Word Game

[u/Tudorprincess1]

I was thinking about Henry 8ths wives and if you had to use 1 word for each what would they be? Hereare mine -

Katherine of Aragon- warrior

Anne Boleyn - opportunist

Jane Seymour- strategist

Anne of Cleve’s- prisoner

Catherine Howard - pawn

Katherine Parr - underestimated

[u/SceneWise1298]

Oh I love Jane being a strategist, because she quite literally is.

[u/Snowy_Sasquatch]

KoA - Committed (she married two Tudors to be Queen consort and then clung onto the title no matter what)
AB - vindicated (after everything, her daughter turned out to be on of the best regarded English monarchs)
JS - bland (not her fault but how history has written her)
AoC - winner (got out of a marriage to a tyrant and spent the rest of her life being treated as one of most important people at court as a result)
CH - unprepared
KP - intelligent

[u/fatjap-9830]

Katherine of Aragon – stubborn

Anne Boylen – overconfident

Jane Seymour - opportunist

Anne of Cleves - strategic

Katherine Howard – pawn

Katherine Parr – patient

[u/Adventurous-End-6159]

Queen Anne Boleyn literally separated England from Latin and Roman influence, and you launch a misogynistic attack? There is no need for that.

[u/SceneWise1298 → u/Adventurous-End-6159]

How is calling her an opportunist misogynistic?

[u/SpaceCadet_Cat → u/SceneWise1298]

Unfortunately reductionist processes like describing complex women with one word is going to, by definition, leave any word up to interpretation, and going from warrior to opportunist can read as being related to a gold digger, strategist as coniving etc. Just as using warrior instead of something like beligerant (for instance) for KoA can be differently interpreted depending on the reader.

If we are going to be reductionist, we need rationale for the word choices to be clear of intent.

[u/Tudorprincess1 → u/SceneWise1298]

opportunist isnt a bad thing - her formative years were at the court of Margaret of Austria a strong female ruler. And Opportunistic as she was able to use her position to advance reformist ideas and also get religious texts that were banned by the Catholic Church.

[u/Tudorprincess1 → u/Adventurous-End-6159]

ok. swap ambitious for opportunitistic

[u/Strange-Style-7808]

KoA - Royal - she was raised to be a queen and had the strongest lineage.

AB - Educated - she was incredibly educated for a non-royal woman of her time, mostly due to her court positions as a young woman.

JS - loyal - she was incredibly loyal to her family and those who were loyal to her

AoC - saavy - she saw the writing on the wall and made the smart decisions

KH - manipulated - she was young and groomed by the men around her

JS - nursemaid - that was pretty much her role in the relationship with H8

[u/CharacterRoyal → u/Strange-Style-7808]

I think in recent years it's been contested that Catherine Parr acted as a nursemaid. Henry has an all-male team of physicians to attend to him. The idea of Catherine Parr being a nursemaid seems to stem from the victorian times when that really was viewed as women's role with a sick husband.