That's OK. I remembered after I posted that Archbishop Cranmer was burned by Mary I, so that might be what you were remembering, too. Don't feel bad – the twists and turns during this period would put a modern soap opera to shame. And I'm pushing 50, so I've been reading and reveling in this stuff for 30+ years. It's still fascinating to me.

He was sentenced to be burned but because of Henrys affection for him his sentence was commuted to beheading. I think that the casting department excelled in their job here Jeremy Northam was outstanding and one of the highlights of the show he is a terrific actor.

Yes Jeremy Northam was so good!  Really captured More's spirit, I think.  He also seems to have been fun to have on set.  You can see blooper reels from Season 1 on YouTube and they're all pretty much Jeremy Northam goofing off and Sam Neill rolling his eyes and getting annoyed with him.  

And regarding Wolf Hall, I think the same thing!  In my head I always think of Wriothesley as “Call Me,” and when I listened to Lady In The Tower (I said I read it but it was a book on tape lol) the narrator pronounced it Rye-Oth-Ess-Lee and made me all mad!

So I just got to watch More's beheading last night. This is going to sound really bad but I was so grateful for his death. I was getting sick of the little soapbox he was standing on and talking in long soliloquies (well they felt long). I understand why he was doing it, but to talk for so long in a show like The Tudors I began tuning out to his rants. Sorry Sir Thomas. Though I do wonder why he didn't just do what a lot of people did and swore oath but didn't actually believe it. The way it was presented in The Tudors, Sir Thomas was extremely selfish and didn't care about his family. I think he wanted to be a martyr. But that's just my impression from the soap opera presentation. Oh in the show it also said that Sir Thomas was to be hang, drawn and quartered not burnt.

But onto why I'm here in this thread. I got the impression from the episode that perhaps one of the reasons Henry also fell out of love with Anne is that because of his need to marry Anne, he ended up having to kill Sir Thomas. There were a lot of long looks from Henry to Anne that looked like Henry was thinking about what has Anne made him do, regarding Sir Thomas. It was almost like he was blaming Anne for Sir Thomas' death.

I

Impish_Impulse said

wreckmasterjay said: Its a pity everyone was called Henry in those days….makes it so confusing!!!!

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Or Thomas, or William, or John, or Edward. And a ton of women named, Katherine, Mary, Elizabeth, or Anne. They really weren’t very creative back then, were they? And then you’d have the odd situations that arose when parents would give two sons the same name as a hedge against the high childhood mortality rates. They would hope that at least one of them might survive to carry on the family name, but you could end up with situations like Thomas Culpeper having a surviving brother also named Thomas Culpeper. And both seemed to be not so nice people, so discrepancies arise trying to figure out which brother did what reprehensible deed.

I know what you mean. There are several Georgs in my family back in Germany,which can cause confusion when doing family research.I have to cousins,Clement and Clemens Hilpert.They were father and son, and both were burgermeisters of Himmelstadt. Sometimes you have to find out with some of these people,like Henrys,Katherines,etc.if one is the elder and the other is the younger one,or mother and daughter,or cousins ,etc. Really weird that Thomas Culpeper also had a brother named Thomas Culpeper

Yeah, I think many of us have said that a thousand times. Henry was always quick to blame everyone around him. I guess he thought it was his perrogative as king. Fitzroy died on July 23 1536, only a month after Anne was killed.
“Because of his need to marry Anne he ended up having to kill Sir Thomas.”
Bill, that may be how Henry came to view his killing of More, but IMO Henry had a hissy fit because Thomas wouldn’t take the oath. He was also put out because Thomas did not make an appearance at Anne’s coronation. I think this is the reason Thomas came on to Henry’s radar again. I don’t think Anne had anything to do with this. Henry more than likely felt betrayed. As Henry’s friend, Thomas should have been there. Was he sending Henry a message? Oh boy, I hate when I get in Henry’s head!
Thomas wasn’t out there speaking against the king or Anne. Henry just couldn’t leave well enough alone. He had to have his good friend sign the oath. When Thomas refused, Henry saw it as a betrayal. He was willing to say that Anne was the annointed Queen, but he could not swear an oath to Henry as the head of the church. For him the only leader of the church was the pope. He could not lie like many others did. It was portrayed in The Tudors that Thomas didn’t really love his family, but that is not true. He was very close to them. He would not denounce the pope.
Henry did blame Anne for what he did to Thomas and the others. Since I don’t think Henry capable of anything but infatuation, I think it was easy for him to blame Anne for everything that he did during their time together. Had he truly loved, he wouldn’t have ever cast blame her way.