The Boleyns: A Scandalous Family - Episode 1 | BBC 2021

[Music] she was our most infamous queen [Music] the second wife of henry viii tried on his orders for crimes of adultery and treason [Music] anne berlin was led from her rooms at the tower of london to her death by an executionist sword [Music] this tudor saga is one of the most familiar tales in english history but to really understand anne's rise and fall we need to know more about those who helped shape her her tight-knit cunning and power-hungry family [Music] the berlins are one of the great stories in british history it is an extraordinary epic of hubris and pain the good and the bad kind of ambition [Music] every member of the family had a part to play thomas berlin the ambitious patriarch george the fearless son his sisters mary the reluctant mistress and the calculating courtier and their brutal uncle thomas howard the tudor public had always been used to stories of tragic falls the stories of falls of kings and princes but even they might not have imagined a fall as graphic as the fall of the berlin family based on rare original letters and documents the berlins will tell this story from their own perspectives the court could produce no proof of my incestuous guilt other than that i had spent hours in the presence of my own sister i will not say your sentence is unjust my savior has taught me how to die and he will strengthen my resolve the family played a dangerous game and paid the ultimate price [Music] but they left a remarkable legacy changing the course of british history [Music] and taking their name from obscurity to the apex of power [Music] [Music] in 1508 the first tudor king henry vii is on the throne anne boleyn and her siblings george and mary are growing up in wealth and privilege [Music] watched over by their mother elizabeth [Music] ann and george are thick as thieves they have the same temperament they have the same personality they are vibrant children they're precocious they really do take after their father thomas berlin is a career man who has high hopes for his children thomas berlin is is highly educated he speaks french fluently he is also someone who reads and understands latin and he's interested in intellectual matters thomas berlin is a third generation gentleman his grandfather really came from nothing very much if you like nouveau in that respect thomas berlin's grandfather jeffrey had climbed the greasy pole of 15th century society all the way from a lowly apprentice hatter to lord mayor of london his son william made a good marriage and acquired further wealth and lands but thomas wanted more he wanted to become a powerful player at the king's court thomas bellini inherits this berlin legacy he is determined to improve as well upon his own generation and passed down to his children he's ambitious for his family what's the point of life if not to rise above your standing [Music] but when he started his political career in the 1490s he had a problem clearly mapped out in one of the most influential books of the day [Music] the go-to handbook if you were a young hopeful who wanted to become a courtier was baldazare castelliones this is a book that had been printed and translated across europe it's hugely popular and it sets out rules and expectations of what a courtier should be like the perfect courtier should be nobly born for no bliss of birth is like a clear lamp that shows forth and brings into light makes visible good and bad and inflames and provokes virtue thomas understood that success at the royal court was much easier for those of noble birth yet the berlin family at this time belonged to the lower rank of gentry and class was everything in tudor society numerous gentry families vied with the berlins for positions of influence such as the herberts the dudleys and the pars but noble dynasties of dukes and earls were firmly above them in the pecking order [Music] the answer for thomas berlin was to align his family with someone of noble birth who could vastly increase his chances of career success [Music] and that's why in around 1495 he made the smart strategic decision to marry elizabeth howard [Music] marriage is super important to any tudor family throughout the entirety of history almost it's an economic contract primarily people are generally speaking not marrying for love you might be exchanging more money for more status or vice versa and the financial arrangements will often reflect that berlin is now going to marry elizabeth howard who is the daughter and the granddaughter of the great howard family who were dukes of norfolk so what did they bring each other in this marriage well for the berlins it really did establish the gentry status what about the howards after all they came from this prestigious ancient lineage what were they getting out of it well the most important thing they were getting out of it was wealth the berlins were very wealthy so it was really a match that was very advantageous to both of them but it was not a match thomas's new wife had much say in like all tudor women she was simply a pawn traded by the men around her marriage was a contract and to seal the deal elizabeth's wedding night had to be played out in public surrounded by members of both families for us looking back there is a potentially quite grotesque uh element to the consummation ceremony these consummation ceremonies are alien to us because they are a public celebration around an inherently intimate act between two people and these ceremonies can be very awkward get on with it go online this was a connection which was going to benefit thomas greatly the howards are such a powerful and influential family they would provide those all-important connections from that point thomas berlin knew his future would be entwined with that of his new