616. Elizabeth I: The Fall of the Axe (Part 1)

28:48And so she tells him, you know, if you want to sleep with me, then you're going to have to make an honest woman of me. And that means making her Henry's queen. I mean, that is just a pause a second. That is bonkers by the standards of that. I mean, people all through English history, there have been kings with mistresses. Well, you're absolutely right. But there is a special circumstance, which is that Henry is married to a woman who he thinks can't give him a son. He suspects that and hopes that Anne can. And more than that, Anne has a way of cutting the Gordian knot around the marriage because there is a huge issue around any prospect of divorce because marriage, according to the church, is a sacrament instituted by Christ himself.

29:34So, what God has joined together, let no man put asunder. I mean, that seems absolutely black and white. How do you get around that? Well, Henry has come to believe that his marriage to Catherine is invalid and an offense to God and that therefore God wants it dissolved. And in Henry's opinion, Catherine's failure to give him a son is clear evidence of divine anger. And he and his kind of tame clerics cite a verse from Leviticus in the Old Testament. If a man shall take his brother's wife. It is an unclean thing. He hath uncovered his brother's nakedness. They shall be childless. And of course, Henry has taken his brother's wife.

30:15Catherine was the widow of Arthur. Henry then married him. He'd got a special papal dispensation to do that. But he's now thinking that dispensation doesn't cut the mustard with God. And so he's been pressing the Pope to grant him an annulment. And probably under normal circumstances, the Pope would have been happy to oblige but the problem is as we mentioned catherine is charles v's aunt and the pope given a choice is always going to risk offending henry rather than charles v of course because the i mean just to give people a sense of the context rome has just been sacked by charles v's troops right the pope is effectively charles v's prisoner he's never gonna he's never gonna to offend Charles V.

31:01Yeah. And so this leaves Henry and his ministers in an absolute jam. And so it's called the King's Great Matter. How do you get a divorce when the one person who can grant that divorce, the Pope, is not going to give it to you? And so it's locked Henry into years of fruitless negotiations and frustration. I mean, it's kind of incredibly Brexit. You know, Passad is endlessly going and being rebuffed. But now, not only is he attracted to Anne, not only does he think she can give him the son that he so desperately wants, but she can also provide the key that would unlock the king's great matter. Because if, as Luther teaches, and Anne has come to think the Pope is the great whore of Babylon, the Antichrist, then who cares what the Pope thinks?

31:57Yeah. Doesn't matter. Yeah. So in many ways, this is a win-win for Henry because not only will he get the woman he wants, if this all works out, but he will throw off foreign influence, become master in his own house, as it were, in religious terms. And also in the long run, of course, there was all those monasteries. Very tempting. Yeah. There's all kinds of goodies and prospect. And so Henry summons a load of scholars to weigh this up. They're English scholars. And amazingly, they tell him, yeah, brilliant, go for it. And the guy who takes the lead in this is a very brilliant scholar called Thomas Cranmer, who we'll be hearing about over the course of this series.

32:42He's going to be a key player. But basically, Thomas Cranmer and his fellow scholars demonstrate to Henry's satisfaction that his power as king is superior to that of the Pope's. And once that's been accepted by Henry, things then move very fast. So in 1531, the English church grants Henry the title of singular protector, supreme Lord, and even so far as the law of Christ allows, supreme head of the English church and clergy. So that's essentially shunting the Pope to one side. In the same year, Catherine is banished from court and her apartments are given to one of her former ladies-in-waiting, and that is Anne Boleyn.

33:21The following year, Anne is raised to the peerage in her own right, the first woman to be honoured in this way, and she's granted the Marquisate of Pembroke, which is an extinct title that Henry resurrects. This matters because Henry can only marry someone of that rank. People who listen to the series we did on Mary Queen of Scots this July may remember that every time Mary Queen of Scots makes one of her unfortunate marriages, she has to raise her husband to be to a dukedom so that he will be of worthy rank to be married to a queen. So basically, that's what Henry is doing with Anne here. By December 1532, Anne knows she's pregnant.

