I like the portrayal of Thomas More, which departs from the usual hagiography. I also like how they dismissed the birth of a daughter, Elizabeth, as a disappointment. She only ushers in the Golden Age!
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WereBear
Ironic, ain’t it? She was just another not-boy to ol’ Henry — when she was the savior of his line and his empire.
Typical.
raven
Call the Midwife is great and gets no play at all here. Pisses me off.
shortstop
Such wonderful, masterfully crafted books. Have TiVo’d the series but haven’t watched it yet.
dedc79
@efgoldman: Cole did until his pens lost to my rangers. But now my rangers are losing to the caps, so I don’t feel like talking about hockey either.
shortstop
@efgoldman: The third baseman and I play living room hockey using Call the Midwife discs as pucks. Breech birth got me a penalty just last night.
beltane
I love this so much that I’ve been watching on Sunday, and watching the repeat again on Thursday.
Thomas More is perhaps the first, and best, example of the wingnut martyr complex. Unlike all those who followed, he actually was martyred.
dedc79
@shortstop: it’s as good as a tv adaptation can be, but still pales in comparison to the books.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
I want to watch it, because I really like Mark Rylant, but I’m often disappointed by movies/miniseries if I’ve read the book first, even if the movie/miniseries is objectively good.
One of the things I liked about Mantel’s book is that she makes Cromwell a strong (if necessarily secret) Protestant and makes you stop and wonder why More is held up as such a hero in England when he was a fairly nasty persecutor of Protestants prior to his run-in with Henry.
shortstop
@dedc79: I think I’ve been putting it off partly because I’m busy as hell and want to give it proper attention, and partly because (I’m going to say it) I can’t stand Damien Lewis.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I fell behind, but I think the actor playing Cromwell is fantastic (Mark Rylance?). I think I may binge watch when I get an empty. I weekend (please god, let it be soon). Wolf Hall blew me away when I read it, just beautiful writing. My only regret is that I hadn’t (and still haven’t) read or seen A Man For All Seasons, though I knew the overall idea of it, and I gather Mantel was writing against that depiction, or at least that general ideal, of More.
raven
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I mean wtf, a show that you cannot possibly understand unless you read the book.
Debbie
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
dedc79
@shortstop: where’s Robert shaw when we need him? He was great as Henry in A Man for All Seasons.
SarahT
@raven: love “Wolf Hall” and “Midwife” – I’m a sucker for almost anything “Masterpiece Theater”.
Debbie
@Debbie:
Like I was trying to say, the series won’t disappoint you.
SarahT
@shortstop: Hear you. Not that I dislike him or think he’s a bad actor, but he looks so much like Chris Elliott it’s quite disconcerting
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (tablet): More was pretty much England’s Renaissance scholar – friend and confidant of Erasmus, writer of political philosophy, etc.
dedc79
@efgoldman: yeah, I’m also enjoying watching montreal lose. Tampa got off to a slow start with detroit but they’re picking up steam. And I’d like to have Boyle, callahan and stralman back in rangers blue.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@raven: binge-watchin’ in a tote-bagger’s paradise
I did have the thought watching the first episode that you had to be either a reader of the book or an obsessive scholar of Enery The 8th and his court to follow it
SarahT
@beltane: Same. So bummed out there’s only one episode left !
beltane
@shortstop: Henry VIII is not particularly likable in Wolf Hall. Damian Lewis captured his brutal volatility and egocentrism quite well.
As much as I have been enjoying this, I have been bothered by the idea that some Hilary Mantel of the distant future will write a historical novel about the career of Karl Rove.
shortstop
@dedc79: Who was that guy (Welsh name, too lazy to look it up) who played Henry so badly in The Tudors? I used to sit and loudly chortle at the screen when I wasn’t having significantly impure thoughts about Henry Cavill.
shortstop
@beltane: I’m not asking for a likable character. I don’t find Lewis a particularly believable or nuanced actor in, well, anything.
@SarahT: Bwa! I never thought of that!
Debbie
@beltane:
I wasn’t impressed by Damien Lewis until this week. When he lunged forward hissing at Anne, I swear he was the alien in Alien.
beltane
@Debbie: He became much more interesting after his head injury.
shortstop
@Debbie: Hmmmm, now I’m intrigued!
lamh36
Heads up anyone in Baltimore area:
SarahT
@shortstop: Jonathan Rhys-Meyers
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
He was also personally responsible for having at least six Protestants burned at the stake while he was chancellor:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More#Campaign_against_the_Reformation
Somehow that part got left out of “A Man For All Seasons.”
beltane
Another interesting factoid is that the Tudors are long extinct, but the Duke of Norfolk is still a Howard and a direct male descendant of Lord “I’ll bite his bollocks off”.
