I've only just come across this thread. May I refer back to the original post concerning the Huffington Post article and Mantel?
To my mind, it's clear that when praising the 'historical accuracy' of the TV adaptation of 'Wolf Hall' Mantel, Lucy Worsley et al are talking about the accuracy of the production values, the settings, the costumes, the furniture, the way of eating etc. etc. In other words the look and overall atmosphere of the piece. So, you don't have Cromwell using a knife and fork; he drinks from a style of goblet perfectly in keeping with Tudor England; he, and others, adopt the well-documented habit of placing a napkin over their left shoulder on which to wipe their fingers while eating. At night interiors are dark and not well lit. It's that level of accuracy, that determination to exclude anything anachronistic, or not 'of the time' and recreate the look and feel of life in Tudor England which is being praised.
Mantel's historian critics have, mistakenly, interpreted her praise of the historical accuracy of the production values as a claim that her interpretation and depiction of characters and events is equally accurate. In truth, no one knows what Thomas More was like as a person, how he spoke, how he related to others, what was his temperament and normal manner. His writings and contemporary historical sources give us some idea of his actions and beliefs, but no real insight into his personality, no clear picture of the man himself. The same applies to every character and, of course, what cannot be found through historical research may and, especially in the case of historical fiction, needs to be imagined and created.
Historians do this themselves, especially 'popular' historians. They interpret, which is another word for imagine. A historian will say, for example, that More's refusal to take the oath of supremacy of the Crown in the relationship between the kingdom and the church in England illustrates his willingness to risk his life in support of his beliefs. Noble, but they don't know, for a fact, what motivated More's actions. No one can. It could have been nobility of purpose, but equally, it could have been stubbornness, hubris, a refusal to believe that the King would, in fact, condemn him. It could have been a form of suicide. I don't know. No one really does, but it's that lack of accurate knowledge which makes it more than legitimate for an author to imagine and interpret as he/she sees fit.
Mantel did not set out to write a definitive history of the period, or an authoritative biography of Thomas Cromwell, to which future scholars and historians could refer for historical fact. She wrote a novel, a piece of creative fiction. Hence, she had and used the freedom granted by fiction to imagine that which historical research does not and cannot provide, to include, or omit events, to collapse, or accelerate timelines, to imagine how characters behaved and interacted on a personal level. Every historical novelist who includes a real figure in his/her work does the same.
Bernard Cornwell once said that in historical fiction there are two stories: 'the big story and the little story'. The big story is the history, the known, or perceived sequence of events, the recorded facts, and one changes those at one's peril. The little story is the imagined, or invented narrative which takes place within the big story. I believe Mantel was immensely courageous in, actually, not bothering with a little story, but in applying her imagination and creativity solely to the big story.
I believe 'Wolf Hall' to be a work of genius, but it is not history. In the future, it will be studied and analysed in English Literature classes, not in History lessons.