34:01And so, you know, the foot really needs to be put down on the pedal. So on the 25th of January 1533, Henry marries her in his private chapel in Westminster, despite the fact that actually the annulment of his marriage to Catherine still hasn't come through. So effectively, he's now bigamous. On the 30th of March, Thomas Cranmer is consecrated as the Archbishop of Canterbury. And he gets the job because Henry knows that he's going to do what he needs the Archbishop to do, which is basically to absolutely affirm the legitimacy of what he's going through. so at Easter 1533 again quoting the Venetian ambassador the Martianess Anne went with the king to high mass as queen and with all the pomp of a queen clad in cloth of gold and loaded with the richest jewels and she dined in public then on the 29th of May she sails from the palace of Greenwich up the river Thames to the tower of London she steps out from the boat she goes round to the main entrance into the tower crosses the moat she's greeted by Henry with a kiss and the couple retire to apartments that Henry has had decorated in splendid magnificence, specifically for Anne.

35:15Two days later, she makes her ceremonial entry into London dressed in white and she is extolled as a splendid image of chastity. And on the 1st of June, 1533, she is anointed and the crown of St. Edward the Confessor is placed on her head. And this is the crown that is usually reserved for the monarch himself so it is a signal honor so the reason for this signal honor presumably is because it's very obvious to everybody now uh if she knew she was pregnant in december it must be obvious to everybody now that she is expecting a child and the general assumption is that this will be the assumption based on nothing is that this will be a son well so it's i mean she's been described as a splendid image of chastity but she's also being described as somewhat big with child.

36:07And so you're right that this pregnancy reassures Henry, brilliant, I now have a woman who can give me a son. And if Anne is pregnant with his son, then it's absolutely essential that everything is done to make clear that Anne is legitimately his wife and therefore his son will legitimately be the heir to the throne. And so it is on the 26th of August that Anne Boleyn, now the Queen of England, retires to her birthing chamber in Greenwich. And on the 7th of September, she goes into labour. Righty. Well, as we know, the results of this will be a little bit of a disappointment for Henry. And we will return after the break to find out how he deals with it.

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37:37Welcome back to The Rest is History. So Anne Boleyn, she's just been crowned Queen of England. All kinds of exciting political and theological developments going on in the background. She has gone into labour. She has been delivered of a child. Brilliant news. It is an heir at last for Henry VIII. And it is a boy. Oh, no, it's actually not. it's the girl what a massive letdown so here's the thing you would think that henry would be furious and this would be you know curtains for amberlyn and lots of people probably think well it is but it isn't straight away right he doesn't completely give up on amberlyn after this i mean he's i was about to say he's a reasonable man i mean in many ways he's not but he must recognize there's a 50 50 chance that it would have been a girl you know he's disappointed but he is disappointed but also you know ann's had a successful pregnancy the baby's healthy there's every prospect that she'll get pregnant again and give him a son uh you know and also he now has a legitimate princess so that's better than nothing and so he's you know he in no way repudiates his baby daughter he kind of shows her all kinds of of marks of favor so her name the name he gives her elizabeth and amazingly ann had wanted to call her mary to erase princess Mary from the ledger.

38:59And Henry says, no, I'm not. That's poor. But he chooses Elizabeth because it's a tribute to his mother, Elizabeth of York. Elizabeth is then baptised in Greenwich. The mayor of London is rowed down there with 40 of the city's worthies, you know, kind of movers and shakers. And Elizabeth doesn't get Francis I, the King of France, as a godfather, which she would have done had she been a boy. But she does get Thomas Cranmer. And, you know, Archbishop of Canterbury, that's not bad. And of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury also is all, you know, it's a kind of imprimatur of legitimacy, suggests that God is saying she's not a bastard.