Hawes
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Mark Rylance is phenomenal. He’s the picture of emotional restraint. You can smell the wood burning as he’s thinking. The merest eyebrow twitch is the emotional equivalent of an Al Pacino scene-eating rant.
gogol's wife
@shortstop:
He’s not working for me. Everyone else is superb, so it’s sort of glaring. If only it were Nathaniel Parker (he’s doing it on stage).
Mark Rylance is my new crush.
beltane
@Mnemosyne (tablet): I will console myself with the knowledge that these immolated heretics were the spiritual ancestors of Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz.
gogol's wife
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
We tried to watch A Man for All Seasons when it was on TCM about a year ago, and I found it really boring and pretentious. Wolf Hall is so much better. (But yes, Robert Shaw was good.)
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@beltane:
Tudor descent through the female line was more successful — James I of England was Henry’s grand-nephew via one of Henry’s sisters. I think there are still royal Stuarts hanging around, though they disqualified themselves for the English throne by becoming Catholics.
beltane
@efgoldman: Will he be on the pyre?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Well, you asked why, despite his anti-Protestant proclivities, he is venerated in England. I offered a reason. Thomas Becket couldn’t hold a candle to Henry II as far as accomplishments go and was kind of a douche-canoe to boot, but he is the one who gets the good publicity. More and Becket had good PR teams.
gogol's wife
@Omnes Omnibus:
As Cromwell said, he’s writing this all down and giving himself all the best lines, or something to that effect. Those scenes between him and Anton Lesser were fantastic.
srv
Congress passes a budget for the future of America and all you can talk about is some TV show.
Omnes Omnibus
@beltane: Just as those burning them are the spiritual ancestors of Rick Santorum and Tony Scalia. Fair is fair, right?
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think that if Anne Boleyn had successfully borne a son who became king, Thomas More would have long since been forgotten except by Catholics. Part of the glee of his story is that she followed him to the block only about a year or so later.
beltane
@Omnes Omnibus: This is why we should never fail to venerate the First Amendment. It’s all well and good for people to be religious nuts, but they should not be allowed to have state backing for their nuttiness.
gogol's wife
@raven:
And what about Mr. Selfridge? (Just kidding, this season is terrible.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Utopia would have kept his name alive in political philosophy circles.
schrodinger's cat
So what’s the final count? How many people were beheaded during Henry’s reign?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: I admit one of the reasons I was prone to cheer for Cromwell while reading Wolf Hall was The Thomas More Society. Not quite fair, I know.
Y’all know about Scalia’s hat, no?
Omnes Omnibus
@beltane: It was also a brutal and bloody time in politics. Look at Renaissance Italy where religious differences didn’t really color the issues.
PurpleGirl
@efgoldman: Saw Becket way back in high school. Read Anouilh’s Becket or the Honor of God and used it for a book report. Teacher’s were impressed with my range of reading back then.
gogol's wife
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I do love that Holbein portrait, it’s in the Frick.
trollhattan
Just got off the phone with
Elon MuskSolar City. Need to find out how to use these 300 sunny days/year to my advantage, especially since the hydropower component of California’s electricity portfolio won’t fill a thimble.“Ah wunt me some o’ them thar solar thingies on mah ruuf.”
ETA Holy sheepshit, she already sent a proposal. Dayumn, is this the Tesla experience?
shortstop
@srv: it’s even worse than that. We’re objectively pro-drone and we all secretly back TPP.
beltane
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, Scalia is an inferior example of the wingnut martyrdom complex. We’ve gone from actual beheadings for one’s beliefs to “The Kenyan’s inauguration is worse than being beheaded.”
Origuy
@Mnemosyne (tablet): The current bunch of royals trace their connection to the Tudors through Sophie of Hanover, granddaughter of James the VI and I. The head of the Stuarts is the Duke of Bavaria.
shortstop
@gogol’s wife: Is it? I didn’t know that! Will seek it out.
And sheepish smacks at the Thomas More Society are totally defensible, under the circs.
gogol's wife
@gogol’s wife:
And I always thought it looked like Laurence Olivier. Not much like Anton Lesser.
gogol's wife
@shortstop:
Yes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Sir_Thomas_More_%28Holbein%29
And check out the Comtesse d’Haussonville while you’re at it.
http://collections.frick.org/view/objects/asitem/items$0040:105
shortstop
@beltane: They’re trying to bring it all home, though, with “Gheys getting married = my religious persecution.” All signs point to them actually believing this.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Whenever I find myself in one of the wealthy little churches in a historically Catholic country and I see the gold and silver everywhere and the reverence for relics, I sympathize with what my Protestant ancestors were trying to do.
