King Henry VIII

Clearly they aren't going to make him fat; not this season anyway. Of course this will draw critics but there will always be critics. I think the show does an exceptional job of balancing history and entertainment. And JRM does an exceptional job of portraying what a person with such absolute power would behave like. I think it says something about the actor that he can be this horrible character and yet your still drawn to him. He's gorgous and that's part of it but it's more about his presence, I think, as well as great acting skills.

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"What did Henry want to hear when he gave instructions for an investigation into Anne’s behaviour? Do you think that he wanted to hear that she was guilty, so that he would be able to get rid of her and marry Jane Seymour with a clear conscience or would he have preferred to be reassured that she had never betrayed him in any way?"

I think he wanted a reason to get rid of her, since his "conscience" was already pinging and telling him that no sons = something wrong with the marriage/God telling him the marriage was wrong. I think if the first investigation showed no evidence of adultery, he still would have gone digging for something else, and maybe something harder to disprove (witchcraft, etc.) He seems very cold and unemotional - I think this proves he doesn't believe any of it. He's just cutting his losses and moving on. Compare that to the case with Katherine Howard, when he was presented with pretty damning evidence right off the bat, but didn't believe it. He authorized an investigation only to try and prove she was being framed and take down whoever was smearing her. When that evidence came back that KH was definitely up to something, he broke down crying, wailing and screaming. He got so upset he vomited, then started screaming for someone to bring him a sword so he could kill her himself. His reaction scared the shit out of his courtiers, who thought he'd gone mad. And yet his reaction to Anne's "betrayal", this woman he's been obsessed with for years, this woman he defied the world and the Pope for is pretty much no reaction. I think if he had believed the charges against Anne, there would have been an outburst of emotion. Instead, we get a mock-pious lament about what she'd bewitched him to do to his beloved Katharine (now that Katharine's conveniently DEAD), and a tsk-tsk about how he wouldn't have put it past her to poison them all.

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"Also the sons were bastard children since Henry wasn't married to either woman when the children were born and who wants bastard children on the thrown."

The king had the power to legitimize any child of his body if he chose to. Henry was grooming Fitzroy as his hier presumptive (unoffical hier) for years until he died in 1536, then his plans were crushed and he needed to focus on getting a legitamate male hier with Jane Seymour. Henry Carey (Mary Boleyn's son) was never recognized by the king as his own, plus historians believe he was born after the affair was over with the king.
This is totally misogynist, but at the time I think most lords would rather have an illegitamate male hier than a legiamate female who could marry a foreign prince and England under the thumb of a foreign power. England was pretty xenophobic as well as sexist in the 16th century.

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