S01.E06: The Last Joust

[Pop Tart]

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Catherine has a dream that predicts that her husband will be wounded while jousting. Catherine and Henri decide that their son Francis should delay his wedding to Mary.

Air date: 10.16.22

[greekmom]

Damn. We won't see Catherine get rid of Diane till next week.

I wonder what the long game with Rahima being locked up is.  Is she suppose to "betray" Catherine to Mary? 

Diane and to an extent the maid who gives her the gold exliar are both cray cray.

Interesting that Henri after the warning still went jousting. Maybe he wanted to die.

[Spartan Girl]

24 minutes ago, greekmom said:

Interesting that Henri after the warning still went jousting. Maybe he wanted to die

He died the way he lived: stupidly.

[brisbydog]

Rupert Everett!

[Dcs72]

The Rahima setup began with Catherine telling her that Mary was conspiring against her with her cousin Elizabeth. It seems to me that if anyone would benefit from such intrigues, it would be Catherine, not Mary

[PinkRibbons]

Man, how much gold glitter did they have to mix into Diane's makeup this episode? Not just the scene of her dipping herself fully in it, but the whole episode you could see the makeup team had mixed it into the actress's foundation, so she has a thin sheen of gold at all times. Kind of makes her look sweaty.

Interesting that they decided Henri would start questioning his relationship with Diane (pretty sure in reality he died wearing her colors - Dude went to his grave without ever waking up from her mishegas) when he sees his son about to marry another forceful woman. He came so close to realizing she had been grooming him, but whoops, he got dead first. (It actually took several days for him to die, so maybe we'll still hear his remorse about how he treated Catherine, who knows.)

I realize that Royal Mistresses were something people easily did mental gymnastics around (seriously though, it's an ENTIRE COMMANDMENT, Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery), but if they're trying to play up Mary as this wide-eyed naive Catholic zealot, why would she consort with Diane for any reason? She's by definition a woman of low morals.

[greekmom]

Good ol google confirmed that Henri died in 1559 while Francis and Mary wed in 1558.  I guess to save time they combined the two events and had Diane meddle in wedding as well as invite the Emperor of Rome (I wanted to see if that was true and I couldn't find anything.  I don't believe that Henri even at Diane's request would have invited his sworn enemy especially since he was held captive by him for 4 years).

I also found it interesting how they inserted grooming as he was talking to Diane while he was by the fire that she groomed him and kept him in an infantile state.  

Interesting also is how Mary Queen of Scots is portrayed. She was Catholic but certainly not a zealot as she went back to Scotland to reign.

[brisbydog]

I do appreciate that unlike Becoming Elizabeth the grooming here is shown to be abusive and damaging and not as Romantic 

[Spartan Girl]

I admit that I like this version where Catherine finally hit the wall and set Henri up as a sacrifice to get rid of Diane. A woman can only take so much humiliation. And even when she had her eleventh-hour regret and tried to stop it, she ultimately shrugged it off with “Accidents happen.” Good for her, and I mean that sincerely.

Cannot wait for Diane’s comeuppance.

[bluestocking]

6 hours ago, greekmom said:

Interesting also is how Mary Queen of Scots is portrayed. She was Catholic but certainly not a zealot as she went back to Scotland to reign.

I don't understand the portrayl of MQofS at all.  Yes Mary was a fervent Catholic but Scotland was officially Protestant by 1558 and her mother as regent was permitted private Catholic observance as a courtesy only.  Mary's later wedding to Bothwell, e.g., was a Protestant ceremony.  All this talk of a united Catholic Europe is just silly.  Not to mention "global superpower" -  hardly a 16th century term.  Is all this coming from the book the series is based on?  

Are we supposed to think Mary was so stupid that she thought she would become queen of France if Francis II died (an episode or two ago) or that she would lose the Scottish throne if she was childless (Catherine's lie to her)?  

I guess we all have our red lines of suspending disbelief and what they're doing with Mary crosses mine.  Somehow I can tolerate snakes writhing around Catherine's throne though......

[PinkRibbons]

2 hours ago, bluestocking said:

Is all this coming from the book the series is based on? 

Nope, definitely not. It's a straight up fact-based historical biography.

