Nikki K

True, especially in arranged marriages.

PhoenixRising

Yeah, it's a shame that YouTube had to delete it.

Okay, thanks for clearing up the spelling thing, Nina.

Yeah, I liked how Henry was portrayed on TWP as well. He didn't cheat on Lizzie, and he even began to question his own mother, Margaret Beaufort, about how he actually ascended to the throne. He knew that she ordered the deaths of the boys in the tower and that she killed Jasper. I think in the end he was even considering letting Teddy and Richard go, not wanting to kill his wife's younger brother and sympathizing with Teddy, calling him "innocent" and "simple." It was actually Lizzie who comes off really badly, deciding to order the deaths of her brother and cousin herself.

Well, I didn't mind the incest stuff with Richard III and Lizzie in TWQ. Whether or not it happened is an open question, much like Cesare and Lucrezia.

Ahhh, yeah. It was just called "Blink." Thanks, Nina.

Nikki K

I mentioned before that from a historical perspective it is not. It's something someone has made up centuries later. Not a contemporary rumour like with Cesare and Lucrezia.

I'll be aways for a while.

One last thing for Arinna:

PhoenixRising

Yeah, I guess so. But both were rumors that were never factually verified.


You'll always be what, Nina?


Awww, thanks for the vid, Nina! I can't wait for Arinna to see it!

Nikki K

It is different if one person is making up something centuries after the fact or if contemporaries are gossiping. You can at least read a lot about the how people were perceived at the time through said gossip while the former tells you nothing.

I meant I won't be around for a while.

One last vid which was really great:

PhoenixRising

Yeah, I understand that. So all the Richard/Lizzie rumors were made by present-day(or twentieth century) individuals, and the Cesare/Lucrezia rumors go all the way back to when they were still alive, right?

Oh, yeah. You'll be in upstate New York soon. How long will you be gone again? Have a safe trip.

OMG, that's an awesome vid! Clara as The Doctor? She does fit the part. And she actually said those words, pretending to be him?

Nikki K

No, we've talked about that before. Sir George Buck claimed in the 1590s or early 1600s that he had uncovered a letter from Elizabeth that said that she was willing to marry Richard. However, he never showed that letter to anyone so its existence is highly doubtful. Buck was a defender of Richard III and an author. Not only did he license plays for publication, he was also Master of the Revels, responsible for licensing and supervising plays in Britain, including Shakespeare's later plays. Perhaps that's part of why the rumour ended up in Shakespeare's play Richard III. In Act IV, Scene II Richard has Anne incarcerated and spreads the rumour that she is sick, at the same time announcing that he is planning to marry his brother Edward's daughter Elizabeth, thus implying that he is going to murder Anne. But again, let's remember that this is likely all originating from one person, Sir George Buck, and then has been picked up by Shakespeare over a century after Richard III's death!

Meanwhile in Lucrezia and Cesare's case it was Giovanni Sforza who started the rumour after they forced the annullment on him. Now I'm not saying that is anymore credible, I'm only saying that it was a contemporary rumour – one that made other people wonder at the time, especially when Cesare had Lucrezia's second husband murdered. It seemed like she could only escape her notoriety in later years in Ferrara once basically the rest of her family was dead. That being said, a lot of people have picked up and embellished these rumours since.

The point is not whether there's truth to the rumour. The point is when were people talking about it and were they inclined to believe it because that tells us something about the political climate. The Borgias were not liked, that's why Giovanni Sforza could tell these things and wasn't automatically shunned and the rumours debunked. Thanks to Tudor propaganda Richard III was viewed as a villain so people watching Shakespeare's play probably didn't find it inconceivable that Richard would plot such heinous things, conversely this never came up during his or Elizabeth's lifetime.

As mentioned before, after Anne's death Richard entered into marriage negotiations with Portugal. He wanted to marry the Infanta Joanna, while he tried to secure a marriage for Elizabeth with the Infanta's cousin Manuel so that Henry couldn't count on the Yorkist support anymore after he had declared his engagement to Elizabeth in the cathedral in Reims before his invasion.

Yes she did, there was an episode when Clara had to pretend to be the Doctor because the Doctor himself was incapacitated physically.

This is quite excellent too:

PhoenixRising

Thanks, Nina! I didn't remember Clara pretending to be The Doctor, so I'm guessing it was a Twelve episode?

Wow, a Rose/Martha vid? I had no idea there was so much shipping of companions with each other.

Yes, I remember you mentioned Sir George Buck. And Shakespeare also implied the incestuous connection between Richard and Lizzie? I never read or saw Richard III, although now I wish I had. I saw mostly Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, etc. And Richard incarcerated Anne in Shakespeare's play as well? Yeah, I assume that because Shakespeare lived in Tudor era England that his plays would be biased against the Plantagenet family. Although he never did touch Edward IV, did he? Just Richard and the Henrys. But what you're saying does make sense. And how old exactly was Infanta Joanna when Richard was planning to marry her? And Henry also wanted to marry Arthur to Catherine of Aragon, who later married Henry VIII. Why were Spain and Portugal so important? The English monarchy also married a lot of their family to France as well, who were their enemies.

