#『elizabeth boleyn』the most kind mother.

[sxcondqueen]

『visage』the crowned falcon. 『henry』the only man she ever loved. 『elizabeth』the most beautiful daughter. 『katharine』the rival "queen". 『mary』the "bastard" stepdaughter. 『mary boleyn』her beloved elder sister. 『george boleyn』her beloved brother. 『thomas boleyn』the most loving father. 『elizabeth boleyn』the most kind mother. 『jane boleyn』the arranged sister-in-law. 『henry norris』her and henry's friend; a dead man. 『mark smeaton』the poet who died for lies.

[period-dramallama]

How much worse would "Becoming Elizabeth" be if the two-headed monster known as Fraham had written it?

This ask kept me awake for hours.

The key difference would be that we would go in with zero expectations, so we wouldn't be disappointed, for the most part.

I think Fraham would accidentally make the good decision to not give Tommy S too much screentime. They'd give us Gaston from Beauty and the Beast with a side order of child abuse. That's it. Whereas Becoming Elizabeth spent aaaaaaaages trying to flesh out Tommy S and his insecurities and his terrible judgement and his relationship with his brother.

....and nobody asked for that.

Having said that, Fraham would squander 110% of the benefits of this accidentally wise decision.

What does the show look like? AU below cut. You have been warned.

-Upon the death of Henry VIII, Elizabeth receives a Mysterious Box. The label tells her she must open this box on her 18th birthday. What's inside the box? Watch the show and find out.

-Someone calls Jane 'cute'.

-Jane calls Elizabeth 'a mean girl'. References! Look how contemporary we are!

-Anne Stanhope has a pointless scene of her trying on Katherine's jewels, while topless. Why is she topless? No-one knows.

-For her 16th birthday party, Elizabeth does full Anne Boleyn cosplay. Katherine does the necklace thing but doesn't tell her to change. So.... it's still pretty obviously AB cosplay.

-Elizabeth Hates Sewing and wants to be a Leader so Robert Dudley gives her secret sword-fighting lessons. Shippers are torn between thinking this is cheesy and stupid, and the need to have Content.

-While hunting, Elizabeth accidentally shoots a peasant. Robert helps her bury the body in the woods. It's a Serious Moment for Elizabeth's Journey. So naturally it's never referred to ever again.

-The scene where Katherine discovers the truth about Tommy S and Elizabeth is... more graphic.

-Katherine has a graphic C-section.... and survives. Syke! She dies offscreen of a post-partum infection anyway.

-Mary Seymour dies as an infant... because Tommy S got drunk and dropped her down the stairs.

-John Dudley is a full-on Trump expy. He's racist to Pedro for no other reason than to signal he's No Good Very Bad.

-Alternatively, John Dudley is a Male Feminist who Leans In and Respects Wamen and tells Robert that his girlbossery comes from following his mother's example unlike his father Edmund Dudley who was a Useless Loser Who Got Beheaded. This clumsily foreshadows that John will one day be the Useless Loser Who Gets Beheaded.

-either way, we still don't get Jane Dudley.

-Mary chokes on a communion wafer and is saved by Pedro, because he's a Civilised Spaniard who knows something the Backward English don't know. (Basically the Heimlich Manoeuvre.)

-John Dudley tells Mary "we've had enough of your popish paraphernalia!" This line is so clunky and difficult to say that it becomes a meme.

-In their confrontation in the woods, Mary and Elizabeth get so angry they start to duel. It's surprisingly well-choregraphed. "Romola Fencing Champion" trends on Twitter. (Alicia is also pretty good).

-The duel descends into the two women rolling around in the mud and fighting. This sparks Discourse. Was it kinky accidentally, or on purpose?

-In their director's commentary of the scene Emma Frost calls the fight "their Anakin and Obi-Wan moment". She says this over a shot of Mary trying to crush Elizabeth's windpipe with her thighs.

-Edward's disease uses up presumably a large chunk of the special effects budget. He bleeds from the nose, eyes, mouth, and ears. Oliver Zetterstrom in an interview says this was his favourite bit to film because of course it was.

-John Dudley is so desperate for Edward to survive that he chooses black magic. Pentagrams, chanting, candles, sacrifices, the works. A black cockerel is sacrificed and John Dudley is sprayed with blood. Some members of the audience are kind of into it.

-Despite England being too backward for the Heimlich manoeuvre, Henry Grey performs mouth to mouth and CPR on Edward.

-No sign of Frances Grey, it goes without saying.

-Edward is dying and Elizabeth has just turned 18. Time to open the Mysterious Box! Inside are two canopic jars and a letter. The letter is from Henry VIII. He tells her that Anthony Denny is tasked with sending her the Mysterious Box. Henry says he has had a prophetic dream revealing that Elizabeth has been Chosen. He apologises for dismissing her because she was a girl and her mother was a Wicked Slut. She must wait for Edward and Mary to die as it has been foretold, then she will be Queen and preside over a Golden Age. After his death, the canopic jars will be filled and given to her as proof of his faith in her.

And what's inside the canopic jars? Why, the heart and stomach of a king! And of a king of England, too!

The End.

[malkaleh]

Heartbreaking thought: since in Crown of Ashes, Mary never found out about the OT3, Cat/Felipe/Ana weren’t raised to think of Thomas as their grandfather, and unless their aunts/uncles can explain the truth to them when they’re old enough, they probably despise him/blame him for everything that happened.

I did not actually think of that at all but OW. I actually (some babbling)

I’d thought, in my head that they knew. Actually in my head I think of it as Phillip knowing (he hasn’t confirmed anything, he isn’t going to ask but he spotted it. Actually a really heartbreaking thing might be that either Phillip raised it, wasn’t disgusted enough and it sparked everything off or someone told Mary that he knew and hadn’t spoken about it)*

*Just about Henry/Thomas - not about the triad because the triad would not as a concept occur to people at all and here Mary doesn’t put it together. Honestly she might not put it together…I think I wrote out the point of divergence as to why she didn’t somewhere but trauma brain has lost that reason :/.

So like in my head, they knew in a small child way and I don’t know why that was but they did.

(They may well have still gone through a period of blaming Thomas. Or blaming Phillip. Or both. They might not but)

(I keep wondering if any of the boleyn-tudor-cromwell kids are angry at their parents at any point honestly. Except that I really do know that Elizabeth at least hears that Anne was absolutely ready to say she wasn’t Queen for the chance to stay with her babies, that Thomas tried to blame everything on himself, that Henry would have done anything if it meant he could see his children again so they come back to not. Though G-d the moment when the Dudleys explain things to Elizabeth is…Something that I probably need to write).

(Why it is in my head they knew? Maybe that because they grew up so close to their aunts and uncles they just kind of picked up the vibe or one of their age mate kids said something but it never actually occurred to them to tell their mother because like, why? I don’t even know it was just…cemented in my brain)

(Maybe it was just that Thomas Cromwell was part of the family without them knowing what his role was. That might be the most likely. Like, one of their grandparents close friends and also We Are Adopting You As Grandpa in the way that happens sometimes with close family friends (like I’m Auntie to the kids of my close friends))

[fideidefenswhore]

Is it true Anne Boleyn was described as pretty and beautiful by people at the time, but for some reason the idea she was kind of average won out, for some reason? Thanks.

HTF has sort of made this argument, although the truth is her appearance was spoken of variously, but not often in unequivocally negative terms by contemporaries (at worst we have Chapuys' 'thin and old', but this was a mere two years after describing her as of 'a state of health and of an age to have many more children', so...pinch of salt?), even the descriptive quote usually used of 'comparative beauty' to her with Elizabeth Blount is not entirely clear (the usual description of the quote is 'even her chaplain' said Anne was the lesser beauty, but going back to the primary source that doesn't seem to be the case:

Asked him if he knew these two ladies, and whether they were beautiful, worth leaving his wife for. He said he knew them both, and the mother of his son was eloquent, gracious, and beautiful, but the other lady was more beautiful still. 

