ukamerican
Manchester
A review of this — 1 year ago
I did like this series and I plan on watching the second season. It’s good entertainment but some parts a very historical inaccurate.
And I don’t just mean the minor things like Henry not matching his physical description. There are other major deviations from fact. The biggest one that I discovered (after watching it I wanted to find out how accurate it was so I looked it up) is the issue of Henry’s sister. In Showtime’s version, Henry had a sister named Margaret – which is true, he did have a sister named Margaret. Unfortunately for Showtime, Margaret was never married to the King of Portugal OR Charles Brandon. Henry’s other sister, Mary – whose name was never mentioned in “The Tudors” WAS married to Charles Brandon, however she was previously married to Louis VII of France, not the King of Portugal. Nor did she murder her first husband. And although he did die within 3 months of their marriage, “The Tudors” certainly exaggerated their short marriage by making it last only a few days. Plus in the show she seemingly had no children but in fact, she had a few.
My only thought as to the logic behind the name swap is possibly that they worried people would confuse Henry’s sister Mary with Henry’s daughter Mary. While this could be a major insult to viewers, I can see how when character’s speak of “Mary” it may not be clear which Mary they are speaking of and therefore they attempted to avoid any confusion and call her Margaret instead.
As for why they had her marry the King of Portugal instead of Louis VII of France, it probably has to do with the timeline in the TV show not lining up with the historical timeline. In the TV show’s timeline, it probably wasn’t an ideal time for Mary/”Margaret” to marry the King of France so they chose a different country. Of course, had they followed the accurate timeline, they wouldn’t have needed to.
And the last thing I will say about the Mary/”Margaret” topic is that she was 18 when she married Louis VII and there is NO way Gabrielle Anwar could pass for that young. Maybe she wasn’t supposed for pass for 18 (it’s clear they had no regard for accuracy when it came to her character anyway) but given that even in the TV show, the King of Portugal was supposedly her first marriage, I found it hard to believe in that era a princess would go unmarried into her late 30s! Before I even looked up all of these inaccuracies it just didn’t seem right to me. A clear miscasting in my opinion.
And as far as miscasting goes, I also think either the actress who played Catherine of Aragon is too old or Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Henry) is too young. In history, Catherine is older than Henry but it’s only by 6 years – while the difference between the actors looks much, much greater.
Apparently Cardinal Wosley did not commit suicide and did not die in prison.
And I too thought the scene of Henry masturbating while one of his servants held a towel in front of him was unnecessary.
Don’t get me wrong, I can still enjoy the TV show as part fact, part fiction, part filling in the gaps with guesses. A lot of the casting I didn’t mention was very well done and the episodes certainly held my interest. I just hate to see so many people thinking it’s historically accurate when a lot of it is not so that’s the only reason I mention all of this. It’s certainly enjoyable but everyone should remember to take it with a grain of salt and if you want full historical accuracy, this isn’t it.
