escapism and the politics of the past

WARNING: May contain spoiler! (Depending on your point of view, that is. I discuss an old conspiracy theory that does figure in the plot of an excellent book. If you haven’t read it, I hope this post encourages you to do so!)
I’m back from Seattle, where I had the honor of being a groomsman at Dennis’s wedding. (I actually read from Homer; what a kick that was!)
It was nice to have a break from politics, and for several days I barely got online. Instead of reading online analyses of contemporary events, as part of my little bout of “escapism” I drifted back into time, reading the third novel in the Matthew Shardlake series; Sovereign. If ever there was a book to be judged by its cover, it’s this one:

Great cover; great book!
By most standards, Henry VIII was a cruel and tyrannical monarch. Even though his times were cruel, he more than lived up to the cruelty of his times.
At least, I think most reasonable people would consider the slow disemboweling of political opponents to be cruel. Plus hanging people in chains, boiling them alive, and the routine burnings at the stake, mutilation and torture that constituted justice at the time. And even if you’re one of those anti-social types who prefers animals to people, Henry loved nothing more than watching captive bears and trained dogs tear each other to pieces in the ring (as did his daughter Elizabeth). But again, such an attitude was not unique to the monarchy; animal torture was conventional popular entertainment. (BTW, the Puritans took a dim view of animal sports, not because of the cruelty to the animals, but because they disapproved of human entertainments!)
I suspect that if you could travel back in time, whether Henry would have been considered cruel would depend on the political sympathies of whomever you asked. Those in the so-called “Papist” faction would have doubtless screamed about what a murderous, torturing bastard the heretic king was. But given their turn, the only thing that would change was the religious convictions of their victims. That each side considered the other to be heretical and treasonous virtually guaranteed that in the holding of power, torturing and killing was a feature and not a bug.
Is that moral relativism? Had Henry been overthrown, his enemies would doubtless have engaged in retributory torture and killing; hundreds of Protestants were in fact burnt at the stake during the reign of his (Catholic) daughter Mary.
Anyway, in the course of my summer reading, an interesting tidbit I stumbled upon was a medieval conspiracy theory (recently reemerged as a modern conspiracy theory, BTW) which holds that Henry VIII was not the legitimate heir to the throne, because his grandfather Edward IV was the bastard son of a Kentish archer instead of the legitimate son of Richard the Duke of York (also father of Richard III, who along with his supporters advanced the illegitimate birth claim).

Prior to his succession, on 22 June 1483, Richard III declared that Edward was illegitimate, and three days later the matter was addressed by parliament. In Titulus Regius (the text of which is believed to come word-for-word from the petition presented by Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham to the assembly which met on June 25, 1483, to decide on the future of the monarchy), Richard III is described as “the undoubted son and heir” of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and “born in this land” — an oblique reference to his brother’s birth at Rouen and baptism in circumstances which could have been considered questionable. Dominic Mancini says that Cecily Neville, mother of both Edward IV and Richard III, was herself the basis for the story: when she found out about Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, in 1464, “Proud Cis” flew into a rage. Mancini reported that the Duchess, in her anger, offered to declare him a bastard. However, this is not supported in contemporary sources, but is most likely reflective of contemporary opinion. According to Polydore Vergil, Duchess Cecily, “being falsely accused of adultery, complained afterwards in sundry places to right many noble men, whereof some yet live, of that great injury which her son Richard had done her.” If she had indeed complained — as would befit a high-ranking lady of renowned piety, as she had been regarded — these petitions may have had some effect: the allegations were dropped and never again pursued. Richard III’s claim to the throne is generally believed to be based upon his claim that Edward IV’s children were illegitimate.

This touches on the still-unsettled double murder of the famous “Princes in the Tower,” which will be argued from now till Doomsday. (My personal opinion is that the clever schemer Henry VII was somehow behind it, as his claim to the throne was even shakier than Richard’s, and had the boys lived, he’d have never been King. But we’ll never know.)
Anyway, as I was reading, it occurred to me how quaint and silly the medieval obsession with birth and bastardy was.
And what a relief from modern politics! We are much too sophisticated to worry and obsess over conspiracy theories involving the birth details of our leaders. Or potential leaders. Medieval thinking belongs in the past! Today, we judge people on the basis of their political views and the legitimacy of their ideas, not their genealogy, or the legitimacy of their children.
So much for my escapism.