It’s always said that Jane Seymour died giving birth to Edward. Like baby Edward came out and oops she’s gone. I think we should stop portraying it like that because Jane really suffered so much longer. There’s a couple theories of what actually killed her, but whatever it was caused a horrific infection, probably blood poisoning, and delirium. And she lingered for TWO. WEEKS. It’s almost treated as a joke, like “yeah when Henry finally found a wife that gave him a son she died hahahaha.” But imagine the unspeakable pain and exhaustion she went through. In a lot of cases of maternal mortality at this time we don’t have much detail at all, but with Jane we have a bit more than usual. And I think that gives us a lot of insight into what pregnancy and childbirth was like for medieval/Tudor women. They endured not only labor with no pain relief, but the psychological effects of knowing they could very well die trying to bring their children into the world. And we just don’t acknowledge that? We never think about the physical and mental fortitude it took for our female ancestors to go through that. Just because it was considered their role in life or their dynastic duty doesn’t mean the humanity of women was invented with modern obstetrics.

and discourse about historic monarchs always somehow seems to devolve into ‘who had the most blood on their hands?’ and it’s really a) pointless, b) almost impossible to determine; depending on how far back we’re going (executions & ‘collateral damage’ under the reign of queen victoria, for instance, is probably a lot easier to determine than 15th and 16th century monarchs), c) dependent on how long their reign was; and how much upheaval occured during it…

but mainly a) pointless, because, like i said earlier, it’s almost always done by people arguing that the monarch they’re most interested is ‘better’ than my fav; and not only that, but that they’re somehow a better person for being interested in their fav and not mine.

and you’re really not, because a) interest /= total/blind adoration, and/or acceptance of all a figure’s actions (that should be obvious, and yet) and b) literally every monarch from 15th-16th century had blood on their hands.

alicehoffmans:

i know reign takes place in an alternate universe partly inspired by philippa gregory novels and partly by the kind of paperback ~historic~ romance novels you can buy for like 50 cents at garage sales and i should accept that but…knowing what i do esp. about 16th cent. history makes it kind of hard to enjoy at times sksksksk?

part of the alternate universe acts like the execution of two of h8′s wives suddenly set the ‘standard’ for europe/that they all follwed suit; re: that every other country decided that all you needed was an adultery accusation to have grounds for executing a queen consort….

even though adultery wasn’t enough in england; anne was executed on (false, we all now know) the grounds of treason (’planning to kill the king’), adultery, and incest. for katherine it was still treason, it just had to involve them changing the law to define what treason was…….

my point being that whole premise is based on a big/common misconception anyway; that their only charges were adultery or that adultery was enough to constitute treason…much less that the rest of europe followed suit to how the laws had been amended to redefine treason in england, anyway.

I find the portrayal of the fictional Anne Boleyn as a violent person…disturbing, and it’s a very common thread in Tudor fiction.

Wolf Hall, the novel, portrays her as being physically abusive to her sister, pinching her etc. From the tv series (probably the books? I still haven’t finished the first) we have this, and we have her slapping her sister-in-law, Jane Parker, across the face.

But Mantel’s declared that Anne was “no victim”– so this is hardly surprising.

Tudors portrays her ripping a locket from Jane Seymour’s neck so hard that she draws blood. There is a story that alludes to this, but it comes from Jane Dormer, a lady-in-waiting to Mary I that was born in 1538. It could only have come from hearsay, and likely, rumor– as it is found by no other source.

In a way, Tudors’ portrayal is more sympathetic, but only at the cost of slandering another Boleyn in its fiction– Anne lashes out in violence, but in the narrative this is an understandable result of the pressure and stress from the physical & emotional abuse/rough manhandling inflicted upon her by her father, Thomas Boleyn.

Yet the above anecdote of the locket is mentioned, in many nonfiction works and many articles on sites like HistoryExtra, as if it is unassailable fact (by Alison Weir and Elizabeth Norton, to name a few)– without the context, or the birthdate of the source (which occurred years after the alleged incident) mentioned.

