pearlbeads-and-honeybees

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

Hi,

I know Dr. Joanne Paul's book on Thomas More was just released and was wondering if you could answer a question for me about Alice More. She seems to have a bad reputation in pop culture history, and I'm not sure why. Is it true Thomas didn't love her? I've heard some people claim that she wasn't well-educated and that he made fun of her for this reason. I hope that's not true. Did they have a caring relationship? Or did he love his first wife more? Thank-you!

I think for the same reason Anne Hathaway has had a bad reputation. Fans of the Great Man get angry with the wife for being a domestic obstacle, for getting in the way of the Great Man and his Destiny. (Never mind that she is a person too with a destiny). Alice wanted More to swear the oath and salvage his career and I think the fact she didn't meekly let him die has generated a lot of anger from More’s admirers.

And she doesn’t fare better at the hands of More’s detractors, she’s often vilified by association. If More is great, she can’t be great, but if More is terrible, then she’s terrible too. She really can’t win. And More’s first wife Joan/Joanna/Jane isn’t treated any better- I know, contain your surprise- she’s either ignored or dismissed as a naïve doormat, an inexperienced country bumpkin, a passive sex object, not a person with a sexuality or a worldview of her own. She’s punished for having too little personality, Alice is punished for having too much.

Who was More’s favourite wife? Interestingly, More himself gives us an answer to that question. More intended to share a tomb with both of his wives (obviously events got in the way of that plan). He wrote an epitaph for the three of them, where he said he couldn’t decide which wife he preferred: the one who bore his children or the one who raised them.

He also said he would be very happy with them in Heaven because you’re not allowed two wives on earth.

Make of that what you will.

I think it’s telling that Alice chose to be buried with More and not her first husband (the father of her children). The fact they married so soon after More was widowed raised a lot of eyebrows, and More’s detractors latched on to it as proof that More was insatiable and sex-obsessed. But More and Alice had no children together, and possibly their relationship was platonic because it took Alice a year to realise that More was wearing a hair shirt. They argued about it, but More kept wearing the hair shirt. There’s no other evidence of serious marital discord until they disagreed over the oath. More didn't marry her randomly, he knew her for years, from before he met his first wife.

More did make fun of her, quipping that she was ‘neither a pearl nor a girl’ -it’s less mean in Latin, it’s about the wordplay. Another source has her telling More to get off his butt and put himself out there, saying that if she were a man, she'd be ambitious, she'd go out into the world "and rule and not be ruled". "Wife you speak the truth," More replies. "For I never found you willing to be ruled yet." The mockery tends to be about her being stubborn, not about her level of education.

But Alice gave as good as she got. In a letter she thanks the correspondent for wishing her a long life, saying that she will live a long time so she can ‘plague her husband all the more’. The fact she can laugh at herself suggests she was confident, comfortable in her own skin. I don’t know who Monica Dolan was playing in Wolf Hall, but she certainly wasn’t Alice Middleton More.

Thomas More’s ribald sense of humour was shocking by the nineteenth and twentieth centuries so historians started speculating that he was ‘obsessed’ with sex or somehow repressed, or he hates women because of his lust for them, because surely there MUST be a pathology to explain finding humour in human genitalia. As we all know, sex is deadly serious, if you go ‘haha penis’ there is clearly something deeply darkly wrong with you. Personally, I think it suggests the opposite. I think the fact More can joke about sex suggests he’s relaxed about it; he doesn’t take it seriously. His misogynistic jokes mostly fit with age-old stereotypes so they don’t suggest an unusually high degree of personal misogyny, just the standard level in a misogynistic world.

Pop culture loooooooooves depicting Alice as illiterate. I think it’s to contrast with her bookish author husband. But it’s utterly utterly ridiculous. In both pictures where Alice appears, she’s reading a book. We also have letters between her and More, and in those letters there’s no indication that she’s dictating to a scribe and not writing herself.

Alice was willing to learn to play the recorder- the Mores were a musical family- but she declined lessons in the classics. To be fair, she was a busy woman with a lot of responsibilities. One story has More explaining the mathematical properties of a straight line to his kids, and Alice has enough of this abstract faffing, points to a beam, and tells the kids “THAT is a straight line.” She was also knowledgeable of theology: another story has her arguing with a man over dinner about theology and he quotes Scripture at her. She frowns. She doesn’t remember that in the Bible. She checks her Bible: she’s right, he made it up.

