Mark Gatiss was awful.

@@a.t.c.3862 Awfully good! Perfect for the part as Gardiner. But if you don’t think so, you’re in luck. He’s out I hear.

yes, same for me , watched it several times already, and will watch it again for sure ! even better than "the Tudors" I think !

Lady Rochford hated hated hated Anne and her brother. Identity? Her identity was a date with revenge. What are you even talking about?

Actually, contemporary sources don’t support the notion that Jane hated Anne or her Husband. There is nothing from the time that suggests George and Jane had an unhappy marriage other than the fact they never had children which could have been down to a number of reasons. When George was in the tower, Jane visited him and wrote him a letter I believe which sadly has not survived. There is also evidence her and Anne and Mary Boleyn were good friends. It is unlikely Jane was the mystery source of one of the damning pieces of evidence given against Anne - likely another lady in waiting although we cannot confirm their identity. The only two things we have to even nod towards any hostility between Jane and Anne/George is she openly supported Princess Mary towards 1536 during a women’s protest or something along those lines, and Jane being banished from court after spreading lies about one of Henry’s mistresses - likely under Anne’s orders. Whether jane took this badly or not we will never know. But I personally don’t feel she’s ever been portrayed properly in recent times

@@BB-eg2nb feel whatever you want. Mantel’s portrayal of Lady Rochford makes sense. And wasn’t George known for his “gallantry “? Anyway, she went mad and they beheaded her for helping pimp out Queen The fifth/Howard.

@@jimsteele9559 again, we will never really understand her reasoning for getting involved with Katheryn Howard’s affair. Sadly, George Boleyn’s bad reputation stems from a piece written by George Cavendish who called George Boleyn a whoremongerer who raped women. George Cavendish was Thomas Wolsey’s secretary- so hardly surprising he had no love for Boleyn. Chapuys, oddly enough, provides a positive review of George Boleyn. But this was before he realised George was related too Anne. We will never know these people so of course they may well be as they are portrayed in modern times.

@@jimsteele9559that is based on modern writers. Dig deeper and look at some of the interactions that took place between Anne and Jane. Anne trusted Jane with the secret that Henry wasn’t performing in the bedroom. Do you think she would do that if Jane and Anne shared a hatred

True. The only thing I have read that she said was that she was told either by her husband or Anne that Henry didn’t know to satisfy a woman or something like that.

Help mate is not a word that comes to mind when I think of Lady Rochford, although she sure helped Catherine Howard ;)

I doubt they were besties. I also do not the she purposefully destroyed the Boleyns.

Help mate is the technical term for a wife. Best description would be fellow conspirators

did nor notice that ... thanks !

She certainly did! I just read the other day that she's not returning for the conclusion of Wolf Hall (The Mirror & the Light). I like the actress replacing her, but I'm still very disappointed that it won't be Jessica. It's not that she was the "perfect Jane Rochford"-but she was DEFINITELY the perfect Hilary Mantel version of her!

And call the midwife

She was beheaded for conspiring with Katherine Howard to cuckold the King. It has nothing to do with Anne Boleyn or her brother. But to be sure she did help bring down 2 Queens

I won't pick apart everything here, because you are clearly determined to believe the worst in her. What I will say is that you seem to blame Anne for 'ousting' Katherine and are giving Henry a free pass? Remember, Anne said NO for a year and only agreed to any type of relationship with him because he finally proposed marriage. To claim this was using her sexuality as bait to lure the king to marriage is ludicrous. Yes, in hindsight we know that's what ended up happening, but just how exactly did Anne KNOW that Henry wouldn't release her when she refused him? Does every man become obsessed with every woman who says no to them? She said no to Thomas Wyatt for sure and probably others and eventually they all gave up. But Henry was selfish and stubborn, though this side of him wasn't really known before his relationship to Anne. Presumably all the woman he slept with before her consented (even if possibly secretly unwillingly) so I don't think Anne was granted powers of premonition of the future that somehow Henry wouldn't let her go. I would argue that rather than Anne manipulating Henry, it was Henry who was sexually harassing her, and she didn't have the power to get away from him. By the time he proposed to her, what was she going to do? He clearly wouldn't let her marry anyone else by that point, and people were already spreading rumours that there was a relationship between them. In my mind, she could either choose marriage to Henry or a nunnery, and that's about it. With those two options, I don't blame her for picking the crown. Yes, there are tales of Anne's 'cruelty', but most of these are spread by her enemies and you have to consider her position... she was neither queen nor mistress... her reputation was ruined whether she slept with Henry or not, and it was looking increasingly unlikely that the annulment would ever be granted. That's probably going to put a lot of stress on you, especially after six to seven years of being in limbo, and her enemies certainly didn't play pattycakes with her and play nice, either. Anne tried repeatedly to make amends with Mary but she was rudely rebuffed every time. I can't blame Mary... she wouldn't want to blame her own father for the cruelty she was subjected to, but it was all Henry's fault, clearly, because even after Katherine and Anne were dead, Henry continued to demand complete submission of Mary. And in all the actors in this great tragedy, perhaps you might consider that it wasn't Katherine, Mary or Henry who expressed regret or had any kind of self reflection of their actions, but Anne did. To me, that shows that she was the true 'Christian' out of all of them, someone who was willing to admit when they made mistakes and asked for forgiveness. And where, pray tell, is your evidence that Anne committed adultery? I guess you know better than virtually every historian who has picked apart source materials and concluded that there's no legitimate evidence of actual wrongdoing? There's also no evidence that her father hated her and her uncle was, by pretty much everyone's opinion in the Tudor court, a raving a-hole.

Superb response !