Brachiator
@raven: RE: Call the Midwife. I liked the episode where the midwives delivered the Duchess of Cambridge’s baby. Oh, wait…
trollhattan
In my estimation HBO is barely earning their ever-increasing monthly tribute, but the current runs of “Veep” and “Silicon Valley” are absolutely slaying me. So. Damn. Funny,
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
I’m actually quite fond of Man for All Seasons, Though I admit I haven’t seen it in many years. And I adore Becket. Have possibly mentioned here that every now and then I watch Becket and The Lion in Winter back to back for the joy of seeing Peter O’Toole play Henry II as a young man and a senior.
That’s funny. They were about 350 years apart :-) I guess I keep track of them because I’ve been an English history buff most of my life, but there are other histories where I feel pretty good about myself if I come within half a millenium of guessing the right timeframe.
shortstop
@trollhattan Veep is absolutely delicious. A tremendous ensemble cast.
gogol's wife
@SiubhanDuinne:
But the films are only two years apart, and they’re of a similar ilk. I can see mixing them up in that sense.
beltane
@shortstop: If they didn’t vote they would be extremely funny.
SiubhanDuinne
@gogol’s wife:
I love it too, but I don’t remember ever seeing it in the Frick (not that I’ve been there for donkey’s years). But if I had had to guess, I would have thought it was in the (British, not American) National Portrait Gallery.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: I have never been a fan of More. I was primed to like Mantel’s portrayal of him, but these lines from Man for All Seasons are wonderful – Atticus Finch wonderful:
That aspect of More – the willingness to accept that the dictates of his conscience do not overrule the law of the land – is admirable. Actually, it is at the heart of civil disobedience.
SiubhanDuinne
@gogol’s wife:
Yes, that makes sense. Hadn’t remembered when they came out.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@trollhattan:
Once I figured out that Erlich is supposed to be an arrogant, annoying blowhard, I liked “Silicon Valley” a lot more. Most shows would try to make him an adorable manchild, but Judge was smart enough to realize that Erlich works better if he occasionally (or even frequently) grates on the audience.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Bolt was a wonderful writer.
shortstop
@beltane: Yes, the way they unfailingly peel themselves off the cross to get to the polls is a bummer.
SiubhanDuinne
Completely O/T: Just caught a glimpse of Bobby Cox, and I swear to god he looks exactly like Andy Griffith.
Peter VE
@beltane: “I have been bothered by the idea that some Hilary Mantel of the distant future will write a historical novel about the career of Karl Rove.” word
Brachiator
@gogol’s wife: Robert Shaw was a tremendous actor. I ended up watching part of a James Bond marathon yesterday and made it a point to catch Shaw’s cool, steely assassin in “From Russia, With Love.” The fight to the death between Shaw and Connery’s 007 in a confined train compartment is still is one of the best action sequences ever put on film.
And I am loving Wolf Hall. I’ve heard mixed reviews of the stage production, but would love to see it.
Debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Mary Tudor surely was one of the bloodiest.
Howard Beale IV
@trollhattan:
And what about LasT Week Tonight?
Omnes Omnibus
@Peter VE: By all accounts, Cromwell was actually a Protestant at heart (so he was acting on his sincere beliefs) and he was a competent administrator (say no more); any comparison between Cromwell and Rove is deeply (profusely, stridently) insulting to the guy whose body rather than his soul is dead.
@Debbie: Indeed. But her little brother was no picnic either. Fanatic assholes, the both of them.
trollhattan
@Howard Beale IV:
Oliver has done something special, in extending the TDS model to fit an uninterrupted 30-minute time slot with one in-depth feature per week. And he and his writers are really good at drilling down to the substance layer of the story.
If only the “actual” news people understood that they should be doing the same, only sans humour (which should make it a lot easier).
beltane
@Debbie: Mary Tudor has always come across as a miserable, bitter human being possessing the worst qualities of both parents.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@SiubhanDuinne:
Henry would not quite have been a senior when “The Lion in Winter” took place — remember, he was nearly 20 years younger than Eleanor when they got married. More like middle-aged to Eleanor’s senior.
Little Boots
@Debbie:
not sure she was. it’s weird to say, but you could say it was a world filled with homicidal religious maniacs.
I think she was fairly typical, but later Protestant historians decided to make her the crazy one.
Omnes Omnibus
@Debbie: @Omnes Omnibus: Then there is the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. . But then “Paris is worth a mass.”
Fair Economist
@beltane:
Reasonable, since he was an awful man. He executed far more people for no good reason than “Bloody” Mary did (not that she was a nice person either, just not as bad as he was).
Omnes Omnibus
@Fair Economist:
Link? Also, please define “no good reason.” Not denying he was a tyrant.