brother-in-law thomas howard he is one of the highest ranking peers in england he comes from a lot of money he is related to anybody who matters and quite a few who don't he has been described as one of the most unpleasant men in the 16th century which is quite the horse race to win thomas berlin of course knew that by marrying a howard he could expect preference at court he could expect elizabeth's brother maybe to speak up for him to have a word in the king's ear to maybe help get that role at court that he wanted by the early 1500s as the marriage progresses and three children are born thomas berlin is happy to ride on the howard family's coattails waiting for an opportunity and he gets one in around 1501 when he begins to appear on the fringes of henry vii's court it's probably easiest to think about the court like a concentric kind of spiral of circles of influence and at the middle of it is of course the king like the spider at the center of its net [Music] thomas berlin is now in competition with over a thousand fellow courtiers those with titles and status are able to jump ahead the rest are involved in a scramble for the top using every ounce of ingenuity and cunning to advance will need to get past powerful and dangerous men like the earl of oxford and earl of shrewsbury who surround the king there's a very very strong sense that if you want to climb to that center you have to climb over other bodies almost certainly because of the influence of the howards thomas berlin becomes an esquire of the body one of the six esquires that attended on the king for personal service exactly what thomas's new job entails is set out in an extraordinary document that dates from the time of henry vii's father-in-law edward iv these records are the earliest attempt to set out how the royal court functions and they describe hundreds of jobs including thomas's the duties of an esquire of the body involve many secrets we must watch over the king in his chamber day or night bring soup or porridge for his sustenance dress and undress him and ensure no other man touches the king's person don't let the king's soup get cold that's most important he would make sure henry vii bed was ready at night he would be expected to be lying on pallets outside the king's bedroom in order to ensure that nobody would come in thomas berlin's position was one that usually was the starting point for young courteous and it's for some of them it could be the end point too it's not a fantastic position it's merely a stepping stone the important thing is he's got his foot in the door now all he needs to do is make it through once inside the court with so many people jockeying for favor making the right alliances is critical thomas berlin is very dependent on the extraordinarily volatile personality of thomas uh howard thomas howard is still technically senior to thomas berlin they're both climbing they're both ambitious they're both trying to build their own reputations thomas howard is building his as a soldier he's a good military commander he's not well liked at court all that matters to thomas howard is are you noble or not what's your blood what's your lineage he's also about as diplomatic as a bag of bricks if howard is doing well berlin does well but the moment howard gets into trouble his whole hierarchy of patronage is vulnerable as well so thomas berlin at this period has to have a second option [Music] that second option is the king's chaplain thomas woolsey possibly is the son of a butcher a man who really has unrivaled abilities he's far more intelligent than the other two thomases woolsey is already beginning what's going to be a meteoric rise to power and influence thomas berlin is watching both thomas woolsey and thomas howard from the very earliest point seeing who is going to be best for him when if ever does he have to jump ship and start being woolsey's man rather than a howard's man [Music] the ideal is to keep them both going but in a volatile world where politics is never stable it's almost impossible to keep every horse running [Music] thomas berlin is keeping a close watch on howard and walsey but he's also making clever connections of his own [Music] he started to build up a relationship with prince henry who is going to become henry viii he sees in thomas berlin a man who is charming a man who is athletic they certainly shared a love of tournaments and also intellectual henry thought this was a man that i can you know i can have around me as a companion that i might enjoy his company this burgeoning friendship happens at the perfect time in april 1509 king henry vii dies leaving the court in disarray henry vii has become famous for penny pinching for money grabbing for controlling behavior but nonetheless he was a known quantity the people living within his court like thomas berlin knew how to deal with king henry vii now suddenly they face the prospect of having to completely adjust their behavior and their expectations as a new king comes to the throne as 17 year old henry viii takes the throne many courtiers lose their positions but thomas's friendship with the young king pays off he not only survives but is promoted to become one of the 26 knights of the bath this is an age-old ceremony it's already an old custom by this point when the big day comes for berlin and the others they would have bathed and come into the white hole of the tower the king then comes in dips his fingers into the water makes the sign of the cross on them and presents them with the oath of allegiance that they have taken i shall honor god above all things i shall love and protect your majesty my sovereign lord i shall defend the rights of maidens widows and orphans i shall never abuse or neglect the honor of this order as any other member before or after me so this is