39:33So that's great. Then after the baptism, which Henry and Anne are not at it, that's not the custom. She's brought out, so Eustace Chapuis, the imperial ambassador, who's a very hostile witness to Anne, he describes what happens, that a herald in front of the church door proclaimed her princess of England. Then in December, it's a very wintry day, drizzle falling on the streets of London. She rides with splendid ceremony through the capital, out of it, onwards towards the house that Henry has decided will be her official residence. And this is a palace called Hatfield, and it lies 20 miles north of London in rural Hertfordshire.

40:14And it's close to the capital, so easy for Henry to visit it, but it's also less likely to be swept by plague, which is always a consideration. So he's looking out for her and it's a pretty impressive place for a Bournemouth old baby girl to have. So it's got a great hall, it's got fine apartments, it's got an apartment full of deer. It's a palace fit for a princess, I guess. Yeah. So Henry, he goes to visit her, doesn't he, in January? And by which point it's very clear that if there were any questions about her parentage, which there hasn't been. I mean, she looks a little bit like Henry because she's even got the red hair, hasn't she?

40:48Yes, and the violent temper, apparently. Right. I mean, to be fair, she's a baby. I mean, that's pretty much the standard. And then the key thing in March, Parliament passes legislation that declares Elizabeth as Henry's heir. But there is a couple of twists, aren't there? So basically, if Henry dies before Elizabeth reaches the age of majority, then Anne will be regent and absolute governor of children and of the kingdom. But also if you call anybody but Anne and Elizabeth queen or princess, so the obvious target here is her half sister, Mary, then that is high treason. And you can say goodbye to your head.

41:33Yeah. So great news for Anne, but terrible news for Mary, Henry's daughter by Catherine of Aragon, who is now very publicly and by act of parliament declared a bastard yeah and anne is ecstatic about this because she detests catherine of aragon and she particularly detests mary and is consistently vicious towards her i mean horrible to to poor mary can i say something actually on this front there are some admirable things about anne you know she's i like the fact that she's acerbic and that she's clever and that she's you know you know a bit of a personality and stuff. But she's horrible. She's horrible to Mary, isn't she?

42:12In a way that she didn't have to be. Yeah. And I think in part, it's jealousy of Mary's lineage. I think she's jealous on behalf of her own daughter. But it's also in large part because Mary refuses to acknowledge her own bastardy. She refuses to play the game that Henry, her father, wants her to play. And so Anne goes all out to try and erase the privileged status that Mary had previously enjoyed as Henry's eldest daughter. So on the 1st of October, 1533, which was only two months after Elizabeth's birth, Henry had summoned Mary and told her, you are no longer going to be a princess. From this point on, you're just going to be the Lady Mary.

42:59And Mary understandably burst into tears. She's only 17 years old. I mean, you know, for a teenager, teenagers hate. I mean, it's the most humiliating thing. Yeah, basically. The following month, Chapuis reported an even greater humiliation. So he writes, the king, not satisfied with having taken away the name entitled Princess from Mary, has just given out that in order to subdue the spirit of the princess, he will deprive her of all her people because they put notions into her head and stop her from obeying him and that she should come and live as lady's maid with the little bastard. The little bastard is Elizabeth.

43:34So, I mean, what a humiliation. You're stripped of all your own servants and you have to go and work as a servant for this girl who's replaced you. I mean, that's absolutely terrible. So, Mary is sent there only with two attendants and she's obdurate in refusing to accept this. She says, I'm not going to accept this horrible little girl as a legitimate heir. She insists she She knew no other princess in England except herself. And Anne is so infuriated that she takes away all Mary's jewels. It's like confiscating her iPhone or something. And she tells the women supervising Mary to box her ears as a cursed bastard.

