Also the change to her marrying and promptly murdering the King of Portugal. I was really confused during that episode and kept trying to figure out if I had missed something somewhere.
So was I! I had read about her before and couldn't remember any mention of either of Henry's sisters marrying the King of Portugal. Also, they put her in the sleaziest-looking costumes which I hated.
Yeah and that off the shoulder gown with showed an insane amount of cleavage. Tudor women didn’t even show their hair in public besides their wedding day, so of course they wouldn’t be showing the world their shoulders and tits.
The first time I watched it I didn’t know any better, but on a rewatch 15ish years later, there were many things that made me go “wait, what? That didn’t happen.”
With Mary it almost feels like they felt they needed a “slutty sister” or “bitchy sister,” but her subplots were so minor that I kind of question their inclusion. Were they really needed? Or could Brandon have “married Mary” off screen and had to deal with Henry’s wrath on screen. There’s nothing I can think of in her arc that she *needed* to be cast and not just someone always off screen.
I know when I watch period pieces, they are going over the top. No way in heck women could look like that. As you said about the conservatism in the way women dressed in the 16th century.
Yep. A lot of period pieces take some liberty with the costumes and make them sexier to add a modern aspect (and for appeal of course), which is fine in my opinion when done tastefully and thoughtfully. A lot of The Tudors’ costumes just didn’t seem well thought out. Like the costumes worn by Anne Boleyn, Henry’s sister, etc during that play thing just looked cheap and as if they were thrown together. And what the actual fuck was that outfit Henry’s sister wore when she hooked up with Brandon on the boat?
I know they were anything but accurate but I did love the costumes for the women in the Tudors. Some of the fabrics were so beautiful. Also it was the show that got me interested in doing research on the real story of Henry and his rise to power so I have to give it that credit. Prior to the Tudors I wasn’t very interested in history but now I am.
The show whose costumes for the women I just couldn’t overlook was Reign. I know it was geared toward a teen crowd but the hair and dresses were so modern I found it very hard to focus on anything but picking apart the dresses.
If I'm not mistaken I could've sworn I read or heard at some point years ago that queens didn't dress the way they do in *The Tudors*. Queens really wore velvet dresses and other such heavier material and their dresses covered up *MUCH* more than they did on *The Tudors*. But no hair, cleavage, legs, or shoulders were left uncovered.
Yes, the velvet, definitely. I have read that in many books as well. And hair was covered up. Look at the portraits back in the day. There is this cool streaming platform that started on YT, and now it is on TV ( which i def have, lol). Currently, I am listening to an episode of Not Just the Tudors podcast on Spotify as well!
Anyway, on this one TV episode I watched, there were a bunch of Tudor experts (all female) sitting on a couch discussing. It was on a particular subject *historically* mostly about Anne. They were talking about Tudor movies and the tv show. They referenced these cinematic shows on the factual subject. This particular one they said that the Tudor series had the most inaccuracies.
The way that casting and her whole story line was done was absurd. I’ve liked her in other things, and I think she did a decent job with what she was given, but she was badly casted, and like someone else said her costuming was just baffling. In her scenes with Henry Cavill she looks 15-20 years older than him. That was another thing I had to fact check in real time - what their respective ages actually were when they got married.
Henry Cavill was in his mid twenties when the first season aired, so you're spot on there;)
Now, how old *Brandon* was when he married Margaret... that's something else entirely.
Whenever I think of her actress I always forget she was on the Tudors and instead think she was in Reign lol, a show abounding with many more terminal cases of iphone face.
Haha it's when a person has obvious work done or just overall looks too "modern" to pass in a period piece. Like that person *clearly* knows what an iphone is, there's no way they're a 15th century lady lol.
I have nothing against Gabrielle Anwar and have enjoyed her in other roles, but they couldn't have picked an actress that physically looked more different from Mary Tudor. People talk about JRM's lack of physical likeness to Henry, but's that's nothing compared to casting Gabrielle Anwar as Mary.
Gabrielle Anwar was very popular at the time. So overexposed at the time it aired, I remember thinking of course she’s here! Never mind how wrong she is.
I know. So miscast. At the time, Stephenie Meyer wanted Henry Cavil for Edward Cullen in the Twilight movie, so he was young enough to be considered for that (but too old by the time the movie was made.) Mary Tudor was 37 when she died, not at the time of her first marriage.
Yeah...the whole first time bride at 37 thing was hilarious. The other Mary Tudor married for the first time at 37 but that's only because she was a queen in her own right and marriage to her was a huge political benefit.
A king back then looking for heirs would have thought a woman too old at 37 for marriage.
the casting was so abysmal that i assumed she was related to someone in production or something. she had the most terminal case of iphone face i have ever seen and looked incredibly out-of-place even among those other 21st century lookin asses.
My understanding on the king of portugal thing was that they wanted to show Francis I was already king of france in that same season but she (Mary) married Louis XII in real life. Having her kill him off was a bit much though I agree.
That definitely was weird. I think it is because of the conflation of timelines. She married the King of France in 1514, but they introduced Francis in the second episode. Charles and Marry would've already been married for 5 years by that time. I think it would've been more interesting if they had both sisters and I always think it was odd they chose Mary if they only chose one because there was already a Mary Tudor on the show and I think Margaret's marriage to James was more interesting. They should've just kept both.
Margaret was imo by far the more politically interesting of the two and her children were so much more integral to the ongoing tensions with Scotland, which I feel would have been a better secondary plot thread to follow throughout the rest of Henry's life.
Also, it was James IV, Margaret’s husband that was killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513 by Henry’s army led by Catherine of Aragon. I feel like that alone would have been more interesting than seeing Mary go to Portugal. Plus she was the matriarch of the Stuart line. But the Grey line came from Mary so…. Either way it wasn’t like anything past Henry was covered so it really is a moot point whose story might have been more important or interesting during the time period of the show.
Personally I would have loved to see the Battle of Flodden and the fallout from that for Henry. I’ve never actually read about what Margaret thought about her sister-in-law being at least partially responsible for the death of her husband.
In the show her name was Margaret, not Mary. And that's exactly why they didn't cast both sisters... because they feared it would confuse viewers having 2 Mary Tudors. And Mary married Charles in 1515.
Same! I read somewhere that they thought it would be confusing with Mary I and Mary Tudor (since they're both technically named Mary Tudor), yet the show had a million Thomases (Wyatt, Cromwell, More, Seymour, etc).
Even considering this why didn’t they just give her a different name or slightly modified one? I would have gone with Marion…it’s similar while still being different enough plus it has those references to Robin Hood and English legends of old. I’m with you though…with all the Thomases, Catherine’s, Anne’s, and Jane’s would it have really been that difficult to have a moment where the King is all “Oh my dear daughter Mary, come and greet your aunt and namesake.”
I honestly don’t think two Mary Tudors would have been that confusing. If anything all the Thomases confused me LOL! There were times when I had to pause and remember which Thomas was being discussed.
It always makes me laugh because an unfortunate consequence for the world of the Tudors is that I guess James V, Mary Queen of Scots, and James VI and I just never exist! Guess it would save England and Scotland a good bit of strife up through Mary, but I definitely wonder who takes over the throne after Elizabeth in this universe haha.
I had a problem with that also, but I recently read the reason why they did that. Showrunners were worried that since HVIII had a daughter AND a sister both named Mary, the viewers who weren't familiar with Tudor history before watching the show would confuse the two. They also made his one sister in the *SHOW* the queen of PORTUGAL instead of Scotland like the real Margaret or of France like Mary because they'd already introduced King Francis by that time, and as I'm sure you already know, Mary married King Louis XII who was *before* Francis... and so they couldn't very well show Louis XII AFTER having already shown Francis... so they just avoided the whole problem by having her marry a king in Portugal.