"Once Henry had decided to divorce Katherine of Aragon, fuller descriptions would follow. The first was in February 1528, when Lodovico Ceserari, the Duke of Milan's agent in Paris, assured the Venetian Signoria that she was 'very beautiful' (bellissima). The French diplomat Lancelot de Carle, who first saw her after his arrival in England in May 1535, agree[d] [she was] [...] 'beautiful and had an elegant figure'." Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn & the Marriage That Shook Europe, John Guy & Julia Fox

The Sanuto quote that is usually trotted out also seems to be a case of mistranslation and not properly assessed, although his remark was that she was 'not one of the most beautiful women in the world', given that he was politically and religiously opposed, his remark is interesting in that he combines an account of her physical appearance with a judgement about her power, and compares it to her predecessor:

"[...]her eyes, which are black and beautiful and exert a greater effect on servants than the Queen's when she was in her prime.'" Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn & the Marriage That Shook Europe, John Guy & Julia Fox

[wishesofeternity]

“An assessment of Anne (Boleyn) and the Reformation must commence with an evaluation of her own religious views. Unlike Henry’s sixth wife, Katherine Parr, Anne wrote no religious works, so we lack much direct evidence from which to assess her convictions. We instead rely on the assertions of others and what can be surmised from her behaviour and belongings. It is nonetheless clear that Anne was by no means a kind of proto-protestant. For instance, when Thomas Revell tried to present her with his translation of François Lambert’s radical Farrago Rerum Theologicarum—which included scepticism about the real presence of Christ in the eucharist, and detailed the socially disruptive implications of the priesthood of all believers—she declined his request, saying “she would not trouble herself” with the book. Likewise, Anne’s comments during her imprisonment imply that—at least during this difficult period—she maintained many orthodox views. Sir William Kingston, constable of the Tower, wrote to Cromwell that she spoke of retiring to a nunnery; that she asked whether she would go to heaven, for she had “done mony gud dedys in my days”; and that she “meche desyred to have here in the closet the sacrament,” suggesting that she held traditional views on transubstantiation, the issue which Henry saw as the test of sound belief.

There remains much evidence, however, that Anne had evangelical sympathies. For example, Cranmer, who knew the Queen well, noted the “love which I judged her to bear towards God and his gospel,” when writing to Henry following her arrest in May 1536, and Richard Hilles lamented her loss in 1541 as one of the “sincere ministers of the word” who had been taken away. Yet, perhaps the most telling evidence of Anne’s personal piety comes from the books that she owned. These included a copy of William Tyndale’s 1534 edition of the New Testament, which was banned and considered to be a heretical work, and a part copy, part English translation, of Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples’s Epistres et Evangiles, a work condemned by the Sorbonne for its potential Lutheran echoes. Thus, while Anne cannot be described as a ‘protestant’—a term that did not become naturalised in England until after 1553—she seems to have been genuinely interested in religious reform and evangelical issues.

Anne’s impact on the Reformation is most obvious with Henry’s break from Rome. This was recognised in Anne’s own lifetime; when told that there was no pope, but only a bishop of Rome, one Henry Kylbie replied that “this business had never been if the Kinge had not maryed Anne Bullen.” Although it was Henry’s desire to annul his first marriage to marry Anne that caused conflict with the papacy, the Boleyns provided more than a spark for this clash. They offered patronage to academics who worked on the campaign for Henry’s annulment, including Thomas Cranmer, the future Archbishop of Canterbury, and Edward Fox, the future Bishop of Hereford; they took a keen interest in the progress of Henry’s “Great Matter”; and they seemingly furnished Henry with evangelical literature, with Anne reportedly introducing him to both Simon Fish’s virulently anticlerical Supplication for the Beggars and Tyndale’s Obedience of the Christian Man, which argued that papal claims to independent power were bogus and unscriptural. While the contribution these works made to the elaboration of the royal supremacy has been doubted, they may well have helped, and can hardly have hindered matters. In these ways, Anne and her family played an important part in encouraging the rejection of papal authority and achieving Henry’s Break from Rome, a fundamental element of the English Reformation.

Anne also facilitated religious reform by furthering the careers of evangelicals. Writing to Elizabeth I in 1559, Alexander Ales hailed “the evangelical bishops whom your most holy mother had appointed from among those schoolmasters who favoured the purer doctrine of the Gospel.” Who were these bishops? While William Latymer asserted that her influence lay behind the promotion of Thomas Cranmer to Canterbury, Hugh Latimer to the bishopric of Worcester, Nicholas Shaxton to Salisbury, Thomas Goodrich to Ely, and John Skip to Hereford, the evidence is clearest in the cases of Latimer and Shaxton, who Foxe also thought she “placed” and “preferred” to their sees. Although Anne certainly did not ‘appoint’ Latimer and Shaxton to their dioceses, she undoubtedly assisted them, lending each £200 to pay their first fruits to the King after their elevations, and their preferment was plausibly due to what Latymer described as her “continuall mediacione.” Anne herself recognised her links to these bishops, speaking in the Tower of “my bysshoppys.” Her part in the promotion of these men to the episcopal bench was important, for it meant they could wield the power of episcopal office to promote fellow evangelicals, pursue reform in their dioceses, and frustrate the efforts of their opponents.

Anne also influenced lesser clerical appointments. She employed a series of evangelical clergy as her chaplains, including Latimer and Matthew Parker. She also sought appointments for her favoured clergymen elsewhere, and was prepared to pressure them into taking them up and making the most of them, as in May 1535, when she addressed Edward Crome concerning the parsonage of St Mary Aldermary in London, which she had “obtained for him.” She exhorted him to make “no farther delays in this matter, but to take on … the cure and charge of the said benefice,” for she desired “the furtherance of virtue, truth, and godly doctrine, which we trust shall not be a little increased, and right much the better advanced and established, by your better relief and residence there.” The indefatigable commitment that some of the clergy she appointed showed to driving reform at a local level is clear in the case of William Barlow, who she made prior of Haverfordwest in 1534. From his position, Barlow “endeveryd … with no smalle bodely daunger agenst Antichrist, and all his confederat adherentes, sincerely to preche the gospell of Christ,” arousing much hostility from the local clergy. Anne’s promotion of such clerics was significant. Not only did men like Barlow show great zeal in fighting for reform within their spheres of influence, but her promotion of men as her chaplains also proved an important step in the careers of individuals like Latimer, who became Bishop of Worcester in 1535, and Parker, who became Elizabeth I’s frist Archbishop of Canterbury in 1559. This was attested by Parker himself, who wrote to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, in 1572, professing that “if I had not been so much bound to the mother [Anne], I would not so soon have granted to serve the daughter [Elizabeth] in this place.’

While previous queens had often interceded for those facing punishment, Anne used her intercessory role in to protect those interested in reform. For instance, in 1528 she wrote to Cardinal Wolsey, beseeching him “to remember the parson of Honey Lane for my sake.” This was a reference to either Thomas Forman (rector of All Hallows, Honey Lane) or Thomas Garrett (curate of the same church), who were both implicated in the trade of evangelical books. Likewise, in May 1534, she wrote to Cromwell asking for Richard Herman, one of the principal promoters and financial sponsors of Tyndale’s New Testament, to be restored to his position, after hearing that he had been expelled from his “fredome and felowshipe of and in the Englishe house” of Antwerp, because he helped “the settyng forthe of the Newe Testamente in Englisshe.” Anne may have acquired a reputation for lending aid in such matters, which might explain why Thomas Alwaye sought to petition her in 1530 when imprisoned for his involvement in buying English New Testaments and other prohibited books. While the evidence is not certain, Anne’s patronage potentially had longer-lasting repercussions, as individuals like Thomas Garrett later became troublesome evangelical preachers.

Anne was thus clearly an important figure in the early stages of evangelical reform in England. She was by no means an omnipotent proto-protestant—that evangelicals like Thomas Bilney and John Frith were burnt between 1531 and 1533 reveals limits to either her beliefs or her infuence. Yet, individuals did not need to be all-powerful to encourage religious change: Thomas Cranmer’s failure to prevent the passage of the Six Articles in 1539 did not hinder his influence in the ecclesiastical politics of the early Tudor period. Nor did they have to be fully fledged evangelicals to have sped the course of reform. That Henry VIII himself published Assertio Septem Sacramentorum in 1521 (a rebuttal of Martin Luther’s anti-papal De Captivitate Babylonica), remained devoted throughout his life to the Blessed Sacrament, and consistently rejected the teachings of Luther and Huldrych Zwingli does not invalidate his centrality to the reforms of his reign. Moreover, Anne’s infuence on reform need not be at the expense of others. The course of religious change in sixteenth-century England was not simply shaped by monarchs, devout conservatives like John Fisher, or devout evangelicals like William Latimer, but also by many who lay between these extremes, like Stephen Gardiner, who argued for Henry’s divorce and accepted the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but fercely defended transubstantiation. Anne—as a promoter, defender, and supporter of evangelicals, who played a significant part in instigating the Break from Rome—was one of the most important of these individuals.