44:15So Nicola Tallis, who wrote another great book, Young Elizabeth, Princess, Prisoner, Queen, she says, little wonder Mary spent much of her time weeping in her chamber. But that makes Mary sound like a drip, whereas Mary's not a drip. I like Mary. I think she has massive, she's got massive backbone, Mary. She has a, she obviously she's regarded as one of the great villains of English history because she lets herself down with the Catholicism. However, she has tremendous guts, I think. And she's a massive survivor. I don't, you see, I don't think that it's Magdalen weeping. I think it's angry weeping.

44:48Yeah, I respect that. It's I hate you all kind of weeping. That's what it's like. And obviously, none of this makes Anne any the more popular, because we said how Catherine is very popular with the mass of the English people. And so Anne going out of her way to insult Catherine's daughter, Mary, who's also very popular, it doesn't go down well at all. And Chapuis unsurprisingly completely agrees with this. It says, I do not understand why the king is in such haste to treat the Princess Mary in this way, if it were not for the importunity and malignity of the lady, i.e. Anne. I know he's biased, but he's not wrong.

45:28Yeah, he's right. Now, I guess none of this would have mattered had Elizabeth been a boy. I mean, Anne could have done then in that case, she could have done whatever she liked. nor if in the wake of Elizabeth's birth, she had then been able to get pregnant again and give Henry the son that she wanted. But this does not happen because in the summer of 1534, absolute disaster and loses a baby. It's gone almost a full term. And the rumor is that it had been a boy. Another year goes by and there are rumors of another miscarriage. and it is clear as well to people that henry is getting a little bit fed up with anne so you said you like her she's sassy she's acerbic but henry you know he might you know to begin with he might have found that quite attractive quite titillating but i think by this point he's starting to find her bossy arrogant nagging shrewish and these are not qualities that he's particularly looking for in a why do you know what sometimes anne boleyn i said she was horrible but sometimes she reminds Reminds me a tiny bit of myself.

46:33Really? Imagine, well, God, Henry would have been lucky to get married to you. That has to be said, Dominic, that the odds of you giving Henry a son would be low, I think. Yeah. It's not a situation I've ever really pondered. Like, how would I perform as Henry, one of Henry VIII's wives? But actually, I think probably, although Anne Boleyn is the one I like least, she's probably the one I most like. Well, fortunately for you, you are not having to get pregnant by Henry. That's Anne's job. And ominously for Anne, by this point, Henry, his eye is starting to stray again. He's starting to have affairs.

47:09And as early as October 1534, so this is a few months after Anne's second miscarriage, Chapuis is reporting that Henry is paying particular attention to one lady in waiting. And this is a woman called Jane Seymour. And the following summer, so that's in 1535, Henry pays a visit to the Seymour house, which is in Wiltshire. I'm delighted to say. Oh, it's great to have Wiltshire in the Salisbury area back on the show. This is a place called Wolf Hall. So it seems that Henry is really quite keen on Jane Seymour if he's going off and, you know, meeting the parents, that kind of thing. It's unclear exactly what it is that Jane has that Henry finds so irresistible.

47:59So Chapuis famously describes her as an enigma. She's modest. She's not particularly attractive. Chapuis describes her as not a woman of great wit. Tracy Borman in her book on Anne Boleyn points out that enigma was Tudor slang for the female genitals. So perhaps Chapuis is hinting at something there, unclear. But there's one definite advantage that Jane does have over Anne, certainly in Henry's eyes, which is that she isn't always losing her temper with him. But the point about the appeal of Jane Seymour is surely that Anne Boleyn is acerbic, is argumentative, is a bit of a nag, is a bit bossy, all of these things that make her very interesting.

48:43Jane Seymour is quite boring, but she basically is a people pleaser. everything we know about her is she's a massive people pleaser and she henry thinks god she's sweet she's nice she'll bring me a yeah she'll bring me a cup of scented wine or whatever and and you know nurse my ulcer she'll find my friends amusing exactly exactly yeah so but it's still not all over for Anne. So by January 1536, she's pregnant again. And then on the 7th of January 1536, even better news, it is announced that Catherine of Aragon is dead. And Henry's reaction is God be praised. Anne's brother, George, it was a pity the princess, i.e.