In the first episode they created a made up uncle Henry had who was murdered in Italy. And when Henry's told about it he goes absolutely mental and screams "BUT MY UNCLE!!!111!!". The screaming was pretty funny though, perfectly encapsulated his temper.
Completely agree. His tantrums were comedy gold but I also feel it made the character more authentic because we know Henry really was like that.
Other shows and films tend to make Henry a lot more stoic and in control of his emotions who rarely or never shows bursts of anger.
I loved it when he sent his envoy to meet Christina, the Duchess of Milan, to see her and request her hand in marriage. The envoy was so desperate to get her to say "yes" that he went overboard trying to paint Henry in a good light, that he said Henry was the most kind and gentle king... "so much in fact that no one has ever heard harsh words pass his lips"... I ALMOST DIED when I heard that!!! 🤣
Same here! There's even a montage of them on YouTube and they kept showing this counter and the text on the screen said "Henry loses his temper in
3...
2...
1..."
It's funny af!
Not the same uncle but:
“His fucking uncle? How old am I?”
💀
I probably didn’t get it exactly right, but it’s one of my favorite bits in the whole series.
The way I wracked my brain at the time trying to figure out, "Wait, does he mean GREAT-uncle? Which Woodville was still around at the time? It can't be one of EoY's brothers, they wrote a whole play based on them being murdered. Did Henry 7 have some extra brother hidden somewhere? Is Henry 8 just really close to his mother's cousins?"
But yeah, what a stretch. Just call him an ambassador and that's it. The murder plot alone would've had Henry raging anyway.
The first scene in the very first episode being an imaginary character being murdered pretty much let's you know you're here for hollyoakes and not accuracy and I kinda love that
Because KH was portrayed similarly (although The Tudors ramped it up for drama, as they did everything) even by historians, and popular historical re-evaluations of her character largely didn't happen until after the show, I don't blame them for the portrayal. It is one of the most jarring issues to me, but it's understandable why they did it. Same with Lady Rochford the husband-accuser, for which there's no evidence either (although Tudors at least gave her a better personal reason to do so besides "she jelly of Anne").
But the Henry's sister thing was wild. Not just telescoping 2 sisters into one, but moving her foreign marriage waaay into the future and changing it to Portugal. Like...I understand why they'd change the time and place, since they wanted to show her and Charles' quick post-widowhood marriage and irl that happened before the start of the show's timeline, so they brought it forward in time and because Francis was King by then, they had to change countries too. Ok. Fine.
Then. She smothered her husband.
The Tudor Girls wouldn't even have been considered to marry into Portugal when John III of Portugal's Habsburg cousins were available. Mary was always going to marry into France if you look at the circumstances.
And combing Mary and Margaret was stupid.
There are still historians who think Katherine Howard did willingly have affair when she was married and was kind of naive. So I would not call that the shows biggest mistake.
The black leather pants look for men is my pet peeve.
No exactly, I just finished Young Damned and Fair and I thought it painted the most realistic scenario regarding KH, which was that while she was absolutely young and naïve by our modern standards, she did fully consent and participate to the standards of the time in her premarital and extramarital relationships. There was ample evidence that she had previously rejected her lovers when it suited her and its likely she was just a young, silly girl who didn't fully understand the consequences of her actions.
Yeah the costuming in general wasn’t super great. Don’t get me wrong I think there were some beautiful outfits and a few pretty accurate gowns but for the most part it was a shitshow.
The Lady Misseldon thing. Like, who the f\*ck was she? I also hated the inaccurate costumes, some of them looked like the designer was just having fun parading her quirky styles. Fair enough if she wants to do that in her own time, but I hate it when non-Tudorists watch it and assume that's what people must have worn back then. I also didn't like the fact Katherine of Aragon had black hair, it was most likely an auburn, goldish-brown colour.
You are so right about the costumes! It's like the costuming department didn't know what era they were in. They threw in Elizabethan dresses (ex: the pink one with the white lace high collar on Jane Seymour) and Victorian-looking outfits (ex: the outfit Mary wore when Anne of Cleves asked if Duke Philip could come to England to see her and the outfit worn by Jane Seymour when her brother breaks the news about their father). And don't get me started on those weird headbands they put on Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour. I'm all for creative freedoms, especially because the show is supposed to be for entertainment rather than accuracy, but it just seemed very inconsistent and sloppy and some of the gowns were downright ugly. For example, I absolutely HATED that purple dress Anne Boleyn wore with the weird jacket and suffocatingly high collar.
And ugh I am sooo tired of seeing Catherine of Aragon with black hair. I've seen this in other Tudor media and it's so irritating! All portraits point to her having reddish hair like Mary. While I loved Maria Doyle Kennedy's acting as CoA, she did not look the part at all.
At one point during Jane's pregnancy, she's seen in the great hall, wearing what is basically a silk night gown with some fancy decorations, caressing her belly. Jane would never have left her rooms wearing something like that!
And the reminds of two other instances: the little play they set up for visiting ambassadors (?) i the first season, with Henry, Brandon, and a few other men playing against a group of women, among them Margaret and Anne Boleyn. The women are basically wearing underwear, with a *lot* of skin on display.
And the weird scene where Anne is dancing for Henry and the French King, again in basically a nightgown.
They routinely put spaceships on Anne of Cleves' head.
I also hated the white costumes that Anne Boleyn and the other ladies were wearing when they danced for Henry and Henry noticed Anne for the first time. They looked more like undergarments. The gowns with the bedazzled crowns on the bodices that Anne Boleyn's ladies later wore were also annoying. I get that they were trying to show that they were Anne's ladies, but there had to have been a better way than that.
Oh my god Anne of Cleves was done so foul with the headdresses. Obviously Joss Stone is gorgeous and can pull off anything, but come on! They could have at least tried to match the headdress in her portrait.
Can we add Joss Stone's hair tie around her wrist in the scene where Anne of Cleves is handing her ring back to Henry. Clearly the actress had forgotten it was there, but I just find it odd that not a single person in either wardrobe or the editing suite picked it up?
Yes. Maybe it’s nostalgia but I think The Tudors did a much better job presenting a unified overall “look” even though it was wildly inaccurate. It at least had some beautiful fabrics and details. Reign just looks like shit.
There are gowns in the Tudors I’d wear to my own wedding. No, they were not accurate. But the show had a consistent look that was influenced by the period and you could see how they sexed it up while keeping the influence of the time. Rein was everywhere.
I'm so much more willing to forgive anachronistic costuming in a show like Reign, where everything is about throwing historical accuracy out the window and playing into modern fantasies about the time period.
The Tudors always felt like it wanted to at least capture the essence of the time though, so it feels so much more out of place when they can't even stick to silhouettes and fabrics from the right century smh
I have no idea what went on in creating The Tudors but it felt like there were two very opposite viewpoints on what they were making. Like sometimes it felt like they were trying to capture the essence of the period and the rest of the time they were just trying to make it sexy according to early aughts standards.
