I honestly find Edward much more fascinating a figure than Elizabeth, and Mary more endearing. Nothing against Elizabeth; but she’s aleady extremely popular and she can cope without my favour, I’m sure. Mary and Edward, however, have been painfully devoid of much support for 500 years and that seems a real tragedy.

Edward strikes me as a boy who, had he lived longer, would have grown up to be a very capable ruler; he comes across as very meticulous and serious in his diary, and also incredibly intelligent; the fact that he constantly went back to correct old entries, and add new information, leads me to think that he took his role seriously, and actually seemed to thrive in that environment. His illness seems that much sadder to me, for I imagine that he would have been a remarkably strong ruler. He reminds me a lot of his mother; a lot of quiet reserve force.

As for Mary being “mad”, I think her mental instability was a given considering all the abuse she suffered throughout her life, but that she remained so determined, and especially compassionate, despite her mistreatment, leads me to see her as a very strong woman. People have made the claim that Mary has been scorned in history as a result of a modern anti-Catholic bias, and tbh I do think that does play a role in her denigration in history. Certainly people are hung up on her burning Protestants. However Mary was not the ineffectual ruler everyone likes to portray her as, and for every mistake she made, other rulers, who we praise continously, like Elizabeth, have made just as many. Poor Mary, you deserve better.

And I’m just gonna do a Chris Crocker style “leave Henry VIII alone” and mic-drop out of this debate because such rampant and biased and unjustified hatred for a historical figure is only gonna do my head in.

Shae said

I honestly find Edward much more fascinating a figure than Elizabeth, and Mary more endearing. Nothing against Elizabeth; but she’s aleady extremely popular and she can cope without my favour, I’m sure. Mary and Edward, however, have been painfully devoid of much support for 500 years and that seems a real tragedy.

Edward strikes me as a boy who, had he lived longer, would have grown up to be a very capable ruler; he comes across as very meticulous and serious in his diary, and also incredibly intelligent; the fact that he constantly went back to correct old entries, and add new information, leads me to think that he took his role seriously, and actually seemed to thrive in that environment. His illness seems that much sadder to me, for I imagine that he would have been a remarkably strong ruler. He reminds me a lot of his mother; a lot of quiet reserve force.

As for Mary being “mad”, I think her mental instability was a given considering all the abuse she suffered throughout her life, but that she remained so determined, and especially compassionate, despite her mistreatment, leads me to see her as a very strong woman. People have made the claim that Mary has been scorned in history as a result of a modern anti-Catholic bias, and tbh I do think that does play a role in her denigration in history. Certainly people are hung up on her burning Protestants. However Mary was not the ineffectual ruler everyone likes to portray her as, and for every mistake she made, other rulers, who we praise continously, like Elizabeth, have made just as many. Poor Mary, you deserve better.

And I’m just gonna do a Chris Crocker style “leave Henry VIII alone” and mic-drop out of this debate because such rampant and biased and unjustified hatred for a historical figure is only gonna do my head in.

I am agree with you for Mary. Her life was very miserable. She was always left out. We can undestand why Mary’s and Elizabeth’s life were so sad, and why they had not children. They surely traumatized by the death of Katherine Howard, even if Mary didn’t like her. They lived in violence then, they became violent.

Shae said
…Certainly people are hung up on her burning Protestants…

remarkable, don’t you think, that people get ‘hung up’ over something so inconsequential as the deliberate burning of human beings?

her father, the great wife-murdering Psychopath, managed some 37 burnings over the space of a decade. Mary managed nearly 300 in just 3 years.

Mary I was a first class, weapons grade nutcase.

Bob the Builder said

Shae said
…Certainly people are hung up on her burning Protestants…

remarkable, don’t you think, that people get ‘hung up’ over something so inconsequential as the deliberate burning of human beings?

her father, the great wife-murdering Psychopath, managed some 37 burnings over the space of a decade. Mary managed nearly 300 in just 3 years.

Mary I was a first class, weapons grade nutcase.

