Damian Lewis fans line up for Wolf Hall tonight

[Travelledtheworld]

Wednesday 21st January BBC2 Channel 4

lush costumes.

www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/11358197/Damian-Lewiss-inspiration-for-Wolf-Halls-Henry-VIII-Wills-and-Harry.html

How much information is there about the level of planning, countess? (I'm picking up on 'pretext' and wondering, is all.)

Hmm, I don't know. I doubt they sat down and said 'Right, we'll soften them up by starting with the smaller houses and then....' and a clerk wrote it all down - perhaps it's just in retrospect that it looks like a nefarious Machiavellian scheme? There were definitely assessments of how much money all the abbeys had got, long before they were openly talking about closing them.

I take your point.

It would be possible to imagine checking how much money monasteries had without necessarily intending to close them, wouldn't it? I mean, the Doomsday Book is the obvious parallel. He didn't want to disinherit everyone, just to tax them.

Yes, it would.

I know in the case of the village where I grew up, there was a priory which was demolished (some foundations remaining and a more recent house built on the site) & the priory church was going to be demolished - but as it was also the main village church the villagers petitioned the king to save the church, and it was halted from being knocked down (they'd begun the job already so half the columns along the nave had to be rebuilt).

Has anyone read Eamon Duffy's books (The Stripping of the Altars, etc) arguing that the monasteries were pretty well run and there was no need to reform, let alone close, them? I have flicked through them to look at the pretty pictures but never sat down and properly read his arguments.

I loved Stripping of the Altars, have got Marking the Hours but only looked at the pretty pictures in that one!

I know a little about the fens, grew up near there and love visiting Ely Cathedral when I'm home. Some of the stones at Thorney Abbey, for example, were taken to help build college chapels in Cambridge.

I never knew how much of the motivation for the dissolution was financial and how much religious/doctrinal. In WH so far the only mention has been financial.

I went to see Hilary M at the Oxford Lit Fest nearly two years ago and she talked about the ending of the final book which she is writing, "The Mirror and the Light". She said the story will come full circle, TC will be about to die and he will hear the words "So now get up..."

Clawdy, I think I love you. That's the only thing I have ever read re book 3 and am getting desperate The Mirror and the Light? Wonder what that represents?
So now get up...
(shivers)

Clawdy that's so interesting though. I saw her interviewed by Kate Adie at the London book fair a few years back, talking about Wolf Hall and her writing process, was so interesting.

I hope it's the voice of God, and he finishes the sentence with "and pick your head up."

Was Cromwell the one where they had a really crappy executioner and ----

No, I can't say

That would be brilliant BOF

Yes it would, BOF.
(Lalalala not listening TCoF)

I read today that Anne Boleyn's head came off in a clean first stroke. And it kept muttering prayers and moving its eyes...

Fuck, that's creepy.

Wasn't it the Countess de la Pole who was eighty-something, and went running around trying to get away while they hacked at her?

I think there were quite a lot of botched jobs.

In my mind, Cromwell in the books is separate from Cromwell in history. I know what happens, but they happen to different people. And that is what I shall continue to believe until I read different.

Who was it who was hacked at a couple of times by an incompetent axeman?

(off to find out)

I've always wondered what the significance of the French swordsman was in Anne's execution. Was it Henrys idea? If so, doesn't that strike anyone else as quite vindictive? Wasn't enough he wanted her dead but made a point of hiring someone French to kill her with a sword? Was he making a point about Anne's French pretensions? I'd love to know.

pole-
Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury (1473-1541) The Countess of Salisbury was the last direct descendant of the Plantagenet line - she was as descendent of King Edward III. The countess made the mistake of appearing to side with Katherine of Aragon against the king and he declared her a traitor. She was arrested two years before her execution and badly treated and neglected as a prisoner in the Tower of London. She was not given a trial. She was small, frail and ill. But she was a proud noble. She was dragged to the block, but refused to lay her head on the block. She was forced down and struggled. The inexperienced executioner made a gash in her shoulder rather than her neck. She leapt from the block and was chased by the executioner, with his axe. She was struck eleven times before she died. There were 150 witnesses to her execution. She was 68 years of age.

Henry hired a French swordsman out of consideration I think? He was considered very accurate and very swift plus a sword would have been far sharper and hold it's edge better.

A peculiar sort of mercy from Henry though. I'm going to have you unfairly executed but I'll make sure it's done quickly and stylishly. Nice of him

I thought the French swordsman was Anne's own preference?

When she was condemned no-one was sure she wasn't going to be burnt, because that was the treason penalty for women commoners - beheading at all was Henry being merciful (bastard).

The Countess of Salisbury was the last surviving daughter of Edward IV think? She was far more royal than Henry and he always hated her for it. He slowly had most of her family executed because he was terrified of the Plantagenets as their claim to his throne was far stronger than his.

Could she have been burnt though countess. She had been made the Marquess of Pembroke so had been enobled.