Anyanka said

SteveJ said

And yet we’re forever being told that Henry was quite chaste, especially in comparison to his other royal contemporaries. Ahem. Like Cromwell in conversation with Chapuys, I’m obliged to hide my smile…

Henry was chaste with regards to s3x outside marrriage..There are only few mentions of his ladies.. Bessie Blount and Mary and possibly 1 more during his marriage to KoA. Madge Shelton and the Imperial Lady during his marriaage to Anne. And yet he only acknowledged 1 child out of these liasions…

There were hints of a mistress rt 2 during JS wifehood and his widowhood..There was nothing afterwards..

Anne, with no definitive & supporting evidence that Henry wasn’t her first lover in the fullest sense of that word, has traditionally been considered little better than a lady of the night. Sexism at work.

Welcome to the World of the Double Standard..Men have always been feted for their s3xual exploits while women are condemned for being supposedly available regardless of whether the ladies were s3xual promiocous, raped or virgin…it happened in 16th C..

reading a lot of stuff out of the States now..it’s still happening..virgin/wh*re dicotomy is being exemptified by Stuebenville where a young lady was drunk or possibly drugged and dragged around to be s3xually molested and the town rallied round her atackers sincethey were members of the local sportsteam…

climbing off my soap box….

Agreed Anyanka. It was a very strange situation for woman. If the King fancied a fumble the girl was expected to give in demurely and do what was expected. Look at poor Mary Boleyn, she was alledgely known as the great wh*re. Did she have an affair with King Francis? My jury is still out on this one, but I’m thinking that King Francis was bragging about her to Henry and that Mary was just a pawn in the game of oneupmanship between Francis and Henry. We know of course that she did indeed have an affair with Henry and then spent the rest of life trying to live down the reputation of being called the great wh*re.

hi when cromwell had got henrys dirty work done i just wondered if he was present at annes execution i know brandon was there and henry fitzroy does anyone know where cromwell was thanksx

thanks sharon, he was really something else wasnt he! as if it wasnt bad enough setting her up he actually went to see her die knowing full well she was an innocent woman -pure evil that man makes me sooo mad!!

It’s quite possible that the reason Cromwell was there, was to make sure that Henry wouldn’t at the last minute change his mind, and spare Anne’s life. There is no doubt he was ambitious but unfortuantly for him his ambition and his talants didn’t exactly go hand in hand. Anne of Cleves was he hoped to be his trump card, but what did he actually know about her before he put her forward as a possible bride for old lard lad?
Or did he just hope that everything would turn out ok anyway?
Yeah he messed up big time when it came to the Anne of Cleves marriage sham, but I don’t think he was entirely responsible for all that had happened there. His lackeies must have spun him a few yarns concerning Anne of Cleves too, for him to actually go to Henry and say “Here old Boy I’ve got just the woman for you.” I can understand why he pushed the marriage to AOC so hard, he was mortally afraid of the Catholic subjects in Henry’s court getting their feet back under the table again and the last thing he wanted was Henry going cap in hand back to the Pope and saying “I’m sorry I messed up please can I have another chance at being a Catholic.” I don’t think that would have happened as Henry liked the wealth that Cromwell had managed to obtain for him through the disolution of the Monastries and Converts etc, but Cromwell wouldn’t have known that and it was something he wasn’t prepared to risk. Basically I suppose you could say that Cromwell played what he hoped would be a winning hand in the game of court politics, and got beaten by a royal flush.