49:29Mary, did not keep company with her. So, I mean, really venomous, really venomous. And you might wonder, well, why this hostility? I think for George Berlin, the hostility to Mary is not just dynastic. He, like Anne, has become a very, very passionate evangelical. So it would be anachronistic to call him a Protestant, but that's basically what he is by now. But Mary, she has stayed very devoutly, very defiantly loyal to the traditional Catholic faith. She's loyal to the Pope. And of course, that loyalty is an expression of her loyalty to Catherine of Aragon. So she refuses to accept Henry's supremacy of the church.

50:12And this, of course, in turn then enables her to say, well, I have every godly reason to deny the legitimacy of my half-sister, baby Elizabeth. And that means that for the Boleyns, Anne, George, or the rest of the crowd, their godliness, their evangelical identity is now kind of seamlessly interwoven with their dynastic ambitions and interests. So for them, it seems obvious that God is on the side of the Boleyns and against Princess Mary and all these kind of awful Catholics. But of course, I mean, none of this matters if Anne can't give Henry what he so desperately wants, a son. Yeah. So the clock's ticking.

50:55I mentioned his ulcer, actually. I was being anachronistic because he doesn't get this famous ulcer until the 24th of January when he has this jousting accident. He comes very close to death, doesn't he? He's knocked off his horse. People actually think he may have died. And with that, there is a serious, you know, for the first time, people think, gosh, he could actually have died. And what happens next? You know, the future of the dynasty is not yet secure. There are a lot of people who think when he goes, great, we can get rid of the Tudors. I mean, they're a bit of an aberration and we can get back to, we can find some Plantagenet heir to take over.

51:34Yeah, we can get back to fighting. Yeah, exactly. Brilliant. Exactly. So, yeah. And so that fall, it has a kind of knock on consequence because five days later, 29th of January, Catherine of Aragon is laid to rest in Peterborough Cathedral. and on the same day, Anne has a miscarriage. And she blames it on the shock that she felt on learning of the news of Henry's fall. But Henry thinks, no, this is the marker of a curse. Just as my first marriage was cursed, so now my second is cursed. And he says explicitly, I see that God will not give me male children. And Chapuis, you know, he is kind of delighted by this.

52:19And he writes to Charles V, the emperor, and he reports Henry's growing belief, and I quote Chapuis, that he had made this marriage seduced by witchcraft. And for this reason, he considered it null. See, I think Henry at this point, my sense is that he feels a little bit guilty. he actually catherine of aragon has died and although he will never admit it to himself he has treated her abominably and she wasn't a bad person she was a good wife for him he's treated his own daughter atrociously and henry is a very vain man he will never accept that he's behaved badly so he'd be he pins all this on anne doesn't he don't you think that's what he's doing yeah i think so and i think also what's very unfortunate for anne is that jane semer although she may be boring.

53:06She's learnt from Anne how to play Henry. So in April, Henry sends Jane this purse of gold sovereigns and a letter, presumably pledging his troth. And she just kisses the letter very demurely and sends it back unopened and declares that she will only accept such gifts if she is married. So she's learned from the mistress how to play, how to do this. That April, the same month, Anne is in Greenwich and she has Elizabeth brought from Hatfield. And Elizabeth by this point is two and a half years old. And Elizabeth has clearly been much on Anne's mind. So Anne has been ordering her all kinds of clothes.

53:45It's kind of dresses of orange and purple velvet and taffeta caps adorned with gold, obviously designed to kind of go with her complexion and her auburn hair. So Anne again being the great fashionista. And she's clearly worrying, I think, by this point that Henry might strike against her at any moment. And what are the implications of this for her daughter? her. So on the 26th of April, she summons her private chaplain for a conversation. And this chaplain is a man called Matthew Parker, who is a very brilliant young evangelical scholar, typical of the kind of clergyman that Anne has been favoring.

