#hviii

[fideidefenswhore]

so tired of tudor dramas where there are no women… and even when there are women… there aren’t…ykwim?

[richmond-rex]

in TSP margaret pole seems very close with thomas more. it is true ?

Hello! I'm tagging @elizabethan-memes who knows way more about Thomas More than I do. And if anyone who's read about Margaret Pole (@edmundtudor) also wants to weigh in, please feel free! x

[natequarter]

tbh i don't find the "katherine howard was a useless child with no autonomy played like a cheap kazoo by her uncle and the king" narrative any more useful than "katherine howard was a nasty little slut who was so mean to poor little henry viii and deserved everything she got"... mind you, katherine howard was a young woman manipulated by her family to benefit the howards' position in court, but it is possible to understand katherine howard as both a victim of a vindictive and cruel king and an uncaring family and at the same time a young adult with the capacity to make choices of her own. which she did! she was sixteen at the absolute youngest (and twenty-one at the absolute oldest, but realistically probably somewhere in the middle), which, while not necessarily making her an adult, certainly made her more than a helpless little girl who didn't have a clue what she was doing. i think it's important to challenge the commonly-held and obviously incredibly cruel assumption that she was just some stupid slut who had it coming, but i worry that some portrayals of her go too far in the opposite direction. it is essential to analyse historical figures as the living, breathing, feeling people that they were, and avoid making caricatures of them as much as possible; and if you ask me, both these different images of katherine howard fail to truly reckon with her character

[fideidefenswhore]

#'piggy eyes' is not original or creative in the slightest#cliches always make writing worse not better

I don't know how to articulate this well, but I really fucking hate the way a lot of thin writers write fat characters. Like how men write women "breasting boobily" there is something so dehumanizing about how fat characters are often written. "He waddled", "he lumbered", the writer of the book I'm reading always mentions this characters "fleshy hand" when he does something with his hand. Like, we already know that he's fat. There is no need to describe everything he does as "doing it fatly".

[latristereina]

People focus way too much on whether Katherine of Aragon and Arthur consummated the marriage, on whether she lied or not. The dispensation for HVIII and KoA’s marriage covered both possibilities, and it was neither the first nor the last marriage of this kind (Manuel I of Portugal married two sisters and their niece, Sigismund II of Poland married two sisters as well), Henry himself wanted to divorce his wife to marry the sister of his mistress and asked for a dispensation that would cover it.

[malkaleh]

I just now realized the parallels between Sansa and Mihrimah in Crown of Ashes… in fact I wonder in this AU, if the ASOIAF/GOT series still exists (it was based on the war of the roses so it might still exist), if Sansa is inspired by Mihrimah in some ways.

Oooh. Okay so I have never watched/read etc but I have read some fic so my opinions come from that but Ooooh. Mihrimah could absolutely have some Sansa parallels (though her golden prince actually is a golden prince which the AU of good!Joffrey is something I’m sure someone has done…) in Crown of Ashes world. (Actually Tommy also has some Sansa vibes in this verse…)

(I don’t have the knowledge to make the OT3 verse of ASOIAF/GOT - I do think it exists though! Possibly a very different lens because I think there’s a HVIII analogue targ king @eidetictelekinetic ??? That just would not be a thing)

[queenmarytudor]

Edward the Confessor is regarded as the patron saint of difficult marriages. 🥺

“The 20th day of March was taken up to Westminster again with a hundred knights King Edward the Confessor, in the same place where his shrine was, and it shall be set up again as fast as my lord abbott can have it done, for it was a godly sight to have seen it, how reverently he was carried from the place that he was taken up, where he was laid when that abbey was spoiled and robbed; and so he was carried, and goodly singing has been seen, and mass song.”

— Diary of Henry Machyn, 20th March 1557

[fideidefenswhore]

caved and rewatched a few eps (sort of only pieces tho) of tudors (and BSR, drama scenes only… #ilovetohavefun) last night and like the way… you can literally so plausibly cast so many actors in that cast as hviii… except the one playing hviii….

i know steve waddington is the fan fav, he would be perfect for henry like circa 1530 (except the brown eyes), but i also present:

Kris Holden Reid , perfect for circa 1515 (and 6’3 asw!)

[boleynqueenes]

Being as you are someone who writes about Anne Boleyn, I must ask you, which are your favorite portrayals of Anne Boleyn? I mean fiction (novels, film, tv) but also non-fiction. And, do you feel your fav portrayals have influenced you in the way you write Anne and her story? Your least favorite ones, do they have an influence too? Which ones are they? Thanks

If there's one with zero merit and/or minimal entertainment value I won't include it on the list, I'll say I'll ** = my absolute favourites and * = my compelling in some aspects, but tread with caution, and those sort of in between I'll leave alone.

Or rather, let's put it another way...* is worth a library rental or free Kindle borrow, whichever you have available, and ** is worth an actual purchase. Those without *...eh, I'll leave it to you.

