Jane Seymour: Portrayals In Period Dramas (requested By @belledearie)

Jane Seymour: portrayals in period dramas (requested by @belledearie)

“She has reigned for fourteen years in peace, and God has shown that in the midst of troubled, most dangerous times [a reference to the religious civil wars in France] he [God] knows how to rule and govern a monarchy under the authority of a princess, which is very rare, but this has made the said Lady the most famous princess who has ever ruled in the world a beautiful princess and full of majesty, whom they [her subjects] see filling this crown’s throne with dignity, [so] they have willingly obeyed her until now.”

— French ambassador Bertrand de Salignac de la Mothe Fénélon to Charles IX of France describing Elizabeth I of England, 28 August 1572. Quoted in Elizabeth I of England through Valois Eyes: Power, Representation, and Diplomacy in the Reign of the Queen, 1558–1588 by Estelle Paranque (via maximumphilosopheranchor)

Two more strong-minded, forceful and determined people could hardly have been matched. Eleanor, who was about thirty, had already been queen of France for fifteen years through her first marriage and by her second she would soon be queen of England. Daughter and heiress of William X, Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou, she was beautiful, wanton, capricious, sophisticated, highly intelligent and accustomed to having her own way. Henry was nineteen years old, bull-necked, stocky and freckled, a man of electric energy and ferocious impatience, compelling charm and an ungovernable temper. The two would have a tempestuous marriage, but Eleanor bore Henry eight children and two of them kings. [x]

John Jackson by Sir David Wilkie (Scottish: 1785-1841) circa 1815-20. Coloured chalk on paper

LILY LESSER as PRINCESS MARY in WOLF HALL

Are you out of your senses?                                     Don’t talk of s u c h m a t t e r s again.