54:27And Anne says to him, look, I don't know what's going to happen, but suppose the worst does happen. Please, will you promise to look after my daughter, Elizabeth? And Parker vows, yes, your majesty i absolutely will and he he holds true to that vow so years later in elizabeth's reign parker reports the conversation he'd had with anne at this point to elizabeth and he describes it as the last words that ever her majesty's mother spoke to me concerning her well you say the last words because the end is coming for anne isn't it and it comes on isn't there some story that there she's watching some form of sport i can't remember what it is people playing tennis or something and then she gets um a summons from the council you know come and you must come immediately and she's accused of to her shock complete and utter shock she is accused of adultery and then she's taken off by barge from greenwich to the tower of london she never even gets the chance to see her daughter before she goes does she no you know there's no dilly-dallying.

55:32So off to the tower she goes and the boom of cannons announces to London her arrival in the tower. And of course, this was where three years earlier, she'd stayed for a couple of days with Henry in the Royal Quarters before setting out across London for her coronation. And now she's being incarcerated there as a prisoner. And the first evening that she's there, she asks the constable of the tower, shall I die without justice? I mean, she clearly recognizes the fate that is now threatening her. And the constable replies to her, the poorest subject the king hath, hath justice. And at this Anne only laughs.

56:11And the laughter is very bitter because Anne does not receive justice. So she's put on trial on the 15th of May in the Tower of London, isn't she? She's the first Queen of England ever to be subjected to a public trial. and the counts. So adultery, she's convicted of adultery with five different men. I mean, they're not messing around. Then the next count, incest, because she's accused of sleeping with her own brother, this evangelical guy, George Boleyn. And then treason and conspiracy to kill her husband, to murder her husband. And the thing is, of course, she's obviously innocent of these things, right?

56:55I mean, people never, historians don't think she'd plotted against her husband or that she'd slept with her brother or she committed, even that she committed adultery. No, I don't think any historians think that they're true. Essentially, Henry wants her eliminated and he's prepared to go to any lengths to do it. And sure enough, you know, the sentence is read out to her. Because thou hast defended against our sovereign the king's grace in committing treason against his person. The law of the realm is this, that thou shalt be burnt here within the Tower of London on the green, else to have thy head smitten off.

57:26and clearly in that, it's better to have your head chopped off than to be burnt alive. Anne is being offered a deal, agree to what I want, and you will have a merciful death. And the following day, sure enough, Anne is visited in the tower by Cranmer, and Cranmer wins Anne's consent to the annulment of her marriage. And this might seem surprising to people because effectively, of course, this serves to render Elizabeth now a bastard. but i think anne is doing it i mean partly maybe she thinks well you know i'll have my head chopped off but i think i think she thinks that by doing this her life will be spared and that will then enable her to you know it will it will ensure that at least elizabeth will continue to have a mother but there is no pardon interesting point there actually tom which never really occurred to me that um at that point henry the eighth could have pardoned her i mean he could have just said send her off i'd like katherine of aragon send her off to some country house and then although people would talk about him as having had lots of wives his reputation is this kind of blue beard who you know the wife killer i mean he doesn't have to kill her no he doesn't and and everyone finds it astonishing so even chapui who obviously hates anne i mean he he he regards it as madness so you know he says i may god permit that this may be his last folly it's seen as as very aberrant behavior, I think.

58:49But she has now declared and accepted that her marriage was invalid. And so the following morning, 17th of May in Lambeth Palace, Cramer officially annuls Henry's marriage to Anne. And this means that Elizabeth, like her half-sister Mary, is declared bastard and deprived of the title of princess. So from this point on, she will be called the Lady Elizabeth. And later that same morning, 17th of May, the five men who've been convicted of adultery with Anne are led out onto Tower Hill. So before the mass of Londoners who've gathered there to watch the spectacle, and one by one they are beheaded. And George Boleyn goes first because he's of the highest rank and the axe will be at its sharpest.

