A virtuous historian

A.L. Rowse

Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government. Papers and Reviews 19461972

Two Volumes, G. R. Elton (Cambridge University Press £10.80)

Professor Elton is a Good Thing on the academic scene: with his combative energy, his aggressive scholarship inspired by secular commonsense, his sheer enthusiasm, he keeps us alert and on our toes, constantly reminding us of his presence. He has now brought together a mass of his serious studies, along with reviews. Those modest men of genius, Gibbon and Maitland, had their miscellaneous papers collected for them after their deaths; not so the Professor.

I, for one, am glad that he did not wait; though I think it was a mistake, in these hard times, to produce two volumes where one would have done. Besides, it could have been better organised: two excellent papers in volume one on Thomas Cromwell, then one has to look in volume two for an illuminating third on his political creed. The proper thing would have been to concentrate, and i mere Forewords to paperbacks, like t! not very good ones on Creighton's Wolsey and Queen Elizabeth. The most original essays are the two on Sir Thomas More as Councillor and as involved in the opposition to Henry VIII. These present a rather different More — an altogether fuller and more comprehensible one — than that with which the general p iblic is familiar. Even apart from the hagiographers, there is the sentimentalist like R. W. Chambers, no historian but an Eng. Lit, man, devoting most of their books to the last phase in the Tower. Actually More spent twelve years, one-third of his adult life in Henry VIII's service, for the most part as a kind of secretary and intellec" tual ornament, if not companion. He was quite well rewarded, and "there really is n° evidence at all that he lived twelve year against the grain." With the growth uf Protestant opinions he found a vocation as controversialist and persecutor. Professor Elton tells us that in controversy he was "petulant and fierce," that he outdid Tyndale ant' others in offensiveness and "at no time troubled himself about such things as scholarly caution, chivalrous moderation, nr,, even elementary truthfulness." Really! but fear, sadly, that the Professor is right. a persecutor More was relentless, an,cl' regarded Wolsey's tolerance — one of h'is endearing qualities — as almost criminal' More had a sarcastic edge to his tongue — the Professor sympathises with poor Dame Alice' the mere woman's point of view, as I have always done. More was completely the Bishops' man in the gathering clerical Cl position to Henry, which Cromwell 010manoeuvred and defeated. It was Henry who, though Catholic enough in his theologY, was anti-clerical in action — that struck 1%/1°1! down. It is ironical to think that, as with Ann' Boleyn, Henry's affection turned to hatred: ill; ego had been wounded and he felt betrayen Cromwell was more merciful, again ironicallY. to More than to poor Anne. Until Professor Elton came to us front Central Europe to put us right, Thornas Cromwell was the most mis-estimated statesman in our history. There Elton effected a, revolution — rather than with his youthfn" over-enthusiastic views of an administrative

'revolution — and I am in agreement with his

view of Cromwell as a statesman, if not wholly as a man. (His behaviour about poor Anne Boleyn was not precisely chic, but neither was anybody else's, and he was utterly the King's servant, there to serve his purPoses.) ,We have heard more than enough now about Cromwell as administrator, the account of his Decline and Fall is far more riveting Ind, as with More, convincing: the Professor

"as got the dog by the tail. Striking down his ablest servant was one of the worst things

„11,enrY ever did — all the same it was popular.

L-'ton says that Henry "never, in fact, went Counter to the inclinations of the people on

Whom his power rested." In other words, HenrY was an able politician; and this contradicts Professor Scarisbrick's rather silly view of Henry, as "fundamentally not very ,e'prnpetent," which Elton agrees with earlier in his review of him. Nor is his view of Wolsey — another much underrated man — any more compelling. It is

surely rather humourless (not much evidence a sense of humour anywhere) to treat wolsey, in control of government for nearly twenty years, as an 'amateur'! Nor is there

isanY imaginative perception — though we save evidence — of the difficulties the great ardinal encountered in Henry's juvenile arnbitions for caracolling in France. Elton sees that Wolsey managed to 'satisfy' Henry — an absolute condition of retaining power — till towards the end; when he failed, he was thrown to the wolves, like Anne and Cromwell. This is politics.

,A Part from politics there is no appreciation , other aspects of these great men's lives. poth Wolsey and Henry were splendid

°udders: their works remain, Hampton Court and Christ Church and Trinity, when their Politics are but dust. Wolsey was a collector, cultural patron, Henry's Court depicted, hirnMortally by Holbein. The works of men's "ands, the productions of artistic genius, rrnain when all their silly statutes are, or snould be, forgotten. , I am always campaigning for historians to 'Pen their eyes, develop more visual sense, i ti nderstand the past through the real relics of t that remain about us — not even much :ubtlety of sense of character here. By the e token I constantly urge more artistry in vineir books, less academicism, apparently in ,i..in. A simple point to observe is that, when t e

own. building is up, the scaffolding should come d

Here it gets continually in the way: the historiography is all mixed up with the his 19,1y. The professor cannot let a point go: it is

.!'e a dog with a bone. Professor Mackie ,could not free himself from an outdated

_LraMework"; "Mr Cooper would have done .7, ell to heed a hint in my earlier article ..."; Vi if the point at issue were only Mr Cooper's tiew of my methods and scholarship — or, for tha.t matter, my view of his ..." This kind of ailing becomes a nervous tic, one understands too well its psychological origins; Luoreover, it is Germanic pedantry rather than 1Tces5ary to scholarship. "Dr Hurstfield's ‘138s, on this passage really will not do." " n roressor Hexter should know that even vs of the products of American university Psresses," and so on. "The Abbe Constant, rnmarising (as was his wont) other people's ■ ;rws in language free from other people's servations ..." "Mr Cooper's gibe convicts of over-conciseness." "Mr Zeefeld is ipled into supposing ..." Even the great ,aitiand cops it: "for the demolition of his "Ournent, cf, my remarks above." Mr Cooper egain: "the reader may judge whether a a. rge of making heavy weather applies more Lh"itably to my six lines or to Mr Cooper's r., a-Page ..." Poor Mr Cooper! ofLoMic enough in its way — everybody out t„ step but our Johnny — it gives an unfor"nate impression of the writer.

We all have the defects of our qualities. Though the professor has little perception of character and no sense of art or aesthetic taste, he is excellent about the germination of statutes and constitutional minutiae, for people who like that sort of thing. They should have been left in the decent obscurity of the specialist periodicals in which they appeared, the forewords, reviews and academic quarrels left out. Then we should have had a viable one volume, which I should be the first to hail and appreciate.