both a religious event for him and a political event and all the courtiers knew it they know that these people have been chosen by the king and that's really special this is clearly an honor for thomas and it brings him another notch up the courtly and aristocratic ladder but we shouldn't go overboard in thinking that he's suddenly become a major political player thomas berlin is made a night of the bath in these coronation festivities which is very nice but it's not anywhere near as nice as thomas howard getting inducted into the most noble order of the garter which is the highest chivalric order in england at the time he's the premier league knight and thomas is down there in the championship waiting for promotion but neither thomas berlin nor thomas howard can match the meteoric rise of the third thomas thomas woolsey who has won himself a seat in one of the highest circles of court the royal council what henry needs of course is people who will get things done for him kings need fixers in this period because they don't have a massive bureaucracy to go and do their bidding they just need a few people who are bloody good at their job and woolsey was that kind of person the young henry viii is hungry for glory and he hopes that wolsey is the man to help him achieve it his new queen catherine of aragon has already secured him a valuable alliance with the spanish empire but true glory means triumph in war and for that henry needs an enemy what that usually means is war with france i mean there aren't that many options you can fight the scots or you can fight the french you can't really fight the spaniards because they're too far away and too powerful so if you want an aggressive policy the obvious thing to do is invade france so woolsey is prepared to back him and to make that war possible so he becomes this rather paradoxical figure of the war-like priest to win a war with france the english need to forge an alliance with another european court the best option is the powerful holy roman empire ruled by the famously difficult emperor maximilian the first [Music] wallsey needs an envoy with charm and charisma to take part in the negotiations and there is someone waiting in the wings to grab his chance [Music] he's about 35 at the time he has no diplomatic experience he is clearly gifted in french and i think that's what makes him very important but i get the sense that wolsey is taking a chance on this young man thomas berlin's task is to win margaret of austria's support for the war with france in the hope that she can persuade her father emperor maximilian what they didn't really uh count on was the fact that maximilian was going to stall his way through negotiations for months on end during this time thomas writes many frustrated letters back to england [Music] when we arrived at the court of lady margaret we could not meet with the emperor maximilian as promised for he had departed to meet with the french he would return within two days we have still not managed to obtain the emperor's assurance of support he was about to agree my lady said and then he departed once again for the past 18 days i've begun to lose hope and then he communicated with us asking if our ships had left england yet our intelligence was the ship's work ready he's in cologne now i hear and it required to have his memory refreshed about our mission we're back to the start now for any other ambassador this could be a disastrous mission but thomas berlin this is really the making of him we see this incredible relationship begin to flourish between margaret and thomas berlin he has endeared himself to her and she clearly adores him on a personal level as well it takes almost a year but eventually margaret is persuaded to convince her father to support henry since my last dispatch we received news that our agreement was soon to be finalized lady margaret sent a commission to her father and estimated it would take 20 days to conclude she asked me if i would care to lay a wager on it i said it would take only 10. she promised me her spanish corsa for her part of the wager and my horse should be hers if she won we shook hands on it and today i am the victor our mission is complete my lady can keep her horse i have another request of her with his mission finally over thomas makes a move designed to benefit not the king but his own family he recognises that this court is far more magnificent than anything that he had experienced in england and so he asks margaret whether his daughter can come to her court as a fidona as a maid of honor and margaret rather surprisingly agreed [Music] i think it's very likely that thomas chooses the younger sister anne over mary because of the close relationship he obviously has with her she is naturally inquisitive she is incredibly good at acquiring knowledge and these are qualities that thomas shares so i think she is the the natural candidate for amberlynn a 12 year old girl being sent to serve margaret of austria it's a huge honor but she must have been nervous she's still a young girl in a foreign court we know that she doesn't fully speak french at this point she's far from fluent and we know this because we have a letter that anne wrote to her father from margaret's court sir i understand by your letter that you desire that i shall be a worthy woman in this court and you inform me that her majesty lady margaret will take the trouble to converse with me which rejoices me greatly to think of talking with a person so wise and worthy this is a very touching letter and it has very distinctive crease lines in it and i think this was a letter that was read many times over this must have been a very dear letter to her father thomas indeed and is very much wanting to impress her father i beg you to excuse me if my letter is badly written i promise