Is Katherine Howard going to get the chop on the Tudors tonight?

[darleneconnor]

She really isn't being very kindly portrayed in this series is she?

I am going to miss the series when it is over. I dont see why they cant continue on.

I heard the production company are making a series about the Borgias.

Katherine Howard was an exceptionally silly and highly sexed young woman. All of Henry's other wives were intelligent and politically savvy women. He did fine - it was they that had the misfortune to be married to him!

I think Katherine Howard was immoral. I don't know your definition of the word, but sleeping with another man when you are married is immoral in my book.

I am not so sure about Anne Boleyn. Did she scheme and dally around with others as it was made out in this series, or was that a rumour spread around about her so Henry could get rid of her?

The Tudors tv series is very historically innaccurate. There is evidence that Katherine Howard and Thomas Culpepper liked each other but none that they actually committed adultary. Also note that she was only between the ages of 15 and 19 when she was married to Henry. Therefore these pro-marriage 'affairs' happened when she was a child. Nowadays all these men, inc the King would be considered paedophiles and her their victim.

Anne Boleyn was completly set up for political purposes.

Ah thanks for that darleneconnor. I have been browsing the web this morning (ok, wikipedia, I know, not the most historically accurate source!) and learnt a lot more about Henry's wives.

I go back to my original stance which is distaste for such an unstable and violent age and all those who played their part in it.

I know the Tudors is historically inaccurate and sexed up for its audience but it has prompted me to read more into the period - I missed out on taking History O level as it clashed with another subject I wasn't considered clever enough - I've found it fascinating but gory.

Ann Boleyn was set up and poor Katherine Howard age 16 got forced into a marriage with an old man with a stinky ulcerated leg, don't really blame her for infidelities although not the wisest of moves given the times and available punishments.

There is no real evidence that Catherine Howard had sex with Thomas Culpeper.

She was, from all evidence, a silly teenager who was brought up rather neglected and barely literate.

Even Cromwell found her state during her imprisonment pitiable.

She was a teenage girl facing beheading. I can't imagine anyone would find that an appealing prospect and yet, from all historical counts, she was composed at the time of her death.

She did indeed have a rather long sexual relationship with Francis Dereham, and quite honestly, she should have admitted to being pre-contracted to him as then Henry could have banished her. There was pleny of hard evidence to back that up.

But she was rather foolish, young and very upset.

Personally, I always felt she was rather mistreated by history.

She wasn't old enough, educated enough or socially skilled enough to be truly 'wanton' in the same sense as Ann Bolelyn.

She was used as a pawn by her family, too.

I am going to miss the series when it is over. I dont see why they cant continue on.

It would be very hard for them to carry on without missing huge chunks of history out and / or crucial historical figures.

They merged Henry's sisters into one character which would mean that either Mary Queen of Scots or Lady Jane Grey could exist but not both. It would be a mockery if Edward happily and meekly passed his throne directly to Mary I, and without Mary Queen of Scots there would be no King James for Elizabeth to pass her throne onto. No MQOS would also delete huge political intrigues and plots.
It wouldn't make sense, mind you knowing the Americans I suppose one of his sisters could turn out to have been in the shower all along !!

All of Henry's wives were his victims in one way or another although Anne of Cleves was possibly the cleverest and got the best deal.
Anne Boleyn was in all probability entirely innocent of all charges, but innocence never prevented Henry from committing judicial murder. Anne's "crime" was to give birth to a daughter and not subsequently produce a son. Shame they didn't know back then that it's the sperm and not the egg that determines the sex of a baby.

I have been mildly irritated by how many details they have got wrong in this series and some of the ridiculous scenarios. For example last night they showed Jane Boleyn being executed first when Katherine was actually the first to die.
It also made me wonder why they needed to show Katherine practising with the block naked. It's documented that she did indeed ask for the block so she could prepare, but would she have done that naked in The Tower of London in February ? She'd have probably died of hypothermia before getting near the scaffold !

I agree, AngelHMum.

I haven't watched it all so hadn't realised they merged Margaret and Mary Tudor.

