angrycatherinestan

[angrycatherinestan]

Anne with an E, behind the scenes

#gimme her as anne neville pls

[angrycatherinestan]

Anne looking especially lovely in season 3

#my ideal anne neville #someone cast her as anne neville pls

[angrycatherinestan]

She just said Jane was kind EYE-

#let ppl compliment jane seymour in peace #jane seymour #history #tudors

[angrycatherinestan]

Mary and her father, not an eyebrow in sight!

#mary i #henry viii

[angrycatherinestan]

#this is true

[angrycatherinestan]

Do you think Henry VIII cared about or even recognised the physiological effect he was having on his daughters with the way he treated their mothers and other wives?

This is just my opinion, so take it for what that’s worth. I believe the facts support it, but one can never be certain what was going on in the head of another person, especially one five hundred years ago.

I believe Henry was completely aware of the trauma he caused the women in his life and he enjoyed it. He felt they fully deserved it, and so he had no guilt or hesitation in piling on the misery.

He rubbed his mistresses in Katharine of Aragon’s face. He showed off his bastard son at a feast Katharine was giving for some French nobles…. soon after Katharine had lost a child of her own. When Katharine (wisely) pointed out the folly of giving the boy two dukedoms because wealthy royal bastards had attempted to usurp the throne in the past, Henry spitefully punished her by dismissing her favorite ladies from court.

And, of course, we all know how he taunted Katharine with his favor to Anne Boleyn and her family.. He knew she loved him. (She was probably the only one of his wives who ever did.) He knew she was suffering, especially when she was so terrified of poison that she cooked her own meals over a fire in her rooms like a peasant. Did he at least reassure her that no one was trying to kill her? No. 

He stripped away every friend she had. (At the end of her life, her best friend Maria de Salinas, risked her very life to defy him and see Katharine one more time, so she would not die alone.) He put her in increasingly awful living conditions, in climates that would aggravate her health problems. He went out of his way to do everything he could think of to make her miserable.

Out of all of the hateful and vicious things Henry did during his reign, his cruelty to his daughter stands out as particularly awful. Because she refused to “admit” she was a bastard because her parents’ marriage was unlawful, Henry wouldn’t allow Mary and Katharine to see one another or communicate. It’s often mentioned in almost perfunctory terms in histories of the era, but take a moment to consider how horrifying it is to separate a loving mother and daughter because of spite. Even as Katharine lay dying, Henry refused to allow them to see one another.

He said horrible things about Mary, knowing they’d get back to her, announcing at court he had no worse enemy in the world, and she was a horrible unfilial daughter. He put his infant daughter, Elizabeth, in Mary’s household and tried to force Mary to serve Elizabeth as a maid. (Mary, for her part, adored the infant and spent hours singing to her, playing with her, and making her little dresses.)

Mary could not acknowledge Elizabeth as her superior in rank. If she did, it meant that she was acknowledging her father as head of the church (blasphemy) and betraying her mother, as well as surrendering her claim to the throne. She refused to eat at a table where Elizabeth’s plate was placed at the head of the table, and her own was with the maids. She starved herself instead of eat there and accept her place. The other maids, assigned to serve Elizabeth, abused her.

She fell ill from the stress and starvation. But her father didn’t care. He sent doctors to make sure she wouldn’t die, but other than that, she could suffer the results of her own “stubbornness.”

When he charged Anne Boleyn with adultery, he went out of his way to celebrate ostentatiously, rowing his barge up and down the Thames with torches blazing and musicians playing. Could Anne Boleyn hear it in her prison? Probably not - but not for lack of Henry trying.

After Anne Boleyn’s execution, Mary thought everything would change. She blamed Anne for her horrific treatment. After all, what girl would imagine her father could treat her with such brutal indifference? It had to come from Anne. But to her shock, it only got worse. Her father sent nobles to berate and verbally abuse her until she broke. This girl, who had starved herself, suffered harassment and her father’s nasty comments, and her mother’s loss, finally broke.

She signed what her father wanted her to sign. He brought her to court a few months later to see his new pregnant wife, Jane Seymour. Jane said it would have been a shame if harm had come to Mary, England’s chiefest jewel. Henry replied, “No, that’s Edward,” patting her belly.

What made his comment even more cruel was the fact that Mary had been nicknamed England’s chiefest pearl when she was young.

Mary, learning in the most cruel and stark fashion possible, that her father valued that unborn child more highly than herself, fainted right then and there.

Did Henry care that his eldest daughter had just been traumatized to the point of passing out? No. he didn’t apologize or seek to comfort her when she came to. He just told her to be of good cheer and nothing would go against her. He’d made his point.

