Very strong episode, very good for people who want to understand the medieval church and their relationship with death. You get a feel for what Protestants are trying to overthrow.
Mary Tudor and the dead are our subjects. The Astraea episode. The dead we cover in depth in the 2nd half. First, we look at Mary’s history and how history has looked at Mary. And then we decide to take the most alien analytical approach to Mary possible, that of the cold logic of monarchical power and dynasty. The consequences of her marriage to Phillip, spoiler alert, they were not good for England. Mary, despite getting her way in many details, accomplished the opposite of her political and religious aims, the law of unintended consequences in action. With the dead we explore the medieval church’s attitude to the dead during worship. The dead are everywhere, and they need our help, but fear not we have magical rites which can affect the processes of the afterlife directly. This is an urgent need of Protestants to oppose. The end of this belief in magic is very helpful, possibly, to people on the spectrum who will then go on to give us science.