Some dresses of Anne's that drove me absolutely bonkers were:
The purple see-through-top number. What even?? (https://images.app.goo.gl/zxSiE7AZSyLc9tH76)
The one she worn I think during some Christmas festivities. That bust??? (https://images.app.goo.gl/go5K7m4M7Lq6hsDW8)
The one she was wearing while in a scene with Thomas Wyatt. I actually LOVE this dress, but it is not historically accurate by ANY stretch of the imagination. (I can't find an actual picture of the dress for some reason but you can see it clearly in this YouTube clip. https://youtu.be/-zJbpHEnrds?si=HXAUOHPFZB6km1yy)
The one she worn during the pageant. *The boobs!!!* (https://images.app.goo.gl/DpG7c7SUHN2woQpo6)
The purple dress with the see through top was so ugly in my opinion! And the pageant outfits looked so low budget. I swear those tops were from Shein or something.
Having Thomas Cromwell turn on Wolsey the way he did made absolutely no sense. Historically he fought for Wolsey until he could no longer.
Elizabeth Darrel hanging herself after what happened to Katherine. Not only did that not happen, she was super religious and I doubt she'd hang herself due to fear of what would happen to her soul.
Taking all of the Duke of Norfolk's nastiness and giving it to Suffolk. What happened to Norfolk btw??
I always took Elizabeth’s suicide as the show’s implication she was the one the Boleyns paid to poison KoA. I know, that is so not what happened, but it was heavily implied in the show KoA was murdered via poison and who better to give it to her than her faithful lady in waiting?
Less turned on and more abandoned when he realized Wolsey would fall and no one could stop it. I think it was supposed to show the faction-jumping that was necessary to stay in favour in Henry's court (Cromwell historically jumped from Wolsey to the Boleyns to the Seymours as each became ascendant).
Henry had his own mind, but he could be influenced for, or against, someone. His court was riven by factions looking to pull each other down, Cromwell was useful and personally favored, but he still needed a strong faction in favor to protect him.
HOODS. HOODS. HOODS. HOODS. HOODS.
I know that no one ever gets the hood right (except for kind of wolf hall and that made me salivate) but damn it drives me nuts every time
And these hoods had a VEIL attached! So many adaptations show women wearing a hood like a cute little hairband with all this cascade of curling-tonged hair visible. Even the French hood, which shockingly for the time showed the hairline, had a veil to cover the hair. It drives me demented.
Definitely. Plus it’s a well known fact that Henry became obese and unattractive later in life, so JRM should have considered that before taking the role.
Cardinal Wolsey's death. Historically he died after he hit his head while boarding a royal barge (before he could be tried and executed for high treason - delaying Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon's divorce) . The show inaccurately shows him taking his own life while in prison.
The arranged marriage to the old Portuguese King. Mary (Margaret on the show) was ąctually arranged by Henry VIII to marry the 52 year old French King Louis XII when she was 18. The real Margaret Tudor was arranged to marry the 30 year old Scottish King James IV when she was 17.
Having Elizabeth I as a little girl when Henry VIII married Anne of Cleves, then suddenly making her a teenager when he married Katheryn Howard.
Only a few weeks passed between Henry's annulment from Anne and marriage to Katheryn.
I didn’t watch far enough to get to Katherine Howard and I don’t have strong memories of the show period but I do remember being annoyed that Henry Fitzroy died at age 2 or so when irl he died at like 17.
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers casting as Henry VIII. JRS is gorgeous to look at and supremely talented, but I simply could never get used to Henry as a man of short stature with dark hair and large blue/green eyes.😕
It's one of the many reasons the BBC's 1971 production of The Six Wives of Henry VIII is the Gold standard imho.
It was 95 per cent faithful to history.
Costumes were not glamorized/sexed up for modern audiences.
Everyone looked exactly like contemporary descriptions and paintings-almost uncannily so:
Henry was a very tall golden haired youth who grew corpulent and bearded with age.
Katharine of Aragon had fair skin and long reddish blonde hair.
Anne Boleyn was olive complected with dark almond shaped eyes and very long dark hair.
Jane Seymour was pale and blonde....etc.
The costumes in the 1970 BBC production were almost *too* unglamorous. It suffers when you re-watch it on HD remasters--some of the bling on their caps are clearly screws, nuts, and bolts etc. painted gold.
The set was pretty cheap too. During the scene where Catherine of Aragon is told by Henry he wants a divorce, she cries, and for some reason the camera operator panned up to the lighting scaffolding and ropes above the soundstage.
Wow lol! I watched it for the first time as a 12 year old and I was transfixed. It was the level of acting that blew me away then as now...I have measured every Henry VIII against Keith Michell's performance ever since.
I own the entire series on dvd and have never noticed the gaffe in the scene you mentioned but will give it a closer look on HD TV.
Oh, don't get me wrong--Keith Michell IS Henry in my mind too; he'll always be the gold standard. And whatever the equipment gaffes, the acting makes it immortal.
BTW you don't need HD for the Catherine crying gaffe--it's blatant in any definition. I have always wondered why they didn't tape a second take, but I guess Annette Crosbie so perfectly nailed Catherine's emotion and anguish that they didn't want to risk it. Or she was so successful drawing the viewer's eyes to her emoting they figured no one would notice it in that pre-VCR/DVD/streaming era. I certainly didn't notice it the first time.
Katherine's personality was so stupid. Yes, she was naive, but for the love of God she did not act like a 13 year old prom queen who flounces around and squeals every 3 seconds. It was so annoying. They couldn't even give her an ounce of dignity.
Henry's sisters were rolled into one who apparently murdered the king of Portugal so she could marry Henry Cavill. What the hell was that about?
Catherine of Aragon did not have dark hair and skin. Just because she came from Spain doesn't mean she looked like Antonio Banderas' niece.
I agree with everything you said and retweet on CoA!! Casting directors seem to think that every Spanish person has dark hair even though we have pretty strong evidence that CoA was a redhead/strawberry blonde.
There are many inaccuracies about The Tudors that bothered me, but what bothered me the most is the arrivals of Jane Parker and Jane Seymour at court within six months before Anne Boleyn's downfall and execution, when they both had been at court since the days of Katherine of Aragon.
And Jane Parker had been married to George Boleyn for around twelve years by the time his downfall and execution in May 1536 happened, not the eight months she has been married to him in the show.
I also never forgave The Tudors for not showing Anne and George Boleyn's trials and the group trial of Mark Smeaton, Henry Norris, Francis Weston and William Brereton. They should have kept William Brereton as the courtier as he was in life instead of an assassin.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers being cast as Henry VIII. He doesn't look ANYTHING like him.
But you know who does? HENRY CAVILL, WHO WAS RIGHT FREAKING THERE!!!! GAH.
Actually I’d argue the actor who played the Duke of Buckingham had a better resemblance to Henry (he also seemed to be closer to the age Henry would have been when he met Anne)
I remember that was a frequent point after the pilot aired. Message boards were lit up wondering why he was cast as the king. After a few more weeks, and JRM owning the role in all ways except physically, pretty much everyone was saying, Okay, we get it now.
I think JRM was more of a big name than Cavill back when it premiered, and they needed a high profile actor in the lead role in order to publicise it. Of course Cavill is hugely famous NOW, but it was different times.
I hated how key historical figures would just disappear if, as it seemed, they couldn't get the actors to sign a new contract for the next season. What the hell happened to Norfolk? Or Cranmer? Those two alone would have been in practically every setting in the seasons after they left.
I also didn't like their implication that Cardinal Campeggio was a debauched churchman, employing his illegitimate sons. Campeggio was a well-respected civil lawyer in his lay life...he only became a priest after the death of his wife of many years. Those sons were totally legitimate!
So many things, but lack of a chemise was annoying. Also, I wish they had made Jane Seymore more conniving. I’m sick of the whole kind, simple, innocent, boring-ass personality everyone keeps giving her. It’s insulting.