Refreshingly, Geoffrey Elton (who disliked her husband) called her a woman of "sound good sense". But we've yet to see an accurate depiction of her in pop culture. At least one thing is seriously wrong in each depiction. She was literate, she was a loving stepmother, and she did NOT support More over the Oath. In fact, she tried to argue that he'd essentially gone insane, so his refusal to swear the oath must be disqualified as a weird personal eccentricity not a capital crime. No depiction gets all three things right.

There's a reason my profile picture used to be Alice wearing 8 bit sunglasses.

In a nutshell, all the evidence suggests a confident, straightforward, practical, competent, maternal woman.

When will pop culture reflect this? 2058, I estimate.

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

Unlikely that Henry VIII would/could have made Fitzroy without something from the pope. Henry Fitzroy was undisputably a bastard, Mary's legal status was heavily disputed. With the question of not just would England accept an indisputable male bastard as heir over a disputable female one whose family literally controls half of Europe. Not to mention in any Catholic nation (still most of Europe bc again Mary's family controlled half of Europe) would've been presumed to follow the Popes opinion which was that Mary was the legal heir.

If the Pope issued something legitimizing Fitzroy then maybe but that in itself was unlikely why would the Pope do that if Henry already has a legal heir in Mary?

If Henry went around the pope and made Fitzroy his heir he'd (Fitzroy) have to contend with being wildly unpopular as Mary was still quite popular and also being heavily unprepared to be heir true he had many titles but not the education that Mary received in preparation to rule.

I think if he had to he would've tried to stand up to Mary but in the same way Jane Grey did so I think it would've ended with Fitzroy being executed or exiled Mary had many followers and people backing her not just in the common people but also nobility and her family's influence in Europe didn't hurt her cause (even if Charles didn't help her much if at all still who knows what would've happened if Mary's birthright was denied bc a bastard son of Henry VIII thought he was better than her, the legal heir)

So yeah...

TLDR: It's unlikely Fitzroy would've been named an heir due (especially over Mary & maybe Elizabeth) to his own bastardy and Mary's connections to (arguably) the most powerful family in Europe as well as being very popular within England, it's unlikely even if he was named that it would've amounted to anything.

Do you think if Henry Fitzroy had lived he would have been named as an heir in Henry VIII’s will (after Edward of course). An interesting debate about whether he would have challenged Mary for the throne is going around on tiktok and I’d like to know your answer.

I have no idea, I'm not especially familiar or interested in the Tudor period after Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. It also goes without saying that we can't truly "know" the answer to a historical AUs like this so all opinions will inevitably remain speculatory.

I'm sorry I can't be of more help - maybe someone who sees this and knows more about this topic will be able to answer it better?

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

1) We have evidence that Meta interfered with the 2016 election by allowing the Russian government to spread misinformation. And evidence that Meta sold/lost its users data to foreign entities.

2) Meta lobbied Congress for this ban after Trump's attempt to ban it fell through.

3) Just because the alt-right exists on the app doesn't mean it's controlled by the alt-right. That is a strategy of the alt-right! To slowly invade spaces and then by the time you realize oh shit I'm hanging out with a bunch of Nazis it's too late. That is why YOU the not Nazi person have to be vigilant about your spaces.

The alt-right also exists on Tumblr I wasn't sure if you were aware so maybe we should also ban Tumblr for the acceleration of fascism in America.

Also the presence of the alt-right on an app doesn't give the government the right to ban it as we have the free speech in this country and that also protects the alt-right (I don't think it should, but the alt-right doesn't think I should have free speech so I'd rather the government say you both have it rather than every 4 years the government picks who gets that right)

4) I find it really hard to believe that Tiktok was SO good at spreading misinformation like you say it was when one of the US's top "news" broadcasting networks was sued for spreading misinformation and can't call itself a news station anymore BUT YET they are still reporting news to this day! And one of their broadcasters might just be our new Secretary of Defense....

The answer to the concern of national security was to inform the citizens of the concern and then pass security laws that would've affected US Tiktok as that was a separate entity under the company. And we know that because the CEO himself talked about how US Tiktok differed from the rest of TikTok in a Congressional Hearing. He himself offered the solution of Project Texas which would have put US TikTok servers in the US and under the safeguard of US Employees overseen by a US company putting a firewall up on Bytedance so they couldn't see US user data. The Government refused that, calling him a liar, stating that the only solution is a sale of TikTok from Bytedance which contradicts Chinese law, I don't know why our government thinks it's ok to force a company to break its country's laws for our comfort.

I understand fully what's happened. I also think it's stupid considering we have bigger issues in this nation than China seeing me like GOT edits at 2am. Again if there were actual security concerns, members of Congress wouldn't have gotten on the app and talked about what they voted on in session that day! They wouldn't have talked about what votes were coming up or what legislation had come to their desk.

