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Diarmaid MacCulloch, emeritus professor of the history of the church at the University of Oxford<\/strong><\/p>\n Eight years ago, Hilary Mantel and I enjoyably mused in BBC History Magazine<\/em> on Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell and Wolf Hall<\/em><\/a>. Since then, her reputation has gone global; now, with shocking suddenness, we have lost her. Had she never turned to history for inspiration, she would still be remembered as a novelist of supreme artistry. Indeed, I first encountered her through one of her contemporary novels, 2005\u2019s Beyond Black<\/em>, and enthusiastically joined the fan club.<\/p>\n Today she may be best known for her studies of Thomas Cromwell and his fatally burdensome service<\/a> to his king \u2013 three novels [2009\u2019s Wolf Hall<\/em>, 2012\u2019s Bring Up the Bodies<\/em> and 2020\u2019s The Mirror & the Light<\/em><\/a>] later transformed into stage and television events of exceptional quality. Yet still I would not describe her as a historical novelist but, rather, a writer whose keen eye could light up any scene, past or present, with rare clarity. No odds whether it was the flyblown landscape of modern west London towards Heathrow, the blood-spattered streets of revolutionary Paris or the dangerous splendour of the early Tudor court.<\/p>\n None of Mantel\u2019s places are \u201creal\u201d: they occupy a parallel universe unsettlingly adjacent to the periods that professional academics toil at recreating from primary sources.<\/p>\n She explored the past for herself with a historian\u2019s eye and a storyteller\u2019s sensibility. So often, she can help historians see what lay inside a character; first reading Wolf Hall<\/em>, I was startled to recognise people whom I had sought along different routes. As I remarked eight years ago, I will always be grateful for her soaring imagination, which reaches parts of the past that historians can\u2019t or shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Owen Emmerson, social and cultural historian and assistant curator at Hever Castle, Kent<\/strong><\/p>\n The sudden death of Booker Prize-winning Hilary Mantel has understandably sent shock waves through the literary and historical world. Although she always proudly identified her art as historical fiction, she was also a colossal figure in the history world in her own right.<\/p>\n Mantel commanded the power to evoke the spirit of a time and place within a matter of just a few precisely crafted sentences. She had the skill to make both the ordinary and extraordinary compelling, paying as much thought to the execrable odours of a tannery endured by the many as she But perhaps one of her most salient gifts to the historical world was to remind us that the way in which we classify historical actors today likely When interviewed in 2015 at Hever Castle, Anne Boleyn<\/a>\u2019s childhood home, Mantel revealed a profound understanding of, and respect for, the complexity of Anne\u2019s character. However, the rich grounding she had gained, rooted in extensive primary source research, did not dissuade Mantel from crafting a narrow and altogether more unlikeable vision of Boleyn as seen through Thomas Cromwell\u2019s eyes. Mantel\u2019s depiction of Thomas More<\/a> was no less controversial, upturning the enduring image of the man of conscience crafted by playwright Robert Bolt in his 1960 work A Man for All Seasons<\/em>.<\/p>\n When the Bishops of Shrewsbury and Plymouth spoke out against the \u201canti-Catholic\u201d portrayal of More following the Bafta-winning BBC adaptation of Wolf Hall<\/em>, Mantel fiercely defended her characterisation. \u201cSadly for the bishops, history isn\u2019t just what you would like it to be,\u201d she quipped.<\/p>\n Mantel was always candid about working beyond the confines of the historical record. Her sphere was the seamless fusion of that which time had saved in the \u201csieve\u201d with the slippery realm of speculation forbidden to the historian. Never afraid of undermining current interpretations of historical actors, her genius was to allow even the most ardent historical adversaries the space for admiration, however reluctantly given.<\/p>\n In her writing, humanity could be found in the most inhumane moments. In one of the most haunting scenes in Bring Up the Bodies<\/em>, Cromwell quietly wills Boleyn \u2013 moments from being cut down by a French swordsman<\/a> \u2013 to lower her arm as she nervously fumbles with her hair. He may have conjured the most wicked, spurious charges to secure her downfall, but Mantel\u2019s Cromwell respected her enough to wish her a clean end.<\/p>\n Suzannah Lipscomb, historian, author and broadcaster and professor emerita at the University of Roehampton<\/strong><\/p>\n There were great historical novelists before Dame Hilary Mantel, including some \u2013 such as Philippa Gregory \u2013 who brought the Tudor world to life. Yet historical fiction remained unfairly associated with cod English, a fixation on bonnets and bodices, and a barely disguised hankering for a reactionary past.Mantel changed that, uniquely elevating the genre.<\/p>\n Hers was not history \u201cminced\u201d (as she put it) into fiction, but instead a kind of alchemy, achieved only by combining the research sensibilities (and efforts) of a historian, the literary lyricism of a great writer, and a rare philosopher\u2019s stone \u2013 a deeply imaginative and caring engagement with the dead.<\/p>\n Her knowledge of the primary sources was profound. Phrases from ambassadorial reports and contemporary chronicles animate her texts; she was convinced that lines given on record were tried off record first. She recognised the difference of the past without othering it: she never condescended to describe how clothing laced nor what a jerkin is. Her characterisations were incisive, brutal, transformative.<\/p>\n But Mantel\u2019s most brilliant intervention was to remind historians, no less than novelists, that our characters did not know how history would turn out. In a last note, she wrote: \u201cWhat makes craft into art is the margin left for contingency, the space made for ambiguity.\u201d She created such space for her characters: the past, in her hands, felt immediate, urgent and uncertain. Reading her, we lived its hopes and horrors, we sensed its complexity and contradictions. Such was the power of this grande dame of fiction: she changed the way in which we think about history.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cMantel commanded the power to evoke the spirit of a time and place within a matter of a few sentences\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n
\u201cMantel\u2019s most brilliant intervention was to remind historians, no less than novelists, that our characters did not know how history would turn out\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n
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