Season 2, Episode 6
Not that I approve of the whole going-insane-with-jealousy thing, but the feminist in me can't help herself from saying good for Anne for calling Henry on what he's doing. Now, I doubt that he has a real harem, as she seems to think, but she definitely knows that he's got more lady friends than just Madge (who I'm thinking is the inside spy Brereton spoke to Chapuys about; the one who claimed that Anne was deformed). Plus, she's patently aware of the fact that the more women he sleeps with, the less her influence matters - especially after the More martyrdom - and the more precarious her situation becomes. At this point, Henry is less concerned with getting a son than with being respected and accepted by his peers across Europe, and Anne is definitely an albatross in that regard. Even King Francis is shunning Anne and Elizabeth now, which means that Henry either has to re-legitimize Mary, or risk being a completely isolated state.
Those Boleyns though, I'm telling you, they are going to get royally, ahem, screwed (how's that for poetic justice?). Mary is probably lucky that she was basically cast out of the family. Not that they don't deserve it, between Thomas's machinations involving his poor daughters and George's
rape of his new wife. Yes, they're a really manipulative, distasteful bunch altogether, but that doesn't mean I don't have sympathy for Anne. Her father forced her in to this situation and now she's going to suffer worse than the rest of them. It's not surprising that Thomas is starting to pull out all the stops to keep his family in good standing, including threatening Cromwell by pointing out that it was only through the support of the Boleyns that he became the second most powerful man in England (officially).
Cromwell is less concerned with the survival of the Boleyns and more with the monster he's wrought in the totalitarianism of Henry's Reformation. An 80 year-old man blesses Katherine instead of Anne and he gets denounced? Thank god for Cromwell's basic decency and logical mind, or that 80 year-old might have been forced to forgo a natural death. Even Wyatt points out that the King's power is now absolute and completely solidified, and Cromwell can't really disagree. He's got to be asking himself how to temper Henry and quite frankly, I think the only way that's going to happen at this point is with Anne's demise. That way the Reformation can continue without the physical embodiment of why it began in the first place. Plus, if she's dead, who can object anymore?
I have to admit that I wasn't really feeling this week's episode. It's only natural that the rest of the season is being set up, given that this was the midpoint, but it was a little too much transition and not enough organic character growth for my tastes. We've watched Henry semi-gradually grow to hate Anne over the last few weeks, but I find it hard to believe that More's execution was really the last straw for him. It seemed a little too convenient as something tangible to point at in a "See what she did?!" way.
It looks like we're meeting wife number 3 next week. Anne, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
