Anyone watching 'The other Boleyn girl'??

[Italiangreyhound]

Seems like a pretty crap time to be a woman (or a girl)!

Anyone know how true it all is??

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Boleyn_Girl_%282008_film%29

That as very good Olivia.
The one on Thomas Cromwell was good, too.

@deepfriedsage

I am enjoying this BBC2 Tudor fest.

Me too.
Wonder if there are still on iplayer - wasnt that long ago.
There was also a less pouty duck face BBC adaptiation of the P gregory book. I have it on audiobook with Emilia Fox reading it - it is v soothing when I can't sleep.

Talk to me about Hilary Mantel (she was talking head on the documentary) but I have been a bit slack on her.

Her 2 books wolf hall and bringing up the bodies are excellent IMO

I was frothing about this film last night as well
Where was Cardinal Wolsey? And Cromwell only makes a brief appearance at the trial.
Also Elizabeth was much older when her mother was executed - in the film she's a baby.

My favourite book about this period is also the Lady in The Tower.
And I also prefer Alison Weir to Philippa Gregory.
But Hilary Mantel's books I love.

Elizabeth was only 2.8 when her mother was executed Corny.
I was pretty annoyed by the film too...dh kept saying "turn it off then if it's that bad" but...Eric bana....:)

I love Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, but sieglinde (who I've not seen around for a while, incidentally, has anyone else? Hope she's ok), who knows about this period, has big issues with those books.

And another thing I was frothing about last night...

(the film started me off and I'd wine )

was that ds2 came home from school the other day having being told by his history teacher about 'Bloody' Mary Tudor and how awful it was that she'd had so many people executed etc

LRD...Well, they are fiction obv but sooooo much better than Gregory and a weir IMO.
Nothing wrong with those books, but the authors play pretty free and easy with the facts and I don't think mantel does.
She puts her own spin on facts but doesn't just make stuff up a la Gregory et al.

Oh, I love them.

I am merely passing information, that not everyone who's a specialist in that area (and I'm not myself, definitely) likes them.

Mind you I guess we can't all like the same things.

Corny...I think Elizabeth was far more unhinged than either Henry or Mary.
Mary did have heretics (as she saw them) execute but she was at heart a kind and generous woman and did so from a sincere belief she was tyrong to save their souls and of course some did recant.
Difficult for our secular society to understand I think.
Elizabeth was cruel and vindictive, just like her father.

Mmm. So is 'I will not make windows into men's souls' just good PR, do you think?

I know Elizabeth had more heretics executed than Mary, and I do think it is quite telling we still get taught about 'bloody Mary', but then, I suppose Elizabeth may have felt much more under threat than Mary given the power of the Catholic Church? I don't know.

Oh, god, I'm not a specialist!
Just a period I read extensively about.
If any of you are really interest in Anne Boleyn I would recommend www.the Anne Boleyn files.com
Also, for a totally different take on the story, the reincarnation of Anne Boleyn :)

I'm the same. I find it fascinating.

I'll have a look!

(I'm not that well-read, I mean, but I enjoy reading up on it. I would like to read more and get to really know about it.)

Yes I think History has not been kind to Mary at all and I hope it's not because she's a woman, but I can't help but think that it is.

Apparently she really struggled with the decision to have her cousin Jane Grey executed.
Henry wouldn't have hesitated.

Well, she ruled for much longer of course!
Her treatment of the grey sisters was bordering on sadistic.
She had her own cousin killed (Mary queen of scots) on rather flimsy that then disappeared (?)
She treated her women appallingly. Expected total devotion at the cost if the health. Marriages and children.
I am not a fan tbh.
The whole "Gloriana" thing was a PR triumph.
Her reign was anything but.

I'm sure it is because she's a woman.

The idea of a woman having people killed - urgh, she must have been doing it for nasty reasons, it couldn't have been political.

I always think the attitude to her pregnancy-that-wasn't is awful too. Whatserface - sorry, my brain is toast, but the historian woman off TV with the little blonde bob - she was saying in a programme I watched that she finds it dodgy how people glibly say 'oh, Mary had a phantom pregnancy' when we still don't really know what was going on and what Mary thought. And I think that is so true. Yet often it's discussed in tones as if it proves she was all feminine and unbalanced.

It's funny how Henry's paranoid desire for sons is seen as somehow red-bloodedly male, whereas her desire for a baby is seen as something quite different.

I'm a fan. Sorry.

Not so much the later years, and I do see she did a lot of horrible things. But I love how sparky she comes across early on and I do think she had a fantastic turn of phrase. When you think how modern politicians have speech writers to do it for them.

I think Mary I was dealt a harsh hand, both in life and death.
After Anne had been executed she thought all her troubles were over and that her father would be out from under Anne's spell and everything would be as it was.
Imagine her horror to realise it was her fathers doing all along? The humiliations, being made illegitimate, serving in the household of her sister, being separated form her mother for 4 years...it was Henry not Anne.
And Mary never got over that betrayal.

Alison Weir has written non-fiction books as well as novels (sorry if someone has already pointed this out) that are good reading.

I agree that Mary I has been treated unfairly, and I would strenuously object to a teacher recapitulating the "bloody to the exclusion of everything else" view of her, especially since much of it is skewed from early promotion of the Protestant monarchy. She was, notwithstanding Mathilda, essentially the first queen regnant of England, which in and of itself, posed completely unprecedented challenges.

I have to say, I agree with LRD about Elizabeth I: a truly fascinating and thoroughly remarkable woman, in spite of her many flaws.

Oh yes, without a doubt she was but she benefitted immensely from Mary's reign.
The very fact that a woman monarch was acceptable for a start.
Some people beleive that Elizabeth and androgynous syndrome - like wallis Simpson - unable to enjoy sex or have children and with more masculine traits than female (in the sense of chromosomes)
Fascinating theory.

I couldn't bear to watch it beacuse I had to read the book for our book group and it's crap.

Also didn't bother to watch the last days of Anne Boleyn because I didn't rate the people discussing it - AFAIK they're all pretty much in the anti-Anne camp aren't they? Was it any good? (Should I watch it on Replay?)

Basil it is sad and annoying and makes you want to shout at the TV. But it is quite good!