{"id":92147,"date":"2015-04-08T00:59:53","date_gmt":"2015-04-08T07:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=92147"},"modified":"2015-04-06T13:13:17","modified_gmt":"2015-04-06T20:13:17","slug":"wolf-hall-look-like-a-lying-piece-of-anti-catholic-agitprop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2015\/04\/wolf-hall-look-like-a-lying-piece-of-anti-catholic-agitprop.html","title":{"rendered":"“Wolf Hall” looks like a lying piece of anti-Catholic agitprop"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

My friend Greg Wolfe does the autopsy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Critics have pointed out that the author\u2019s liberties with the historical record demonstrate a clear ideological bias. [Hilary] Mantel was raised Catholic but is now a vocal critic of that church, which she has\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0\u201cis not an institution for respectable people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Historians debate over \u2018Wolf Hall\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n

Questions about \u201cWolf Hall\u201d have been raised not only by the Catholic faithful but also in the academy. Professor David Starkey, a historian and president of Britain\u2019s National Secular Society, said there is \u201cnot a scrap of evidence\u201d for the narrative and describes the plot as \u201ctotal fiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simon Schama, the respected Jewish historian and veteran television presenter, writes in the\u00a0Financial Times<\/a>\u00a0that while he believes that historical novelists should have some leeway for invention and imagination, Mantel has gone too far.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt grates a bit to accept that millions now think of Thomas Cromwell as a much-maligned, misunderstood pragmatist from the school of hard knocks who got precious little thanks for doing Henry VIII\u2019s dirty work,\u201d Schama\u00a0writes<\/a>. \u201cWhen I was doing research for \u2018A History of Britain,\u2019 the documents shouted to high heaven that Thomas Cromwell was, in fact, a detestably self-serving, bullying monster who perfected state terror in England, cooked the evidence, and extracted confessions by torture.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s not a debate. \u00a0It\u2019s an indictment for fraud dressed up as history. The English Reformation is best described as a revolt of the rich against the poor. \u00a0English history, ever since then, has consisted of sycophants of the rich and the overclass explaining to the lower orders why they were heroes for oppressing them, and telling outrageous lies like this one to ensure the security of their class. \u00a0This is Orwellian history.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My friend Greg Wolfe does the autopsy. Critics have pointed out that the author\u2019s liberties with the historical record demonstrate a clear ideological bias. [Hilary] Mantel was raised Catholic but is now a vocal critic of that church, which she has\u00a0said\u00a0\u201cis not an institution for respectable people.\u201d Historians debate over \u2018Wolf Hall\u2019 Questions about \u201cWolf […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[390],"class_list":["post-92147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lies-and-the-lying-liars-who-tell-them"],"yoast_head":"\n"Wolf Hall" looks like a lying piece of anti-Catholic agitprop<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My friend Greg Wolfe does the autopsy. 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