Does it not get boring to see the world in such a black and white way?

I also feel Bob that the Spanish marriage was also Mary’s way of perhaps reinforcing her Spanish roots. When she surrendered to H8’s will she not only betrayed her mother, and herself, but also betrayed all that her mother wanted for her. In many ways. I think wanted Mary to be just like her own grandmother, (Isabella). Isabella of course had taken on the Moors defeated and drove them out of Spain, thus making Spain Catholic etc. By Mary marrying into Spain she hoped that she could do as her grandmother had done and conquer the protestant infidels and be seen as a hero and saviour to her people. What she failed to understand or perhaps didn’t want to understand, that the people were perfectly happy to worship God as they were, they didn’t need or want the bells and smells that she supported. There is a saying which goes something like “Each and every man woman and child comes to God in their own way.” For Mary that simply wasn’t an option, it was her Catholic way or death, she was her own worse enemy really.

Shae said

Bob the Builder said

Shae said
…Does it not get boring to see the world in such a black and white way?

not remotely.

i enjoy enormously trying to stand in others shoes and see what they see in order to understand why they did A instead of B or C – but i still retain enough moral fibre to critcise the actions of those i study. interestingly, the only people at the time who didn’t criticise Mary for her, err… ‘thoroughness’ were other weapons grade psychopaths.

marrying a Spanish Prince – an unpopular move both at court and in the country – was a ‘grey’ decision, there were disadvantages, but there were also solid reasons for doing so. it was a legitimate decision based on a finely balanced judgement of what was in the Country’s, and Mary’s, best interests. undertaking religious genocide against the advice of most of the court, and very much contrary to the habits and customs of the Kingdom, was not a ‘grey’, finely balanced decision, it was desperate, pathetic, morally repugnant, vainglorious attempt to stop a world she didn’t like.

today she’d be in the Taliban, or be the kind of nutjob who walks into a school with an assualt rifle.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to give off the impression that I wanted to hear your opinion on Mary.

Also, “psychopaths”? In the words of Inigo Montoya: you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

Exactly..Mary and her ilk were products of the culture they were part of. Trying to impose 21st century medical diagoses from the perspective of an untrained lay person is totally dismissive of the social norm of the era.

Plus Catholicism of any era has nothing to do with the Taliban. Those men who ruled Afgahnistan using a corruption of Sharia Law grew out of a whole different diamension of religious thought. The Taliban is more about power cloaked in a pseudo-religious format which was trying to remove the western influences from the British to the Soviet Union.

I’m not too sure Olga but I believe Philip tried to reason with her about her manical (loosely worded) actions concerning burning everyone who she saw as a threat, as well. I believe Mary did have some form of mental illness, possibly the same sort of Illness as Queen Juana had.
She was extremely paranoid too, but in some ways I can understand that, as it was a trait that H8 had, I believe he had insisted on having a wall built or something outside his door every night to prevent any would be assassin from killing him as he slept. Or at the very least having as many locks and bolts as possible for much the same reason.
Half of Mary’s trouble came from her fear of the unknown so to speak, she was afraid to step outside the little Catholic bubble world she had created for herself. Whenever somebody spoke out about the abuses of the Catholic faith, she saw it as a direct attack on her, and like all people faced with a threatening situation, she chose to fight back. To her the Catholic faith was a safety blanket, and nothing anyone could say or do would change that. Cardinal Pole and Gardiner to a certain degree understood that the world they now lived in was very different to the world they once knew, and knew that the only way to survive in H8’s created world was to adapt. Their faith was still the centre of their world but they also accepted that not everyone felt as they did anymore. I believe that even the Pope turned against Mary in the end.

