Brief note: Margaret Roper: Or, the Chancellor and His Daughter

At the end of Margaret Roper (1874), the Catholic novelist Agnes M. Stewart praises her heroine for her "lovable, gentle, and endearing" qualities, as opposed to the "strong-minded women of our own time, shouting out complaints through the press and on the platform" (272).  Stewart's dual hagiography-masquerading-as-fiction does tend to deal in binaries: not only modern feminism vs. early modern female sanctity, but also early modern female sanctity vs. early modern female rapacity (Queen Katherine, Margaret  and the fictitious Maud Clavering vs. Anne Boleyn and the fictitious Eleanor Thornhill) and the male equivalent (More, William Roper, and Bishop Fisher vs. Henry VIII and several assorted Not So Good Guys).  The dividing line, as one might expect, is Protestantism, here known only as the "new learning."  For some characters, these binaries can ultimately be dissolved through repentance and forgiveness, as in the mutual forgiveness of Ralph Clavering and John Thornhill (the former for Thornhill's attempted abduction of his very pregnant wife, resulting in her death; the latter for Clavering's vengeance, which left Thornhill permanently disfigured and disabled).  This is not the most sophisticated novel I've read in some time, and it has an aggravating habit of primary-document-dumping (what better way to fill up space than to reprint More's original letters in their entirety!), but there are some things of note about it:

1) Like a lot of Victorian Catholic fiction, it is very heavily invested in characters' prophetic abilities, either through foreboding or actual dream visions.  Stewart is coy about the origins of these feelings--do they derive from shrewdness or divine gift? When he becomes Lord Chancellor, More utters "prophetic words" foretelling his own downfall and later suffers from severe "anxiety" (30);  he writes his own "epitaph" as though he were "forecasting the event" (138); he is animated "perchance" by a  "spirit of prophecy" (65); he was "almost endowed with the spirit of prophecy" (192).  Similarly, Clavering rightly has a "painful foreboding of evil" when he comes home after Thornhill's attack (73).  And so on.  Structurally, these moments engage with the dramatic irony attending on any historical fiction: the reader knows what will happen, but here, the characters--whether through political acumen or divine intervention--are not, after all, so in the dark as they would be in a more secular narrative.  (This is not to say that such moments never happen in secular historical fiction--one thinks, of all things, of Abraham Lincoln's prophetic dream in Vidal's Lincoln.)  But these moments also remind the reader of God's divine plotting, only fitfully readable by the human mind.

2) Although there's really more Thomas More than Margaret Roper in this novel (and Stewart has zero skill at delineating character, unfortunately), the narrative nevertheless emphasizes women's role in community-building, whether positive or negative.  Stewart takes the conservative position of recommending women's education in order to refine their maternal, domestic, and charitable skills.   Margaret Roper's education makes her a "virtuous and amiable wife" (32), but it also suits her to authentic devotional practice, resignation to God's will, and enthusiastic good works.  By contrast, the ultimately saintly Maud Clavering, denied this kind of education by her father, must struggle to achieve Margaret's spiritual equanimity, while More's second wife, Alice, with no education at all, is a shrill tightwad and Lady Eleanor, who is one of those women whose "wits ran wild about matters they could ill understand" (23), is a destructive force.  Given the choice between under-educated women and women over-proud of their learning, the novel opts for the former (both Maud and Alice have considerable strength of character, and Alice, while unpleasant, genuinely cares for her stepfamily).  Lady Eleanor and Anne Boleyn, by contrast, actively destabilize the nation by violating domestic space, abandoning their filial duties, expropriating property, and, of course, abandoning the true faith.  Men have most of the agency, but women still do their fair share of wrecking.

3) Again, as is common with Victorian Catholic fiction, the novel undermines the marriage plot (a tendency Maria LaMonaca has discussed at some length).  Although Margaret and Will Roper have a happy marriage, we...don't actually see any others, whether because the marriage was a bad idea (Lady Eleanor's marriage to Sir Arthur Sedley), because one spouse is unpleasant (the Mores), or because somebody interferes with the couple (Thornhill in Clavering's marriage and Anne Boleyn in Katherine's).  As always, the narrative pushes the reader to contemplate the afterlife as the only source of blessed contentment, so that arguably the happiest character is the Mother Superior who dies in prayer just as her convent is about to be dispersed.