TWP 106: English Blood on English Soil

[sireesanwar]

English Blood on English Soil
King Henry VII and Lizzie travel to Spain in an attempt to secure their son's betrothal. Meanwhile, unrest has been growing in Burgundy and spills over into an English battle.

Also, so sorry for the huge delay in getting these posts up. I figured it wasn't a huge deal since I'm not sure everyone is watching upon first airing. I had a slipped disk issue that made it very hard to do a lot of typing but I'm doing a lot better now. So onward....

Topics:

1. What did you think about the interactions between Henry and Lizzie and the King and Queen of Spain... really the Queen who wants Lizzie and Henry to kill both "pretenders" to the throne?
2. Does it feel like Lizzie is becoming more and more desperate to keep her husband and family on the throne?
3. What did you think of Lizzie riding onto the Battlefield to encourage the men to fight for Henry? Doesn't it seem her resolve not to be a Tudor has now completely fallen by the wayside?
4. How did you feel about Margaret being so distraught three months after the death of Jasper (who she murdered)?
5. Am I the only one watching young Harry and seeing the influence of his grandmother and thinking maybe this is partly why Henry VIII is the way he was? Margaret essentially getting her own way with the church by bribing them?
6. It is downplayed in the show but I recall mention of the retrieval of the believe Prince Richard to be a violation of the sanctuary of the church. The idea being that you could seek sanctuary and be safe from any who would wish to kill you or imprison you. This was a tradition going way back and suddenly it matters very little if you can bribe the priests to kick out a person seeking sanctuary. Any thoughts?

I personally saw this episode as a turning point for Lizzie and Henry. It bugged me in the beginning that after all their years together Henry is still paranoid that Lizzie isn't on his side. I mean he had good reason but she's done nothing to really illicit such mistrust. However, her rallying the men to his banner and coming to see him on the battlefield really seems to have turned Henry's thoughts more towards trust.

I'm surprised by the departure from the source material. Of course, to some degree this is historical though mainly based on Philippa Gregory's novel of the same title. However, in the books, my impression is that Henry pretty much lived their entire marriage paranoid that Lizzie was betraying him. Maybe I read the book scenes differently. Anyone else see the departure?

Just a heads up. I'm going to work on posts for the last two episode which I will have scheduled to go up in the next few days. Feel free to stop by any time to comment.

I wish we could all sit around a table with drinks and discuss these shows and Outlander!