Mary G
I wasn’t going to watch it, because I loved the books and was afraid it wouldn’t be as good, but I watched the first episode when it came out and then this weekend I watched eps 2-4 and I loved them. Thanks to you all raving about it.
beltane
@Little Boots: She was gratuitously harsh towards her half-sister and her choice of husband was arguably not in England’s best interest. In an age of fanaticism, she was still more myopic than most.
Little Boots
@Fair Economist:
and the problem was the unpredictability. too catholic, I kill you. too protestant, I kill you. just enough, I kill you as soon as I veer a little more catholic or protestant.
Little Boots
@beltane:
she was myopic, and she hated and feared her protestant half sister, but that was all typical. elizabeth hated and feared all her Tudor relatives too, as threats. and everyone was all for killing anyone of a different religion. it really was the norm.
Debbie
@Mary G:
And how about the music!
Omnes Omnibus
@beltane: And, in her family, she was the dumb, ugly one.
Little Boots
actually, in fairness, I don’t think elizabeth was particularly fanatical, but she was all for killing jesuits, and rounding up priests, as threats to the realm.
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots:
Elizabeth had the sense not to do it. As did Henri IV of France.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
not dumb, ugly, bitter, but not dumb. pampered princess for 18 (?) years then suddenly dad grows a conscience, or at least his dick did. it did suck. not that she had to do what she did, but I can kind of get it.
Tehanu
@Omnes Omnibus:
More was also primarily responsible for the distorted propaganda the Tudors pushed about Richard III, which he promoted by claiming to have been a witness although he was a small child when Richard died. That and the various burnings at the stake he presided over make me very dubious about his “heroic” stature.
beltane
I think it is wonderful that we can come here and argue about events that took place almost half a millennium ago.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
Henri IV was a protestant who took the throne in a very Catholic country, or at least a very Catholic capital. his best move was to pretend to be catholic, and do what he could to damp down the passions.
the french wars of religion were insane, part of that homicidal mania, and they were lucky that fate intervened and put a one-time protestant on the throne. especially one who didn’t actually really give a damn one way or another.
his mother was very much a nutcase of the typical variety, but somehow he wasn’t. which was a lucky break for everybody.
Little Boots
@beltane:
wait til the primaries really get going. til then, this is kind of nice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: Both Edward VI and Elizabeth I were extremely bright and well educated. Mary was not. In her family, she was the dumb one. It is comparative. She never received the education that her siblings did; since Henry ensured that Elizabeth had the best tutors, Mary’s lack of equivalent education likely does not come from the fact that she was a women.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@beltane:
Given how many people wanted to overthrow Mary and put a properly Protestant Queen on the throne starting with Jane Gray, I think it’s hard to claim that Mary was overly paranoid when it came to Elizabeth. When Elizabeth was put into a similar position by her cousin Mary Queen of Scots a decade or so later, that Mary lost her head.
That’s not to say that Mary Tudor was a particularly good queen, but the Protestants really were out to get her. Mary’s problem was that she was convinced that God had preserved her life so she could restore Catholicism to England when England wasn’t interested.
divF
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Cromwell had blood on his hands as well, and was responsible for a far greater number than six executions.
Cromwell’s motive was to prevent a repeat of the civil war over succession to the throne that had roiled England for most of the 15th century, by providing a male heir for Henry. More’s motives were equally patriotic, as he was hoping to prevent civil war over religious differences. In the long term, both failed. England had nearly a century of unrest in the 1600’s over both issues, until the Anglicanism (“soft-shell Catholicism”) and the 1701 Act of Settlement provided a robust compromise solution.
The reason that More is a saint in both the Roman Catholic and Anglican faiths is that, in the words of R.A. Lafferty, “he had one completely honest moment right at the end.” I don’t know that the same can be said for Cromwell.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
not sure where you’re getting that. she got the kind of renaissance education that a lot of girls got since her grandmother, isabella. I don’t think she was stupid or uneducated. bitter as hell, but damn, anne boleyn tried to kill her.
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: As I quoted above, Henri IV said “Paris is worth a mass.” He also issued the Edict of Nantes.
@Tehanu: I’ll echo what I said in a variety of comments above. I am not favorable disposed toward More the person. He seems like a rather priggish shit. Nevertheless, he was England’s star humanist scholar. And he was willing to die for his principles, for whatever that is worth.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
yup, breath of sanity henry iv. most people on both sides disagreed, but good for him.
lamh36
Clip of the Night courtesy of Golden Girls: Anyone who was raised in a house full of siblings, knows how Blanche feels when Rose ate her diet food…lol. Do you remember how you felt when you had food in the fridge and your sister or brother ate it?
https://youtu.be/pRXJgPPgdB4
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@divF:
Even within Mantel’s universe, Cromwell is not portrayed as a saint of any description. He goes from someone who is nauseated by a public execution to someone who orchestrates the execution of men he suspects to be innocent so he can have his own personal revenge on them.