2 hours ago, bluestocking said:

Are we supposed to think Mary was so stupid that she thought she would become queen of France if Francis II died (an episode or two ago) or that she would lose the Scottish throne if she was childless (Catherine's lie to her)?

The second one actually does have the tiniest root in historical fact; part of the marriage contract that Mary was forced to sign stipulated that if she died without heirs, Scotland would become French property. If she and Francis had had a son, that child would have been by default the ruler of both France and Scotland, uniting the countries in much the same way that Scotland and England became united through Mary's son succeeding Elizabeth. As it was, since Francis predeceased Mary and she was a Queen in her own right, France didn't have much of a claim on her or her country. (I always forget whether Francis became King of Scotland upon his marriage. If he had, his retaining the throne - and therefore eventually merging Scotland with France - if Mary died before he did would make a kind of sense, provided that he was recognized as King in his own right. Over in England, Mary Tudor's husband, Philip II of Spain, had the title of King of England and Ireland, but only as long as his wife held that title, and he lost it upon her death.)

Anyway, the show presenting it as Mary losing her throne while alive because of a lack of children is ridiculous. I mean for one thing, at which point would that rule kick in? After five years? Ten? When she hit menopause?

I have this feeling that we're supposed to think Mary and Francis are playing 13 or so - they keep referring to them as children too young to get married, although by the standards of the time, that's hardly true. Also the actors cannot possibly pull that off. But it would explain Mary's absurdly trusting nature and childlike ideals. Bringing over the Holy Roman Emperor? That was a daft idea, and one she should have been soundly chastised for.

7 hours ago, brisbydog said:

I do appreciate that unlike Becoming Elizabeth the grooming here is shown to be abusive and damaging and not as Romantic 

I would say that really depended on the viewer. I personally never saw it as romantic (only in the sense that you could see how a naive teen could misread an older man's intentions so badly), and the writers certainly never meant it to be seen that way. Still, props to this show for not leaning into some gross hot for teacher thing where everyone acts like it's okay for an older woman to seduce a boy if she's sexy enough.

I think that Rahima is being groomed as a specific sacrifice. At this point Catherine has been making sacrifices of convenience - sort of - and I think by now she's decided to get ahead of any sacrificing by having someone at the ready. Thus she's making Rahima important to her as a confidant and quasi-friend, but not pulling her close enough that her loss would really hurt too much.

[Haleth]

11 hours ago, brisbydog said:

I do appreciate that unlike Becoming Elizabeth the grooming here is shown to be abusive and damaging and not as Romantic 

Because it was normal historically for a mature nobleman to court and wed a teenage girl?   Especially if he was still looking to beget an heir.  We can see it as disgusting, but it wouldn't have raised an eyebrow back in Ye Olden Days.  (Except for the already married thing in this case.)  A young man being seduced by an older woman would certainly get an oh, la, la but Diane's continued influence over grown up Henri would have been frowned on privately.  I cannot wait for the show to give us Catherine's revenge.

Mary was raised in the French court with Catherine as her role model.  She barely knew her own mother personally but had her as another model of female authority.  (I don't know if she ever met her Guise grandmother, another strong woman.)  It's hard to imagine she was so naive about court life.  (Yet her own reign was full of bad choices and political mistakes.)  This show is making her look pretty loony though.

[bluestocking]

11 hours ago, PinkRibbons said:

Anyway, the show presenting it as Mary losing her throne while alive because of a lack of children is ridiculous. I mean for one thing, at which point would that rule kick in? After five years? Ten? When she hit menopause?

I have this feeling that we're supposed to think Mary and Francis are playing 13 or so - they keep referring to them as children too young to get married, although by the standards of the time, that's hardly true. Also the actors cannot possibly pull that off. But it would explain Mary's absurdly trusting nature and childlike ideals. Bringing over the Holy Roman Emperor? That was a daft idea, and one she should have been soundly chastised for.

Good point about the ridiculousness of the idea of an childless Mary losing her throne just because of that.

The actors are way too old to be playing Mary and Francis at this point, I agree.  