Nikki K

Shakespeare didn't imply a connection as such, he wrote Richard as a villain, a villain who would have no scruples committing the heinous act of murdering his wife and marrying his own innocent niece. Nothing was said about where Elizabeth stood on this, which is understandable, after all he wrote in the time of the reign of her granddaughter, Elizabeth I. Joanna was 33, actually the same age as Richard. Well, her great-great-grandmother was Philippa of Lancaster, a daughter of John of Gaunt if I recall. So there's a connection there. That Spain (and Portugal) were of interest is hardly surprising what with the discovery of the Americas... but also especially Spain as an alliance against France. Arthur and Katherine were actually married. When Arthur died Henry VII was didn't want to give back her ample dowry, which is why they arranged for the betrothal to Arthur's younger brother. Unfortunately Katherine's mother died early and her father wasn't a really good advocate where her rights were concerned so she lived in poverty for years until Henry VII finally died and Henry VIII fulfiled his promise to marry her.

It's not nice when people laugh about other people's ships, I think it's so insensitive. Anyway. I'm off. But a few more for Arinna should she ever come back.

Where it all started:



and how it went on...

BL.Arinna_1982

Thank you for thinking of me, Nina!

PhoenixRising

Oh, I'm sorry, Nina. I wasn't laughing at your videos. I only put that lol emoji there because I was pleasantly surprised that there were videos of companion ships like Rose/Martha or Clara/Amy. I had no idea that anyone shipped those pairings, that's all. I replaced my emoji, just so you know. Please accept my apology. And thanks for the Henry/Lizzie vids! I do prefer the actor who played Henry in TWP, though.

Ah, I see. I did hear something about the descendants of Edward III in Spain and Portugal actually having a better claim to the throne of England than Henry Tudor did. Richard marrying Joanna, a great-great-great-granddaughter of John, Duke of Lancaster, would accomplish the same task of uniting the houses of York and Lancaster to end the Wars of the Roses while simultaneously leaving Henry Tudor out in the cold. And I'm glad that Katherine of Aragon wasn't left entirely out to dry by Henry VIII.

Nikki K

You're always welcome, Arinna!

Okay, thank you, Alex. I appreciate it.

I actually like them all - they I can only imagine what Freya and Michael would have brought to the roles had they continued in TWP. I do like Michael, he was great in "The Physician (2013)". That being said I think Jodie and Jacob did a terrific job!

No, initially Henry VIII loved Katherine very much... I mean their marriage lasted the longest out of all of his marriages and he had a great deal of respect for her. That's why I hate that we only ever get to see the end of their relationship in movies or on TV shows and everything's so focused on Anne Boleyn and how things fell apart. They had some good times too. At least in the 2003 TV movie with Ray Winstone as Henry VIII, he had very sweet and tender scene with Assumpta Serna who played Katherine of Aragon (remember she played Vanozza on 'Borgia').

PhoenixRising

You're welcome, Nina.

Yeah, but Michael wasn't in TWQ that much, not nearly as much as Freya. It would've been fascinating to see how TWP would've been if all the actors got to return to their roles, but the time spent between BBC dropping the project and STARZ picking it up was too long and the actors' contracts expired, sadly. I did like Freya, though. She would've done just as well as Jodie in my opinion.

Oh, there was a Henry VIII with Ray Winstone? The guy from Titanic and The Lord of the Rings? That's interesting. And of course people are more fascinated by Anne Boleyn because she's the doomed mother of Elizabeth I. Did The Tudors even touch on Katherine of Aragon, or did they just jump right into the Anne Boleyn thing? And what happened with Henry and Katherine again? I haven't read the wiki page since we watched TWQ.

Nikki K

I think Michael was great at the Battle of Bosworth.

Yep, well you know personally I never cared for Anne Boleyn. I think the story has been told one time too many at this point. The Tudors – the first season was a mess, so while they didn't jump right into Anne/Henry, they basically started out with Henry's affair with Elizabeth Blount. And it was all very weird because it was in such chronological disorder. Which is why Henry's sister Mary couldn't marry the King of France as she did but had to marry the King of Portugal (and murder him) before she married Charles Brandon because the show's producers wanted to jump right into Henry and Katherine meeting Francis and Claude on the Camp du Drap d'Or (Field of Cloth of Gold).

PhoenixRising

I agree, but everything about the Battle of Bosworth was great. It was eerie as well, knowing what was going to happen to Richard and only being able to watch it happen. It creeped me out. They didn't have to mutilate him the way they did. It was like what happened to General Custer at Little Big Horn.

Oh, I didn't expect The Tudors to care much about chronology, Nina. And wasn't Elizabeth Blount played by Ruta Gedmintas, who played Ursula on The Borgias?

OMG, did Henry's sister actually murder the King of Portugal? And Sarah Bolger played Princess Mary, Henry's daughter? Isn't she the one who became Queen Mary I and ended up dying after being queen for 5 years, and becoming known as "Bloody Mary?"