- Chloe Fairbanks and Samuel Lane, “Anne Boleyn: Traditionalist and Reformer” in “Tudor and Stuart Consorts: Power, Influence and Dynasty”

[boleynqueenes]

Now Thus director’s commentary (I’d love to hear about inspiration and conceptualization especially, if you feel so inclined, but consider this a free space to run wild and talk abt anything!)

I worked backwards to think about what would have prevented HVIII from (one source says hunting, but most say jousting, jousting that early in the coldest season was kind of rare but we know he made exceptions to do it...Henry NYP birth and Shrovetide 1526 being the two other well known ones) the jousting accident of 1536. A period of court mourning would do it. Elizabeth Boleyn is so frequently fridged in histfic (and not even MENTIONED...? like not only is the boleyn mother not in the tudors but they don't even mention how she died FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES she could even be alive in that canon and we just never see her...it would've been so good to have for the plots with the duke of norfolk, who they ALSO wrote out, god i am still so mad about it...APPARENTLY...) that it was not about to be her. Thomas Boleyn died in 1539 so it didn't seem that radical of a move to see what would happen were that pushed back to when Anne was Queen...just enough of one to have interesting butterfly effects. (the which have been, an ultimatum Anne has issued about her stepdaughter, the consequent , predictable reaction of her refusing to meet this, her stepdaughter being lodged with her brother and sister in law instead, Mary Stafford being allowed back at court on temporary basis to be in the funeral, which is going to eventuate something else earlier on the timeline, and then something else, and then the mysterious absence of Thomas Boleyn's possible antibodies at the event/s in which the possibility of Imperial rapprochement/COA's death is celebrated is going to eventuate something ELSE, and then....something else.

and then also the absence of the jousting event in 1536 means no development or exacerbation of CTE for HVIII, which i believe is very plausibly what happened, however he's still paranoid, we're just going to see that paranoia and mistrust develop in different ways and find different targets.... cromwell and his eldest daughter both, in different ways)

[mynameisdotty]

Alison Weir and the claim Anne Boleyn was pregnant when she was executed.

I’m convinced that even tho Alison Weir is a historian that she’s determined to out-crazy Philippa Gregory on Tudor History. She screams to me of someone who cares more about selling books than legit history using the idea “no publicity is bad publicity”.The claim that Anne Boleyn was pregnant when she died comes from Alison Weir’s book Henry VII: King and Court. Quoting from the book:

“Henry had every reason to be pleased with Anne, for the evidence strongly suggests she was pregnant again. Just as she conceived rapidly after the birth of Elizabeth, so her reconciliation with the king after her miscarriage in January had quickly borne fruit. Henry made what was probably an oblique reference to her pregnancy that April, when he rounded on Chapuys for suggesting God had not thought fit to send him male issue because He had ordained that England should have a female succession. ‘Am I not a man like other men? Am I not? Am I not?’ shouted Henry ‘You do not know all my secrets’. On the 25th April, in a letter sent to Richard Pate in Rome and duplicated to Gardiner and Wallop in France, Henry announced ‘the likelihood and appearance that God will send us heirs male’, implying that ‘our dear and most entirely beloved wife the Queen’ was once more expecting a child. Had Anne conceived towards the end of February, it would have been possible for the King to state this with some certainty, and clearly, he was eager to do so.”

Firstly, Weir brings up a letter sent to Sir Richard Pate who was ambassador to the Holy Roman Empire from 1533-37. She seems to have combined two events together as Weir recounts a conversation between Henry and Imperial Envoy, Eustace Chapuys. According to Weir, Chapuys was reported to have ventured for Mary to be reinstated to the succession as “God had ordained a female succession” only to have Henry explode on him. This conversation did happen as it was reported in a letter back to Charles V. Now the big clincher: this letter is from April 15th 1533. Catherine of Aragon is referred to in the letter in the present tense which would be impossible in 1536 as she died in early January that year. Next, its contents are not as Weir represents them. Yes, the conversation between Chapuys and Henry is there but with context its meaning is very different. The relevant portion (because it is a very long letter) is here:

"Made unto Us certain overtures for the advancement of such a renovation. The first was that He would be meane to have a reconciliation between Us and the Bishop of Rome. The second overture and request was that for as much as there is great likelihood and appearance that God will send unto Us heirs male to succeed us in the Crown of this our Realm, We would vouch safe at his contemplation to legitimate our daughter Mary, in such a degree as in default of issue by our most dear and entirely beloved wife the Queen , she may not be reputed unable to some place in our succession."

Third is from the accounts ordering a cradle for a prospective new prince/princess. The receipt is undated (which wouldn’t exactly be the kind of clinching evidence I’d use to back up this claim) but we can deduce some kind of date. Thomas Cromwell is named as Lord Privy Seal on the receipt and therefore would narrow down the date range from 1536-1540. Whilst this at first looks like it could be a point for Weir (since it's at least in the correct date range) I would counter with this: why would anyone be ordering a crib so early in a pregnancy when the mother had a history of miscarrying? It seems very optimistic on Henry's part. I would argue this is more likely a cradle for the expecting Jane Seymour's baby, the future Edward VI who was born 12th October 1537.

Finally, let’s look at logistics. Could Anne be pregnant in May 1536? She was pregnant in the January but miscarried a boy on January 29th. Henry was very explicit about his lack of faith in Anne’s childbearing capabilities by this point, famously stating after the miscarriage that: “[he’d] have no more boys by her”. This would imply Henry was not going to be sleeping with Anne from that point. Still, for the sake of argument, they are still attempting for another child up until Anne’s arrest. In an age before pregnancy tests, the earliest Anne could suspect a pregnancy is one month due to missing her period. The earliest she could be 100% certain she was carrying a child would be 3/4 months when the baby would begin to move in utero (colloquially known as “quickening”). This would mean that for Henry to have known Anne was pregnant she would have had to conceived again by the latest in mid-February, but ideally earlier almost immediately after her miscarriage in January. That doesn’t seem very reasonable for a woman recovering from something that would have been quite traumatic on her both in medical and emotional terms.

Next, there is no evidence from her time in the Tower of any pregnancy. Weir brings this up as suspicious that Anne wasn’t examined for a pregnancy. This could either be explained in two ways: 1) Henry was certain she wasn’t because he hadn’t been sleeping with her (and if she was then it could be fathered by one of her co-accused) or 2) she had her period whilst incarcerated thus proving for certain there was no baby. There are no official records of Anne's trial so there is no evidence we can pull from there to say one way or the other. However, there were letters and reports of Anne in the Tower sent from the Lieutenant William Kingston to Thomas Cromwell. None mention a pregnancy or suspected pregnancy. Also, if she knew she was pregnant, why not speak up? It would have at least delayed her fate until her new child was either born or she had a miscarriage.

Finally finally, why would Henry kill a potential male heir? It goes against his entire motivations at this time. Henry was desperate for a male heir. If there was even the possibility that Anne was carrying another boy, why not wait a few extra months to see the outcome? It’s ludicrous that he would kill his own child when it could be the heir he had caused a schism to obtain. Even if there was some dubiousness around the legitimacy, Henry had already shown he was willing to declare what he wanted no matter what the truth was (Mary was illegitimate despite being born in wedlock to legally wedded parents).

[unrepentanthistory]

On This Day in 1536: The execution of Anne Boleyn and Her Influence on England.

She was the queen who captivated a king, but also the one who paid the ultimate price. Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife and the mother of Elizabeth I, faced a brutal death on this day in 1536. Accused of crimes ranging from adultery to treason, she was beheaded at the Tower of London in a swift and merciless execution. But who was Anne Boleyn, and why did she fall from grace so dramatically? In this blog post, we will explore her life, her legacy and her role in one of the most turbulent periods of English history.

Catherine of Aragon

Anne Boleyn returned from France in the mid-1520s and caught the eye of King Henry VIII, who was desperate for a son and heir. His first wife, Catherine of Aragon, had failed to give him one, and he wanted to divorce her and marry Anne instead.

But this was easier said than done. Catherine had powerful relatives, like the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who opposed Henry’s plan. And the Catholic Church refused to grant him an annulment, saying his marriage was valid and sacred.

That’s when Thomas Cromwell stepped in. He was a cunning and ambitious politician who helped Henry break away from Rome and create his own church, with himself as the supreme head. This was a radical and risky move that sparked a religious revolution in England. And many people blamed Anne for it, as she was seen as a supporter of the Protestant reformers who wanted to change the church.

Jane Seymour

Anne became queen in June 1533, when she was already pregnant. But she disappointed Henry by giving birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, instead of a son. She also lost two other babies, including a boy, in the next few years.

