50 pages • 1-hour read
The Prince and the Pauper
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Background
Authorial Context: Mark Twain
Mark Twain is an iconic American author. He was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri. Raised along the Mississippi River, Twain is best known for the two books he wrote inspired by this life in that setting: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckelberry Finn (1884). The latter of these is occasionally referred to as the first Great American Novel.
In the late 1870’s, Twain went on his second European tour, a trip around many of the historically and culturally significant parts of Europe that lasted several months. During this time, he read extensively about English history, especially the works of Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume. The lasting impression he took from this was the brutality of the English legal system during previous eras. He decided to write about a king from that time being forced to live as an ordinary person in the land he ruled. The result was his first historical novel, The Prince and the Pauper, published in 1881. The novel’s characters speak in a parody of Shakespearean speech, which Twain uses to heighten the satire.
As well as being a commentary on the past, The Prince and the Pauper critiques elements of Twain’s contemporary time. In the 1880s, America entering the Gilded Age, a historical era marked by the ostentatious displays of wealth and a fascination with the American upper class. Twain’s book satirizes the pretensions of this class through a plot that emphasizes the conditional nature or privilege.
Social Context: Religious and Social Conflict in Tudor England
The Prince and the Pauper is set in Tudor England, a period in which the crown was held by the Tudor dynasty. The Tudor dynasty maintained control of England from the end of The War of the Roses in 1485 to the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. It was a generally prosperous era but was marked by intense religious conflict between the Catholic Church and the newly formed Church of England.
The reign of Henry VIII, when the book begins, was marked by significant political, religious and social upheaval. Henry VIII famously married six women during his lifetime, two of whom he had executed. To divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, he renounced papal authority and permanently separated the Church of England from the Catholic Church. An important factor in his marriages was his failure to produce a male heir that survived past infancy. His execution of Anne Boleyn has been theorized to have been less about her infidelity than the fact that she did not give birth to a son. Jane Seymour, Henry’s third wife, gave birth to Edward in 1537, finally accomplishing Henry’s goal of securing succession.
The divide between Catholicism and Protestantism in England led to heated conflict, each side believing that they held the path to eternal salvation while their rivals would corrupt and destroy the nation. As a result, numerous persecutions and counter-persecutions took place. It is in this fractious and violent landscape that Twain tries to imagine a world in which mercy is a quality truly internalized by a king.
Historical Context: Edward VI, King of England
Edward VI was Henry VIII’s only surviving male heir and was crowned on February 20, 1547, at age nine. Prince Edward in The Prince and the Pauper is a fictionalized version of Edward VI, and the imagined meeting with Tom is meant to influence Edward VI to be a wise and just ruler, unlike the previous generations of Tudor royalty.
Edward VI was born on October 12, 1537, which the novel references by stating that it begins on “a certain autumn day in the second quarter of the sixteenth century” (11). This signals that the text is referring to the historical Edward without stating it outright. Edward VI is notable as the first British monarch to be born a Protestant, the result of his father, Henry VIII, cutting ties with the Catholic Church.
King Edward VI died at age 15 on July 6, 1553. The novel is vague about his death date, saying he lived “only a few years” (268) after becoming king. It characterizes the fictional Edward’s reign as “a singularly merciful one for those harsh times” (269), but the historical Edward VI was not considered merciful or just. Too young to make meaningful policies, he was supplanted by a council of regents led by the 1st Duke of Somerset, who led the country into economic turmoil and rebellion. Edward did, however, make reforms to the Protestant Church, including the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer, the abolition of celibacy for monks, and the dissolution of monasteries. These policies laid the groundwork for the English Reformation but do not figure into the novel.
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