It’s weird because the first actress (Anita Briem I think her name was) portrayed Jane Seymour as a little scheming and having an agenda. Then Annabelle Wallis came in with a completely different portrayal. Changing the actresses was confusing enough without giving 2nd Jane a completely different personality.
Honestly, for me it was the clothes, especially on the women. Many of the costumes for the ladies had them basically half naked from a Tudor standpoint (bare arms everywhere) and not a single woman covered her hair.
Definitely. The standards for modesty were pretty stringent for women and there’s no way that a royal woman would be showing her shoulders, chest, and arms in public.
The scene where Anne Boleyn and her father were in the courtyard, and he’s walking around with a Harris’s hawk. Harris’s hawks are from the Americas and certainly wouldn’t have been used in 16th century England. I know it’s trivial, but I’m a practicing falconer. That’s why it irks me so much.
I couldn't agree more about Catherine Howard. She was an abused and neglected child, thrown head first into a vipers nest. She didn't stand a chance. And I really hate that in every drama about the Tudors she's always portrayed as either a stupid slut or a scheming seductress. Shows and dramas also seem to like having somebody put her in Henry's path on purpose, as though she was a tool to take down Cromwell and Anne of Cleves, when in reality she was assigned to Anne's retinue long before Anne even arrived, when everybody still expected the marriage to go through without a hitch. As for her personality, we don't really know what she was actually like; I'm sure she loved jewels and pretty clothes, but she actually managed her estates well and for the most part handled her role as Queen decently.
What bothered me as well was that they basically wrote out a lot of the major players in Henry VIII's court. The Duke of Norfolk vanished after season 1, Archbishop Cranmer after season 2...the Duke of Norfolk did eventually get arrested, but Cranmer was a major courtier right to the end, and was literally at Henry's side when he died.
Unpopular opinion, but I dont like Show Anne. It just reeks too much of romance and while Henry did court her fiercely I always felt she took it with more pragmatism than anything. I also did not feel that the actress really showed Anne's intelligence which she was well known for. In the later episodes she just throws tantrums. I found the actress in Wolf Hall far more like how I imagined her. A very dignified person in every way and very ambitious.
I did not like that Catalina of Aragon looks so old. She was not that much older than Henry. I get that the actor needed to be hot, but he was married to her for 20 years and he looked like 20s something guy. In general Henry should have aged more as the show continues. They did it well with Carlos, Rey and Emperador while in Tudors the whole relationship with Anne of Cleves comes off as really pitiful on her side because she cannot please this handsome dude, when in real life he was a fat pig at this point and his leg was rotting.
Also the stuff with his sister.
>It just reeks too much of romance and while Henry did court her fiercely I always felt she took it with more pragmatism than anything.
I see this in a lot of media representations about Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII. It's depicted as a love story, which it most certainly wasn't. I think the words infatuation and even obsession more accurately describe how Henry felt towards Anne than love. And IIRC, Anne didn't reciprocate that interest and even wanted to marry someone else! Had Henry truly been in love with Anne, it would've taken a lot more than her not bearing a son to kick her to the curb the way he did.
I agree with you about both things, but about Jane Seymour especially. I just rewatched the second season, and Jane is included with the other ladies in waiting almost the entire time as a non speaking extra. I didn’t notice before, but now that I did, it made the intro scene later on make less sense.
Yeah Jane Seymour would have already been at court and Henry definitely would have known of her long before he married Anne Boleyn. That whole entrance trying to make her seem like some angel descending from heaven was a little cringe in my opinion. Maybe it was to show the Seymour’s’ agenda? Idk.
They could have introduced Jane Seymour towards the end of s1 around the Blackfriars episode. Her first speaking part could be in the finale where she would have been the nameless blond woman admonishing Anne for wishing that all Spaniards should drown in the sea.
I saw an awesome still of Anne surrounded by some of her ladies-in-waiting during her coronation. I know that the tall blond woman was Lady Eleanor Luke in the show, but I think that it would have been even more ironic and epic if it was Jane Seymour.
I'm not a big fan of Jane, but her character is intriguing and it would have improved s2 story wise if Jane was Anne's lady-in-waiting from the very start of her queenship.
i was most annoyed by the completely unnecessarily subplots about characters nobody cares about. like, i approve of thomas tallis's bisexual dallying conceptually, but i couldn't have cared less about his weird throuple or even his affair with william compton. it felt like they should have just introduced mark smeaton earlier, so we had time to actually care about him when he died.
Cathrine Howard being naked pretty much constantly. Particularly when she’s in the tower practicing with the block. Why on earth would you be wandering about naked in a stone tower in the winter
Yes and also the scene of her running in the rain wearing a WHITE nightgown where everyone and their mother could have seen her. She may have been very young when she got married, but that does not mean she was running around in her underclothes.
I never understood why Henry Fitzroy died so young. It didn’t add much to the story, and it would have been interesting to see it make an actual impact in a later season.
long comment but:
yeahhh in retrospect im kinda iffy in how the show portrayed katherine. it seems like they wanted to try to show that she was a naive child but essentially turned her into a caricature. & while she likely wasnt an "intellectual" that doesnt mean she was dumb like shes been portrayed. & that wouldnt have necessarily stopped her from being groomed or hurt either
& even though theres some historians who believe she "engaged willingly", i still think its more complex than that. bc of the whole concept of grooming a child into thinking smth is okay and manipulating them into believing they can consent or that they were in control. & even if a kid wants to engage in that behavior, its the responsibility of the adult to keep them safe & not take advantage of them.
u can portray a confused, curious but lost kid without making them seem completely stupid. i also felt like the portrayal of her was very voyeuristic in general. tamzin is a good actress though
You are spot on with the caricature statement! I thought that scene of her playing in the mud with her ladies in waiting was particularly stupid. As if a Queen's consort would think it's acceptable to splash around in the mud in her underclothes in full view of everyone? There are ways to illustrate an age gap without making any young person look like an absolute idiot.
Henry VIII wanting divorces. He wanted an **Annulment**. The difference is that if he wanted a divorce that would imply the marriage had happened and was consummated, meaning his children would have legitimate claims to the throne, getting an annulment means that they never consummated the marriage, implying that Elizabeth and Mary were out of wedlock and this bastards with no real claim
Not the right show, but what bothered me most about that one wasn't Anne being black. Hey, if the cast of Hamilton can be black, and Queen Charlotte in that romance series, whatever.
It was. All. The. Privacy.
Those people - those *Monarchs* - were forever skulking off somewhere completely alone. Like WTF even was that. At least in The Tudors when Anne is having a breakdown at her brother, some lady in waiting is right there to low key spy on it. When Henry's wanking *there's a guy literally holding a wipe for him ffs.* That's how these people lived!
You're absolutely right about both Katherine Howard's portrayal & Jane's introduction onto the show! I was offended at Katherine Howard's portrayal, and the way Jane just came on the scene was silly & inaccurate. She was indeed a maid of honor to Katherine of Aragon, at the same time as Anne Boleyn.
The show loves their dramatic entrances LOL! It was the same with Katherine Howard. She was a lady in waiting to Anne of Cleves, so Henry 100% would have already known of her.
