"True, I wouldn't put it past Hirst to do that. It does seem that it would be something Hirst would like to right instead of this story though Anne Stanhope is having an affair with Sir Francis Bryan so I guess they might put the story line in that way. Different Wife and A Made Up Affair, something you would expect to see on the Tudors. "

That, as we saw in season 4, is exactly what they did... Anne Stanhope is basically a composite of her historical self and the first wife, which is annoying as all hell. But I digress.

In terms of power, in that time period... the Seymours, definitely. The Howards had the better blood/rank, but Catherine Howard basically destroyed them for a generation - and what she didn't do Henry Howard did. The Seymours self-destructed too, but that happened later, so it doesn't count. The Seymours knew how to capitalize on Henry's favor, and Edward in particular knew how to keep it - I'm currently reading the book Ordeal by Ambition, which is about the Seymour sibling trio, by a descendant of theirs, William Seymour. Reading it, you can see how both Edward and Thomas usually did pretty well at tasks they were given, though Edward was definitely better at getting stuff done than Thomas. (And it takes a lot for me to acknowledge the younger Seymour brother as being anything but an idiot jerk; I despise him.)

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