How preoccupied the Tudors were with removing rival dynastic claims is an interesting question. The period appears to ha
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dizzy-b — 9 years ago(January 07, 2017 02:00 PM)
enry VII, being a male descendant of Edward III's third son, John of Gaunt, was a Lancastrian descended from one of John's legitimized Beaufort children who had specifically been barred from inheriting the throne. He married a Yorkist to secure his claim on the throne and to get the Yorkists on his side.
A commmonly repeated 'fact' but one that is not tell the full truth. There is actually great doubt over whether the barring of the Beauforts from the succession was legally valid. Why? Because they were not officially barred by an Act of Parliament. The order barring them only exists in the Close Rolls, official royal correspodance, from the reign of Henry IV. It was never ratified in Parliament. Its not in the Parliament Rolls, its not in the Law. Nothing. Nada.
I think you are getting your wires crossed with Bloodlines. Richard Earl of Cambridge and Anne Mortimer were the Great-grandparents of Margaret Pole. Only in that sense were they 'of her family'- and the Poles were only royal because they married into it. Richard de La Pole married the sister of Edward IV- his ancestors were in fact merchants from Hull.
Talking of bloodlines however, the Yorkist claim was in itself rather tenious, being derived through two female ancestors- Anne of Cambridge and her Grandmother, Phillipa Mortimer daughter of Lionel. They only won the crown by victory in battle, and kept it by killing off all opposition-namely Henry VI and his son. (Please don't even mention the Accord of 1460.
Parliament were barely even prepared to pass that- they kept passing the buck, and in the end only got as far as a messy compromose, and then only in a Parliament stripped of York's opponents.)
Moving on, the Yorkists themselves had Beaufort blood, through their grandma, Joan Beaufort, mother of Cecily Neville- and Henry Tudor was not just descended from them. He was also descended from Edward I and Henry III through his great-grandmother Margaret Holland. Her own mother was the sister of Joan de Bohun, Henry V's grandmother, and cousin of Philippa of Lancaster. Yes, Henry V's grandmothers were first cousins- and his mother was the first cousin of Henry Tudor's great-grandma. That's before we even get to the Beauforts. I know complicated.
So there was actually a lot of royal blood on both sides. Henry Tudor we know attracted a lot of formerly loyal Yorkists disaffected with Richard III's Regime when he was in exile in France. Yes, factionalism still existed- yes, people fancied themselves as potential claimants- but they were all related several times over, so nothing was really Black or White, Lancastrian or Yorkist at the end of the day. Those are only political terms, certainly mean nothing genetically. -
davidoud — 11 years ago(March 09, 2015 12:18 PM)
By 1530 the Tudors had been on the throne for 45 years, and no one was making any noise about removing them in any dynastic sense
Absolutely. He was Edward IV's grandson after all!
He and Arthur were the perfect princes in a sense since they were sons of the best Lancastrian and Yorkist claimants alive at the time of their birth.
I don't feel that George of Clarence's descendants had a better claim than Henry VIII -
dizzy-b — 9 years ago(January 07, 2017 01:31 PM)
The fact is British history and cultural portrayals of that history on end Plantagenets, eg Richard iii, is written by flacks like Shakespeare who had to portray that history a certain way to legitimize henry vii and therefore Elizabeth.
Interesting. May I ask, have you actually watched the full cycle of Shakespeare's Plantagenet History plays? The series of 8 beginning with Richard II, and including Henry IV parts I and II, Henry V, and Henry VI in three parts, culminating in Richard III?
You see, a lot of the people who say these plays were 'Lancastrian propaghanda' have not seen them, or at least not all of them. They just repeat what other people say.
If they were 'Lancastrian propaghanda' they weren't very good, as they portrayed a number of Lancastrians in a decidedly unfavourable light, including Margaret of Anjou, the Beaufort Dukes of Somerset, and William De La Pole Duke of Suffolk, who was murdered in 1450. Conversely, Edward IV actually comes across in quite a favourable light, and even his father is portrayed sympathetically at times. It is known that Elizabeth I said she identified herself with Richard II, whom she was not descended from, probably more than any other figure in the plays.
Shakespeare's depiction of Richard III can be demostrated to be based on rumour, gossip, and opinion and about Richard that were around at his time- some of which developed during Richard's own reign- such as the rumour about him wanting to marry his niece, or killed his nephews. It was not so much 'propaghanda'- in the sense that it was really nothing new. Just recycling things people already believed. The Bard's plays were simply the Historical Fiction of the time, no different from that we have today.
IMHO, they are far superior to the Tudors, or anything by Philippa Gregory. Though its interesting that she and other fiction authors are able to get away with portraying Richard III bedding more than one of his nieces, and even impregnating them, when historians and Shakespeare, are attacked for so much as suggesting he considered one of them as a potential wife. -
Korios — 11 years ago(March 06, 2015 10:20 AM)
A correction, The Tudors was not a BBC (produced) series, it was an Irish - Canadian - American co-production who happened to be broadcasted by the BBC in the UK. Wolf Hall, on the contrary, is produced (as in
funded
) by the BBC.
Fanboy : a person who does not think while watching. -
PaulDowsett — 11 years ago(March 06, 2015 10:27 AM)
Thanks for the correction, Korios. Although, this had been covered here:
http://www.imdb.com/board/13556920/board/flat/239114525?d=239323841#2 39323841 -
rrb_1 — 10 years ago(April 25, 2015 03:49 PM)
be better than the abysmal BBC series, The Tudors.
OP - THANK YOU for saying that. The Tudors was nothing but soft-core porn dressed up as historical drama (minus any concern for accuracy). Jonathan Rhys-Meyers must'v been paid a lot of money. It's a shame to see a talented actor waste his gifts on such trash. -
njgill — 9 years ago(November 20, 2016 08:18 AM)
Most rational adults would think that a representation of real people who actually lived and are historically documented and uses their names and at least SOME facts from their lives was meant to be taken at face value. If this was meant to be seen as pure fiction, they should have prefaced each episode with a disclaimer, and - preferably - changed the characters' names, so as not to confuse tham with real people.