But I do not agree that More’s refusal to recognize the religious authority of the King of England over that of the Pope is particularly meritorious, though that’s probably because I don’t think either one has (or should have) the religious authority to punish people by executing them.
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: I did not say that she was stupid or uneducated. I said that she did not receive the same education that her siblings did. I can offer a variety of sources, but let’s start with Alison Weir’s The Children of Henry VIII. I don’t always agree with her conclusions (I suspect that Buckingham, rather than Richard III, did in Edward IV’s sons), but she is rather sound on facts.
Little Boots
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
courage is courage. it’s impressive. but you are right overall.
and yeah, cromwell is sympathetic, but I don’t think anyone is supposed to see him as saintly.
or anyone else.
Comrade Mary
So Canada’s Texas just voted in a bunch of (soft) socialists. Just thought you should know.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
and that actually makes sense. her mother was deeply conservative, and her siblings might have been exposed to more ideas. but ignorance was not her problem.
certainly edward and elizabeth were highly intelligent, and highly educated.
Mike E
According to the wiki:
Kinda reminds one of a recent “reign”, yes?
Little Boots
More’s an Anglican saint? that’s interesting.
Emma
@Omnes Omnibus: Steal it?
Some of you are talking like the big bad Catholics were beating up on the poor good Protestants. Elizabeth herself had to put down her foot on the Protestant version of the auto-da-fes. Everyone was playing religious hardball. It was THE thing that put me off established religion.
Thor Heyerdahl
@Comrade Mary: The myth of the “conservative heartland” is dead?
Never woulda thought I’d see Alberta go from Conservative to New Democrat
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
IIRC (probably from one of Weir’s books), Mary’s education focused more on Roman/Latin writers, while Elizabeth and Edward focused on the newly-fashionable Greeks, which created something of a generation gap when it came to their respective educations.
max
@Emma: Some of you are talking like the bad Catholics were beating up on the poor good Protestants. Elizabeth herself had to put down her foot on the Protestant version of the auto-da-fes.
The bad Catholics did beat up on the poor good Protestants. Then the bad Protestants beat up on the poor good Catholics. That’s the way religious wars work.
max
[‘Will no one speak for the poor Albigensians?’]
Doug R
@Comrade Mary: YEE HAW (eh).
Little Boots
@max:
or the Anabaptists, which, no.
yeah, everyone liked the killing.
yodecat
@dedc79: TV will always pale to books. If one is a reader.
Having spent much of my ill-used life making TV commercials I can say, with no reservation, that a good commercial is like a haku. I only got to make a few good ones. Most ad agencies are hacks.The several spots that I got to produce won awards. They were credited to the ad agencies. (I coulda been a contendah!) Heh.
So, when a good TV production shows up, treasure it. They are rare: it’s relatively infrequently that a good 30 second spot is produced. It’s very rare when a short story is good on screen (Blade Runner was derived from a novella). A novel? Impossible unless it’s a mini-series.
The problem is that a television production is much less dense than written material. And much more expensive for quality.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Emma:
It went back and forth, and more than a few people who were burned as “witches” in Reformation England were probably recusant Catholics. But the really enthusiastic persecutions of Catholics were mostly in German-speaking duchies, not as much in England. And, as others have pointed out, Mary Tudor’s anti-Protestant activities paled in comparison to those in France.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Comrade Mary: @Thor Heyerdahl: Will this have any impact on the tar sands/Keystone?
divF
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
More’s Utopia has religious tolerance as a central component of his ideal world, so there is some evidence that he had personal sympathy for that point of view. At the time he was responsible for the executions, Henry had been declared “Defender of the Faith” by the Pope, and the line between heresy and treason was fuzzy at best. In any case, accepting death for being unwilling to renounce his own religious beliefs shows some level of integrity, whatever his other faults.
Little Boots
@yodecat:
it is hard. I Claudius was great, both books and tv. Wolf Hall is doing a good job, overall. there’s others, can’t remember, but there are definitely times when TV or movies actually are an improvement.
Little Boots
@divF:
agree about the courage, but he liked the burning of heretics too. it is interesting that he imagined a world where that didn’t happen, but when it came down to it, he was all about the burning like so many.
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: I have seen family dynamics where someone is the “dumb, ugly one;” it can be unpleasant. My mom and her siblings. Mom had an older brother who was an only son and extremely bright and athletic but spoiled. Then there was Mom, who was pretty, popular, and very bright. Then came the youngest…. she wasn’t pretty, athletic, popular, or more than above average in school. She’s always been a bit bitter. OTOH, she has never been anything but good and generous with with me.