It is true that Jane Parker Bolelyn appears to have suffered a nervous breakdown after her arrest and an Act of Attainder was passed to have her excecuted as she was considered insane, but she, too, was from many accounts composed at the time of her death.

Did they cover the execution of the Countess of Salisbury? Now that was grim!

Yep I agree, little Katherine was just a pawn

Katherine of Aragon was a good wife, the only mistake she made was not to give Henry a son. And she died of what was thought to be cancer in May 1533, 4 months after Henry married Anne.

Anne was too politically savvy for her own good and some of the other advisors of Henry saw her as a threat - she clearly had a lot of influence on him, after all he broke away from the Catholic Church for her (though there were other advantages for him, raiding all the treasuries of the monestries for one!). So it is conjectured the charges were trumped up. Only one of her supposed lovers, Mark Smeaton was tortured into confessing her had relations with her - as he was the only commoner who was accused.

And her brother may have been homosexual, so not interested in sex with females at all, much less his own sister!

Expat - the Countess of Salisbury was the one who dragged screaming to the block wasn't she?
Think that was in series 2?

Jayne Boelyn - who was she last night the one that was confined to quarters too ?

Jane Boelyn was Lady Rochford, she was married to George Boelyn the brother of Anne Boelyn.

She helped paved her brother and sister-in-law's way to the block by intimating that the two had incestuous relations. And she may have helped facilitator a relationship between Culpeper and Katherine Howard. Though as already been said, there is no real proof that the relationship was sexual.

Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, was an execution that went very awry, yes. One of her sons had a very big mouth, which he opened often from his point of safety in France.

Because of her movements, the first blow hit her shoulder and it took 10 more blows to kill her.

She refused to lay on teh block because she had never answered any crime.

Yeah I read about that, she was very frail as well How awful. It wasn't clear what happened to her little grnadson?

Hmm, hadn't read any evidence that any ill befell her eldest son's son. Her eldest son was executed, no thanks in part to testimony from his own brother, but he left descendants who survived and all evidence is that the King supported his son, as well as the Marquess of Exeter's son, although they were held together at the Tower with the Countess and their fathers.

The Poles also had as good a claim to the throne, if not better than Henry through their Plantagenet roots so they were deemed as a threat. She was very old and very frail when she was executed.

Jane Bolyen (Rochford) more than likely did have a nervous breakdown and went mad prior to her execution.
Mind you she and Katherine Howard (who was also Anne Boleyn's cousin) must have known what would happen if they were caught betraying the king. They both acted with unbelieveable arrogance or stupidity.

Lady Jane Grey's story also makes me feel very sad. Another Tudor child beheaded through the foolishness and greed of others. Mary I was on the verge of pardoning her and releasing her when her father started a second uprising to re-instate her on the throne. She was only 16 when she was executed.

Yes the Salisbury execution was v grim. She was in her 60s FFS. Henry was a monster, he had no excuse for that.

I thought that Cromwell died before katherine?

They could just skip to Mary, by way of the Seymours getting their comeuppance.

I thought LJG got the block because Phillip said he wouldnt marry mary until she ordered it?

She was so desperate to get married and have babies (was 37) that she gave in.

Charles Brandon seems to have been the only person who had a long happy life. The rest either get executed or die young of painful illnesses.

Awful times. The story of Lady Jane Grey was particularly tragic.

The rebellion that led to LJG's execution was because of Mary's plans to marry Philip of Spain that is true and Jane's father (Suffolk) was an instigator. I have never heard that he ordered it or else though, interesting if he did.
From that point on Jane had to die, but up to then Mary had been sympathetic towards her. Jane never wanted to be queen, it was forced upon her.

Similarly, Elizabeth was reluctant to order the execution of MaryQOS.

Lady Jane and her sisters have been totally left out of The Tudors. LJG was just a little younger than Prince Edward so her mother, the kings niece, could have featured as an adult in nearly all the story as we've seen it.

I am definitely going to have to read something about the Tudors, a bit of non-fiction... Anyone have any recommendations? Our history is fascinating, but my goodness doesn't it make you glad to be alive now and not then... they lived through a lot of uncertainty!