Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.

[lizbee]

I just filled out my three-month review form for work, while the kitten climbed up my back. He's pretending to be hungry, but as he has two bowls of his favourite foods sitting in the kitchen, I think he just wants attention.

Anyway, I feel fairly positive about my review, which is on Friday, although the manager doing it is the strictest and most arbitrary person on staff. (Not by coincidence, she's also the youngest manager, and the most recently promoted.)

As for New Year's Eve plans, I'm working tonight until seven, and then the House o'Squid is off to the House o'Cats to spend the evening with peace_bloom and sajee, drinking wine and ... well, I'm sure we'll come up with other things to do.

I shall return the copy of David Starkey's Six Wives that I borrowed months ago, too -- I just started the chapter on Catherine Parr, so I should have it finished in the very near future. How I hate Henry VIII. I know I've discussed this before, but I really hate him quite a lot. I've seen people argue that, by the standards of the age and the behaviour expected for kings, Henry was perfectly reasonable in changing wives the way normal men change their socks, but if that was really the case, it wouldn't have caused any scandal in Europe.

Mostly it just shits me off that Henry was married to two of the most brilliant women of the age -- Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn -- and completely failed to appreciate what he had. I fear I may have become an Anne Boleyn fangirl. It's terribly embarrassing.

Next, I'm tossing up between Alison Weir and Antonia Fraser's biographies of the wives. I'm inclined to go with Weir, purely because I find Fraser's writing a bit ponderous.

(I may also be drawing chibi versions of the Wives. I KNOW, I KNOW. If anyone can point me towards a really good online resource for Tudor female dress, I'd be most grateful. I haven't had time to look myself.)

Comments

[skywardprodigal.livejournal.com]

How I hate Henry VIII. I know I've discussed this before, but I really hate him quite a lot.

Sister!

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

HATE. HIM. SO. MUCH. It's like, women for centuries upon centuries are stuck in marriages with men they find repulsive, but he gets to demote Anne of Cleves to "sister"? IT'S LIKE THERE'S SOME KIND OF DOUBLE STANDARD OR SOMETHING!

[skywardprodigal.livejournal.com]

He's vile.

Definitely a doublestandard. Flames on the side of my face. That fat, entitled, heartless, self-serving !#)$(*$@#. I'd call him a pig but that's unkind...to swine.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I fear I may have become an Anne Boleyn fangirl. It's terribly embarrassing.

I assume by embarrassing you mean PERFECTLY SENSIBLE.

Next, I'm tossing up between Alison Weir and Antonia Fraser's biographies of the wives. I'm inclined to go with Weir, purely because I find Fraser's writing a bit ponderous.

I prefer Fraser's, but then I'm currently totally judgey at Weir after reading her novel - The Lady Elizabeth - where nobody seemed to have mentioned to either her or her editor that it was perfectly okay to use 'said' to tag dialogue.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Oh damn, I was seriously considering buying that novel. Said bookisms drive me crazy.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

You are guaranteed at least half-a-dozen Every. Single. Page.

[cesario.livejournal.com]

angevin2 can give you historical sources, but basically the shape you're looking for is two inverted Vs. The structured undergarment of the period was called a farthingale, which was like a hoopskirt only made of reeds and conical, as opposed to bellshaped. There was a rich, relatively plain over-skirt, split down the middle to show off the fantastically quilted and embroidered petticoat beneath it. The neckline was square, and the sleeves were narrow but not pointed. The headdresses were veils with headbands, basically. I think. I know less about them.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have the shape, it's the details that I need. Not that chibis should need details, but dammit, I'm in that sort of a mood.

("I know! What could be cuter than a chibi rendering of Catherine Howard's jewels? That won't involve any work at all!")

[melengro.livejournal.com]

The trouble with assessing Henry VIII is that his legacy in British history is so overarching that it's really in some cases impossible to separate 'things that he did' from 'that which simply IS', especially as more and more time elapses since his death. As a human being though he was no doubt horrible, and the fact that he showed a great deal of promise early in life only makes him, to me, even more loathsome.

I fear I may have become an Anne Boleyn fangirl. It's terribly embarrassing.

I'm partial to Catalina and Anna--in the former case because she was awesome, in the latter because she got such shitty treatment, was divorced because he thought she was ugly (not true, if Holbeins are anything to go by), and in general seems like such a sweet person with such a bad life:
...sister.
Sister.
Seriously, Henry, you're a sack of crap for that (among many, many other things). It's like rubbing it in her face.

I may also be drawing chibi versions of the Wives.

PLEASE TELL ME THESE WILL IN FACT SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY.

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

was divorced because he thought she was ugly (not true, if Holbeins are anything to go by)

She wasn't a dog, no, and certainly didn't deserve such open disgust. But Holbein's original miniature - the one Henry fell in love with - is head-on, which had the coincidental effect of minimising her particular defects. Later profile portraits show a long nose in an even longer face.

Seriously, Henry, you're a sack of crap for that (among many, many other things). It's like rubbing it in her face.

Totally agreed in the modern context, but at the time - especially given what Anne knew of the alternate options - she was reportedly thrilled to bits with her settlement. How much she understood of Henry's distaste is unrecorded, but it was probably not a lot. By all accounts she was so sheltered before coming to England she barely even understood what attraction was (the language barrier would've helped some there too).

