Historical Fiction, Academic History, and Civic Pageantry (c. 1850–c. 1960)

Abstract

Chapter 4, which covers the period from c. 1850 to c. 1960, begins with a genre of representation that came into its own in the nineteenth century: historical fiction. The chapter addresses some of the interpretive challenges that historical fictions present and offers new readings of two early stories about Wolsey, both set in his native Suffolk. The emergence of historical fiction occurred contemporaneously with far-reaching developments in academic historiography. With the publication of copious original documents from the Henrician period came new resources for the study of Wolsey. The chapter explores the work of such historians as James Anthony Froude and J. S. Brewer, alongside the Wolsey biographies of Mandell Creighton (1891), Ethelred Taunton (1902), A. F. Pollard (1929), and Hilaire Belloc (1930). It observes how Victorian historians were often zealous about policing the boundaries of their discipline. Finally, since it is from this period that we have the earliest evidence for the public commemoration of Wolsey, the chapter explores the ways in which the cardinal was remembered in early-twentieth-century civic pageants in Oxford and Ipswich, as well as on the anniversaries of his Oxford foundation, currently known as Christ Church.