Meanwhile, Henry had fallen out of love with Anne and in love with her maid, Jane Seymour. He wanted to marry Jane and get rid of Anne, but he couldn’t just divorce her like he did with Catherine. That would make people doubt his first divorce and his new church.

So Henry came up with a shocking accusation: He claimed that Anne had bewitched him into marrying her, and that she had been unfaithful to him with several men. He also told Cromwell, who was now his chief minister and Anne’s enemy, that he wanted to make peace with the emperor, who hated Anne.

Arrest and Imprisonment

Anne had many enemies who wanted to get rid of her. They started a secret investigation and found a musician who said he had slept with her. They also accused her of having affairs with other men, including her own brother.

On May Day, everything changed. Henry was watching a tournament with Anne and her brother, George Boleyn, and his friend, Henry Norris. But he left suddenly without saying goodbye to Anne. He never saw her again.

He arrested Norris and George Boleyn for sleeping with Anne and plotting to kill him. He also arrested two other men for the same reason. And he locked up Anne in her palace at Greenwich on May 2.

Duke of Norfolk

Anne faced her accusers, who included her own uncle, the Duke of Norfolk. They charged her with “evil behavior” and put her in the Tower of London.

The four men who were accused of being her lovers were tried in Westminster Hall on May 12. They were all found guilty and sentenced to die horribly. On May 15, Anne and her brother, George Boleyn, had their trial in the Tower of London.

The Duke of Norfolk was the judge, acting for the king. The worst evidence against George Boleyn was his own wife’s claim that he was too close to his sister.

Anne was probably innocent of the charges against her. She never confessed to anything, the evidence against her was weak and it makes no sense that she would cheat on the king or try to hurt him, when she needed his love so much.

But Anne and Rochford were still found guilty, and Norfolk sentenced them to death by fire or by the king’s choice.

On May 17, the five men who were accused with Anne were killed on Tower Hill, but Henry was kind to his queen. He sent for a skilled executioner from Calais who could cut off her head with a sword instead of an axe.

Received message. Here is one possible way to rewrite the paragraph: Anne was probably innocent of the charges against her. She never confessed to anything, the evidence against her was weak and it makes no sense that she would cheat on the king or try to hurt him, when she needed his love so much. But Anne and Rochford were still found guilty, and Norfolk sentenced them to death by fire or by the king's choice. On May 17, the five men who were accused with Anne were killed on Tower Hill, but Henry was kind to his queen. He sent for a skilled executioner from Calais who could cut off her head with a sword instead of an axe.

Anne Boleyn Execution

Anne Boleyn wore a grey dress and a fur cloak as she walked to her death on Tower Green. A few people watched as she spoke to them. She said: “Masters, I obey the law as the law has judged me, and I don’t blame anyone for my offences. God knows them; I leave them to God, asking Him to forgive me.” She also prayed for Jesus Christ to “protect my king and master, the most godly, noble and gentle Prince that is, and may he rule over you for a long time.”

The executioner cut off her head with one stroke of his sword. Anne Boleyn was gone. The next day, Henry got engaged to Jane Seymour; they married soon after.

Jane gave Henry the son he wanted, who became King Edward VI when he was only nine years old. But it was Henry’s daughter with Anne Boleyn who would become the greatest Tudor ruler: Queen Elizabeth I, who ruled England for more than 40 years.

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[thunyielding]

Anne’s influence upon her daughter would surely not grow ripe till Elizabeth herself had been given the opportunities to make the same mistakes as her mother. But, even at twenty-five, hadn’t she already made one that would murk her incoming days? Dudley remained on her mind like a thorn in her side, the pain of where he was at all moments a constant ache behind her eyes that left her gaze dull and uninterested with anything else. To Elizabeth, his wife was not worth her jealousy, and though she knew this on a theoretical level, she could not help the overwhelming need to yell, thrash and howl. Though, it was by the benefit of forever being warned of showing such strong emotions that Elizabeth held herself thus before her Lady Mother, her hands cupping the other’s in some sign of fealty that had been entrusted to the daughter of Anne Boleyn from a very early age.

Her smile presented itself in a lick of satisfaction, as if drunk on honeyed wine she pressed her lips to her mother’s silk cheek — perhaps the best of conversations to have with the Queen was upon the vices of her brother, of whom she surely loved with every inch of her but in turn, was also the very object of her deep rooted envy.

After all, something burned within the Princess, something that seemed to yell that the crown of her father and his father before then was instead meant for her own merry head. Holding Anne’s hand, Elizabeth dropped into the chair by her side, a pose thus re-created in well meaning portraits of the infamous pair who in one lifetime perhaps, were separated by the tricks of the Seymours and temper of her father.

With a cherished smile that slowly shifted into a well meaning laugh, Elizabeth shook her head, rolling her eyes as her auburn hair loomed around her in a kind of halo when presented before candlelight. “Yes, but I do think most of my male relatives have unfortunately inherited the ill-luck of vanity… apart from perhaps my grandfather who struck his fate on the field of Bosworth,” Elizabeth then mused, her hand within Anne’s within that moment of innocent thought, the repetition of old stories a comfort to a mind prone to wandering.

But she could not mean to mention her own wishes for coronation? A day dreamed beneath red-headed curls of high-strung hymn of angels, golden shimmering flags alongside her visage pressed into minted coins. As her smile wavered, Elizabeth turned her head from Anne’s in a moment’s thought, her chest rising and then falling with every breath before taking her fingers into her own lap. “Mother, you are a testament to every living woman. But I must remind you that to talk of such things is to invoke a certain kind of mischief. So, I will only smile and wave my head, but do know that you provide such a scrumptious dream,” Elizabeth smirked, before absently running her fingers through her long red hair as Anne thought to introduce the Spanish and what had come before.

“They are stubborn, they will always be as such. Why William has thought to invite them is beyond me… Surely they have their own reasons to stay in Spain,” Elizabeth moaned, rolling her gaze back towards her mother, leaning upon her shoulder in a moment’s rare intimacy as the room fell quiet with their equal breaths. “Do you miss him? His Majesty, my father?” She then asked, the question slowly dripping from her tongue with a pinch of hesitation due to her own weariness over the detail — did she miss him in turn? No. Yes. Sometimes. Mostly, she missed the time from before, when she could come and go to Hampton when asked for, when she could go to Richmond whenever the need for her mother arose. When she could mind her own business beneath Hatfield’s roof.

Elizabeth met her with penetrating eyes - any passionate young man would have surely loved them in their valance. An acquaintance was blind to whatever they kept in store; Anne knew it to be the steadied shine of faith; for whatever sentiment met Elizabeth in its form too facile, her lips menaced, beautifully but surely, caprice and light esteem. Searching in those bonny wells of eyes, whose glance under their golden-red lashes seemed like a penciled laugh; the expression of her mouth, the colour of her cheek, even the most ignorant knew that both were supremely beautiful. A vague obligation of pride wished to be fulfilled; Anne wished all to gaze upon her child and be struck by notions of love. Who had given Elizabeth such power? Did it lay all in her beauty - titan haired, her white and rosey cheeked completion? Was it this, that bound a mans soul to her feet, and bid him to bend his neck at her yoke? And would it purchase for her, his affection, his tenderness, noble and cordial love - or would it reap a dissembling love, as it had for Anne? But her daughter beamed upon her from a higher sphere; she believed in all Elizabeth was. In the steadiness of her virtues, lay the power of her passions. 

Dear William and Elizabeth were to Anne; dear they were to her this day in their remembered benevolence. Little knew they of the racks of brain their futures had brought Anne, sending her almost into fever - bringing her reckless, urged and aimless to the brink of frenzy. In the that guarded estate, her heart, she kept a little place beneath skylights, where Elizabeth may find solace, should she wish to call. It was not a handsome place where she stored her enemies; all life long she had carried love, and it was motherhood, which released it from that hold and constriction. Of an artistic temperament, like her dear Thomas, she was not; yet she must have possessed something of the artist's faculty, in rendering a singular person, her muse. 

She prized Elizabeth as a best friend; from her, she received a deep delight - she brought into her heart, a warm and beautiful light. "Vanity is an affliction ill-born by his sex; we must dutifully instruct him in the implementation of its powers. Your uncle has has known its touch from his earliest years." A sunny sheen flashed in her own eyes; the spirit of her gaze, awarded to her child in voltaic eyes. Out of mens defections and affections were forged the depths of their servitude; kings were overwrought by penance and took up a cross, monstrous in its weight, so that they may serve god, confirm his power, and spread the reign of his tyrant church. "Should William's head either collapse or explode, your coronation shall be of a greatness England has never witnessed before. It shall be a glory, and a tragedy of minuscule proportions; for I believe no man worthy of you now, and thus with the crown, the pool evermore plagued by draught." Her fingers settled upon Elizabeth's, claiming her presence as entirely her own; in her children, Anne renewed the love of her life. "The Spanish steal themselves away from residing near la concubina - do you find that I am as offensive and salacious, as I was in the time of the late King? I would have believed being a dower, dowager of only maternal glory, would have pleased them."