@Emma:
The Protestants were trying to reform and purify the Church. I can have sympathy for what they were trying to do without signing on to what they actually did. The Catholic Church was corrupt. The Protestant movement, like any revolution, went gaga. It’s happened before; it’ll happen again. Nevertheless, I’ll admit that my sympathies are with the Protestants. I also side with Henry II over Becket, John over the Pope, and generally the state over the church in most of the Medieval controversies.
divF
@max:
“Kill them. For the Lord knows those that are His own.” – Arnaud Amalric, at the sack of Beziers, 1209
Little Boots
@divF:
yup, and we imagine the muslims invented this shit.
but I’m being so cynical.
we do get better. occasionally.
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: Can I offer a saint?
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
that is really interesting. that does happen. I’m not sure that’s the story of Mary, but I can kind of see what you are getting at.
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: It is in there. Dog knows that Henry VIII’s kids had shitloads of trauma that affect their psyches.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
no pulling the music card. you know that always works.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
all of them, no doubt. okay, maybe not edward, but even him. damn, the pressure.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@divF:
I have to confess, I’ve never read “Utopia,” but it seems odd to me that it would be cited as proof of More’s tolerance towards Protestants since it was written before Luther wrote his 95 Theses — at least according to Wikipedia, “Utopia” was published in 1516 and Luther started writing his polemics that eventually led to the Protestant Reformation in 1517. More may have been willing to be religiously tolerant in the abstract, but once an actual threat to the Mother Church appeared in the form of Lutheranism, his tolerance seems to have gone out the window.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think they were trying to invent a purity that never existed. and I disagree with them overall. more paganism is helpful. but I get what they were about. and they did have courage, I will admit that.
but overall, I’m just out of sympathy with the whole Protestant thing.
Does it all come down to ancestry? maybe it does.
max
@Little Boots: yeah, everyone liked the killing.
Yeah. The good people of any religion or creed or nation are at home getting slaughtered, while the bad people on the other side are out being butcherous.
@divF: “Kill them. For the Lord knows those that are His own.” – Arnaud Amalric, at the siege of Beziers, 1209
And so they did.
max
[‘Everybody likes lions eating people, as long as the lions aren’t eating their people.’]
max
Calgary got robbed.
max
[‘That puck was so in.’]
divF
@Omnes Omnibus:
Mine aren’t. Christian evangelicals, Wahabists, and other religious extremists are “reformers” out to purge corruption. Their faith admits no possibility for doubt, and hence has no limits to the ruthlessness and violence it can justify.
Little Boots
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
a great point.
scholarly.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Prom time in…. Colorado
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@divF:
Also, too, I certainly don’t mean to absolve Henry of his actions. In some ways, More’s execution happened because he didn’t like Henry’s new girlfriend, and thought she was a bad (Protestant) influence on him. Henry swung back and forth between Catholic and Protestant poles for the rest of his life and mostly seemed to be Protestant based on the material gains (brides and monastery lands) that he got from it. That’s another reason I never bought into the cult of Thomas More — it always seemed more like a private dispute that spun out of control than a moral stance on either side.
James E Powell
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Eleanor was 11 years older than Henry. The events in The Lion in Winter are fictional, though they resemble a meeting that was held about 15 years after the death of Beckett in 1170.
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots:
You do seem to have approached this from what appeared to me as a Catholic-centric POV. My goggles may have deceived me.
From Benjamin Disraeli:
divF
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Religious deviance predates Luther by a considerable period, particularly in England. The Lollards were a significant religious movement in the 14th and 15th centuries, and were viewed as a threat to the church and the state.
Fair Economist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Henry is estimated to have killed over 57,000 people. Mary killed a few hundred. I was reading a history of the Tudors recently and it was striking how often Henry was executing people. He even executed two of his wives, remember (although the 2nd execution was after actual adultery IIRC).
I’m not sure why people here are calling Mary “stupid”. She managed a coup against Edward VI’s will, which named Jane Grey as his heir, and was the first successful Queen Regnant of England. She was a religious fanatic, but she wasn’t dumb.
Little Boots
for omnes, cause we can argue but still, get to post music, and he might actually like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WU0vuLMAws
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@James E Powell:
Wikipedia says that Eleanor was born in 1137 and Henry was born in 1152. That’s 15 years’ difference.
Omnes Omnibus
@divF: If the discussion is about ruthlessness, where do the Catholic burning of heretics come into play?
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@divF:
Significant, but not a political threat, either to the government or the RCC. I think it was the political threat of Lutheranism that set More down the path he took.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
a bit. I think a lot of history, both english and american, is really protestant history, but catholics certainly committed a lot of what sane people these days would call crimes against humanity. it was a brutal age.
