Ruta Gedmintas As Bessie Blount In The Tudors

Ruta Gedmintas as Bessie Blount in The Tudors

“Elizabeth had always been popular, and though Mary had once been equally so, by the time of her death the warmth of feeling towards her had faded. She had become unpopular as a result of the religious persecution she had imposed upon her people, and for involving her realm in her husband Philip’s foreign wars. This had also resulted in the loss of Calais in 1557, England’s last remaining possession in France, which came as a devastating blow to the English. It was little wonder then that her subjects greeted Elizabeth’s succession with genuine heartfelt enthusiasm. Indeed, for the entirety of her reign Accession Day [17 November] would be enthusiastically celebrated each year.”

— Elizabeth’s Rival: The Tumultuous Life of The Countess Of Leicester, Nicola Tallis

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]

Madonna of the Star, 1424, Fra Angelico

Medium: panel,tempera

“During the first year of her marriage, Anne perceived no diminution in Henry’s attachment. The birth of a daughter, however contrary to his anticipations, [did not reduce] his tenderness [towards her]; and he received, with becoming gratitude, the infant Elizabeth, who was universally acknowledged his presumptive heiress.”

— Memoirs of the Life of Anne Boleyn, Vol II. Elizabeth Benger (1821)

She is a paradise

-Sebastian Giustinian, Venetian Ambassador to Henry VIII