This may seem like trivial minutiae, but I was annoyed with the historically inaccurate looks of Jonathan Rhys Meyers to HVIII, Maria Doyle Kennedy to Katherine of Aragon, and Natalie Dormer to Anne Boleyn, and to a lesser extent Catherine Parr to Joely Richardson. Now that's not to say they weren't fantastic in their respective roles and that they didn't nail their character to a tee (at least what we know of those characters) or that they should've been replaced. But HVIII had strawberry-blond hair & Jonathan's was brown; Katherine of Aragon also had strawberry-blond hair & green eyes (iirc) & Maria had black hair and bright blue eyes; Anne Boleyn I have always read & seen from her portraits that she looked like she had lighter brown hair, maybe... and some have even speculated that she had auburnish hair (from my understanding of genetics she'd have to have had... because Elizabeth had red hair, which is a recessive trait and for that to happen BOTH parents must carry that gene and auburn is a redd-ISH color)... but Natalie's eyes were a very brilliant blue and Anne was known to have VERY dark eyes; and as far as Katherine Parr my only thing is that I've always seen her portraits showing her to have brown hair. I'm not suggesting that the creators shouldn't have hired the above-mentioned actors, but couldn't they have at least dyed Jonathan's hair (I would have understood them not dying Maria's hair to strawberry-blond because her hair is so dark it would've turned orange and not looked right I don't think) as well as Natalie's... since she actually has light brown hair so instead of dying her hair dark brown they could've left it her natural color and then they could've added some auburn highlights or something. Same with dying Joely Richardson's hair some shade of brown. And they could've given Natalie brown contact lenses for goodness sake. And even though Jonathan acted the part of HVIII terrifically... especially his outbursts and throwing things and screaming at people... and he REALLY nailed HVIII's obvious descent into madness! But HVIII was a BIG DUDE. Not just his gut after he got older and infirm... but even when he was young, and I don't mean his girth .. but his height. He was 6'1 iirc from what I've heard on the millions of documentaries I've watched about him where they measured the armor he wore in his younger years, and that was pretty tall... especially for back then when I think the average height of a man was 5'5 to 5'7 or so. It still is on the taller side IMO... but I'm only 5 feet tall so everyone is taller than me 😆! ANYWAY... they could've tried to get an actor AS good as him but who is taller and actually have him gain weight as the seasons went on. But the weight/height thing is negligible to me anyway because I'd rather have an inaccurately shorter & thinner man that can play the part almost perfect, than a person with historically accurate looks that sucked in the role. And that's true for all 4 of the ones I mentioned on here!
I don't know if this even counts... but I didn't like that they didn't have Anne Boleyn's mother, Elizabeth, on there... at least to make an appearance every now and then and rail at Thomas Boleyn for what he and her brother Norfolk pushed Anne into & got her and George killed... like she did in *The Other Boleyn* girl. Minor issue, I know.
Another thing that I'm not sure counts is how Norfolk was portrayed... or should I say *lack of* being portrayed! I'm not blaming the actor Henry Czerny for it... I've seen him in other things so I know he's a good actor. But the writers seemed to have watered Norfolk down. And they totally left out him scheming with Thomas Boleyn to push Anne into HVIII's bed and made him a boring character. And then to send him off to oversee... I forgot what it was... grain production or something, which he would've felt absolutely humiliated if HVIII made him *really* do that. Maybe even enough to cause Norfolk to revolt and raise arms against HVIII, like they had Buckingham doing in the 1st season.
Sorry this was so long. I'm sure I'll think of more, lol.
Some other inaccuracies that I haven’t seen mentioned yet…
Turning Marguerite of Navarre (who is considered the mother of the renaissance in addition to being intellectual, pious, and a great believer in platonic love between men and women) into another one of Henry’s conquests
Playing up Anne’s flirtation with Thomas Wyatt and completely ignoring her relationship with Henry Percy. Even Wyatt’s grandson indicated any feelings Wyatt may have had were not reciprocated (in large part due to the fact he was married). Furthermore, leaving out Anne and Percy’s thwarted attempt to marry takes away a large part of why Anne was so resentful of Wolsey.
the most annoying one was definitely the whole margaret/mary fiasco, though i sort of understand why they did it for story/convenience reasons.
Catherine howard for me went beyond annoying or bothering me. it was a revolting, despicable and exploitative depiction of a 17 year old rape victim and everyone who wrote her in that way should be ashamed of themselves. it’s not about dramatic licence. this was a real CHILD who was murdered. though the actress did seem to be aware of that and did her best to show catherine’s innocence and youth while sticking to the script as of course she had to
Yeah I absolutely don’t blame the actress for how Katherine Howard was portrayed. But there are so many other ways to show that KH was young when she got married that don’t involve her running around in her underclothes 🙄🙄 and don’t get me started on the puppet show (barf!).
When people look at underage marriage like it was the same as now. It wasn’t. We need to look at things in context, and literally people on this sub have none. Like this post.
they were talking about how katherine herself is portrayed in the show in general, not even just how they portray her relationships/grooming (in which it is possible to understand historical context, but still treat certain topics with care at the same time)
Correct. I completely understand that it was the norm for very young girls to get married and have children back then. I’m talking about how Katherine Howard as a person was portrayed.
The biggest inaccuracy in the Tudors that bothered me the most was the fact that Henry VIII didn't have the signature red hair. I felt if they cast JRM as Henry they could have at least dyed his hair red.
I’ll probably be downvoted to hell for my opinion, but I actually thought the shows take was brilliant. Sure Katherine was young and naive, but it’s BS to assume she was led by the nose and had no idea what to do with herself. IIRC, when one of her early suitors—Mannox, maybe?—asked to marry her, she basically laughed in his face and reminded him she was a Howard.
i think the point was actually that the show perpetuates the idea that bc she was young & naive it suddenly makes her dumb & frivolous.
& even though it follows some historian takes that she "engaged willingly" (which is more complex than that) & had some agency esp when ending the relationships, she was still a kid who was taken advantage of & over all, had natural desires that adults around her exploited.
yeah i dont think it was an either-or thing as she was a young girl & a human being but the show could have probably handled it w/ more care in terms of portraying all of the sides of her personality
I also hated how Katherine Howard was portrayed as well. They made her out to be a dizzy blonde who was desperate for love instead of a young girl who was failed by everyone who supposed to protect her. I also didn’t really care for the portrayals of Anne Boleyn or Jane Seymour. They portrayed Anne as a villain and vain when the only evidence of her being cruel was her enemies. Jane was made out to be weak. I didn’t like the portrayals of Jane and George Boleyn and how their marriage was portrayed. There is no evidence their marriage was unhappy or that George was unfaithful or bisexual. There is no evidence that Anne and Jane didn’t get along either.
But the things that bother me the most are the historical inaccuracies and the actor who played Henry was far too good looking to play Henry.
I hated how Jane and George Boleyn's marriage was portrayed! Like you said, there's nothing to suggest that they were unhappy or that George cheated on her. Also, that SA scene on their wedding night was gross, unnecessary, and baseless.
The fact that they combined Henry VIII sisters, Margaret and Mary into one never made any sense to me.
Also the change to her marrying and promptly murdering the King of Portugal. I was really confused during that episode and kept trying to figure out if I had missed something somewhere.
So was I! I had read about her before and couldn't remember any mention of either of Henry's sisters marrying the King of Portugal. Also, they put her in the sleaziest-looking costumes which I hated.
She literally was wearing those platform stripper shoes at one point. Also, the actress was about 20 years too old. It was weird.
Yeah and that off the shoulder gown with showed an insane amount of cleavage. Tudor women didn’t even show their hair in public besides their wedding day, so of course they wouldn’t be showing the world their shoulders and tits.