When he made an ass of himself introducing himself to his new fiancee Anna on Kleefes, he turned the sting of embarrassment back on her. The look of disgust she had aimed at him wounded him deeply - so he lashed it back at her by declaring her so ugly he couldn’t bring himself to consummate the marriage.

Did he care that this princess was being slandered on an international stage? Did he even pause to think of the humiliation she was suffering? It wasn’t even a consideration in his mind. She “deserved” it for displeasing him with her honest reaction to him. She had embarrassed him for a moment - he would embarrass her in front of the entire world. And historians have tended to continue it by agreeing she must have been repulsive.

He tortured Katheryn Howard by leaving her in Syon Abbey for months, wondering what would become of her. He didn’t want to go through a trial again, so he had her condemned by Parliament. But that took months… while poor Katheryn sat there with nothing to do but worry and weep. But she “deserved” it in his mind for not being as perfect and pure as he had bragged she was. She “deserved” it for embarrassing him by proving he wasn’t the expert in women he touted himself as. He had her executed with an ax, and Katheryn had to be terrified, knowing what had happened to Margaret Pole recently. As he had done with Anne Boleyn, he made sure he was seen as being jolly with the ladies, picking out her replacement.

So, to answer your question, yes, I think he knew the psychological effect he was having on the women in his life… and he enjoyed it.

[angrycatherinestan]

The people have spoken; here are my Katherine of Aragon memes

pt. 2

[angrycatherinestan]

katherine of aragon ? literally defeated the scots and won a war all by herself?? while henry viii was in france ?? which no king had been able to do for years ??? she just went and did it?? and she rocked a suit of armour ??? and raised her own army ?? and before that was the first female ambassador in history ?? and comissioned a book about women having the right to education??? and yet somehow is only ever remembered as the sad old wife who got cast aside ?? but js if u hype the boleyns u gotta hype my girl catalina of spain too ??

[angrycatherinestan]

Friendly reminder that Jane Seymour never did anything wrong ✌

#jane seymour

[angrycatherinestan]

Some Anne Boleyn stans have some bizarre logic I have to say...

#anne boleyn

[angrycatherinestan]

I'm sorry but I've never seen this...I have seen, countless times, Anne Boleyn stans making Jane Seymour out to be evil for catching the attention of Henry VIII and acting as if Anne didn't do the exact same thing. Many people even go so far as to blame her for Anne's execution. Idk what parallel universe you guys are living in.

[angrycatherinestan]

Reggie Pole spitting facts 👁👄👁

Reginald Pole to Henry VIII in his book “Defense of the Unity of the Church”

[angrycatherinestan]

✧ “The queen’s final years were lonely and sad; the Spanish ambassador kept her informed of outside events and smuggled letters to her daughter, but she was often ill and at prayer. The wrongs she had suffered from Henry filled her with sadness rather than anger. Perhaps she was inspired by her motto, Humble and Loyal, for that is how she remained.” - Marilee Hanson

requested by anonymous

[angrycatherinestan]

Catherine of Aragon in The Spanish Princess, S02E02: Flodden.

[angrycatherinestan]

“Can you believe Anne Boleyn didn’t even SPEAK in The Spanish Princess and she just SMILED like a vacuous nonentity that exists solely to be insulted by the protago-”

#you are a queen

[angrycatherinestan]

→ AU: Henry VIII’ Six Wives as fairy tales characters REDONE

Jane Seymour as the Sleeping Beauty

  The king forbids spinning on spinning-wheels or spindles, or the possession of one, throughout the kingdom, upon pain of death. When the princess is fifteen or sixteen and her parents are away on pleasure bent, she wanders through the palace rooms going up and down and then chances upon an old woman who is spinning with her distaff in the garret of a tower and had not heard of the king’s decree against spinning wheels. The princess asks to try the unfamiliar task and the inevitable happens: the curse is fulfilled. The old woman cries for help and attempts are made to revive her, but to no avail. The king attributes this to fate and has the princess carried to the finest room in the palace and placed upon a bed of gold-and-silver-embroidered fabric. The good fairy who altered the evil prophecy is summoned by a dwarf wearing seven-league boots and returns in a chariot of fire drawn by dragons. Having great powers of foresight, the good fairy sees that the princess will be distressed to find herself alone and so puts everyone in the castle to sleep. The king and queen kiss their daughter goodbye and depart, proclaiming the entrance to be forbidden. The good fairy’s magic also summons a forest of trees, brambles and thorns that spring up around the castle, shielding it from the outside world and preventing anyone from disturbing the princess..

[angrycatherinestan]

“A woman of the utmost charm in both character and appearance.”