"She is a woman of most gentleness, of most humility and buxomness, yea and all good qualities appertaining to nobility she is without comparison as I, this twenty years almost have had the true experiment, so that if I were to marry again, if the marriage might be good, I would surely choose her above all other women."
Henry VIII, preparing the ground for a new wife.
 

"I beseech you, for all the love that hath been between us, let me have justice and right, take of my some pity and compassion, for I am a poor woman and a stranger, born out of your dominion. I have here no assured friend and much less indifferent counsel. I flee to you, as to the head of justice within this realm...

"I take God and all the world to witness that I have been a true, humble and obedient wife, ever comfortable to your will and pleasure...,being always well pleased and contented with all things wherein you had any delight or dalliance, whether it were little or much...This twenty years or more I have been your true wife, and by me ye had had divers children, although it hath pleased God to call them from this world...And when you had me at the first, I take God to be my judge, I was a true maid, without touch of man. And whether this be true or no, I put it to your conscience."

Catherine of Aragon, the lioness. (1)Catherine of Aragon to Henry VIII

Wendy:

There was an important event that happened in Calais, at the end of 1532...?
 

Sir Tom:

You refer to when the King and the Lady Marquess of Pembroke came to Calais for a meeting with François, the King of France?
 

Wendy:

Yes- you knew the Lady Marquess of Pembroke well, did you not?
 

Sir Tom:

Aye. But you know full well who she was, Wendy...
 

Wendy:

Could you please tell my readers...?
 

Sir Tom:

My cousin, Anne Boleyn. Not long after this she became Queen to King Harry. What good that did her I know not...
 

Wendy:

You had an important part to play at her Coronation?
 

Sir Tom:

My father was ill- so I took his part as Ewer to the King. By the time of her coronation, Anne was big-bellied with a girl-child. No one knew that then. All our hopes were for a Prince. I do not believe the King ever forgave Anne for giving him yet another daughter. When he executed her three years later...the grief broke my heart. Not only Anne dead, but also so many of my close friends. You know her last thoughts were of me? She gifted to me her own treasured prayer book...No doubt she wondered if I too would follow her to the execution block. God knows my poor father worried himself ill because he so feared for me. It the Duke of Suffolk had had his way I know my blood would have flowed too that May.

Above we have Henry VIII speaking at his hypocritical best, followed by Catherine of Aragon's impassioned plea to Henry VIII, at Blackfriars, 21st of June, 1529 (the King moving to dissolve their marriage), as well as an excerpt from An Interview with Sir Thomas Wyatt, the Elder, written by a lowly Tudor writer of today. All of these, I thought, good ways to lead into a brief discussion about giving historical characters a Tudor voice, including a list of words providing a bit of Tudor flavour to fiction writing.

When writing Tudor fiction, I think the important element to strive for is enough Tudor flavour to keep your narrative firmly in the period.

Thus, firstly my advice to writers wanting to write historical fiction based in Tudor times: please go and immerse yourself in as many primary documents as you can bear. That's one reason why I strive hard to find as many 'Cyberspace' primary documents as I can, and link to them from my website at Tudor England Suite101. But don't just read these documents - read them out loud to yourself. Listen carefully to the cadence of people of the time.

As you can see from Catherine, Henry and Tom, the way they said things tended to be more formal to than to the way we speak today, probably emphasised by the fact that ly adverbs barely entered the vocabulary, and they made used of do to carry the verb after I. Their language was, for want of a better term, also more 'flowery,' even poetic, but that it didn't prevent it being also brunt and to the point. Elizabeth the First could swear to make a sailor blush, not forgetting the embarrassment of her own court when she said things like: 'My lord, I had forgot the fart.' (3)

Reading Shakespeare's plays is also a great introduction to Tudor talking. Indeed, reading Shakespeare is probably the best, if not the most enjoyable way, I know for a writer to get a handle on the Tudor speech rhythms. I sometimes think the reason I had no trouble writing the voice of Sir Thomas Wyatt in my novel was that I had dived into Shakespeare's plays from my earliest teenage years, and it was all there in my subconscious to tap into when I started Tom's tragic story. Remember too that the King James Bible was written in 1611, not too long from our period, whilst the enjoyable Mallory's Morte D'Arthur was written not long before.

One other thing you can do is invest in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, and check when particular words came into use. For example, they didn't use 'well' as we do to begin dialogue. So, 'Well, look who has just arrived! wouldn't do much to add much Tudor flavour to your writing . "Hark - Tom has come!" would convey the flavour of the period far better.

A short word list, and their meanings, for a bit of Tudor flavour.
 

buxom - humble; kindly; compliant
beseech - beg
dalliance - interchange of caresses/affection
divers - several
maid - unwed girl/virgin
wench - unflattering term for a woman
Hath - has
plight - dilemma
hitherto - previously
base - low born
chuck - term like 'dear.'
whey-face - pale face
lovesick - in love
brawl - fight
affrighted - made fearful
gainsaid - crossed in an argument
dithering - trembling
sluiced - wet a lot
ill-favoured - not attractive
simpered - silly kind of smile
moon-struck - in love
'Below the salt' - born not of noble blood, thus sits at banquets with those of low birth
beauteous - beautiful
fain - willingly/gladly
gaudy - colourful/ exciting times
anon - soon; in a moment
ado - fuss
bawdy - humorously indecent Fare ye well - goodbye

 

(1) Mattingly; Catherine of Aragon; page 208

 

A useful reference book: Everyday life in Renaissance England from 1485-1649; Kathy Lyn Emerson