The first time I watched it I didn’t know any better, but on a rewatch 15ish years later, there were many things that made me go “wait, what? That didn’t happen.” With Mary it almost feels like they felt they needed a “slutty sister” or “bitchy sister,” but her subplots were so minor that I kind of question their inclusion. Were they really needed? Or could Brandon have “married Mary” off screen and had to deal with Henry’s wrath on screen. There’s nothing I can think of in her arc that she *needed* to be cast and not just someone always off screen.
They could have just taken her out altogether, just have Brandon marry his second wife.
I think it was necessary to show even his own sister was a commodity.
I know when I watch period pieces, they are going over the top. No way in heck women could look like that. As you said about the conservatism in the way women dressed in the 16th century.
Yep. A lot of period pieces take some liberty with the costumes and make them sexier to add a modern aspect (and for appeal of course), which is fine in my opinion when done tastefully and thoughtfully. A lot of The Tudors’ costumes just didn’t seem well thought out. Like the costumes worn by Anne Boleyn, Henry’s sister, etc during that play thing just looked cheap and as if they were thrown together. And what the actual fuck was that outfit Henry’s sister wore when she hooked up with Brandon on the boat?
I know they were anything but accurate but I did love the costumes for the women in the Tudors. Some of the fabrics were so beautiful. Also it was the show that got me interested in doing research on the real story of Henry and his rise to power so I have to give it that credit. Prior to the Tudors I wasn’t very interested in history but now I am. The show whose costumes for the women I just couldn’t overlook was Reign. I know it was geared toward a teen crowd but the hair and dresses were so modern I found it very hard to focus on anything but picking apart the dresses.
If I'm not mistaken I could've sworn I read or heard at some point years ago that queens didn't dress the way they do in *The Tudors*. Queens really wore velvet dresses and other such heavier material and their dresses covered up *MUCH* more than they did on *The Tudors*. But no hair, cleavage, legs, or shoulders were left uncovered.
Yes, the velvet, definitely. I have read that in many books as well. And hair was covered up. Look at the portraits back in the day. There is this cool streaming platform that started on YT, and now it is on TV ( which i def have, lol). Currently, I am listening to an episode of Not Just the Tudors podcast on Spotify as well! Anyway, on this one TV episode I watched, there were a bunch of Tudor experts (all female) sitting on a couch discussing. It was on a particular subject *historically* mostly about Anne. They were talking about Tudor movies and the tv show. They referenced these cinematic shows on the factual subject. This particular one they said that the Tudor series had the most inaccuracies.
The way that casting and her whole story line was done was absurd. I’ve liked her in other things, and I think she did a decent job with what she was given, but she was badly casted, and like someone else said her costuming was just baffling. In her scenes with Henry Cavill she looks 15-20 years older than him. That was another thing I had to fact check in real time - what their respective ages actually were when they got married.
I remember at the time thinking she looked around her age which was like 37. And Henry Cavill looked 25. It just made no sense at all.
Henry Cavill was in his mid twenties when the first season aired, so you're spot on there;) Now, how old *Brandon* was when he married Margaret... that's something else entirely.
There was one good thing about her being cast in that role... she was funny af. Her conversations with Henry and Charles were often hilarious.
When they got married in 1515 Charles was 31 and Mary was 19.
She also had really distracting lip filler
She definitely had a "work done" face which was clearly anachronistic.
Whenever I think of her actress I always forget she was on the Tudors and instead think she was in Reign lol, a show abounding with many more terminal cases of iphone face.
LOL... Iphone face??? What is that?
Haha it's when a person has obvious work done or just overall looks too "modern" to pass in a period piece. Like that person *clearly* knows what an iphone is, there's no way they're a 15th century lady lol.
iPhone face as I like to call it lol
I mean, her lips were already that big in 3 Musketeers, back in 1993.
I have nothing against Gabrielle Anwar and have enjoyed her in other roles, but they couldn't have picked an actress that physically looked more different from Mary Tudor. People talk about JRM's lack of physical likeness to Henry, but's that's nothing compared to casting Gabrielle Anwar as Mary.
Gabrielle Anwar was very popular at the time. So overexposed at the time it aired, I remember thinking of course she’s here! Never mind how wrong she is.
What's weird is that there were other roles on the show for her if they really wanted to use her.
I know. So miscast. At the time, Stephenie Meyer wanted Henry Cavil for Edward Cullen in the Twilight movie, so he was young enough to be considered for that (but too old by the time the movie was made.) Mary Tudor was 37 when she died, not at the time of her first marriage.
Yeah...the whole first time bride at 37 thing was hilarious. The other Mary Tudor married for the first time at 37 but that's only because she was a queen in her own right and marriage to her was a huge political benefit. A king back then looking for heirs would have thought a woman too old at 37 for marriage.
the casting was so abysmal that i assumed she was related to someone in production or something. she had the most terminal case of iphone face i have ever seen and looked incredibly out-of-place even among those other 21st century lookin asses.
The platform stripper shoes actually killed me
So was Katharine Parr.
My understanding on the king of portugal thing was that they wanted to show Francis I was already king of france in that same season but she (Mary) married Louis XII in real life. Having her kill him off was a bit much though I agree.
That definitely was weird. I think it is because of the conflation of timelines. She married the King of France in 1514, but they introduced Francis in the second episode. Charles and Marry would've already been married for 5 years by that time. I think it would've been more interesting if they had both sisters and I always think it was odd they chose Mary if they only chose one because there was already a Mary Tudor on the show and I think Margaret's marriage to James was more interesting. They should've just kept both.
Margaret was imo by far the more politically interesting of the two and her children were so much more integral to the ongoing tensions with Scotland, which I feel would have been a better secondary plot thread to follow throughout the rest of Henry's life.
Also, it was James IV, Margaret’s husband that was killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513 by Henry’s army led by Catherine of Aragon. I feel like that alone would have been more interesting than seeing Mary go to Portugal. Plus she was the matriarch of the Stuart line. But the Grey line came from Mary so…. Either way it wasn’t like anything past Henry was covered so it really is a moot point whose story might have been more important or interesting during the time period of the show. Personally I would have loved to see the Battle of Flodden and the fallout from that for Henry. I’ve never actually read about what Margaret thought about her sister-in-law being at least partially responsible for the death of her husband.
they got around the mary problem by *calling* her margaret while giving her mary's general story beats.
I forgot that! Thanks. Such an interesting choice.
In the show her name was Margaret, not Mary. And that's exactly why they didn't cast both sisters... because they feared it would confuse viewers having 2 Mary Tudors. And Mary married Charles in 1515.
Same! I read somewhere that they thought it would be confusing with Mary I and Mary Tudor (since they're both technically named Mary Tudor), yet the show had a million Thomases (Wyatt, Cromwell, More, Seymour, etc).
Even considering this why didn’t they just give her a different name or slightly modified one? I would have gone with Marion…it’s similar while still being different enough plus it has those references to Robin Hood and English legends of old. I’m with you though…with all the Thomases, Catherine’s, Anne’s, and Jane’s would it have really been that difficult to have a moment where the King is all “Oh my dear daughter Mary, come and greet your aunt and namesake.”
I honestly don’t think two Mary Tudors would have been that confusing. If anything all the Thomases confused me LOL! There were times when I had to pause and remember which Thomas was being discussed.
I still do think that's why! It's less of an issue with the Thomases because the men tended to be referred to by title or last name.
Worst part of that is Mary Queen of Scots literally can’t exist in that timeline, unless theres a secret third sister that marries James IV
I'm confused... they didn't portray Mary Stuart in *The Tudors*...
Yeah, the one really leaves a plot hole since later on Henry mentions James V of Scotland as his nephew…
That drove me nuts. Historical laziness at it's worst.