[sweetestpopcorn]

i really don't wanna bother you *I'M JUST VERY, VERY EXCITED* but what you think about mary i of england? she's like- my favourite person in the world

Hi again!

You totally don't! <3

Well, like I said my favourite Tudor is definitely the OG Tudor Henry VII.

My thoughts about Mary? I mean, she breaks my heart. She cannot get a break. Not ever. The things Henry VIII put her and her mother through, the fact that they were kept apart for so many years, all the humiliation Mary had to endure from her father... Henry truly was a POS of massive proportions.

While I cannot condone all the burnings and religion persecution that went on during her reign, it's honestly rich that to a point she has a worst reputation than Henry VIII - who also did these things amongst everything else. I mean she's called Bloody Mary and while most historians agree that Henry was a tyrant I don't see them calling him Crazy Henry or something of the sort. It was also not unique to her in any way to burn people I mean... Portugal and Spain had an entire "Holy Inquisition" going on but the kings and queens involved in that don't have a specifically bad reputation because of it (at least in Portugal they don't) and aren't seen by historians as monsters.

I think one of the things I really admire about Mary was how despite everything she endured during her life, how she suffered to a point because of Anne Boleyn (indirectly mind you, the main culprit was of course her father Henry) she did not condemn Elizabeth to death and in the end even made her sister her heir. I think it takes a special kind of person to put her pride, all of her grievances, and any hatred she might have and do the right thing, because even after all the bad Mary did (i.g., religious persecution and burnings), she did do the right thing in sparing her sister and giving her the English throne. She even went against advisors in doing so... for a sister she never really like. Yes, I think this is admirable and I don't think many people would have been capable of doing what she did.

I remember that I was also quite sad to learn that she asked to be buried next to her mother but she wasn't... like damn... not even in death could those two women be together... it's sad ,really just... just sad. And f_ck Henry VIII, again, what a POS!

Much love to you 🤗

[marriageandthecrown]

Important quotes about the much maligned Lady Rochford, Jane Boleyn.

“But I think it’s not just her grave that history has confused, it’s also her reputation … Nearly five hundred years after her death the myths about Jane Boleyn still endure.” - Tracy Borman

“The lack of knowledge we have about Jane has contributed to this vacuum into which people have poured this interpretation of Jane as the villain. But this is based on speculation, rumour, and comments of later writers.” - Amy Licence

“In history we like to paint people as either good or bad. Jane gets painted as being bad and she’s often blamed for the execution of Anne Boleyn and the execution of George Boleyn. - Dr. Onyeka Nubia

“The picture of Jane that we have been left by history is of a bitter, jealous woman, an angry wife, and a miserable sister-in-law. Essentially, she’s pretty toxic as family members go … And most of it is being written during the reign of Elizabeth I. And when Elizabeth is on the throne no one’s going to want to write the story where her mother is the vixen or her father is the murderer, and if neither of these things can be true we need a scapegoat and Jane Boleyn is a really useful one.” - Dr. Katrina Marchant

"I think we should consider that Jane is doing what she had always done at court. She'd been of good service to her queen. She's prepared to break the rules when the queen demands it ... I think she only made one real mistake in her life and that was facilitating the meeting between Culpeper and Katheryn Howard. For that she paid heavily with her own life." - Dr. Owen Emmerson

“Jane is very much the scarlet woman built up to bring down these queens but actually what we know of Jane is devoted wife, courtier - career woman, if you like - and it’s very, very different from the picture that has been painted from within a few years of her death. - Elizabeth Norton

The final word:

“Having explored the events of Jane’s life I can’t help but think that her reputation as the most hated woman in Tudor England is grossly unfair. True, she’s not exactly blameless, she may have been a spy for Thomas Cromwell at some point, and she certainly facilitated Katheryn Howard’s affair with Thomas Culpeper, but Jane was also capable of intense loyalty both to her family and to her queens, often at great personal cost. It seems that there were two Janes: one, the loyal lady-in-waiting, the other who would do whatever it took to survive in the ruthless court of Henry VIII. It’s almost as if events of her life have been simplified in order to create her into this kind of ‘baddie’, but, as in life, everything is altogether more complex than that. I think Jane Boleyn’s history is due for a rewrite. - Tracy Borman

[period-dramallama]

Review: The Concubine by Christopher Bae Rae

TLDR: The first 3 chapters are great, the last third is great, the middle bit is kinda meh. I want to proofread and tweak this book, but overall I could recommend it to someone really into Anne Boleyn.

Overall this is a good depiction of how events evolve, with the delineation of responsibility between King and Cromwell fuzzy. A lot of factors combine to make this storm of disaster.

For @fideidefenswhore xxx many thanks for buying this and The King's Mind for me, I hope the review entertains.

We begin with Anne waiting impatiently for news of the death of 'Aragon' (Chris, please just call her the Princess Dowager. Aragon is not a surname!)

She has chosen Edward for her unborn son's name. A fitting choice, and chock full of dramatic irony, especially as Anne isn't wrong that a king called Edward will 'cleanse England of popery'. Anne's ambition for her son is sad because we know what will happen, but there is an unpleasant streak to Anne who imagines how "sweet" Princess Mary's death would be.

"All is well and all manner of things will be well." It's nice to see Rae has at least a passing knowledge of the Bible- better than most Tudor novelists.

"Her heart was black!"

Anne:

I'm narrowing my eyes at the characterisation of Janes Seymour and Rochford but it's not TOO bad. Could be worse.

Henry examining the heart was a great touch. The tension, the duality of his response: amazement at the human body but also a Christian revulsion/fear/disappointment at its animalness. The tension felt very Tudor, Christian, and (renaissance) humanist all at once.

Also his suspicion at Katherine's death feeds nicely into his paranoia. Will whoever did it stop at Katherine? It's a good moment for his character arc. Anne's laughing at the heart is also in character in a dark-sense-of-humour kind of way.

"Henry does not care to admit it, even to himself, but he sometimes feels a sensation of being overwhelmed by her energy and confidence, an uncomfortable intimation that she does not always quite remember her place. A feeling that she may in some ways be quicker and cleverer than he is."

It would be nice to have some more dialogue. Anne and Henry spend a happy evening together and the narration tells us about it but it would be nice to hear them banter and bounce off each other, especially given what's going to happen.

Henry doesn't seem that enthusiastic about Katherine in his dream but it IS a dream so I wouldn't be surprised if he's got a case of self-serving memory and his brain has retconned any memories of happiness with Katherine.

"The continuance of your house must be seen to be assured, for without that the continuance of their own is in peril." A good point.

Rae handled the yellow-wearing incident well: Anne doesn't want to, but she didn't persuade Henry in time.

"She waves her hand, as if this might be sufficient to consign Mary to some kind of perpetual limbo."

I am very pleased to see an acknowledgement that Anabaptists exist and are persecuted by Protestants, as they're ignored in 99.9% of Tudor novels especially Protestant-leaning novels: "These are madmen, their views are too extreme for any God-fearing Lutheran and they must be suppressed. But such people are a sign of these times." BUT Protestantism is not about going forward, but BACK- back to an ideal golden age late antiquity Christianity of simple purity. Protestantism in this novel comes across like innovation which is certainly not how Protestants like Anne would have seen it. (yes I know the word Protestant itself is anachronistic because it's a 1550s word but bear with me).

Elizabeth Boleyn is well written: blunt, shrewd, loving but not emotive, but also not judged for having a stiff upper lip. "her mother comes and bustles, exuding a strained air of optimism." I like this portrayal of Elizabeth as being strong for other people, it's a nice bit of characterisation for a minor character. There's a good back and forth between Norfolk, Anne and the Boleyn parents.

Fat Wolsey stereotype...did Anne really hate him? Some historians have questioned that. It would have been interesting to see a fresher interpretation of their interactions.

We're leaning hard into the "Thomas More is a sadist torturing people in his house and he loves burning people" myth BUT I will give it half a pass because it's Anne's perspective and it makes sense she'd unquestioningly absorb Protestant gossip. It also leans hard into Fisher and More being personal enemies of Anne, saying they refused the oath to the succession when it was the supremacy More refused to swear to. More was willing to swear to the succession, and it was Anne's own ally Cranmer who suggested a compromise: More swearing to the succession alone.

