I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I can't find any topics on it. What happened to the first man (Benedict Cumberbatch's character) that Mary married? I remember the king said he would "send him on an assignment away from court." but then we never heard from him again. What happened? Why didn't Mary go back to him?
fire and blood.
In reality, he died of the sweating sickness.
shareI also found this an odd omission, but I've been told his death is part of a deleted scene on the Dvd.
Bad editting is just one issue with this movie. Utterly wasting Benedict Cumberbatch in an already small part is another.
BTW, and this is a really stupid mistake that I hope is not actually in the book, Sir William Carey was NOT on the Privy Council. He was a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and Esquire of the King's Body. That made him one of six men (Henry had a larger number of them later) who personally attended the King publicly and controlled access to him - if you wanted to speak to the King himself (be you kitchen maid or Ambassador) you went through a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber. In the King's Chambers the Gentlemen served the King personally, doing anything he needed from pouring his wine to dressing him. They hunted and hawked and danced and dallied right beside him.
So rather than keeping William Carey busy at the opposite end of the palace - as described in this movie - William Carey would have been with Henry more often than Mary!
He also held his position before his marriage, so the movie twists that too. Even now many historians look down on Carey, maybe because he didn't gave a higher title than "Sir" or because he is not as well known as his in-laws later became. I've seen it said that she married beneath her station. But the marriage was quite a good one for Mary, whose father was at that time also a "Sir," since William was not only a close friend of the King's and held an important position in the Court but because he was Henry's 3rd cousin (his maternal grandmother was Eleanor Beaufort.)
We know little about him in pop culture because he died young. If he had lived out hus full span of years, who knows but he might have changed the course of history!
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Gregory has some kind of idealistic infatuation with Mary Boleyn. I thought it was ridiculous, too, that Mary was portrayed as an innocent, prudish doting wife. I'm not convinced that the real William and Mary loved each other, as he was much better-off than the movie implies. Like most marriages in noble families, theirs was probably more a mutually beneficial business transaction than an act of love.
The movie also makes it seem that William is distraught by his wife going to bed with the king. I'm not saying he was happy about it, but according to ACCURATE accounts, Carey recEived lands and titles in return for his Wife's "services," as did other husbands of Henry's mistresses.
"The Tudors" is much better.
I thought it was ridiculous, too, that Mary was portrayed as an innocent, prudish doting wife.