59:32So it's a kind of, you know, a measure of privilege there. And he speaks as a martyr for his evangelical beliefs. He says, I have been a setter forth of the word of God. So he's implying this is the reason that he's being eliminated. He does not defend his sister. And in fact, only one of the five men who are executed, who's a guy who Henry, you know, very close to a man called Henry Norris, a long term favorite and friend of Henry's. He's the only one who does a decent thing and speaks out in defense of Anne. So he said in his conscience, he thought the queen innocent of these things laid to charge and he would die a thousand deaths rather than ruin an innocent person.

1:00:08But, you know, this has no impact. It doesn't help Anne. And on the 19th of May, so two days later, it is her turn to meet death. Now, she does not die as the five men accused of adultery had done on Tower Hill, but within the tower itself. So there's a measure of privacy. A thousand people are gathered to watch it, but she doesn't have the stinking rabble jeering and mocking her. A great scaffold has been erected next to the White Tower. It's been draped in black. She approaches it wearing a grey silk gown. She's led to the scaffold. She climbs its steps and then she addresses the crowd. And she says, I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never.

1:00:55I mean, obviously she doesn't believe this. And so people may wonder, well, why would she say it? And I think that the reason is, is that she is hoping it will encourage Henry to look more fondly on their daughter. And so it may well be that, you know, in her final moments, Anne's thoughts are of Elizabeth. So there isn't a block. She just kneels in the straw. She says her prayers, and then she removes the hood that she's had. And so that kind of opens up her neck. Her hair is bundled up, put in a cap. So her neck is now absolutely exposed. Lady in waiting step forwards, blindfolds her and leans forwards.

1:01:34She's still saying her prayers. And then there's a French swordsman who Henry has especially hired for his expertise, kind of slight mark of mercy, I suppose. And he quietly reaches down for his sword without making a sound. So Anne doesn't know when it's going to come. And then with very smooth, very silent precision, he brings the blade of the sword down onto Anne's neck. Her head is severed with a single blow. Anne, before her execution, had said that she had a little neck. So there's no kind of hacking and chopping at it. It's done very efficiently. And the head is then held up to the crowd.

1:02:09And it's reported that her mouth continues to move in prayer for several seconds after her decapitation. Gosh, I wonder if that really happened. Well, I think it is possible. I mean, the whole question of what happens to you after your head is chopped off is a very interesting one and i gather much contested so right okay who knows you know they're markers of mercy the french swordsman she hasn't been burnt to death it's been in privacy but it's still completely shocking and i think that henry's willingness to sanction the judicial murder of his queen of henry norris's you know one of his closest friends four other presumably innocent people as well it speaks of his utter resolve to secure this great prize that he's been longing for, which is a son.

1:02:53So on the 30th of May, he marries Jane Seymour. And a year and a half later, on the 12th of October, 1537, she dies, but she has done what Henry married her for. So two weeks before her death, she had given him the male heir that he had been so, so desperate to obtain. And it's a boy called Edward. But where does that leave Elizabeth, because Elizabeth, Tom, is now being declared illegitimate. She's a bastard, and she is the daughter of somebody who's basically been erased from the annals as a traitor, and as an adulteress, and as a witch. So where will this lead? Well, the good news is, if you're a member of the Restless History Club, you can find out right away, and you can hear the rest of the episodes in this series including the next one which explores how the young elizabeth survives the murderous snake pit of the court of henry the eighth and of course if you're not a member of the rest is history club and you want to hear the whole of the series right now you can join our very own snake pit our very own murderous tudor court at the rest is history.com so wonderful news for everybody tom that was absolutely brilliant thank you very much for that a tour to force and we'll see you all next time bye bye bye