Skeins-archive - ‘these Jewel-lakes, These Skeins Of Railroad Line’

The Tudors vs. History, 23/?

“The letters show a young woman who, through a mixture of pride and naivety, completely misjudged her situation. This was not entirely her fault; her friends, rejoicing at Anne Boleyn’s removal, did not realise they had been used either. But used they were. Cromwell never intended that the old, conservative, Aragonese faction […] should triumph. Now that they had served their purpose, he intended to remove the conservatives. And it was easy to do this, by depicting them as disloyal subjects who were plotting to overturn religious change and restore Mary, the king’s illegitimate and disobedient daughter, to the succession.”

– The Myth of ‘Bloody Mary’, Linda Porter

“Will submit to him in all things next to God, humbly beseeching your Highness to consider that I am but a woman, and your child, who hath committed her soul only to God, and her body to be ordered in this world as it shall stand with your pleasure.“

– Princess Mary to [Henry VIII.] Hounsdon, 1 June.

“You will see I have followed your advice, and will do so in all things concerning my duty to the King, God and my conscience not offended; for I take you as one of my chief friends next his Grace and the Queen. I desire you, for Christ’s passion, to find means that I be not moved to any further entry in this matter than I have done; for I assure you I have done the utmost my conscience will suffer me, and I neither desire nor intend to do less than I have done. But if I be put to any more (I am plain with you as with my great friend) my said conscience will in no ways suffer me to consent thereunto. Except in this point, neither you nor any other shall be more desirous to have me obey the King than I shall be ready to do so. I had rather lose my life than displease him. I beg you to take this letter in good part. I would not have troubled you so much, but that the end of your letter caused me a little to fear I shall have more business hereafter. Hownsdon, 10 June.”

– 1108. Princess Mary to Cromwell.

“The Henry of 1521, who received a papal title for writing in defense of the faith, was no more. The young zealous Catholic had undergone a transformation from seeing the papacy as an institution of veneration to one that had little relevance for his personal faith or rule. It was partly the influence of the sack of Rome and the character of Clement VII, but largely the result of Henry’s developing awareness of questions raised by the new learning which he could harness in the hope of reaching his own goals.”

— Catherine of Aragon: An Intimate Life, Amy Licence

Allegorical Portrait of a Woman (also known as Simonetta Vespucci) by Sandro Botticelli

Another abridged account, similar to that in Hall and Grafton. At the end is the following sentence : “See the works of God and the mutability of this world ; for this queen Anne, that (as afore is showed) was so triumphantly crowned, within three years next ensueing was attainted of high treason, divorced from the King, and her head stricken off ; and this child that was christened with such pomp was, within three years and less, in open court parliament, declared for a bastard, and deprived of the name of princess.” The sentence in italics is erased.

John Blanke was not the last African to serve King Henry VIII. As a French diplomat remarked to his English counterpart in the summer of 1545: ‘King’s hearts are  in God’s hand and he turns them as pleases him from peace to war and from war  to peace’. During his final war with France, instead of a skilled musician King Henry required the services of a man versed in an art that was at this time little practised by Europeans, but which people from West Africa were taught from birth:  swimming and diving.

Black Tudors: The Untold Story