T
HOMAS
W
YATT
Thomas Wyatt, poet, courtier and ambassador, is arguably one of the most important voices of the English Renaissance, whose poetry marked the beginning of the sonnet tradition in England.
Born in 1503 in Kent, Wyatt was the son of a war hero – Sir Henry Wyatt had been an early supporter of Henry Tudor, and was held prisoner by Richard III and presumably tortured. Their family crest proudly featured a ‘barnacle’, an instrument of torture used during his imprisonment. His injuries are still apparent at the time of Wolf Hall:
‘It is forty years, more, since the Tower, but his smashed-up jaw still stiffens and plagues him with pain.’
His son, Thomas Wyatt, followed in his father’s footsteps and worked his way up at court, beginning with his appointment as Clerk of the King’s Jewels. In 1525 he was made Esquire of the Body, and was well placed to be picked as an ambassador for foreign postings. But Wyatt is primarily known for his poetry, and his relationship with Anne Boleyn. Mantel’s Wyatt is somewhat ambiguous when discussing the extent of his relationship with Anne, and while there are many historians who argue there is no evidence that Anne and Wyatt were lovers, several of Wyatt’s poems suggest that he held unrequited feelings for her. Henry never quite took to Wyatt, but his skill as an ambassador was undeniable, so he was often sent on lengthy diplomatic missions to Spain, France and Italy.
In Wolf Hall, Henry Wyatt begs Cromwell to take his son under his wing, and to be a mentor and father figure to him. The real Cromwell was close to Wyatt, an ally and patron, and their relationship would span Cromwell’s life. Cromwell is fond of the young man, often rescuing him from complicated situations, many of which were his own doing. Following Cromwell’s execution Wyatt wrote an eloquent verse that laid bare his grief at losing someone he considered a friend and mentor.
For Mantel’s Wyatt, ‘nothing is ever clear, and no truth a single truth’. It is this Wyatt who plants a seed in Cromwell’s mind, one of many: ‘The worst of it is her hinting, her boasting almost, that she says no to me but yes to others –’ Wyatt thinks nothing of it, but Cromwell files the information away. The real Wyatt, however, remained steadfastly loyal to the Boleyns, with whom he was close.
While Wyatt is best remembered for his poetry – influenced by Italian styles, drawing on various stanza forms and measures – he also wrote several biting satires on life at the Tudor court, portraying courtly life as an empty façade and its participants as lacking moral integrity, intent on enriching themselves and their families, often at the expense of others. Virtue was only a façade, marriage was merely to move up in the world, and it was every man for himself. Wyatt might not be too far off the mark at times, but his was not the only view of the courtier and courtly literature.
What did it take to be the ideal courtier throughout the courts of Europe? It was one of most popular subjects of Renaissance political writing – scholars such as Desiderius Erasmus, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Baldassare Castiglione wrote extensively on the theme.
B
ALDASSARE
C
ASTIGLIONE
Baldassare Castiglione, the count of Casatico, a small town 50 miles (80km) north of Pisa, was an Italian courtier, diplomat, soldier and a prominent Renaissance scholar. His most famous work Il Libro del Cortegiano (The Book of the Courtier), was first published in Italy in 1528. In this he detailed his expert and experienced advice to fellow courtiers like himself and received considerable acclaim. The book was a series of fictional dialogues set in the ducal palace of Urbino, where, over the course of four evenings, the characters engage in a series of debates all focused on a courtier’s life.
Reading Castiglione, it is not difficult not to catch glimpses of Cromwell: the ideal courtier was multi-faceted, at home with a sword and a quill, possessed knowledge of art and literature, and was crucially, ‘of humble birth who, through their virtues, won glory for their descendants’.
Castiglione is mentioned briefly in Wolf Hall, with Henry and Cromwell discussing one of his main themes, the art of sprezzatura, which is:
‘The art of doing everything gracefully and well, without the appearance of effort. A quality princes should cultivate, too.’ He [Henry] adds, rather dubious, ‘King Francis has it.’
Neither the fictional portrayal nor the historical Cromwell seemed to practice sprezzatura – the art of studied carelessness. However, we do know that he owned a copy of Castiglione’s book, and might have been one of the first. Edmund Bonner, a chaplain in Wolsey’s household and future Bishop of London, wrote to Cromwell in 1530, asking to loan ‘the book called Cortegiano in Ytalian’. Bonner also desired to become more Italianicized so his future Italian embassies might be successful, and who better to teach him?
N
ICCOLÒ
M
ACHIAVELLI
Cardinal Reginald Pole was the first to suggest that Cromwell had been influenced by Niccolò Machiavelli, the famed Florentine author, soldier, diplomat and philosopher, whose works, in Pole’s view, bordered on the satanic. Machiavelli makes a minor appearance in Wolf Hall: it is 1527 and we learn that Cromwell:
... has got Niccolò Machiavelli’s book, Principalities. It is a Latin edition, shoddily printed in Naples, which seems to have passed through many hands.
Mantel is suggesting Cromwell’s talents and political acumen – that is deceit, realpolitik and cunning – must be because he had been influenced by Machiavelli’s work. But we have to look at Pole’s accusations which we find in his Apologia Ad Carolum Quintum, written in 1539, where Pole falsifies Cromwell’s rise to power: he armed Cromwell with Machiavellian arguments and guile which misled the king on matters of religion.
Pole wrote that in 1528 he and Cromwell