The Challenge of Anne Boleyn, Hester Chapman*

Adultery, Heresy, and Desire, Amy Licence*

Raven's Widow, Adrienne Dillard**

Jane Boleyn, Julia Fox**

Among the Wolves, Lauren Mackay*

Queens of Henry VIII, David Starkey*

The Story of the Death of Anne Boleyn, Translation, Edition, and Essays by Joann DellaNeva**

The Lady Elizabeth, Alison Weir*

Renaissance Prince, Lisa Hilton*

Hunting the Falcon, John Guy & Julia Fox**

The Life & Death of Anne Boleyn, Eric Ives**

Tudors in Love, Sarah Gristwood

Tudor England: A History, Lucy Wooding**

Children of Henry VIII, John Guy*

Henry VIII by Lucy Wooding**

The Other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory*

The Lady in the Tower, Alison Weir*

The Lady Anne (Book 2 of 5 of Above All Others series) by Gemma Lawrence**

Judge the Best (Book 2 of 5 of Above All Others series) by Gemma Lawrence**

Threads by Nell Gavin*

In the Shadow of Lions, Ginger Garrett*

Tarnish by Katherine Longshore*

Brazen by Katherine Longshore

Anne & Henry by Dawn Ius*

Wife after Wife by Olivia Hayfield*

The King's Mind by Christopher Rae**

The Concubine by Christopher Rae**

VIII by HM Castor

Queenbreaker by Catherine McCarran

The Tudors (2007-)**

The Lovers Who Changed History (2014)**

Anne Boleyn miniseries (2021)**

Blood, Sex & Royalty (2022)**

I Am Henry: A Compelling Novel of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII (2023)

And, do you feel your fav portrayals have influenced you in the way you write Anne and her story? Your least favorite ones, do they have an influence too? Which ones are they? Thanks

Pieces from everything influence me, Christopher Rae's and Gemma Lawrence's novels, for example, both had some of the best and credible portrayals of Henry Norris I've ever read, both in credible unrequited love (tying into, Anne's wariness thereof) that was forged into a weapon against him and for why he became such a favourite of HVIII's in the first place (would've included Jeff Lavender's thesis of Norris also, had you asked for beyond fiction and non-fiction books). The best parts of all of the above have inspired me to craft AB as a character at turns, sympathetic and unsympathetic: proud, courageous, intelligent, zealous, prudent (more in the 16c sense than 21c), fierce, jealous, sensitive, vindictive, unyielding, talented, compassionate, bold, spirited, pious, impassioned, loyal, loving ...somebody who inspired either complete devotion or implacable hatred, with very little in between, and felt comparable extremes towards her own family, friends, and adversaries.

From my least favourite...I try to remember that every choice she made was morally defensible and/or justifiable, from her own perspective, regardless of whether or not it actually was (and of course, they weren't always). I try to remember also that fear and insecurity can best explain some of her less palatable choices, as enumerated here. Basically, just that she was human and flawed, but also that there were many people personally (and often, religiously) invested in magnifying her flaws and reducing, or even outright omitting, her strengths. Obviously, that misogyny can also be a factor in some of her portrayals, is a salient remembrance to keep in mind, as well.

[ohwolfling]

Ooooh! Thank you @galebrainrott

(Replies aren't working for me again)

That's for sure an interpretation. I was thinking about the full arc of Charles Brandon where he's that way for about a season and the rest is all Charles and Henry angst and a weird wind down to moderate meh about court.

CB is periodically tossed out of HVIII's favor for marrying his 3-in-1 sister I guess so maybe ostracization vibes still remain?

Very satisfied Gale ended up with a touch of the tism instead of Henry VIII.

[fideidefenswhore]

No, this was a letter to Charles V.

I was reading Inside the Tudor Court by Lauren Mackay recently and:

Did Chapuys really just “Per my last email” the fucking King of England?????

[natequarter]

"most unfairly maligned tudor woman" is a fascinating question bc it's not just asking "who has been treated the worst?" but also the very stupid question "who deserved that treatment the least?" which is, i don't know, ridiculous

[clubstyleeurope]

#cse • @thatzachguy_ ⚡️ L E A N I N T O I T ⚡️ ••• #clubstyleeastcoast #clubstylesoftail #barracudasilver #harleydavidson #thrashinsupply #rinehartracing #dynamitecrew #gofastdontdie #clubstylem8 #fxrdivision #stella #hviii #m8 https://www.instagram.com/p/CeSlE54IpiT/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[cnpperformance]

My boy Mason @mason_lifts - Last heavyish day on the books, 6 triples with 355 on squats and 425 with deadlifts. Everything felt smooth and snappy. 1 week out. #powerwod #hviii #hviiibrandgoods #restwhenimdead #bench #squat #deadlift #powerlifting #cnpperformance #becauseitworks @hviiibrandgoods @cnpperformance

[fideidefenswhore]

PGreg, do you think Mary Boleyn was the ‘best of the Boleyns’??

PGregs is Anne Boleyn a whore? I can’t tell if you think that??