Opening a chapter with Henry coming to from the jousting accident was very effective because we are like Henry, we don't have the immediate knowledge of what just happened (in theory anyway lol we know the history.)

'Something very bad must have happened to him.' You don't say.

I think Rae's portrayal of Norfolk is a little OTT. Don't get me wrong, I hate Norfolk, I don't give him a nuanced sympathetic portrayal in my own writing- he's ruthless, condescending, materialistic, greedy, and obsessed with hierarchy to the point of comedy- but I think it's OTT to make him literally stinky. Norfolk was a git but he was an aristocratic git, so there's no reason for him not to cover himself in rosewater or musk or civet or rose oil and chew cloves and mint for fresh breath.

"It's not for the first time that she imagines that the duke's death would not cause her any great or lasting sorrow." Spitting facts.

"These men, with their constant needing, wanting, thrusting- can they not ever leave off?" I can see the real Anne thinking this.

Cromwell is called the chancellor, but that was Audley- as Rae says later in the book. What gives? Is this a different chancellorship? Rae really really really wants to keep reminding us that Cromwell is an efficient fixer who knows 'where everything is and who it belongs to.' He is described as having a 'prodigious capacity for work' and I'm pretty sure I've seen that exact phrase in a history book.

Anne's panic and shock written very well: "She stares at the cloth and the stain, as if it is a trick of the light and gazing at it intently enough might cause it to disappear."

Christopher loves adding in definite articles. "The relief floods through her" "the tears staining her pretty cheeks" "a part of" rather than "part of". "Skill at the jousting" "threatened with the torture".

But he also misses out words and letters. I had to silence my inner editor reading this, I was itching to get my red pen, particularly in the middle third of the book. 'You' where it should be 'your', 'away' when it should be 'way' 'when sings' instead of 'when he sings' 'is wife' instead of 'his wife'. 'He is mind is elsewhere'. Sometimes Rae will say the same thing twice but in different words. I'm itching to tidy up some of these sentences.

"Soon enough they are ensconced together in the study very privately and Cromwell can speak his mind having first taken the precaution of having his guest sign a solemn of secrecy."

"Cromwell asks his guest if he would care to view the current progress of the works he is undertaking on the new accommodation and the splendid garden."

"the style favoured by old Granny Beaufort." I'm wincing.

Hire me as a proofreader, Chris!! Let me tidy your sentences!! My rates are super duper reasonable!! ;) xx

"She must be bright and gay" I was surprised to see such an antiquated use of 'gay' in a book published AFTER 2010.

"she must amuse and entertain him as only she can do, she must have faith in their future and give him confidence in it."

The image of their relationship as a sinking ship works particularly well given that ship-jewel she gave him with the self-insert maiden onboard.

If an old woman is talking shit about you why do you eat her gift of pastries?! She's probably spat in them AT LEAST.

Sir 'Nick''s suggestions to Henry are so heavy-handed that the manipulation is almost darkly comedic.

I am narrowing my eyes at Chapuys contemplating 'the austere beauty' of the chapel at Austin Friars. It's just a little early for Protestant whitewash aesthetics to come in. I'll give it a pass.

"The king's amours are not my affair, my dear Eustace."

"I can see that you are unhappy about these arrangements, and of course I sympathise. I do not much like them myself...Seymour having the king's ear, or to dwell on what nonsense he may be pouring into it. But I do not think we should be unduly alarmed about any of this." Cromwell is very clever here, using 'we' and joining their interests together to convincingly sound like he's Anne's ally.

"The ambassador is more than capable of building towering insubstantial castles of speculation in the air; he is also a master of the direct question." Good! But Chapuys would talk of Christendom, not a brotherhood of Catholic nations.

I do think Chris should have read Macculloch on Cromwell, because this Cromwell is too secular. "Survival is in the end his only goal." As Macculloch showed, Cromwell took risks for the sake of the reformation and he also made political errors because he wanted to found a political dynasty through his son Gregory. So Cromwell has multiple motives: yes he wants money, power, prestige, etc., but he is devout too. "not a wit, a raconteur, a teller of tales." It's unfair on Cromwell to portray him as someone who can't amuse highborn ladies: the real Cromwell was an outgoing, hail fellow well met kind of guy.

The Tudor court does feel rather depopulated, Anne is alone with Nan a lot. Where are her other ladies? they tend to vanish.

The king eating partridge with a cherry sauce, a nice detail as IIRC cherries were a favourite of Henry's. "His smile congeals upon his face into a cold mask of reserve."

The memory of being 6 years old and sheltering in the Tower was a good character moment for Henry, especially him recreating the rebellion with his toys. There's a cold pride to Elizabeth of York as well as the typical motherly tenderness, which I like. She was born a Princess after all.

"Do you follow?" He follows. Cromwell has no trouble following." Double meanings! We love double meanings!

Nan Gainsford trying to help Anne by mentioning Mark Smeaton's crush...oh, Nan. A great moment of tragedy. "Cromwell looks at her, quietly recording every word for a remembrance." Later on "Anne nods, as always Nan's good counsel can be relied upon."

I do think this story is missing some key parts, like the scene where Chapuys around Easter 1536 was forced to publicly acknowledge Anne as queen, suggesting the plot to destroy her was rather last minute. Henry orchestrated that little diplomatic trap, and it doesn't really fit Rae's framing of events. Also the countess of Worcester should have been involved in Anne's downfall, but instead it's Jane Rochford.

The meeting with Lady Rochford is enjoyable as fiction but it seems unclear whether she is on Anne's side or not. The real Jane wouldn't want Anne to fall- her fortunes are tied to Anne as history showed: when the Boleyns fell Jane would never be as rich again.

"[Anne] has thought of Cromwell for so long as an ally." Has she??? At the beginning of the book she didn't trust him in the slightest so why is she so taken aback?

"In these times of division and dissent it is so easy to assume that those who share our opinions on matters of faith and religion are somehow bound to be our friends." But she didn't assume!

I like the description of Cromwell being like a bat, it makes a change from comparing him to a pig, which is lazy and boring and unoriginal and uncreative and unfunny.

"Once a single brick is loose, the wall will be brought down quite easily." "this notion, and the twisting, spiralling curlicues of imagined consequence which may issue from it." "the tower of fantasy spirals upwards, out of control."

Henry goes from 'Smeaton won't confess to something that isn't true' to 'I think I've been deceived' back to awareness alarmingly quickly.

"he has endured this kind of assault before, but it was a long time ago, in a blacksmith's yard in Putney, with another man who had absolute power over him". Someone's read Wolf Hall.

Jane Rochford is more malicious here than the evidence suggests.

"She studies Jane's insolent look, and begins to think she might do well to ask George to keep his wife at home in future. If she is allowed to remain at court she will cause trouble somehow. But what ails her? What does she hope to gain from it?"

"he is still a little puzzled by her motivation, because the naïve and trusting might think that her interest lay with the Boleyns since she is married to George, whereas in fact she seems to be determined to do everything in her power to destroy him."

CHRIS. YOU ARE SO CLOSE TO GETTING IT. It's frustrating because Rae is good enough as a fiction writer to spot the obvious holes, but not knowledgeable enough in this history to fix them. Like yes, Anne and George could have sent Jane away if they didn't like her! That suggests they probably DID LIKE HER!

He tries to fix it by having Jane want Anne "disgraced, brought down a peg two, and abandoned by the King...she has done whatever she could think of to help to bring such a conclusion about" that Jane is "nothing more than Anne's lady in waiting." But it doesn't make sense! If Anne were abandoned by the king, this proud and covetous Jane would see her own position decline. She isn't just Anne's lady in waiting- she's her sister in law! She has a fancy bed with Rochford knots and a fancy counterpane! Under Anne's replacement she would just be...another lady in waiting! Also we have Jane's signature and Jane "scratching out her mark" implies she can't write, which is inaccurate.

Smeaton saying "I have risen by my own talents and found favour" is a nice subtle parallel to Cromwell's own rise, which makes Smeaton's fall all the more tragic, as a foil to Cromwell.

Cromwell using the classic 'sign here without seeing the full document because it's hidden by the document above' from I, Claudius.

At Chateau Vert Jane was Constancy IIRC.

"a galliard she knows very well, so beautiful, sad and stately." I think Rae is thinking of a pavane here, a galliard is an upbeat dance.

"although she must suffer patiently the king's delight in revels and pageants, Katherine of Aragon does not care much for this kind of lewd and brazen display, and thinks privately that dancing is a business best left to whores and drunkards." I think this is an unfair portrayal of Katherine. She was pious, but she wasn't a killjoy.

