In the meantime she is having a little fun, reminiscing about her time at the court of Margaret of Austria in the Netherlands (Actual Historical – it was when Anne was very young, before she was sent to France), and the fantastic court pageants there. By the end of the night, it will turn out to have been a great gift to her. Memories, Bitter and SweetĪnne has got over her distress at the delay in her execution. Maybe not.Īn interesting 21st Century interpretation of Jane, a kind, genuine young woman who nevertheless was not blind to ambition or her chance when it came would have to wait until Kate Phillips in Wolf Hall. Maybe some study of Season 3 next year will change my opinion. I find Wallis’ acting to be pretty good if cyborg, sadly lacking if human, and I don’t think she was helped by the script, which somewhere in the off season decided to go straight for ‘Perfect English Rose/Tragic Milksop’ for Jane Seymour. Sadly this is the point where Briem steps off, and Wallis takes over. Maybe as a frontman for Seymour faction politics, maybe as a ‘soft power’ political mover with a variable success rate. I don’t think they were ever going to go for a ‘Political Animal’ Jane here, but there was a little bit of an edge to her, (she does look a little put off by Henry’s scoffing) and certainly still scope to develop Jane at this point. Henry kisses Jane, and Sir John Seymour drops the titular line. Because that’s just not who Jane is being right now, and if she were less pretty to him, he’d be getting annoyed. Instead of snapping, he tells her what she is to him, and therefore who he needs her to be, like, four times in under a minute. But it’s Jane, and the start of their relationship, so he’s a quite different Henry. Henry would have snapped at them for getting above themselves and getting into business that is his to deal with. Now that is a good move when caught playing politics, but if it had been Katherine or Anne they wouldn’t have got away with that. Jane says, again possibly quite cleverly, that she was asking because she thought it would produce peace and tranquility for Henry, for their children, and his kingdom. Yes, on the surface it’s not a smart move, but if you take into account that Jane is likely to outlive her husband, it’s a very smart move that is to her advantage however her career as Queen shakes out, as long as she survives it.
Being the one that got Mary her place in the succession back is going to work very well for a Dowager Queen Jane and her daughters in a Marian regime, also for option three, a surviving childless Queen Jane (although who would want to give the odds on that one?). Henry isn’t going to do shit for another girl, and Mary is once again the viable heir. Realistically, none of them is getting ahead of Mary in the succession. A boy easily trumps Mary’s claim even if she gets reinstated in the succession, and having Mary onside lessens her and her powerful relations as a danger should Henry die before his son is 18, which is quite likely. One, Jane produces children, including a boy. Jane’s career as Queen could have one of three outcomes. Taking that as a starting point, and this move begins to make sense for Jane. Still, Henry was in terrible physical shape by middle age and would die at 55. 44 years old in 1536, in an age where, once you got into your twenties (high childhood mortality rates skew historical life expectancy figures very sharply) you could reliably get to your fifties, maybe sixties if you didn’t get killed or get a serious illness when you were young. Henry would have really hated any reference to it, and his courtiers would have gone to great lengths not to bring it up, but Actually Historically Henry was getting old. Clearly she needs instruction in how this all works.īut it could be construed as being very politically clever, just more subtle than Henry’s used to, and depending on a factor smack in the middle of one of his blind spots.
Henry laughs uproariously and takes this as evidence of Jane’s profound political naiveté. Jane says that once she is Queen, she hopes to see Mary reinstated as heir apparent. It’s an Actual Historical conversation, and got quoted a lot by Remainers in their hopes of “The good Catholic times are coming back” after Anne’s fall. You can tell it’s early in Henry and Jane’s relationship because Henry just up and asks her what she wants to talk about.
It’s still May 18th for a bit, and we’re in some really pretty formal gardens after dinner and this is the last scene for Anita Briem, who was tied into a contract for a movie the following year she couldn’t get out of, so gets replaced by Annabelle Wallis next season.