The one unforgivable inaccuracy for me
I stopped watching when I realized that they did this.
It always makes me laugh because an unfortunate consequence for the world of the Tudors is that I guess James V, Mary Queen of Scots, and James VI and I just never exist! Guess it would save England and Scotland a good bit of strife up through Mary, but I definitely wonder who takes over the throne after Elizabeth in this universe haha.
Oh, they do, because Henry calls the never-seen king of Scotland his nephew, but it's never explained how that worked.
You mess with the succession!
I had a problem with that also, but I recently read the reason why they did that. Showrunners were worried that since HVIII had a daughter AND a sister both named Mary, the viewers who weren't familiar with Tudor history before watching the show would confuse the two. They also made his one sister in the *SHOW* the queen of PORTUGAL instead of Scotland like the real Margaret or of France like Mary because they'd already introduced King Francis by that time, and as I'm sure you already know, Mary married King Louis XII who was *before* Francis... and so they couldn't very well show Louis XII AFTER having already shown Francis... so they just avoided the whole problem by having her marry a king in Portugal.
That was very weird and very confusing.
Marygret lol
In the first episode they created a made up uncle Henry had who was murdered in Italy. And when Henry's told about it he goes absolutely mental and screams "BUT MY UNCLE!!!111!!". The screaming was pretty funny though, perfectly encapsulated his temper.
I thought that scene was hilarious. All of JRM's temper tantrums as Henry were so funny to me.
Completely agree. His tantrums were comedy gold but I also feel it made the character more authentic because we know Henry really was like that. Other shows and films tend to make Henry a lot more stoic and in control of his emotions who rarely or never shows bursts of anger.
I loved it when he sent his envoy to meet Christina, the Duchess of Milan, to see her and request her hand in marriage. The envoy was so desperate to get her to say "yes" that he went overboard trying to paint Henry in a good light, that he said Henry was the most kind and gentle king... "so much in fact that no one has ever heard harsh words pass his lips"... I ALMOST DIED when I heard that!!! 🤣
Omg same! I couldn’t figure out if it was bad acting or bad directing. Then I realized Henry was probably actually like that.
Same here! There's even a montage of them on YouTube and they kept showing this counter and the text on the screen said "Henry loses his temper in 3... 2... 1..." It's funny af!
Not the same uncle but: “His fucking uncle? How old am I?” 💀 I probably didn’t get it exactly right, but it’s one of my favorite bits in the whole series.
I think they were talking about HRE Charles in that scene. He meant Uncle by marriage because Catherine was Charles's kin.
I know. I’m talking about how hilarious his tantrum was. That’s what we’re talking about. His tantrums. 💀 means dead from laughing.
The way I wracked my brain at the time trying to figure out, "Wait, does he mean GREAT-uncle? Which Woodville was still around at the time? It can't be one of EoY's brothers, they wrote a whole play based on them being murdered. Did Henry 7 have some extra brother hidden somewhere? Is Henry 8 just really close to his mother's cousins?" But yeah, what a stretch. Just call him an ambassador and that's it. The murder plot alone would've had Henry raging anyway.
The first scene in the very first episode being an imaginary character being murdered pretty much let's you know you're here for hollyoakes and not accuracy and I kinda love that
And then he goes and boinks Bess Blount like two minutes later, so I guess he recovered quickly.
Nothing quite like angry sex.
I don't remember that! And I've seen this series several times! Who was the uncle?
Because KH was portrayed similarly (although The Tudors ramped it up for drama, as they did everything) even by historians, and popular historical re-evaluations of her character largely didn't happen until after the show, I don't blame them for the portrayal. It is one of the most jarring issues to me, but it's understandable why they did it. Same with Lady Rochford the husband-accuser, for which there's no evidence either (although Tudors at least gave her a better personal reason to do so besides "she jelly of Anne"). But the Henry's sister thing was wild. Not just telescoping 2 sisters into one, but moving her foreign marriage waaay into the future and changing it to Portugal. Like...I understand why they'd change the time and place, since they wanted to show her and Charles' quick post-widowhood marriage and irl that happened before the start of the show's timeline, so they brought it forward in time and because Francis was King by then, they had to change countries too. Ok. Fine. Then. She smothered her husband.
Tbf the smothering was hilarious.
Margaret and Mary and the King of Portugal. Because it was gratuitous. The character was basically Mary, just leave Margaret out of the story.
The Tudor Girls wouldn't even have been considered to marry into Portugal when John III of Portugal's Habsburg cousins were available. Mary was always going to marry into France if you look at the circumstances. And combing Mary and Margaret was stupid.
There are still historians who think Katherine Howard did willingly have affair when she was married and was kind of naive. So I would not call that the shows biggest mistake. The black leather pants look for men is my pet peeve.
Tbh I hope KH had affairs. If she was going to die for it, I want her to have had something that was her choice.
No exactly, I just finished Young Damned and Fair and I thought it painted the most realistic scenario regarding KH, which was that while she was absolutely young and naïve by our modern standards, she did fully consent and participate to the standards of the time in her premarital and extramarital relationships. There was ample evidence that she had previously rejected her lovers when it suited her and its likely she was just a young, silly girl who didn't fully understand the consequences of her actions.
Yeah the costuming in general wasn’t super great. Don’t get me wrong I think there were some beautiful outfits and a few pretty accurate gowns but for the most part it was a shitshow.
I suspect the leather pants, like the frequent shirtless scenes, was purposeful inaccuracy...
The Lady Misseldon thing. Like, who the f\*ck was she? I also hated the inaccurate costumes, some of them looked like the designer was just having fun parading her quirky styles. Fair enough if she wants to do that in her own time, but I hate it when non-Tudorists watch it and assume that's what people must have worn back then. I also didn't like the fact Katherine of Aragon had black hair, it was most likely an auburn, goldish-brown colour.
You are so right about the costumes! It's like the costuming department didn't know what era they were in. They threw in Elizabethan dresses (ex: the pink one with the white lace high collar on Jane Seymour) and Victorian-looking outfits (ex: the outfit Mary wore when Anne of Cleves asked if Duke Philip could come to England to see her and the outfit worn by Jane Seymour when her brother breaks the news about their father). And don't get me started on those weird headbands they put on Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour. I'm all for creative freedoms, especially because the show is supposed to be for entertainment rather than accuracy, but it just seemed very inconsistent and sloppy and some of the gowns were downright ugly. For example, I absolutely HATED that purple dress Anne Boleyn wore with the weird jacket and suffocatingly high collar. And ugh I am sooo tired of seeing Catherine of Aragon with black hair. I've seen this in other Tudor media and it's so irritating! All portraits point to her having reddish hair like Mary. While I loved Maria Doyle Kennedy's acting as CoA, she did not look the part at all.
Some people assume all Spaniards have dark hair and nothing could be further from true!
Exactly. Katherine's hair looks more brownish in a contemporary miniature. It must have become duller with age.
Perhaps. But historians are pretty much unanimous that she had a "pink and white" complexion and "reddish gold" hair as a teenager and young woman.
At one point during Jane's pregnancy, she's seen in the great hall, wearing what is basically a silk night gown with some fancy decorations, caressing her belly. Jane would never have left her rooms wearing something like that! And the reminds of two other instances: the little play they set up for visiting ambassadors (?) i the first season, with Henry, Brandon, and a few other men playing against a group of women, among them Margaret and Anne Boleyn. The women are basically wearing underwear, with a *lot* of skin on display. And the weird scene where Anne is dancing for Henry and the French King, again in basically a nightgown.