you that my love is based on such great strength that it will never grow less and i'll make an end to my letter after having humbly commended myself to your good grace written by your humble and obedient daughter ana debula the survival of that letter is quite astonishing very few documents like it survived [Music] this is a really good opportunity for anne to experience an incredibly cultured court that margaret of austria has engendered she welcomes incredibly progressive thinkers [Music] margaret of austria is so pleased with this amazing young girl the fact that anne is so thirsty for knowledge so thirsty to have a good education there is so much to learn for young girl there about the rules of power the games of power you were expected to emerge from that experience as a woman who could hold her own in a dangerous environment [Music] with anne impressing at margaret's court and thomas's new success as a diplomat the berlin family's prospects are looking bright but in the tudor world of foreign policy and fragile alliances you can take nothing for granted in 1514 maximilian pulls his support for henry and instead strikes a deal with the french king thomas's hard work seems to have been for nothing and henry doesn't get the glorious war he wanted but wolsey has a plan to turn this failure to henry's advantage the argument seems to be well if you can't make magnificent war as you want to do then why not make peace magnificently make it almost as spectacular as warfare how do you make peace in the 16th century well you try to find a way to create a dynastic alliance and usually it's through marriage so thomas bolin and woolsey or suggesting to king henry viii mary tudor his younger sister and this old king of france of a way to make sure that the peace is going to last this new alliance gives henry viii a foothold in france even though it means offering up his 18 year old sister mary to the 52 year old king louie and thomas recognizes that the marriage could benefit his family too he wants his daughters mary and anne to get the best education but he also wants them to forge networks political networks political alliances thomas is something of an opportunist he knows which way the wind is blowing and anne is best placed in france thomas secures his 13 year old daughter a position at the french court as an attendant to the new queen mary [Music] the court in france set the tone in terms of courtly culture how a monarch and his retinue behave this display of magnificence essentially and no one does it better than those courts in france as far as the english are concerned thomas is riding pretty high you know his daughter will be able to build up a place for herself at the french court learn the wonderful skills of being a woman of the court it's like being a geisha girl without the sex as anne settles into her new life in france back in england the man who suggested the french alliance is riding high thomas woolsey by 1514 he is archbishop of york by 1515 he's made a cardinal at henry viii's insistence so he's a very high-ranking person the highest ranking person in henry's administration effectively after the king and he wants everybody to know that [Music] people think he's an overreacher he's the classic example of someone who's risen too fast and too far which is why quite often there's murmurs and name-calling of woolsey as the butcher's dog he's the the greasy cur some of them whisper who has followed his master and now wants the bone all to himself basically what we'll see is doing is rubbing their face in it and the courtiers don't like it particularly thomas berlin's hot-headed brother-in-law the first reported moment of decided tension between thomas house and woolsey is when thomas howard allegedly pulls a knife on him according to paulidor virgil thomas howard took a dagger and tried to stab wolsey in the middle of a heated argument we're not sure if this is true or not virgil is the only source for it if true this is an extraordinary event you know thomas woolsey being stabbed by an aristocrat does not happen every day much of many of them might have liked to try to stab him few of them got the chance it demonstrates that there's no love lost between them whatever happened between thomas howard and thomas woolsey at this time marks a tumble for howard's career he seems arrogant he seems aggressive and he's increasingly being outshone by the more talented and the more level-headed woolsey thomas berlin needs to be extremely careful about who he's seen to support thomas berlin he's aware that howard and thomas woolsey are almost sworn enemies and thomas berlin quite cleverly distanced himself from his howard brother-in-law he aligns himself with woolsey woolsey is his road to power and to patronage and to favor [Music] being a diplomat away for long periods in europe might sound impressive [Music] but not if your aim is to get closer to the king thomas berlin angling for a position at court he's angling for a position within the king's household and he sets his sight on the treasury ship the position he covets is to become treasurer of the household it would be a major promotion putting him in charge of the court's purse strings and bringing him one step closer to the center of power it will give him a secure place in the royal household but perhaps much more important it will give him a place on the royal council and that's the place where political decisions are made [Music] unfortunately thomas berlin discovers that warsi has blocked the appointment that somebody else is going to get the office instead of him and i think he feels humiliated this is unfair and he writes a letter towards that expresses this disappointment for some time i have hoped to serve the king at court rather than from overseas i didn't treat him to