More, He Insists, Was Quite Prepared, When Required, To Impose Catholic Beliefs On Dissenters By The

“More, he insists, was quite prepared, when required, to impose Catholic beliefs on dissenters by the exercise of royal might. And now, he suggests, Mantel is compounding the erroneous approach of seeing history in the light of subsequent events by her eagerness to set More against her hero, Cromwell, to make the latter appear a “herald of the future” This is equally as preposterous as Bolt’s approach,” he says. “To reach such a conclusion about More and Cromwell from the very difficult and complicated 16th-century sources is just silly. Both men believed in the idea of enforcing ideas on others by persecution and execution. They only disagreed which ideas.” And if he had to choose between the two? “Well, More at least died nobly with magnificent insouciance. The night before Cromwell was executed, he was screaming ‘Mercy, mercy’, like a stuffed pig. That alone tells us all you need to know about the moral quality of the two.””

— Sir Thomas More: Saint or Sinner, David Starkey’s view.

                                              Here lieth a Phoenix, by whose death.                                                   Another Phoenix life gave breath:                                                          It is to be lamented much.                                              The world at once ne'er knew two such

Elizabeth and Thomas Boleyn with their daughters Mary (left) and Anne (right) in The Spanish Princess 2x05, “Plague”

“Anne’s final legacy is one of which she would have been entirely unaware. Although Anne can never have realised, she was to be only the second wife of England’s most married monarch. When Anne met Henry he had been married to Catherine of Aragon, a foreign princess, for many years and Henry’s marital career was entirely conventional. Henry and Catherine had no son and, after Catherine’s death he would have been expected to quickly remarry, perhaps to a French princess or another lady of the imperial family. Anne Boleyn changed all this. By insisting on marriage and driving Henry onwards, she broadened the king’s horizons. Marriage to Anne showed Henry the possibility of choosing his own wife from amongst the noblewomen of his court. The marriage also showed other women, most notably Jane Seymour, the possibility of becoming a second Anne Boleyn. More pertinently, the break with Rome gave Henry the ability to rid himself of wives quickly and easy whenever he saw fit. Thanks to Anne, Henry never found himself married to another Catherine of Aragon clinging determinedly to her position. Instead Henry was able to change his wife whenever the mood suited him. This was the work of Anne Boleyn although she can never have expected or wanted it.”

— Elizabeth Norton, “Anne Boleyn: Henry VIII’s Obsession”

I do kind of have a chuckle at the idea that Cromwell would refer to KoA’s lack of male issue as ‘a great tragedy’ though, like .... would he really call it that when it was what enabled his rise ?

Anonymous, Portrait of an Elegant Lady (1790′s). Oil on canvas.