everyone, including historians: how could henry remotely doubt mary’s legitimacy and bastardize her? she was 10000% legitimate and he and everyone else knew it
All true, especially considering the common “he and everyone else knew it” claim…
It was once Mary (as the surviving result of the marriage between COA and Henry) became symbolic of whether or not a king’s authority could exceed a pope’s that she suddenly became ‘undoubtedly legitimate’ to foreign countries…not before.
I told him that I felt myself bound to you, by honor, by affection, and by a love so strong that nothing he could do could deter me from… From what? Before I go on, I should say, there’s a pretty good chance he’ll disinherit me. I fear I may never be a rich man, Catherine. Please, go on with what you were going to say. Northanger Abbey (2007) dir. Jon Jones
Idw to sound blunt but also like…portraits weren’t like…photographs? They were likenesses.
Idk about historical context re: flat features; but re: misogyny and beauty standards…Queen Consorts were expected to be models of beauty. When they did not meet that exacting standard, it was commented on rather harshly. Kings, however, were not expected to be so– so when they were handsome, the praise was fulsome and lavish– this was viewed as a bonus; not a requirement. We see this in ‘a great deal handsomer than the King of France’, etc…
The comments COA’s appearance garnered vs. Henry’s are demonstrative of how ambassadors tended to be more critical of the appearance of wives than husbands:
Personal charisma also shouldn’t be discounted here– it certainly has an effect on whether or not we view someone as physically attractive, and in context the same secretary says of Henry:
The ambassador made a fine and skillful oration, to which his Majesty listened to with the utmost attention, standing immoveable under the canopy; with his eyes always fixed on the ambassador’s eyes and countenance, so that he seemed very much delighted with him and fluent discourse.
Quite simply, it seems that Henry was a delightful person to converse with; these were the reports given by several men that were not his subjects, and who were not praising him directly (so have no reason to exaggerate or lie), rather writing to their home country with the goal of writing as accurate and expressive an account as possible:
He is affable and gracious, harms no one, does not covet his neighbour’s goods, and is satisfied with his own dominion, having often said to me, ‘Sir Ambassador, we want all potentates to content themselves with their own territories; we are satisfied with this island of ours.’ He seems extremely desirous of peace.
So…I don’t believe every single person found him to be incredibly handsome as that’s not realistic (everyone has different personal judgement of beauty, and as you said to each their own)– but he seems to have been a person, in his youth, of infectious enthusiasm, energy and laughter…and I think others’ impressions of his personality possibly colored their opinions of his appearance as well.
Honestly it’s so true from what we know…that’s part of the reason I haaate so many scenes with him in popular fiction. When you know how obsessed he was with projecting a certain image, and what his behaviour was usually reported as in the first half of his reign especially, it just beggars belief…
Like you expect me to believe he would just make a complete and utter buffoon of himself in front of a noble family like the Boleyns by forcing a kiss on their daughter in their company (in Anne of the Thousand Days) and not care…you expect me to believe he would just start caressing Jane Seymour’s hair thirty seconds after being introduced to her, again in front of her family at her home (in Tudors)…
tumblr has basically stopped notifying me about anything at this point so please don’t think I’m ignoring you if you tag me in something, I just haven’t been receiving notifications!
Lana Del Rey speaks to me because like if I’m going to be a depressed piece of shit making questionable decisions like I feel like there should be aesthetic value to it at the very least
Also with Young Henry VIII ~discourse~ (limited as that is); I tend to notice certain trends and my take on it is this:
A) You can claim he was, in actuality, not that charming of a personality, and that people only thought so because they were influenced by what – was judged by the standards of the time– to be his ‘good looks’.
B) You can claim that he was, in actuality, not that handsome by the standards of the time; but that he was simply charming/had an impressive personality (what we would term today as ‘star quality’ or ~dazzle, I suppose) and that this caused people to find him handsome (i.e. they didn’t really think so until he opened his mouth and started to speak)
You uh…can’t really claim…both, tho? Because that doesn’t like…make sense. You gotta pick one. Or you don’t have to ascribe to either (I don’t really, myself), but you can’t…claim…both.