appoint me as treasurer of his household and he'd faithfully promised me the position when it became vacant i hear now the king will appoint someone else if you would show me favor in this matter i assure you will not regret it in this letter to cardinal woolsey suddenly we see an insecurity in thomas berlin that we've never really had before he trusts that wolsey has his back rolls he's really one of the few people now at court that can speak for thomas berlin so he feels betrayed but just as it looks as though thomas may never reach the king's inner circle fate intervenes an irish relative on his mother's side has died and thomas is one of several claimants to his title the earl of ormond all he has to do now is win the prize at the moment is merely a knight it's much higher up the social hierarchy to become an earl the eldum of course really would make thomas stand out in a way that none of his previous berlin ancestors had been able to do it really would help him up that ladder to greatness but before he can grab this chance a cousin lays claim to the title thomas berlin does not like to be thwarted in this matter he brings henry viii into the dispute unfortunately for thomas belin henry viii cannot afford to alienate his irish nobles and so the earldom goes to neither thomas berlin nor the butler cousin but thomas berlin's covets that title he sees it as a rightfully his and he's not going to let it go [Music] meanwhile the court in france where thomas's daughter anne is still living has been thrown into chaos the old french king has died henry's sister mary has been displaced francis the first and his wife queen claude are now on the throne bringing with them their own retinue of courtiers thomas berlin thinking oh gosh what's going to happen for my daughter and was going to be laid and waiting at the front court she was going to secure important political network for me so he's thinking i need to request for them to stay [Music] thomas berlin manages to persuade the new queen to keep anne on as one of her attendants it's a pivotal intervention this is where she stays for the formative years of her life during seven years at the french cult and bolin learned about the customs of the country the language obviously she became french in her attitude she became french you know manners one source we have is lancelot de carl who wrote a poem about anne and he was present at the french embassy he says that she actively studied the women around her at court so that she herself could appear as french and very soon nobody would know that she was english she grew in wisdom knew how to banish sad thoughts enlarging her talents and many exquisite graces she was beautiful and had the most attractive eyes which she knew well how to use [Music] she's flirtatious she's beautiful she knows how to handle men she is seen as a woman who has made a big impression we can imagine that obviously for her to stay seven years in service of the queen that francis the first himself must have liked this girl france is the first he's dashing he loves pretty women he loves having mistresses and he loves lost being the center of attention does that remind you of someone else and we hate baby [Music] henry and francis decide to meet to form a new alliance and underscore the peace between their nations and thomas berlin is given the daunting task of brokering the meeting he's stuck in a position of trying to bring those two powerful and dashing young prince together having a daughter who is in the good books of everyone it's exactly what thomas bolin wanted so when thomas is there he's obviously using his daughter in a way when i see using it's not in a bad way it's just yes i'm i'm anne's father nice to meet you and it's remarkable yes i know francis and henry both wanted to be the ideal renaissance prince it was an absolute clash of egos and it must be a nightmare for thomas berlin to be running back and forth between both monarchs especially as tensions were always just about to boil over [Music] you can't be a king in the early 16th century without having an ego the size of a planet and now you have two young men rival monarchs who are brothers in arms although they really hate each other and there's a kind of constant friction i mean these these are not intellectual giants in terms of their kind of maturity so you there's a bit of nudging and shuffling going on between them and there's a famous story of henry showing an ambassador his calf and saying francis the first hasn't got a leg like that has he it's not just europe's peace hanging in the balance it's thomas's reputation at the english court in a letter to woolsey thomas reports the petty rivalry between the two kings that he is struggling to mediate the friendship between my master and the french king francis has taken a rivalrous they agreed to grow their beards in competition for their planned meeting then i was told recently that henry had put off his beard not an easy task to relate this to the french king i told him as i supposed it must have been queen catherine's doing but whenever his majesty has worn his beard long she has scolded him to put it off the french king was well appeased by this and did say to me our love is not in our beards but in our hearts thomas's clever intervention saves the two kings from a serious disagreement and on the 7th of june 1520 henry and francis rendezvous at a spectacular 17-day festival the field of cloth of gold it was the big event of the year of the decade in both england and in france instead of going to war henry viii and francis decided to show off how peaceful they could be somewhat i suspect thomas berlin's chagra he was withdrawn before the final details were organized for this great meeting and he wasn't french ambassador when the field of cloth of gold