Brachiator
@yodecat: Every genre has its strengths and produces masterpieces. And the new forms are typically derided as being lesser than earlier traditions. The movie Blade Runner is superior to its novella antecedent. Maltese Falcon? Great novel, great film. And there are original works for television that stand up well against any work in any other genre.
And genres and traditions get flabby, and worn out. Critics used to wonder who might write the next Great American Novel. Now, no one much cares.
Omnes Omnibus
@Fair Economist: Thank you for the link.
Since I am one of the people who called Mary the “dumb, ugly” one. I’ll note again that compared to her siblings, she was.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
in the same place as protestant burnings. and I think actually, the witch burnings are the thing that really marks that age, for insane, homicidal, mania. and everyone loved the witch burnings.
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots:
It was indeed. And judgments about an individual’s brutality need to be calibrated against the standards of the time.
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: Witches tended to be hanged. I have a few ancestors involved in such things.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
and that is a big question.
everyone was allegedly christian, and pretty much nobody was in a sense we’d recognize. it’s a little weird.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
in this country, and what? you have witch ancestors? actually, that’s pretty cool.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
That’s incorrect. She was born at least a decade before that, probably more.
And Henry was born in 1133, without a doubt.
Anyhow, have a good evening and a better tomorrow!
srv
new thread
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus: Sorry, are you saying that Elizabeth did not have people killed in the name of religion? I’m just popping in again and have not read all the recent comments in this thread.
I’m looking at an engraving of a Jesuit priest being put on the rack in 1581, later to be hanged, drawn and quartered. The related article claims that around 130 priests were executed for treason during Elizabeth’s reign.
James E Powell
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Don’t know where wikipedia got those years, but they are both wrong.
Henry & Eleanor got married in 1152; Henry became King of England in 1154.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Cervantes:
I’m going by the dates I found online. You are welcome to present other sources, if you like.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Brachiator:
That’s tricky, though, because the Jesuits were sent to England with the avowed purpose of overthrowing Elizabeth so a Catholic sovereign (usually Mary Queen of Scots) could be established in her place. So did executing them count as a religious execution because they were Catholic priests, or a treason execution since they were actively plotting to overthrow her?
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: Salem. John Proctor and Abigail Faulkner of the convicted. I am also descended from accusers and judges.* Plus, also too, a convicted witch near Hartford, CT, in the 1660’s.
*With Salem, if you are related to one of early people, you are related to damned near all of them – if only as some form of cousin.
divF
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
I was responding to why religious tolerance was an issue in Utopia – it had been an issue for more than a century in England. in 1410, the Lollard John Badby was first person to be burned at the stake in England for heresy and treason. Lollardy was Protestant in religion and politically populist, and hence viewed as a threat to both church and state. Protestantism was not a particularly popular movement in England at the outset*, and probably would not have gotten any traction had it not been for England’s succession problems. Even so, of all the Protestant sects Anglicanism is still the closest to Roman Catholicism in both doctrine and ritual.
(Sorry for the rants, but I just downloaded Gardiner’s “A Student’s History of England” onto my iPhone and have been reading it straight through – so much of this is fresh in my memory.)
*ETA: Outset = up through the time of Luther’s 95 theses.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
again, kind of cool.
okay, I know how rational you are, but …. any weird stories?
Cckids
@Omnes Omnibus:
And strangely, given Scalia’s supposed reverence for More & his values, on this subject, Scalia would & does take the exact opposite view that More did.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: No, what I was saying was that she was perfectly willing to tolerate a wide variety of belief as long as the people conformed to certain practices.
Were those priests executed for being Catholic? Or for working to overthrow a Protestant monarchy?
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
could have been a combination? maybe.
divF
@Omnes Omnibus:
From what I’ve read, the latter. Elizabeth was worried about the efforts of Spain to overthrow her, and with good reason.
Omnes Omnibus
@divF: Well, no shit.
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
Trick questions! When Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth, he also made it an act of faith for all Catholics to rebel against her. The answer to both your questions is yes.
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
You’ll figure it out, I’m sure.
As I tried to say before, I’m off to bed now — and this time I mean it!
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots:
No, but my grandmother could make pie crusts that one would kill for.
Seriously though, the family moved from Salem to Concord and from there to western NY and then Wisconsin.
Fair Economist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well – that might be true. All three of them were quite impressive, actually. Edward was a capably ruling king by his early teens, although unfortunately he was as much of a fanatic as Mary, just in the opposite direction. And of course we all know about Elizabeth.
divF
@Omnes Omnibus: Sorry, I should go to bed too, when I can’t recognize a rhetorical question.