Afterwards...well, by all accounts she took full advantage of her status as the second lady of the land, in her many castles, surrounded by every good thing a princely allowance could buy - and no man to tell her what to do with any of it. The novelty of that, in an era when men were expected to 'rule' their wives, should not be underestimated.

[melengro.livejournal.com]

Also, he was an ass to Catalina after her death.

[peace-bloom.livejournal.com]

he had to change the law, and overthrow the church to get what he wanted. i don't think that denotes 'standard' behaviour.
the man was an arsehole. powerful, intelligent, magnetic, clever, and an amazingly effective monarch, but an arsehole all the same.

[deslea.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree with you particularly, but I do think a lot of the scandal was around him defying the Church and not doing the right thing by Catherine (rather than the multiple women per se).

Henry was stuck between a rock and a hard place IMO, because one woman wouldn't quietly go off to a country manor and the other wouldn't put out until she was married to him. So the usual solution to a common royal problem was not available to him.

Not that either Catherine or Anne were wrong in taking those positions, of course, and not that Henry was in any way right to proceed as he did. He should have just said, okay, this isn't tenable, I'm going to wreck the country politically if I'll do this, so bye-bye Anne.

And dude, I am so with you on fangirling Catherine and Anne.

If you want some meaty history with a bit more grunt than Weir and Fraser, check out Mary Tudor by David Loades. I also love Anne Boleyn by Norah Lofts, almost against my will. Lofts is very self-indulgent in terms of her historical theories (and she has a weakness for the notion of Anne as having a strain of witchcraft in her blood, accounting for her emotional power over Henry, although she still depicts Anne sympathetically). And she can repeat herself a bit. But it's still a guilty pleasure with some lovely photos and illustrations. I also love Lady Jane Grey and the House of Suffolk by Alison Plowden. There's also Bloody Mary's Martyrs by Jasper Ridley - very anti-Catholic, anti-Mary polemic, but has some buried factoids I've never seen anywhere else, and legitimately tries to show the "other side" in the form of stories of the martyrs. I also recently read Bastard Prince: Henry VIII's Lost Son by Beverley A Murphy, about Henry Fitzroy. Not bad - gets a fair bit of interpretive mileage from limited primary source evidence.

[mousagetes.livejournal.com]

If anyone can point me towards a really good online resource for Tudor female dress, I'd be most grateful.

costumes.org (http://costumes.org) should have examples of dress sorted by period, but that might be overkill.

[fa11ing-away.livejournal.com]

I'm a big believer in using paintings as a basis for costuming (ugh, the wank of it all, sorry), so this page (http://www.elizabethancostume.net/#pictures) has a very nice list of links to pretty pictures, especially this one (http://www.tudorhistory.org/wives/) which goes through Henry's wives, including portraits (young Catherine (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v415/aeternum111/aragonsittow11502.jpg) is particularly lovely).

However, below is my favourite painting of the era. From left to right: Princess Mary (later Queen "Bloody" Mary), Prince Edward (soon to be King Edward VI), King Henry VIII (soon dead), Jane Seymour (already dead for nearly a decade) and Princess Elizabeth (eventually Queen Elizabeth I).
Click to enlarge:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v415/aeternum111/whitehall-2.jpg)

Phew! I hope that helps in a non-overload kind of way ^^,

[melengro.livejournal.com]

Seeing Jane with a late-childhood version of the boy whose birth killed her is slightly creepy no matter how many times I look at that painting.

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that is weird.

[bookaholicgirl.livejournal.com]

Reading your post title reminded me of one of my favorite pieces of doggerel, which I originally read in Louisa May Alcott's Jack and Jill:

King Henry the Eighth to six spouses was wedded;
One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded.

[seemag.livejournal.com]

I agree with the Norah Lofts recommendation for her Anne Boleyn book, and would also recommend Carolly Erickson's "Mistress Anne." I can't deal with Allison Weir anymore after reading "The Princes in the Tower", and her "Six Wives of Henry VIII" made me crazy because of all the theories she spun (though "War of the Roses" was quite good). Admittedly, I was once a big fan of hers, and she is really easy to read.

And I fangirled Anne Boleyn to the point that I was wrote a fic about her. Shhh...

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can never forgive him for what he did to Anne of Cleves. And I'm with you on Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn.

The one episode of The Tudors that I saw all the way through was about Anne's beheading, and I bawled like a baby.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

I haven't gotten that far yet. I'm scared to watch the second series -- I love Catherine of A, Thomas More and Anne B too much. Woes.

[tree_and_leaf]

A friend of mine tried to get me to watch "The Tudors" midway through S 2 with the argument "You should watch it, the guy who plays Thomas More is totally hot... Oh, wait, he got killed last week."

I keep meaning to get hold of S 1, though, it sounds like fun, in a crackalicious way.

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

Yes, Henry VIII was a total schmuck on a personal level. In historical context, though, his actions come off as more understandable, if still unpleasant. (There's also the little matter of believing himself chosen of God to rule, got to the best of 'em.)

I actually enjoy Weir's stuff-in-as-much-detail-as-you-can take on the wives - it's certainly a lot livelier than Fraser's. Although, after wading through all the historical hype, there's a novelty in the latter's stripped-down verson too.