took place and henry wrote rather pointedly to francis saying thomas berlin has been great so far but i'm now going to send you someone who can convey from my very heart my feelings towards you so poor old thomas trumps back home and gets ready to go as an english guest rather than the resident french ambassador it's a sign that he hadn't quite made it he may have married into the aristocracy but he's still not an aristocrat he's not the man that brings the king over and presents him to francis he's there but he's there as one of the king's attendants and nothing more despite thomas's personal disappointment the meeting is hailed as an international triumph but in tudor politics nothing is as it seems [Music] even as henry and francis celebrate peace thomas woolsey is secretly negotiating a more powerful alliance with the new leader of the holy roman empire charles v knowing relations with france are soon to sour thomas removes anne from her position at the french court and brings her home there must have been some concern on thomas's part for anne's safety and for her future because the tide is turning away from a french alliance and it's something of a warning shot for francis he notices anne's absence and discerns from this that something is not right and he thinks wait why would you remove the ladies in waiting to quincload if we are at peace if we are good friends what are you plotting against me [Music] it puts woolsey in a very difficult position it's virtually inconceivable that it wouldn't be seen as a sort of diplomatic incident to put francis off the scent wolsey actually suggests that anne is being recalled for a marriage proposal and there is a grain of truth in walls response because a match is being proposed for anne not by her father but by her uncle [Music] thomas howard has been sent to ireland to quell unrest among the irish nobility one of those nobles is thomas berlin's cousin piers butler who has laid claim to the title earl of almond [Music] in a flurry of letters to woolsey and the king howard lays bear a scheme to take advantage of the situation piers butler desires to claim the most profitable earldom of oman the title is also claimed by my kinsmen thomas berlin to that end i have devised a marriage plan between my niece and berlin and butler's son james this union will give butler the earldom and his help in bringing ireland under our control this arrangement will require my presence naturally and uh i do so long to return to england thomas howard shows that when he is in a difficult position family loyalty to the berlins counts for absolutely nothing to him thomas berlin has coveted the prestigious irish earldom of armand and it irks him to no end that of all people his brother-in-law thomas howard who has nothing to do with the situation tries to actually broker a match between ann berlin and a butler cousin this is my business she was quite horrified when she was told about the match ireland in that time was generally seen by the english as a wild fairly inhospitable place and the idea that the courtier and berlin would go and live there must have been horrifying for her this puts thomas berlin in a very difficult position because thomas howard seems to get cardinal woolsey's support for the plan anne boleyn is her father's legal property she can't be married without her father's permission so thomas is under pressure to give his blessing to a marriage that will effectively disinherit him around this time woolsey finally offers thomas berlin the job he so desperately wants and perhaps the timing is no coincidence we know that thomas is promoted to the treasurership at this point i think what actually is happening here is he is being placated with this coveted position [Music] i'm made treasurer of the household second in charge of running this honourable court the treasurer must set an example to all others of good governance and modest expenditure he is granted to take supper daily in the king's hall or anywhere else he pleases this was an absolute vital stepping stone in his career it paves the way for much more lucrative and important positions at court thomas berlin who began as a wealthy norfolk gentleman beyond the fringes of the tudor court has finally gained a seat on the royal council [Music] slowly but surely he is advancing towards the king's inner circle for thomas berlin to achieve this in 1522 is such a mark of where he had come but it also is important for his family george berlin was finally given a court position which means he has day-to-day access to henry viii [Music] not only is george doing well but thomas's elder daughter mary is now married to a senior courtier william carey but the ace in thomas's hand is anne [Music] [Music] with the prospect of an irish marriage still hanging over her and takes center stage with her sister mary at a lavish court pageant hosted by thomas woolsey known as the chateau bear this pageant is going to change the fortunes of the berlin family for better and also for worse all the young women on show take the parts of feminine virtues mary is kindness and perseverance [Music] it's the kind of pageant to which the tudor court is by then well accustomed with women married single all playing their part to pick up the king woolsey is the host he wants to go well he's a man who enjoys spectacle entertainment who knows that you've got to put on a show [Music] it was a lavish entertainment it involved a mock castle being built in the hall ladies defended this castle from a group of knights who attempted to attack it essentially this battle between the men outside the castle and the women inside the castle is about culture it's about wooing women fall into two categories they have to resist men and be and be virtuous and chaste but ultimately they have to give in