Omnes Omnibus
@divF: I usually miss them pre-coffee, but I get it. Sleep well.
AlanM
@brachiator
However Jesuits infiltrated into England from the continent were not killed in the name of religion, they were executed as being a threat to the political state, execution for religious nonconformism was, as far as I’m aware, non-existent. Fines, which varied in severity according to political climate were the norm. It may be true that witchcraft executions seem to have been more common in Elizabethan England in areas where catholic recusancy was more common, but the interest of government and elites in witchcraft was not systematic or profound, unlike some parts of continental Europe.
Adherence to one of the principal arms of the counter-reformation fully supported by a papacy that called for Elizabeth’s execution was seen,rightly, as a poltical threat. The punishment for treason was the same regardless of religious affiliation.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne (tablet): The article notes, “130 priests executed for religious treason…a further 60 of their lay supporters also put to death. Torture was used more than in any other English reign.”
And plenty of pressure on recusants, including a 1593 law forbidding them to travel beyond 5 miles of their home without a license.
It is unlikely that all of these people were involved in any active conspiracy against the queen.
Another Catholic paid over 7,000 pounds in recusancy penalties. Nice racket.
Obviously, Elizabeth lived in a time when there were threats against her life, but some of the anti- Catholic activities might have been excessive.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: And your point is?
AlanM
@Brachiator:
1593 is post-Armada. post Babington plot. Recusancy fines did get much much stiffer as a result of a perception of greater external threat (very real).
Excessive in the context of Early Modern historical experience, particularly in Continental Europe? Not really.
PurpleGirl
Interesting thread and I was asleep for most of its active time. Just consider how history could have changed if Henry and other kings had known what we know now about how a fetus has its gender determined. It wasn’t Ann Boleyn’s fault she that she a daughter and not sons, Mary’s boy feti may have been allergic agents to Mary and due to be still born or rejected no matter what. So the fault may completely be laid at Henry’s door (or any man for that matter).
bargal20
Yeah, “Wolf Hall”” is good drama…too bad it bears minimal resemblance to history. It’s hardly surprising Protestant England and Puritan USA would take to it so readily.
Emma
@Omnes Omnibus: And yet,not a single piece of Catholic property confiscated by Protestants during the religious wars went to anyone or anything except rich Protestants. Where do you think the moniker “Abbey” after so many great houses came from?
Of course, the reverse applied, too. There were no saints, and the most religious covers were useful for a solid land grab. The majority of the powerful that enlisted under Luther’s banner just wanted to get their hands on non-taxable church lands and diminish the ability of the Church to interfere in state matters.
Am I a cynic? A semi-professional historian at one time. It comes with the territory.
Paul in KY
@beltane: That would make them one of the only ‘old’ houses from the 15th century left.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: Those comments are one of the main reasons Sir Thomas More is still venerated.
Paul in KY
@Fair Economist: His father, Henry VII, also executed his fair share.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: All the best historical evidence points to Richard III giving the order for his nephew’s executions. I think Richard III was a very able & interesting fellow, but I also think he had those boys killed. That was probably his biggest mistake, IMO.
AlanM
The spoils from the dissolution of the monasteries certainly went to favourites of Henry, but it does not mean those who benefited were in any sense recognised as Protestants.Richard Rich, for instance benefited greatly from the dissolution but became an enthusiastic persecutor of Protestants under Mary.
Henry didn’t really want any change in church ceremonial, merely to be recognised as head of the church. Nobody was an open Lutheran while Henry was alive.
Richard Rich, for instance benefited greatly from the dissolution but became an enthusiastic persecutor of Protestants under Mary.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Good morning! I’m awake now, more or less.
It seems that in your tiredness last night — those incorrect dates — you simply mistook reign for lifetime.
Not to worry. If I had a nickel for every mistake I’ve made, well, “the tresor of Cresus / And al the gold Octovien / Forth with the richesse Yndien Of Perles and of riche stones / Were al togedre myn at ones.”
And again: I hope you have a better day today (with your family) than you had yesterday.
Harx1
Late to this party (and I’m two episodes behind), but I wanted to throw in another positive word for Mark Rylance. He is phenomenal. I’ve previously only known him as a theater actor (some are calling him the best stage actor of his generation – not me because I haven’t seen all of the stage actors of his generation), and I have been lucky enough to see him in several stage productions in NYC. Personally, I find that actors who are really good on stage can come off as too hot on television, but what I love about Rylance’s performance in Wolf Hall is how restrained and calculating it is.
Also, Call the Midwife is fantastic, as well.
Doug r
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: the new premier says she’s against Enbridge Gateway but interested in the Kinder Morgan expansion and the eastern pipeline .