Also not to mention the countless security breaches that US based apps have had and then hid from their users only to be forced to reveal them after being sued for it makes me question the validity of the governments claims and their reasons for caring.

Tiktok didn't cause the descent into fascism that the country is in. Fascism did. Nazi Germany happened well before Tiktok and it will continue to happen after TikTok is no more than a distant memory. Could it have made the recruitment into the alt-right easier? Yes. But so did Twitter, so did Meta, so did YouTube. Because the alt-right is a weed it doesn't grow where you say it can. It grows wherever it can plant it's roots which is everywhere.

You were right about one thing though, that things are going to get worse for POC, women and queer people, etc. But that's not because of Tiktok, that's because this country has always been incredibly right wing and fascism has been on the rise since Reagan took office.

I was in highschool before Tiktok got off the ground and I went to school with a boy who wore a nazi uniform regularly to school. I went to school with boys who wore MAGA hats and called people slurs before Tiktok bc they learned them on Twitter.

Fascism has always existed in this country. And it's insulting to my intelligence for you to claim I don't understand because China Clock App Bad because China not Capitalist like USA and Nazi Use App so Clock App Bad.

In the wake of the confusion that is the Tiktok ban, I'm scrolling through my feed and I keep seeing people celebrating the ban as Tiktok spread misinformation.

And I just... Everywhere spreads misinformation. Our news broadcasters spread misinformation. Twitter spreads misinformation. Meta (FB and Instagram) spreads misinformation. Tumblr spreads misinformation!

That's no reason to ban an app. You can dislike Tiktok while also acknowledging that this ban will and has caused people harm.

Tiktok was where I realized I needed to go see a doctor about my period pain because it wasn't normal, despite the fact that I was told in real life it was normal for some women by doctors and nurses! Because of Tiktok I found out I have Endometriosis and andeomysis, because of a doctor (who specialized in Endo) on Tiktok talking about those conditions.

The comments under that Tiktok were filled with women/afab people who were exactly like me!

Was Tiktok perfect? No. But come on Tumblr, are we really ones to judge when staff can't make up their minds about what porn is and isn't? And whether or not to ban trans people every other week?

Let's be clear, Tiktok was banned because the government got paid by billionaires who didn't like the app and they used the excuse of national security when several congresspersons (who voted for the ban) were on the app themselves and were talking about governmental processes.

Tiktok brought in billions in revenue to the US government and took a cut as is their right. That is why they got banned, billionaires (musk and zuckerberg) not liking them and the fact that the US government couldn't profit as much as they *could've* from the app.

This ban was a 1st amendment violation, and truthfully nothing will change. Everyone who says they were radicalized by the ban is lying, they're not going to do anything.

There won't be a revolution, there won't be a civil war.

The American Government will continue to descend further into fascism until it kills itself and its citizens with its infighting and life will go on.

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

In the wake of the confusion that is the Tiktok ban, I'm scrolling through my feed and I keep seeing people celebrating the ban as Tiktok spread misinformation.

And I just... Everywhere spreads misinformation. Our news broadcasters spread misinformation. Twitter spreads misinformation. Meta (FB and Instagram) spreads misinformation. Tumblr spreads misinformation!

That's no reason to ban an app. You can dislike Tiktok while also acknowledging that this ban will and has caused people harm.

Tiktok was where I realized I needed to go see a doctor about my period pain because it wasn't normal, despite the fact that I was told in real life it was normal for some women by doctors and nurses! Because of Tiktok I found out I have Endometriosis and andeomysis, because of a doctor (who specialized in Endo) on Tiktok talking about those conditions.

The comments under that Tiktok were filled with women/afab people who were exactly like me!

Was Tiktok perfect? No. But come on Tumblr, are we really ones to judge when staff can't make up their minds about what porn is and isn't? And whether or not to ban trans people every other week?

Let's be clear, Tiktok was banned because the government got paid by billionaires who didn't like the app and they used the excuse of national security when several congresspersons (who voted for the ban) were on the app themselves and were talking about governmental processes.

Tiktok brought in billions in revenue to the US government and took a cut as is their right. That is why they got banned, billionaires (musk and zuckerberg) not liking them and the fact that the US government couldn't profit as much as they *could've* from the app.

This ban was a 1st amendment violation, and truthfully nothing will change. Everyone who says they were radicalized by the ban is lying, they're not going to do anything.

There won't be a revolution, there won't be a civil war.