when they find the right man who's usually the king thomas berlin is really walking a tightrope here on the one hand he wants his daughters to be prominent at the court but on the other he wants to ensure that they keep their their chastity and it's very hard for this to be achieved because the atmosphere of the court is erotic [Music] because of our seven years in france and bolin is seen as being a bit different and exotic she's stylish fashionable graceful and she really causes a stir she's like no one else at henry there's court this is really the first time that we know with absolute certainty that henry viii and berlin are in the same room together but anne isn't interested in the king her sights are set on a young nobleman henry percy although there was still talk of her marrying her irish cousin and one day becoming countess of ormonde henry percy was heir to one of the oldest elders in the country hugely wealthy very very high status and a match that was far outside anything that amberlyn could hope for it's clear that she encouraged henry percy [Music] thomas blind would certainly approve it's a far better prospect for his daughter than the ormond marriage partly because of course thomas berlin has designs on the earldom himself but henry percy it was a stellar match the king of course has the pick of the women at court and he has his eye on one in particular the wife of one of his inner circle people tend to look at the chateau bear as the first time and henry would have seen anne who's playing perseverance but what's more interesting is who plays kindness and that's mary berlin and so when henry is besieging the castle it's mary he's besieging now why is she kindness it's not a role she would have chosen herself it would have been chosen for her woolsey had already been called the king's board that is his pimp a man who finds the most wholesome women and those of the best complexion for henry [Music] henry had usually a single mistress alongside the crew the queen at one point mary berlin was definitely the royal mysteries and it's not in her power to resist the king unlike mary a decade in europe has taught anne how to fend for herself [Music] now in her early twenties she knows her own mind anne does not want to marry james butler her sights are on a romantic marriage marriage to henry percy she sees loves and he seems to feel exactly the same about her it may be that anne is maneuvering for herself doing something that her family again is famed for doing choosing to to marry for their own advantage maybe this is ann's way of carving out her own future henry viii heard about the relationship and was shocked by it because of course it was not a suitable marriage for henry percy at all he instructs cardinal woolsey to bring the relationship to an end she doesn't necessarily know of the king's involvement but she knows that cardinal woolsey has played a major role in dashing her hopes the cardinal called my lord percy into his presence and reviled him for tangling himself with a foolish girl at court wolsey has since set about dissolving our match saying it is disagreeable and determining another woman as a more appropriate marriage prospect if it ever lies in my power i will work as much displeasure for woolsey as he has shown me and as anne laments the frustration of her ambitions [Music] her sister mary must endure emotional turmoil of her own around the same time mary's husband starts getting all these rather generous royal grants as if to make up for the fact the king is sleeping with his wife i think for mary it must have all been incredibly difficult and painful oh lord let me not have a proud look but turn away all voluptuousness from me take me from the lusts of the body let them decide thomas berlin's feelings are likely mixed about mary berlin's relationship with henry viii on the one hand it's shameful in that his daughter a married woman is sleeping with another man a married man at that but her lover is the king and generally the benefits outweigh the disadvantage i do think getting your daughters into the king's bed is probably a good idea if you want political influence [Music] mary berlin's affair might be what yields the biggest reward yet for her father thomas henry makes him vike out rochford his rise through the tudor court has been remarkable but in his daughter anne he has raised a woman whose ambitions will soon outstrip even her father's next time henry discards mary and falls for her sister anne from this point on my heart shall be dedicated to you alone her own ambitions begin to take shape she could see a very bright future ahead of her if she became queen of england and the mother of the next king and the family take on the second most powerful man in england now the cardinal is trying to secure lodgings for me miles away let him try all of a sudden the berlin ambition has been revealed and exposed they were in completely unchartered waters the power you crave makes you the cause of the trouble in this realm ambulance becoming queen might be a silver nurse around the family's neck all episodes in the series streaming now on bbc iplayer on a mission to make the historical hysterical you're dead to me is the comedy podcast that explores fascinating stories from the past listen with bbc sounds you

Channel: UKHistoryTube

Views: 565,599

Rating: 4.8776789 out of 5

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Id: NybpcHfXWt4

Length: 59min 24sec (3564 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 14 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/She_Says_Tapir]

I was amazed that this has not been posted here yet.

Here’s the second episode: https://youtu.be/yNHR16poa60

The final episode comes out later this week.

[u/EJKC99]

Awesome thanks!

[u/bookwerm86]

Can't wait to watch!