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RSSFinalewatch: 'The Tudors' -- Anne's final words
As The Tudors finishes Season Two, wife number two is gone and Henry moves on.
There was much foreshadowing in this episode as Anne Boleyn has been sentenced to death and awaits her execution in the Tower of London.
It all begins with the cleaning of the sword. Anne, unlike others who met their death at the end of an ax, will be beheaded by a sword swung by an expert executioner from Dover.
Then it's the pair of swans. Henry eyes them numerous times swimming in the garden pool. These must symbolize his relationship with Anne.
Within a day's time, as Anne is prepared for her execution, her marriage to Henry is declared null and void and Princess Elizabeth is declared a bastard. At one point you see everyone making way for the Princess Elizabeth as she heads to breakfast. By dinner time, Lady Elizabeth is being told by a lady-in-waiting to, "hush or I will hit you."
In her last confession, Anne declares that she had never been unfaithful to her husband. Except for admitting to be jealous of him, she swears she did sin against him in any other way. While at first she seems content with revealing this, she then hopes it will get someone to intervene and she will be saved. It's a last desperation, but it will not work.
In so many ways, Henry has moved on. He asks John Seymour for his daughter's hand in marriage. When Jane asks that Lady Mary be brought back into the picture after she and Henry are wed, he tells her he doesn't want her to be affected by things that were before. And when he kisses her, John Seymour notes,"Everything will change for her. That kiss is her destiny and her fortune." His son points out that it will change for them as well.
Anne's execution is delayed because the executioner is slow in coming from Dover. The king is not pleased with it. He takes Cromwell by the throat and tells him to order someone else to do the task, "or by God's blood you will join her!" As soon as Cromwell exits the king's chambers, Henry comes out and says, "I said, postpone it."
(If we didn't see Henry's craziness before, we are definitely seeing it now.)
Come nine o'clock the next morning, Anne is lead to the scaffold. After a brief, final speech to the "good Christian people," she pays her executioner his 20 pounds and accepts her fate.
When all is said and done, the king sits for dinner. His meal: the swan. The woman he was once passionately in love with is now gone.
He may be reborn by his own belief, but moving forward, one of the ladies-in-waiting described it the best by saying that the world is a slippery place. And in King Henry VIII's 1536 England, it is.
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The irony of the swans was that swans mate for life. Henry, who had no use for monogamy, killed a creature who would have loved its mate for life.
The swordsman was from Calais. He arrived in England through Dover.
i have done some research on the tudors and the marriage of henry the viii i history states he was overwiegh by the time he married jane seymore. is the going to be a over wiegh actor to play him in future ...also queen cathrine gave him seven children only one lived,so the problem of still birth my have been the kings.
great season!
Some historians believe that King Henry VIII had an STD from sleeping around so much, which he p***ed onto his wives, the STD I think was syphilis which is the reason that both Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn suffered so many miscarriages and still births, if Jane Seymour hadn't died after childbirth she would have had the same problem, it was just by chance that she gave birth to a son rather than a daughter.
Als, it's interesting how Anne Boleyn's marriage was declared null and void just before her execution, surely in this case she couldn't have commited adultery if she'd never been truly married to the king. I find the trial for Anne's death particularly unfair, I do feel sorry for her.
I've been wondering about the weight as well and am anxious to see whether they will have Jonathan Rhys-Meyers gain the weight or wear a fat suit.
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers does not have to wear a fat suit. His acting ability will allow him to emote a much larger man while keeping his thin physique. This actor's skill transcends the opticals. He is able to encapsulate the essence of Henry VIII without being a cartoon of the Royal.
It is thought that Anne was RH Negative. The reason why she would miscarry after a few months of pregnancy is because her body rejected the foetus seeing it as foreign.
Mothers who are RH Negative can often have their first child without problems.
These days an RH Negative mother who's parnter is RH positive would have injection of Rh immunoglobulin.
Note these events take place during very turbulent times for the church and it was in the process of splitting. In the Bible of those days (King James version) it is forbidden to eat swans as well as certain other birds.
"and these are they which ye shall have in abomination...(v18).and the SWAN and the PELICAN and GIER Eagle"(Leviticus 11:18 and Deuteronomy 14:16.)
I believe the swan being eaten was symbolic of Henry's disdain for Gods laws and he was publicly demonstrating that in 2 ways:
1. He "killed" Anne Boleyn. broke Gods commandment)
2. He ate the swan.
He was trying to convey that he was in control-not God