Anyone watching 'The other Boleyn girl'??

The rivalry is definitely real. Norfolk tries to marry his daughter Mary to Tom Seymour at one point, no doubt realising which way the wind is blowing.

The rivalry was very much real. Same is true in any royal court; the big families battling for power. It's all very political. And minor factions become attached to the major powers via marriage, or simply through seeing who could offer the better deal.

I think their obstetric histories would have been regarded as they would now, not usual but not unknown. Certainly other Tudors had much better luck in that department (the link on kells further up thread shows that Margaret Tudor had six children I believe). Certainly there are plenty of women even on MN with repeated MC etc and conditions that left untreated (such as rhes neg) would cause MC or stillbirth but they can be identified and treated now.

No, that's real.

When Edward was king, his regents were his uncles, and there was a lot of 'argh' between the Howards and the Seymours.

Was the rivalry between the Howard's/Boleyn's and the Seymour's real, or another Gregory plot device?

I'd have thought there would have been a lot of jostling for position in the Court, so it is believable. I just wonder if it is based in fact or not.

And Norfolk would have got his Howard girl on the throne.
But she wouldn't have done what he told her, so he wouldn't have been happy.

You're right, Scone. I do wonder if he would have been added to the line of succession, had Fitzroy lived, and Edward not been born.

Badvoc, several posts back you mention Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond having been legitimized by Henry VIII. Henry certainly acknowledged him as his son and may well have placed him in the succession had he (Richmond) lived, but I don't think he was ever declared legitimate.

I've head of both those theories... Possible they're both true. Probable when it comes to Henry that 'something' was going on; so many losses, especially poor CofA who had nine recorded pregnancies.

I wonder how common miscarriage/stillbirth was in general?

I would imagine what with diet and infections and things they wouldn't have known were dangerous, it might have been a lot higher. I wonder if Anne and Catherine's stories were unusual, or if we just know about them because people were watching them so carefully and everything was recorded.

yes I read that about Anne's blood type also - was it in the Alison Weir book?

Didn't Henry create a specific execution for people who were convicted of poisoning - to be boiled alive?

Yes I've read that. Alternatively ( or also) that Henry had kells which would have accounted for Katherine's numerous late mcs/neonatal deaths.

So sad really.

I read an interesting article somewhere, which suggested that Anne Boleyn may well have been RH- meaning that she would have managed one living child, then would not have had another live birth. Its a scary thought. Doomed from your own conception by your blood type.

Yes feel very sorry for Henry Percy.

The Nora lofts book very strongly emphasises that Henry Percy loved Anne and the rest of his life were ashes in his mouth after Wolsey stepped in, and that Anne actually went along with Henry's pursuit of her as means to harm Wolsey. Far fetched but it seems plausible in the book.

The letter Norfolk wrote to report on what he was doing, I mean, not the letter inviting people to the execution. We don't know what that said.

Agree re Percy.
The courts sentencing people to death are always disturbing. The brother of Robert Aske, leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace, was on the jury that condemned him.
They seem to have been very carefully selected as a means of searching out and purging disloyalty to the Crown.
When Aske was executed they summoned the gentry of York to watch - the letter said 'not just for example, but to see who will groan.' We can imagine spies among the crowd.
It's disturbing what common people were done for, too. Making comments like what a pity it is that there weren't so many feast days as there used to be before the King got rid of some. You would really have to watch your mouth.

I have always found Henry Percy's involvement in all this really sad...
He loved Anne, she loved him.
They were betrothed, some even say married and that they consummated their union.
Wolsey and his father found out and forced them to swear on oath it never happened on threat of disinheritance.
Anne was sent back to hever castle in disgrace, and Henry was married off sharpish to Mary talbot.
It was a disastrous marriage. They were both very unhappy and Mary tried to get he marriage annulled by claiming Henry percy had a prior commitment to Anne.
It was rejected.
Ironically, when the king wanted rid of Anne, he tried to get Henry Percy to admit to their prior commitment. He refused.
He was on the jury that convicted Anne and sentanced her to death.
After her sentance was read out he collapsed and had to be helped out of the court.
He died not long after with no heir and his property and money all went to king Henry.

I think Norfolk was still making a choice, to play the game to the level he did. He didn't have to be like that.
He was criticised for his insufferable pride earlier on. I forget the details now, something to do with having armed men in livery when he wasn't meant to.
Of course we have to understand people in the context of their time, but we still get a sense of a very definite personality, not just someone who is born into a role and has to live up to it.

She never forgot her mother. It is a very touching piece of jewellery.
She was very good to her Boleyn and Howard relatives.
She was only 2.8 when her mother was executed, she can't have remembered her.
I wonder if she sought out those who could?

Anne of a thousand days. God I love that film. The trial scene is devastating. Henry almost seems to be on her side but they both know he isn't.

I think the saddest part of Elizabeth's story is the ring she wore recently found to be a secret locket - inside, a minute portrait of her mother.

Yes! It was called Anne of the thousand days with Richard burton and genevive bujold! :)
Yes, Norfolk did survive, didn't he? He was released after Henry died, wasn't he?
I really do think she was a virgin. She was so determined to answer to no man, she was never alone. How could she have had an affair, or been pg or given birth, as has sometimes been claimed?
IMO her experiences as a young child (the execution of her mother and step mother) and in puberty (her behaviour with Thomas Seymour and its effect) taught her some very hard lessons.
I do believe she loved Robert Dudley. She would never have married, not even him, but she disnt want anyone ekse to have him either. she never spoke to his wife lettice knollys again after she found out about their marriage.
She kept his last letter by her bedside for the rest of her life.

Norfolk was a vile man by today's standards, but at the time was simply the head of a family, who actually came from almost nowhere, and had grown to be one of the most powerful families in the kingdom. He played the game - you had to. I'm not entirely sure whether he had a hand in Mary becoming Henry's mistress, especially seeing as she already had been mistress to the king of France. But I'm certain he was involved with both Anne and Katherine taking their positions.

I'm also not entirely convinced that Henry was the blood thirsty tyrant he is sometimes played out to be. The Tudor's had an incredibly flimsy claim to the throne as it was, and then the first born son died. Henry had seen first hand the panic and destruction caused by an unclean line of succession, and this was so driven into him that it was all he could consider. Which is one of the reasons I don't believe he was the father of Mary's children, as he would have acknowledged them in his desperation for an heir to the throne.

As long as she didn't lose it to pervy Tom Seymour