Two Early Tudor Lives: The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey by George Cavendish; The Life of Sir Thomas More by William Roper

by George Cavendish, William Roper, Richard S. Sylvester (Editor)

Around the year 1557, George Cavendish and William Roper fashioned masterful biographies of two figures who played major roles in the dramatic sequence of events that transformed the face of England. Each author knew his subject intimately;

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Tudor Period

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

1500-1562

English biographer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_...

Reviews

[Becky]

I left this one in the office, so it will have to wait until the government opens again.

[Aurele · Rating 3 out of 5]

William Roper:

The purple prose , sis....

Cavendish:

Liked this one better. It’s interesting that he is, on one hand, trying to vindicate Wolsey but also he is critical of him at times (smth Roper’s hagiography is er... lacking); how this whole thing is didactic and very much about Fortune’s Wheel and all that. Lots of mythology references (Anne Boleyn as Venus, iirc). Important to remember with both of these tho, that they are Marian historiography and thus subject to that... idew to say ‘bias’ because there is bias in everything and true neutrality is a myth, but that influence. Just like we should remember with William Thomas and other Edwardian historiography (Edwardian as in Edward VI. Usually not the kind of Edwardian that is meant but in this case) . Trying for that patronage. It does not behoove them thus to portray KoA as anything less than gracious, just like Foxe and George Wyatt w/ Anne Boleyn during the Elizabethan era.

Also it’s interesting because they have to do such a balancing act in their depiction of Henry VIII. They can’t venerate him but neither can they totally disparage him, so both end up doing some sort of middle ground in which he was not innately bad, just weak, and not really a baddie until Anne swans in on clouds of glitter and dazzles him into sin and schism. Etc.

[B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two interesting texts from a historical standpoint. The style takes some getting used to, especially Roper's. There is a lot of content that is of little interest to someone who isn't studying the period but the prose style and the different cultural outlook is fascinating. It's like reading a book from another world.

Cavendish uses the "Fall of Princes" genre to tell us about Wolsey's life. He draws on a lot of ideas I found familiar after reading Chaucer like Fortune's Wheel and the folly of worldly aspirations. Roper depicts Thomas More as a modern saint, happy to die as a martyr for the sake of a unified Church and the ideals of the impartial Law. The pomp of Wolsey's ostentatious state rituals is contrasted by Roper I in depicting More'senial and eschewal of worldly riches.

The works aren't literary masterpieces but they do provide an insight into the culture of the time and they are occasionally funny (mostly unintentionally):

"The Bishop of Carlisle, being with him in his barge, said unto him, wiping the sweat from his face, "Sir," quod he, "it is a hot day". "Yea," quod my Lord Cardinal, "if ye had been as well chafed as I have been within this hour, ye would say it were very hot".

And there a few bad-ass moments, like when Wolsey politely rebukes Henry VIII:

"I pray you show his majesty from me that I most humbly desire his Highness to call to his most gracious remembrance that there is both heaven and hell."