Holbein. It was not as if Holbein had not been engaged to work for the royal household because he had been hired by Sir Henry Guildford in 1527 to decorate the temporary banqueting hall at Greenwich Palace, erected for the celebrations of the ratification of a peace treaty between France and England. Mantel’s development of the artist’s relationship with Cromwell is one of the ‘gaps in the facts’ that Professor MacCulloch describes.  Dame Hilary provides an intriguing insight into how Holbein was ‘probably’ important to Cromwell, not just as an artist, but as a friend.  Despite having been sent to paint Anna, Duchess of Cleves (Henry VIII’s fourth wife), unlike Cromwell, Holbein survived the king’s wrath over the Cleves marriage and died in November 1543.

Over the next few months I shall be looking at various works by Holbein demonstrating how these many and varied portraits and paintings are so much more than just pictures of individuals at the Tudor court who so fascinate us today.  

If you are interested in coming to celebrate the brilliant trilogy of Dame Hilary Mantel at the exquisite Cadhay House in Devon, on Saturday 22^nd and Sunday 23^rdJune 2023 then click here www.wolfhallweekend.com to find out more and to book your place. I look forward to seeing you there.

MVT

24^th September 2023.

P.S. The Royal Collection Trust’s exhibition, Holbein at the Tudor Court, opens at the Queen’s Gallery on 10^th November 2023.  Remember to first sign then get your ticket stamped.  This will then give you unlimited access to this and other exhibitions being held at The Queen’s Gallery for the next 12 months from the date you visit the gallery.           https://www.rct.uk/whatson/event/1091494/Holbein-at-the-Tudor-Court

Featured image at the top of this article is the original Holbein portrait of Cromwell now in The Frick Gallery, New York.

Footnotes:

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^[1] www.WolfHallWeekend.com for further details.

^[2] Alex Preston Interview with Sir Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch: I Got very irritated by Henry VIII: The Guardian; 13^th July 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/13/diarmaid-maculloch-thomas-cromwell-a-life-interview-hilary-mantel  (Accessed 24^thSeptember 2023.)

^[3] Ten years ago the Philip Mould Gallery had an exhibition of Samuel Cooper’s miniatures. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/nov/08/cromwell-portraitist-samuel-cooper-exhibition (Accessed 24th September 2023).

^[4] For example a panel in a private collection the artist has made use of a set of tiles representing an octagon on which stands Emperor Charles V. His son, Prince Philip, is stepping into the same set of tiles, representing the emperor’s declaration of the prince being his heir.  The octagon represents the number 8 that has a special meaning alluding to God.  If you turn the number 8  on its side you get the mathematical sign for infinity, and the spiritual meaning is laid out in the Christian Kabballah as understood by Henricus Cornelius Agrippa.  My research has been read by Professors Manfred Sellink and Stijn Bussells, and their comments have been incorporated into this piece.  If you are interested in knowing more about this panel you can read it as a free download by clicking this link: https://melanievtaylor.co.uk/books/  

^[5] Holbein’s miniatures of a Young Boy, and another of Gregory as an adult, was identified through some brilliant investigative research by Teri Fitzgerald. This was published in 2016 in The Journal of Ecclesiastical History Vol 67, Issue 3. 16^th July 2016. If you wish to read Fitzgerald’s research, it can be accessed via  https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-ecclesiastical-history/article/abs/gregory-cromwell-two-portrait-miniatures-by-hans-holbein-the-younger/C6F1D8743BA89E227210DD4530E60907#

^[6] https://www.arthistorynews.com/articles/1499_Thomas_Cromwell_loses_his_head_(again)_at_Petworth 2012; https://melanievtaylor.co.uk/2018/08/23/thomas-cromwell-1495-1540-creator-of-the-tudor-brand/

Further reading:

MacCulloch; Sir Professor Diarmaid; Thomas Cromwell: A Life: 2018.

Mantel, Dame Hilary; Wolf Hall (2009); Bring up The Bodies (2012); The Mirror and the Light (2020)

Moyle, Franny; The King’s Painter; (2021)

Wilson, Derek; Holbein: The Portrait of an Unknown Man; (1996)