Anne Boleyn is alleged to have said violent things certainly– threats to Cromwell, and about her step-daughter. There are some rather baseless accusations that she encouraged the executions of Fisher and More.

But where did she act violently? Beyond the sport of hunting, and besides an alleged report that she told someone at Hatfield to “box” Mary’s ears, acts of violence are something that even Chapuys didn’t accuse her of– only threats of them.

I find it disturbing that a woman that died by such violent means, that had to sit imprisoned, knowing her brother and friends were dying by even more brutal means (the axe, versus the sword), is so often portrayed as having been violent herself. I find it disturbing that a woman who was against the burnings for heresy in Europe, and tried to save many from that fate by her patronage, is so often portrayed as being violent herself. Additionally, it disturbs me that this characterization is often used as a narrative device in fiction, as it often is, to imply that she somehow deserved her death… that “violent delights have violent ends.”

That she was, to quote Mantel– “not a victim”.

Was Mary Boleyn really as “lewd” as she’s made out to be in portrayals? I don’t feel comfortable using that word but I’ve seen portrayals both in fiction and non fiction that mostly highlight that she slept around and I wanted your input on that.

No, I definitely get what you mean, because often her character is made out to be that way– in Tudors we have a scene where she’s telling Mark Smeaton that her “boring husband” has just dropped dead, and how excited she is to now have a one-night stand…while Perdita Weeks’ incredible delivery and scene where she asks Cromwell to intercede with her sister for financial assistance, and quotes a historically accurate letter she sent him was cut from final editing:

But, y’know, obviously the first one was more important.

Keeping the scenes they did– the explicit one with Henry in Season 1, and the one just mentioned, while cutting the one above– about as transparent as Rihanna’s CFDA dress, with none of its class.

But I digress…truthfully, we don’t even really know if the rumor that she was the mistress of Francis I is true. Claire Ridgway goes over the sources in the article I just linked, and explains how some slander against Anne has actually been misattributed to Mary, much in the way a much-cited quote about Elizabeth Blount has been misattributed to being about Mary Boleyn.

Would Mary have been able to make such a good marriage to up-and-coming courtier William Carey if she had a well-known reputation of promiscuity? Frankly, I doubt it; although I suppose it’s not impossible.

It’s assumed she did, also, because she seemed to have a falling-out with her father, Thomas Boleyn. But this could have had many causes.

All we know for certain is that Mary had sex with three men in her lifetime: her first husband, Henry VIII, and her second husband.

So little is known about the second, most famous one, and mostly gaps have been filled with our imaginations. Frankly, all we know is that they hooked up, at least once, in some fashion, at some point. It could have happened before she was married. It could have happened while she was married, but I wouldn’t get all moralistic about it if did– because Henry was, too.

That “the whole court knew” she was his mistress is a fable, because the only reason even we know is the dispensation Henry VIII asked for. That she was his mistress for as long as Bessie Blount was, that she also had at least one illegitimate child with his paternity, is also imaginations filling the gaps– quite simply, there’s not evidence that proves this or even proves this likely.

But I digress. I would say, no, don’t believe the hype of book titles such as “The Boleyn Women: The Tudor Femmes Fatales Who Changed English History”.

Elizabeth Boleyn was not a “femme fatale”– she only had sex with her husband. Mary Boleyn was not a “femme fatale”, as having sex with one’s husband wasn’t especially promiscuous even by 16th century standards. William Carey didn’t die from sex with Mary, he died of the Sweat.

I wouldn’t refer to Mary Boleyn as a “femme fatale” for having sex with Henry VIII– it’s not as if she killed him, either.

Nor would I refer to Anne Boleyn as a femme fatale, as she, like her mother, only ever had sex with the man she married. And the men that were executed along with her in May 1536 didn’t “die because she had seduced them”, while Anne had the last laugh and survived– and that’s the linchpin of the whole femme fatale trope in the first place.