I don’t know how PG could say with a straight face that Anne’s last miscarriage was that of a malformed child. I’m not fan of HM either, but I loved her answer. Nicolas Sander was writing with his poisoned pen from exile some 40 years later during Elizabeth’s reign.

What really bothered me was when PG accused Anne and George of incest. She said Anne was desperate to give Henry an heir and George could give her that. She also said that Anne and George were not close as children, and therefore, they were….what?….Capable of forgetting they were brother and sister?

Anne was pregnant by Henry in ’33, ’34, and early ’36. Three years, three pregnancies. Why would she think she couldn’t have an heir with Henry? Yes, she miscarried, but why would she think if she had sex with someone other than Henry, she would be better off? I think that is an absolutely ridiculous idea. And even if she had complained that Henry had a problem having sex, it could not have been a constant occurrence….there were at least three pregnancies in three years.
Facts, they can be so boring.

Anyanka said

There is a sexual atraction called Genetic Sexual Attraction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G…..attraction) in which family members who were adopted at an early age can be attracted to each other in adulthood. I tink SheWhoMustNotBeNamed is using this as a basis for her whackadoodle incest theory.

That is a very interesting article Anyanka, I believe that Caligula and his sister Drusilla had a very torrid affair with each other, during their childhood, and it was something that possibly may have continued up to her death. Certainly when Drusilla died Caligula was heartbroken, and mourned her deeply as a result.
SWMNBN has some very bizarre ideas about the pitfalls and pleasures about our historical hereos and villians. Which is ok, as we all have them, but when she is so adament that her theories are correct and jumps up and down like a kid throwing a tantrum when she is shot down in flames, it becomes annoying. If she cannot stand the heat of critsium when she is challenged, then perhaps she should give up writing historical fiction and take up knitting instead.
I haven’t had chance to watch this programme yet too busy with other things, but you have to take what is being said in it with a pinch of salt, that this is just one of many interpetations of why Mary had to go to her death.
She was involved in a number of plots, although nothing could actually be proved, it may well be that with the Babbington plot her involvement was forged by Walsingham’s spies are us PLC, but equally so Mary may well have thought in for a penny in for a pound and the letters that were found were genuine, we will never really know.
From my point of view I believe that the Babbington plot was a final last ditch attempt by a desperate woman to take what she always believed was hers, and as we all know desperate people do desperate things. What Mary failed or refused to see is that if she had succeeded in her plans to kill Elizabeth and take the throne, she would have ended up with a civil war as bad as the one she had caused in Scotland. France had enough of their own problems in the form of religious Wars, so she would have had no help there, I don’t think the jezabel Medici would have even batted an eyelid over Mary’s plight anyway. Mary to her was just an annoyance.
Spain well she might have got some help although quite what I don’t know, but again, the same situation would have reared up if Spain had manged to help Mary claim the throne. Who would have been the heir to it, after Mary? Would her son James be the heir? Mary was as determined as bloody Mary to take England back to Rome kicking and screaming, just as she had been as determined to take Scotland back to Rome when she first returned to Scotland in 1561. James was brought up wholey protestant, and although he had some sympathic feelings, towards the Catholic faith, these feeling were purely symbolic, and he would have never ever have tolerated the Catholic faith which indeed he proved with his reaction to Gunpowder plot. So as a true Catholic as Mary was, she would have been betraying her faith and her conscious to leave the throne to a protestant King, son or no son. James would have had to have fought for his throne if that was the case, so again a civil war would tear England apart, if Mary succeeded in taking Elizabeth’s throne. Either one of the 3 plots that Mary was involved could have succeeded Elizabeth was of course ably helped by Walsingham’s spies are us PLC, without him constantly watching her back one would never know, when an arrow, knife or poison would have struck home.
Elizabeth didn’t want to execute Mary, but in the end was left with no choice. She had seen the agony that her sister Mary had gone through when she had executed Lady Jane Grey. In short it did Mary no favours, it brought herself a husband, but it cost her the love of her people, and earned her the moniker of Bloody Mary. Elizabeth went through the same agony when it came to Mary Queen of Scots, she did everything she could to prevent the death of Mary at her hands, but in the end she was left with no other option but to agree to Mary’s execution. The price she payed was a very heavy one however, she kept the love of her people but the death of Mary weighed heavily upon the shoulders of her conscious for the rest of her life.
The Armada victory was perhaps a rest-bite from that conscious for a little while but not for long. I never really understood why Philip of Spain sent the Armada anyway? The people of England hated him, when he was in England he and his men were often pelted with rubbish and filth from the streets, and he had perhaps on average spend a year to 18 months in total here during the whole 5 years of Bloody Mary’s reign.
Hardly someone you can call who loves England and it’s people.