The juxtaposition between Anne falling down into despair next to Henry's mood 'rising' is very effective, like he's draining her like a vampire. Henry believing his own lies and turning his thoughts to "pleasure and pastime with good company". I saw what you did there, Chris.

There are some excellent moments of extreme black comedy in this. "They must believe that there was a conspiracy against myself, not one that has been crudely fashioned against the Queen.' Cromwell winces. Crudely fashioned?"

"It is simple enough, she is to be burned alive, according to the law. This provokes a murmuring from the Lords, and Norfolk looks puzzled until he remembers to add that the king in his great mercy is expected to commute this to beheading."

[malkaleh]

I thought I’d do a thing about the three oldest Boleyn-Tudor-Cromwell kids kids (that is Bess, Tommy and also Mary) from what I know so far. This post covers Mary and Elizabeth. 

Katherine (Cat) b. 1541: I tend to think of Cat as the oldest/first grandchild (subject to Gregory Cromwell and Elizabeth Seymours kids but tbh in this AU Gregory is possibly around the same age/only slightly older/maybe even younger than Mary - his timeline is basically the same magic of The Tudors show that means Tom Cromwell looks like James Frain and is 20-30 years younger than he should be etc ;)). Her Grandfather Thomas is her absolute favourite person in the world from the start. She loves chess, archery, riding and also she and her mother share a love of music. Extremely Stubborn, loves very fiercely. Inherits her mothers title as Duchess of Derby. Will only answer to Cat. Marries an Ottoman Nobleman with whom she shares four sons. (Her headcast is Anna Popplewell). Takes her position as the oldest/first grandchild very seriously. 

Phillip (Felipe) b. 1542: Inherited his mothers kindness and his father sense of military strategy and contentment. Just a very very happy person is all I can say. Loves to travel though - stays with Meg in Denmark for a long time, spends time with Mihrimah’s older brothers in Istanbul. Ends up finding his home in Denmark with Meg. 

Anne (Anna/Ana) b. 1543 (d. 1610): She’s charming, charismatic and loves court - the masques, the music, the dancing. Definitely the child most like her grandfather henry. Like all her siblings very close to her younger uncle and aunt (Ned and Pippa) - she loves fine things and has a healthy pride in her status. (Headcast is Jenna Coleman)

Elizabeth and Robert Dudley have five children together. 

Anne (Nan): The absolute image of her namesake grandmother. Also look Robert loves all his children equally, cherishes them all equally and also Anne is his favourite. That is, as @theladyelizabeth reminded me the rule ;). Later Duchess of Pembroke (she inherited the title from her mother) in her own right, she also becomes a renowned poet. Loves to wear green, collects languages and learning for the scholarly joy of it (but a lot of language collection - Mihrimah opening that up is a particular delight), rides better than her father, extremely hilarious, wants to make her mother proud. 

Henry (Hal): I’m pretty sure he ends up inheriting a Dukedom from his father - probably the Northumberland Dukedom but i’m not sure what’s happening with Robert’s brothers because they live but also I reckon Robert would get a Dukedom due to Marrying Elizabeth/also his talent. He’s such a stylish man - impeccable sense of politics. Not a fan of the country. Very popular with women - I tend to think he’s the Tudor Looking One. Also if he marries it would have to be to someone who doesn’t mind that he’s not sticking to one bed - his parents and his grandparents are all firm on that one. 

Thomas (Thom): Hal’s twin and the one who loves the country and the management of the estates. Very much a people person as well - has that gift of diplomacy and making a place a home. He marries the daughter of one of the nobles that Mihrimah attracts to England from the Ottoman world. 

Robert (Robin): Sailor, Adventurer and Early Travel Writer. 

Mary (Marie): The later in life surprise child. 

[inamindfarfaraway]

Elizabeth I’s song that I wrote for @arty-e’s SIX: The Kids. My idea for Elizabeth in the musical is that she’s, true to her shrewdness and pragmatism in reality, focused on the present and not that invested in the competition. Like Anne of Cleves in Six - “I probably won’t win then. Oh, well... back to the palace!” The others all have widespread misconceptions they want to correct, but Elizabeth did great and everyone knows it. If anything, she’s glorified and put on a pedestal. That’s fine by her. You don’t have to introspect on a pedestal. You don’t have to admit you’re hurting and hurt people and don’t know how to trust anyone anymore on a pedestal. She uses her accomplishments as an excuse to not dwell on her miseries and heartache for most of the play. She’s charismatic and lighthearted. When not casually reminding people how cool she is, she’s trying to mediate between the Catholics (Mary and Mezza, who bond over their fierce attitudes and dislike of her) and Protestants (Edward and Jane, who bond over being BABIES thrust into power TOO YOUNG and puppet rulers who TRAGICALLY DIED).

She does tease and compete with her siblings, but she wouldn’t be a middle child otherwise. She’s never serious about it the way the rest are. She made the “Bloody Mary” comment without realizing it touched a real nerve in Mary. Her goals are the peace and happiness of her family and love of the audience. Every word and action before this is deliberate to that end.

So her breakdown here is huge. We finally see her be truly vulnerable and genuine and human. It’s an audience gut punch, the way the end of “All You Wanna Do” is. The breakdown occurring prior to the song emphasizes that Liz survived all of that to rule, and frees up the song to be one giant boast. This is also the last solo of the play before the resolution song, so the Tudor siblings are trying to be more openly caring after hearing from each other’s perspectives and joking and reminiscing together.

Inspirations for the lyrics are the “God Save the Queen” and various quotes of Elizabeth I. “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman” and “I myself will take up arms” from her famous Tilbury speech and “I have no desire to make windows into men’s souls” about her stance on religion. The snippet of “Don’t Lose Ur Head”, like Mary’s “No way!”, is meant to pay respects to her late mother and contrast the (very disproportionately, Anne deserves better) reviled, disgraced Anne Boleyn with the celebrated, admired Elizabeth I. It’s kind of a diss at Henry and the others who blamed/blame Anne. “You hate her but you love me? She’s my role model! Strong, outspoken, intelligent... but I’m not gonna let you behead me for that.” Semper vester regina is Latin for ���always your queen’. She gives an exaggerated shudder when she says, “Childbirth”.

Elizabeth was not at all perfect, but she is nonetheless an icon. Discuss.

Edward VI’s song.

Lady Jane Grey’s song.

Mary I’s song.

Intro song ideas.

[bforbetterthanyou]

What’s your favorite fact about each of Henry’s wives? Feel free to add in any other Tudor women

Catherine of Aragon — I like that she served as an ambassador to England. I don’t think that’s as widely a known fact as it should be.

Anne Boleyn — I like that she was political. I mean, I know that’s kind of obvious but I feel like, we’re so used to living in a time when it’s really common for women to be political and be involved in politics that we forget that, in the 16th century, it was quite extraordinary that Anne not only had political opinions but actually wanted to express them and be involved. Most women during that time, even a lot of Queens, even if they had political opinions didn’t always express them (or weren’t allowed to).

Jane Seymour — such an enigma to me...damn I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. I feel kinda bad but even during her time as Queen there’s still so little about her.

Anna of Cleves — Apparently she was known to show up at people’s houses unannounced. There was one noble (I can’t remember who) who, like, complained that Anna was always showing up at his estate with no warning and would just expect to be allowed to stay there. I think that says so much about her.

Katheryn Howard — I like how much she did for Elizabeth. I mean, there wasn’t much she could do really, but, like, when Katheryn gave Elizabeth some of her jewelry or insisted Elizabeth sit across from her at the table. I mean, Katheryn was Elizabeth’s step-mother but, of course, they had a much closer family bond because they were also first cousins once removed.

Kathryn Parr — It’s so hard for me to reconcile these two completely different sides to Kathryn Parr. I want to believe she was a good person, but marrying Thomas Seymour (even before The Incident) was a pretty ify thing to do. I like that she had one of her portraits painted by a woman and she seemed to be pretty supportive of women in general—which makes the marriage to Thomas that much more baffling; even before the thing with Elizabeth, he had a reputation.

Anyway...other Tudor women...

This isn’t really a fact but I often like to think about the fact that Margaret Tudor died in 1541 which means she lived to see 5 of Henry’s 6 marriages and died just at the start of Katheryn Howard’s downfall. I’ve always wondered what she thought about...everything. Oh and this is more of an actual fact, I really like that she apparently liked Anne Boleyn. Mary Rose Tudor’s hatred of Anne is quite well known but no one ever seems to talk about the fact that Margaret supported the divorce and Anne.