The American Government will continue to descend further into fascism until it kills itself and its citizens with its infighting and life will go on.

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

The sequel to Sunlight Through the Trees!

Y'all aren't ready for this, the longing the wanting the pining for someone who is pining for you!

Mary, Cromwell, and Chapuys are a very interesting trinity to explore when talking about their relationships converging and yet remaining separate in some aspects. Especially when it comes to how Cromwell and Chapuys see Mary. She's not a little doll as in they are playing with her but a little doll in the sense that she can be desired but never be sullied or defiled by them. She is a woman but yet still a girl, a daughter even. A person who desires love and affection and yes even sex perhaps but she is a Madonna a forever virgin in their gaze only to be worshipped never touched a touch too far.

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

Inspired by the very talented @cromwelll aka tenderbittersweet.

The relationship between Thomas Cromwell and Mary 1 in Wolfhall is very interesting and dear to me especially with how it later converges with both Mary's relationship and Cromwells relationship with Chapuys, those three were out here forming a (👀I'm sure entirely platonic 👀) love triangle that if Hilary Mantel weren't such a coward would have rivaled GRRM's Aegon the Conqueror's and his wives.

Anyhoo that's not what this fic is about this is about two very hurt people finding peace in the fact that the other cares about them.

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

It’s because at first the version of Mary that exists in Chapuys’ head is little more than a sexist, paternalistic remix of her real identity, so thoroughly warped by the age & class difference that he sees her as barely more than a porcelain madonna, a moral/religious figurehead, so sexless she’s barely human. But as Mary ages and their relationship is maintained through less explicitly stressful circumstances then the ones it was conceived under amidst the Great Matter, she begins to grow outside of the parameters he established for her internally. She gets her life back, she’s not just pretty and in pain anymore, she’s energetic, provocative, romantically active, loud. And that scares him, the way it scared him with Cesare’s mother, but it also excites and intrigues him, not least of all because he can’t be physically intimate with Mary the way he was with the mistress who bore his illegitimate son. The illegitimate son he left so he could go perform diplomatic duties in the same country as Mary. Who wants to be a mother. Who loves children. Who is at once everything he’d ever want in a woman and young enough to be his biological child, facts which would be so blatantly immoral if he ever confronted their coexistence that he has to force himself to stay in denial about it. While Mary goes around planning for the future and playing footsie with Phillip of Bavaria, more or less unaware that her very existence is eating this poor bastard’s brain. Eustace is a 50 year old politician with TSwift’s “You Belong With Me” playing in his head every time he meets eyes with his dead friend’s 21 year old daughter. It’s pathetic. It’s disgusting. It’s narratively delicious.

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

Michael and Kay

The Godfather part II (1974), dir Francis Ford Coppola

@blackvalyrians

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

I decided to redraw this AU Strong Sibling Portrait, with Daeron (Harwin) included this time! Also I decided to give Aemmond his ole patchy patch to give him that "I studied the blade" vibe he has. I will eventually write a whole fic about this AU but for now it'll live rent free in my head.

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

Thomas More circa May 1532

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

I drew Aegon, Helaena and Aemmond as Strongs a little bit ago so I thought Why not draw Alicent as a Strong, so here she is. With that I present to you:

Lady Alicent Strong, Wife to Lord Larys Strong, and principal Lady in Waiting to her grace Queen Rhaeynera of the Seven Kingdoms.

In this AU, I sort of see her and Larys meeting at court before Queen Aemma dies in childbirth, and they both like each other a lot. Then once Queen Aemma dies and Otto starts pushing Alicent to see the king, that’s when Rhaeynera steps in and helps she and Larys get married by giving them the royal blessing so Otto can’t really do anything. That being said Alicent and Larys both accompany Rhaeynera to Dragonstone to escape the aftermath of Otto not getting his way.

Ultimately though I think Alicent and Rhaeynera would form a marriage alliance between Jacerys and Larrennia (Helaena) which would somewhat please an old retired Otto. (Even though it wasn’t to please him at all)

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

Matthew Needham in House of the Dragon (1.06) as Larys Strong

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

I have so many memes that I’ve made about they’re homoerotic-esque relationship in WolfHall. We can do it together

So is one of my fellow degenerates gonna start shipping Chapuys and Cromwell or are y’all gonna make me do it

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

Saw a Tiktok with Tom-Glynn Carney in Domina and someone jokingly commented “Aegon Strong” so

We got some Larycent Babies!!

Loren Strong (Aegon), Larennia Strong (Helaena) and Lyndon Strong (Aemond)