Reign

It's now 1558 and 15-year-old, Teen Queen, Mary has decided it's high time she was married. Fortunately for historical sake, she chose the same guy. Fortunately for all the voyeurs in castle, King Henry decided to invite absolutely everybody to watch the newly weds have sex for the first time legally. Unfortunately he should have invited everybody to hang around his own room till his own young mistress showed up, since they'd have seen a lot more. That is also possibly historically true, since historians aren't sure Mary and Francis actually ever did it. Since real Francis was barely 14, feeble-minded and sickly, the folks probably gave him a pass on the public 'display of affection.' The real wedding, mentioned on the show as the public version, took place at Notre Dame Cathedral in late April.

We learned last night that everything in France is quite convenient. Francis was able to take a short cut and easily beat Mary to a distant country chapel. Nostradamus was able to ride out and find remarkably crisp footprints in the snow considering the barefoot person who made them would have died of hypothermia if they hadn't walked away a week ago. Random strangers will kindly pass on the word to sing a particular song to a particular person in the French king's castle. If you are French, the Pope will kindly forget all about the carefully worded letter you sent to legitimize your bastard son, if your future daughter-in-law decides she'll marry one of your already legitimate sons instead.

Oh shucks, the show is historically accurate about Queen Mary of England. She was certainly not dead when Mary and Francis got married. Poor TV Henry will have to wait most of the year to discover that English Mary decided her sister Elizabeth was a better choice to be the next Queen of England than her Catholic cousin, Scottish Mary with all her ties to France. Could have been something about the French taking Calais away from the English that year. You never know. ;o)