Charles V attending the wedding made no sense to me, so I checked the dates.  The wedding was 1558, but Charles abdicated in 1556, retired to a Spanish monastery in 1557, and died in 1558.  So that was entirely made up too.  Why?  What did it add?  

Whatever it was in real life or is meant to be on the show, the Henri/Diane relationship was not convincing to me at all.  Diane needed to be sexier or more charismatic or something.  Years ago I read the Two Dianes, a novel attributed to Alexandre  Dumas, and he made you believe it.  

[Constantinople]

I'm enjoying Louis de Bourbon as comic relief

Louis: And as moving as I find my cousin's newfound concern for matters of love, the Protestants are disgruntled as it is. This is not the time for a dauphine perceived first and foremost as a deranged convent girl. N-no... no offence to you personally, of course.

Dauphin: (stuttering) The other children have always appreciated Mary for her religious guidance.

Mary: ( laughs ) It is my humble duty.

Louis: Oh, God. I-I think my point is made.

[greekmom]

11 hours ago, Haleth said:

Because it was normal historically for a mature nobleman to court and wed a teenage girl?   Especially if he was still looking to beget an heir.  We can see it as disgusting, but it wouldn't have raised an eyebrow back in Ye Olden Days.  (Except for the already married thing in this case.)  A young man being seduced by an older woman would certainly get an oh, la, la but Diane's continued influence over grown up Henri would have been frowned on privately.  I cannot wait for the show to give us Catherine's revenge.

Mary was raised in the French court with Catherine as her role model.  She barely knew her own mother personally but had her as another model of female authority.  (I don't know if she ever met her Guise grandmother, another strong woman.)  It's hard to imagine she was so naive about court life.  (Yet her own reign was full of bad choices and political mistakes.)  This show is making her look pretty loony though.

Henry the 8th's sister Mary Tudor was married briefly to the French King who was 30 years her senior when she was 18.  His sister Margaret married the Scottish king when she was 14 and he was 30.  

[brisbydog]

On 10/17/2022 at 5:47 PM, greekmom said:

Henry the 8th's sister Mary Tudor was married briefly to the French King who was 30 years her senior when she was 18.  His sister Margaret married the Scottish king when she was 14 and he was 30.  

Diplomatic marriage very different from married stepfather trying to seduce his underage ward, effectively ruining her for future marriages

[andromeda331]

I really hope we get to see Catherine shove Diane out the window. That would be awesome and she deserved it. Henri finally got what he deserved. It's nice that he finally realized Diane groomed him and Mary was doing the same thing to his son. 

Is Mary suppose to be an idiot or just completely naive? She insists and gets Holy Roman Emperor to come to the wedding and doesn't understand why they can't be friends because they all share the same religion? Seriously? Does she not know how the world she lives in works? Also, because he held Henri and his brother as hostages for a few years and they were clearly abused during that time? That's a pretty good reason. There's no way she doesn't know about that. 

I can't wait to see Catherine deal with Diane and what her plan is for Mary. 

[tennisgurl]

I don't think its very historically accurate, but I kind of love that Catherine apparently set Henri up for death when she just couldn't stand looking at Diane's smug face. Also interesting that Henri seemed, at the last minute, to finally start to realize how messed up his relationship was with Diane, even if I am sure that, if he had lived, he would go right back to her soon. 

Diane seriously drenched herself in that gold, no wonder they're still picking it out of her corpse in the 21st century. Oh yeah, watching Catherine kick her to the curb is going to be so very sweet...

[andromeda331]

On 10/21/2022 at 12:25 PM, tennisgurl said:

I don't think its very historically accurate, but I kind of love that Catherine apparently set Henri up for death when she just couldn't stand looking at Diane's smug face. Also interesting that Henri seemed, at the last minute, to finally start to realize how messed up his relationship was with Diane, even if I am sure that, if he had lived, he would go right back to her soon. 

Yeah, he would have gone right back to her. Henri has had small realizations before but always goes back to Diane. I loved his old friend calling him out on his crap. Of course Henri couldn't handle that even though he called him for that specific reason. 

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Diane seriously drenched herself in that gold, no wonder they're still picking it out of her corpse in the 21st century. Oh yeah, watching Catherine kick her to the curb is going to be so very sweet...

I can't wait.