Thank you Olga. I have to admit the Spanish Inquisition was a particulally bloody affair. There were many Jews who were tortured to convert to Cathosium (I believe these people were called conversos), but many of them still practised the religion of their birth in secret.
I wouldn’t say that Isabella was a psycho as such, but she was arrogant, and self obsessed. I think she believed that she was God’s chosen warrior and as such she could do what she wanted because it was God’s will. In many ways I can see those traits in Mary too she believed that by burning so many people and forcing them to accept the Catholic faith etc, that she too was doing God’s work.
As it was Isabella wasn’t actually meant to be Queen of Castille in the first place, she stole the throne from her niece Joanna (Commonly known as “La Beltrana” in reference to her supposed father) Again Isabella forced the poor girl to submit to her, she actually gave her a choice if memory serves, marry her son (Isabella’s Son) when he came of age and only then if he agreed to marrying her or go into a convent. She chose to go into a convent, however it was also said that Ferdinand desperate to stop his son in law claiming the Castillian throne, after Isabella’s death in 1504 proposed marriage to her, which she refused. Joanna died in 1530 aged 68, she always signed any letters she wrote as “La Reina” right up to the end of her life.

Well I suppose you could call one of Lard Arse’s (My name for him Henry among others) good points, is the fact he did reform the church, and showed people that the church wasn’t the be all and end of all of everything. He also gave us the chance to meet and know one of the greatest woman history has ever known. Anne, and of course gave us the great Elizabeth.
But as for soft spots for him, well unless I could bash his head in until it was a soft as a baked apple. I haven’t got any for him.
He was a power hungry despot, who ended up being totally corrupted by the power he created, for himself.
He acheived so very little in his reign, in the terms of glory, I mean Henry V is remembered for his mighty defeat of the French at Agincourt
Henry V11 (Daddy darling) is remembered for his victory at Bosworth, and finally ending the Wars of the Roses once and for all.
Ok, so there was Flodden, which put a stop to Scotland trying to sneek in through the back door and take England. But Lard Arse was in France so it was down to the rag tag army of old campaigners, led by a woman to stop the Scots. So Flodden wasn’t Lard arse’s victory at all. It was a victory England, St George and good Queen Catherine. In anycase Lard Arse only went over to France to show off. He believed that in order to win any battle you just had to show up. He ranted and raved about how brilliant it was that the French ran away (Battle of the Spurs Aka The battle that never was) when they saw him and his army coming and that the French were all cowards and he could take them any day with one hand tied his back. He failed to see the bigger picture. Ferdinand and the Emperor and the King of France (Louis and Francois) all played him like a fiddle, and his pub crawl in France cost him a lot of money and got him nothing. Ferdinand, the Emperor and Louis, however were laughing their socks off at him, as Lard arse had paid their expences while they were at the French court talking treaties and rubber stamping documents.
Lard arse was reckless and foolish, and acted rashly without any thought for the conseqences of his actions. K.O.A did a lot to keep him in check, but once he had rid himself of her there was no one to stop him, and as a result a lot of people suffered because of his temper tantrums. However when push came to shove the only person who was really hurt at the end of the day was himself. He basically ended up bitterly alone, in pain, and died a very lonely miserable death. He may have had a load of people with him when he popped his clogs, but the only feelings in that room, were relief, and the fact they could finally open the windows and get some fresh air in and get rid of the stink.
It very hard to feel compassion for a man who destroyed so many lives, and in doing destroyed his own too.

If I have remembered this rightly Hannele. When Edward 4th married Elizabeth Woodville, the marriage was viewed as disgusting. The thought of marrying for love was something that turned peoples stomachs at that time.. So the same thing could be said of Henry and Anne.. Henry did marry Anne for love, but I think Henry ‘s desperation to prove that he was a man by fathering a son did supercede the love he bore for Anne. To be honest Henry’s desperation for a son, was so fierce that love or not it wouldn’t have mattered, just as long as he got what he truly wanted.
Jane has been called Henry’s true love a few times, but he only loved her because she gave him that son. He didn’t love Jane or really any of his wives in the true sence of the word. He mearly loved them as one would love eating stawberries, etc. If A.O.C, K.H or K.P had had sons by him, he would have said the same of them. He loved them because they gave him a son or 2.