And another fact that people really never talk enough about—how Jane Boleyn continued to use the title “Lady Rochford” after George’s death. Now, if she really hated George why would she continue to use his title? Why would she never re-marry and try to distance herself from the Boleyns? Why did she still, apparently, publicly mourn George and Anne’s deaths even into the Queenship of Katheryn Howard?

I also like the fact that Mary I was apparently quite fond of gambling (almost to a fault) and that she never seemed to hold her feelings about Anne against Elizabeth (the rift between them only really began after Henry VIII’s death).

There are probably a bunch more facts I’ll think of later but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

[alilyamongroses]

Isn’t she just delightful?

Catherine of Aragon has one of the more fascinating media legacies of anyone in the Tudor period, not in terms of how her image has fluctuated over the years, but because of how notably it hasn’t. Other hardcore Catholics of the Henrician court are inevitably vilified in stories from Protestant perspectives - Thomas More, Cardinal Wolsey, Jane Seymour and above all else Mary I, to name a few. “Protestant perspectives” doesn’t just refer to reformation texts, it includes books from the perspective of Protestant figures; usually Anne Boleyn or Elizabeth I, and more recently Thomas Cromwell with Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall books. Despite her unwavering faith in both the Catholic Church and her own position, Catherine’s reputation has, up until the past twenty years or so, remained close to stellar; her marriage into the English monarchy at a young age did well to divorce her from her parent’s religious persecutions, and her death some fifteen years or so before her daughter took the throne kept her from being tarnished by association to Mary’s resurrection of medieval heresy laws.

As a Tudor queen, Catherine has largely gone down in history for her irreproachable conduct, even after that history began to tilt towards the side of a religion she opposed - she is known for her charity, her piety, and her belief in her husband’s good nature no matter how vile his behavior grew to be, even at the expense of her own self image. According to Chapuys (who in this case there is no reason to disbelieve) she went to her grave questioning wether Henry’s actions after their divorce was her fault, wondering wether, if she had given him what he wanted, he may not have felt the need to break from Rome, mistreat their daughter and execute two men - one a long term friend and one his own grandmother’s religious advisor. Catherine is a noble figure, she is a tragic figure, she is most of all a dignified figure, and in Tudor media she is always given at least a sympathetic nod if not a complex or three dimensional portrayal. 

The key phrase there, though, is as a Tudor queen. Whatever else she was, Catherine was decidedly not a modern woman, just like all of her female peers living five hundred years ago were decidedly not modern women; her unflinching religious beliefs, her many attempts at producing a male heir and her devotion to her marriage are admirable traits of a female noble of the sixteenth century, less so of a twenty first century wife or businesswoman. She was a product of her time, and modernized or semi modernized Tudor media’s attempts to portray her - specifically the brand of modern Tudor media that sets out to depict Anne and Henry’s relationship as one of Sexy High Romance - always end up turning Catherine into a misogynistic caricature of herself, historical legacy be damned. The blog anneboleynnovels describes it best:

“Catherine’s greatest hurdle has been not Protestant novels, but modernized ones. These are the one subgenre in which her character at best is severely degraded and at worst is completely unrecognizable. It’s not surprising that it should be like this — finding modern corollaries to Anne and Henry, whether in an office, a Hollywood mansion, or a high school, is doable. As for most of the people who surrounded them, while some some people are harder to wrench into modern poses than others, it’s relatively easy to cut and alter those characters to make them work better in a modern setting. Catherine, however, is completely lost here. She needs to exist, or else the central conflict disappears — but she simply doesn’t have a real modern equivalent, at least not in the kinds of societies that modernizers write about; her determination that God had put her in her position and that she had to safeguard her daughter’s legitimacy, and thus her inheritance, is impossible to convey fully, especially since Henry’s historical behavior — taking a presumed inheritance from Mary, forcibly separating the two women, and confining them in residences of his choosing — can’t be precisely replicated in a modern novel without making him at best a creep and at worst a criminal. In neither case would that Henry be an appealing love object for a modern Anne, so his behavior is inevitably made more standard — he’s simply a wealthy man divorcing his wife of twenty years, and instead of taking her settlement and moving on, his wife just refuses to let go.”

As the post on Catherine’s fictionalized history points out, attempts to judge her through a modern lens, particularly in stories that center around that grand, not-at-all-murderous love affair of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn inevitably fail to produce a balanced assesment. Susan Bordo’s highly modernized study the Creation of Anne Boleyn treats her like a footnote at best and a self righteous fool at worst, while the Catherine of Suzannah Dunn’s The Queen of Subtleties is disgustingly nicknamed “Fat Cath” (stupid cow, how could she let herself go like that after six pregnancies?) and features its leading lady, another ahead-of-her-time portrayal of Anne Boleyn, going out of her way to condescendingly paint Catherine to the reader as vengeful and delusional. Anne of Hollywood and Anne and Henry present the worst portrayals, one a hideous, deliberately unsympathetic drug addict and the other a teenage psychotic forced on Henry by his father, leading her poor, brow beaten boyfriend by the hand.

That’s not to say it would be impossible to write a well rounded modern Catherine of Aragon, but most modernized Tudor novels simply don’t care to try and make her well rounded; she exists solely to be the convenient road block to Anne and a whitewashed Henry’s happiness, a flat example of the Hysterical Woman trope rather than a Queen, a mother, or a politician. It isn’t Anne Boleyn’s fault that this happens (she can’t exactly object) but this version of Catherine never fails to rear its ugly head in Tudor media that aims to portray Anne, literally or figuratively, as a “woman of the future.” Since that reading of Anne has gained momentum over the years, this Catherine inevitably does so too.

What makes the Spanish Princess so unbearable is how blatantly Emma Frost is trying, and egregiously failing, to flip the script on this. Whatever her personal dislike of Anne Boleyn, she is very obviously trying to take this fictitious version of Anne Boleyn that has sprung up over the past few decades - that of the rebellious, sexy, pseudo feminist Modern Woman™ - and apply it to Catherine of Aragon, who was neither rebellious, a feminist or, after six pregnancies, five infant deaths and a battle with heart cancer, all that sexy. The intimacy and very real affection she and Henry shared in the early years of their marriage is stilted and unemotional, replaced by an absurd number of sex scenes and a very out of place “warrior kween” nickname. It isn’t enough for Catherine to organize a massive military campaign and give a speech to an assembly of soldiers while heavily pregnant, real life accomplishments of hers which have gone largely unacknowledged - no, the Catherine of the Spanish Princess needs to literally fight in battle, pregnant belly armor and all, subtly implying that her many miscarriages were the result of her own behavior, never mind the fact that Henry’s later wives had miscarriages as well. The deeply devoted friends Catherine actually had, one of whom served her for decades and risked royal punishment to be with her on her deathbed, are either erased entirely or put into invented conflicts with her. Her relationship with the only one of her children that survived infancy is perverted into a cold, uncaring motherhood, marked by disappointment and a refusal to even hold her daughter, let alone personally teach her Latin, commission scholars to write books for her, and request those same scholars take charge of her education.

In place of all these details, the things that make the historically minded audience love Catherine in the first place, several sordid aspects of Anne Boleyn’s fictional representations are assigned to Frost’s Catherine of The Upside Down: the ~unnatural~ blowjobs and poorly designed French hoods, the general air of cattiness, the excessive nudity, the hatred of her daughter, the inability to sexually please her husband, and the weird sense of anger at all the women in her life all stand out as hallmarks of Anne Boleyn’s less flattering portrayals, but so too do the clear attempts to pander to a feminist audience and sell itself as new age and progressive.

The fouler examples of Catherine as a modern woman aren’t yet the prevalent perception of her; a gaggle of misguided twenty first century books isn’t enough to erase the near spotless reputation she’s maintained for half a millennium. But the Spanish Princess fails to depict a more positive modernization of Catherine because it’s lazy in the attempt - it sees the habit of trying to turn sixteenth century queens into anything but sixteenth century queens and tries to replicate it by taking a handful of theatrical trends and having their protagonist perform them. Those trends have been apart of Anne Boleyn’s portrayal in the media for so long it wouldn’t be that strange to see her acting that way on screen, no matter how historically inaccurate they may be, but to assign them to someone with such a vastly different public history as Catherine is just jarring. She wasn’t like that, nobody thinks she was like that, Tudor media has always known her as being not like that, and the result is something that’s confusing at best and outright offensive at worst. It’s not fun to watch, but it’s interesting to examine, broader context in mind.

(Also credit to @queenmarytudor for that image of Meg and Mary, and seriously, check out anneboleynnovels. They’re great.)