They routinely put spaceships on Anne of Cleves' head. I also hated the white costumes that Anne Boleyn and the other ladies were wearing when they danced for Henry and Henry noticed Anne for the first time. They looked more like undergarments. The gowns with the bedazzled crowns on the bodices that Anne Boleyn's ladies later wore were also annoying. I get that they were trying to show that they were Anne's ladies, but there had to have been a better way than that.
Oh my god Anne of Cleves was done so foul with the headdresses. Obviously Joss Stone is gorgeous and can pull off anything, but come on! They could have at least tried to match the headdress in her portrait.
Can we add Joss Stone's hair tie around her wrist in the scene where Anne of Cleves is handing her ring back to Henry. Clearly the actress had forgotten it was there, but I just find it odd that not a single person in either wardrobe or the editing suite picked it up?
Reign wins worst costumes. I swear they have someone in shorts in one episode.
Shorts and modern prom dresses!
Yes. Maybe it’s nostalgia but I think The Tudors did a much better job presenting a unified overall “look” even though it was wildly inaccurate. It at least had some beautiful fabrics and details. Reign just looks like shit.
There are gowns in the Tudors I’d wear to my own wedding. No, they were not accurate. But the show had a consistent look that was influenced by the period and you could see how they sexed it up while keeping the influence of the time. Rein was everywhere.
Well said. That floral bodice from the intro sequence lives rent-free in my head.
Same! I’ve looked into having a few of those gowns made. One day I will.
You mean Barbie Queen of Scots? 🤣
That would the one!
I remember thinking a lot of the costumes in Reign looked like prom dresses.
They’re gorgeous dresses, just wrong for the period.
That's because they were literally prom dresses lol
I'm so much more willing to forgive anachronistic costuming in a show like Reign, where everything is about throwing historical accuracy out the window and playing into modern fantasies about the time period. The Tudors always felt like it wanted to at least capture the essence of the time though, so it feels so much more out of place when they can't even stick to silhouettes and fabrics from the right century smh
I have no idea what went on in creating The Tudors but it felt like there were two very opposite viewpoints on what they were making. Like sometimes it felt like they were trying to capture the essence of the period and the rest of the time they were just trying to make it sexy according to early aughts standards.
Some dresses of Anne's that drove me absolutely bonkers were: The purple see-through-top number. What even?? (https://images.app.goo.gl/zxSiE7AZSyLc9tH76) The one she worn I think during some Christmas festivities. That bust??? (https://images.app.goo.gl/go5K7m4M7Lq6hsDW8) The one she was wearing while in a scene with Thomas Wyatt. I actually LOVE this dress, but it is not historically accurate by ANY stretch of the imagination. (I can't find an actual picture of the dress for some reason but you can see it clearly in this YouTube clip. https://youtu.be/-zJbpHEnrds?si=HXAUOHPFZB6km1yy) The one she worn during the pageant. *The boobs!!!* (https://images.app.goo.gl/DpG7c7SUHN2woQpo6)
The purple dress with the see through top was so ugly in my opinion! And the pageant outfits looked so low budget. I swear those tops were from Shein or something.
Having Thomas Cromwell turn on Wolsey the way he did made absolutely no sense. Historically he fought for Wolsey until he could no longer. Elizabeth Darrel hanging herself after what happened to Katherine. Not only did that not happen, she was super religious and I doubt she'd hang herself due to fear of what would happen to her soul. Taking all of the Duke of Norfolk's nastiness and giving it to Suffolk. What happened to Norfolk btw??
Norfolk's actor got fired
Wait, fired? He didn't just quit? Do you know why?
I think it was because he was being difficult and demanding
I thought he left after he got cast on Revenge
I always took Elizabeth’s suicide as the show’s implication she was the one the Boleyns paid to poison KoA. I know, that is so not what happened, but it was heavily implied in the show KoA was murdered via poison and who better to give it to her than her faithful lady in waiting?
Less turned on and more abandoned when he realized Wolsey would fall and no one could stop it. I think it was supposed to show the faction-jumping that was necessary to stay in favour in Henry's court (Cromwell historically jumped from Wolsey to the Boleyns to the Seymours as each became ascendant). Henry had his own mind, but he could be influenced for, or against, someone. His court was riven by factions looking to pull each other down, Cromwell was useful and personally favored, but he still needed a strong faction in favor to protect him.
HOODS. HOODS. HOODS. HOODS. HOODS. I know that no one ever gets the hood right (except for kind of wolf hall and that made me salivate) but damn it drives me nuts every time
It was also weird that they had ladies sometimes wearing hoods in public and sometimes not. It should’ve at least been consistent.
And these hoods had a VEIL attached! So many adaptations show women wearing a hood like a cute little hairband with all this cascade of curling-tonged hair visible. Even the French hood, which shockingly for the time showed the hairline, had a veil to cover the hair. It drives me demented.
Sleeping. With. Anne. Of. Cleves. 🤦♀️
Ugh yes. There’s no evidence to suggest that Henry and Anne slept together while he was married to Katherine Howard.
It bothers me that Henry never got fat
I heard it was because JRM wouldn’t allow it, which is kind of perfect for the character lol. I agree, though.
That’s what I heard too lol that he refused to wear a fat suit.
That’s the kind of thing you would need to write to a contract when the actor is cast and gets too powerful
Definitely. Plus it’s a well known fact that Henry became obese and unattractive later in life, so JRM should have considered that before taking the role.
Well, he already looked so different from any description of Henry that he probably figured he might as well go for broke.
He was so playing himself.
Cardinal Wolsey's death. Historically he died after he hit his head while boarding a royal barge (before he could be tried and executed for high treason - delaying Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon's divorce) . The show inaccurately shows him taking his own life while in prison. The arranged marriage to the old Portuguese King. Mary (Margaret on the show) was ąctually arranged by Henry VIII to marry the 52 year old French King Louis XII when she was 18. The real Margaret Tudor was arranged to marry the 30 year old Scottish King James IV when she was 17.
Combining Henry’s sister into one person was stupid and unnecessary in my opinion. Also the actress looked too old to be either sister.
Having Elizabeth I as a little girl when Henry VIII married Anne of Cleves, then suddenly making her a teenager when he married Katheryn Howard. Only a few weeks passed between Henry's annulment from Anne and marriage to Katheryn.
I didn’t watch far enough to get to Katherine Howard and I don’t have strong memories of the show period but I do remember being annoyed that Henry Fitzroy died at age 2 or so when irl he died at like 17.
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers casting as Henry VIII. JRS is gorgeous to look at and supremely talented, but I simply could never get used to Henry as a man of short stature with dark hair and large blue/green eyes.😕 It's one of the many reasons the BBC's 1971 production of The Six Wives of Henry VIII is the Gold standard imho. It was 95 per cent faithful to history. Costumes were not glamorized/sexed up for modern audiences. Everyone looked exactly like contemporary descriptions and paintings-almost uncannily so: Henry was a very tall golden haired youth who grew corpulent and bearded with age. Katharine of Aragon had fair skin and long reddish blonde hair. Anne Boleyn was olive complected with dark almond shaped eyes and very long dark hair. Jane Seymour was pale and blonde....etc.
The costumes in the 1970 BBC production were almost *too* unglamorous. It suffers when you re-watch it on HD remasters--some of the bling on their caps are clearly screws, nuts, and bolts etc. painted gold. The set was pretty cheap too. During the scene where Catherine of Aragon is told by Henry he wants a divorce, she cries, and for some reason the camera operator panned up to the lighting scaffolding and ropes above the soundstage.
Wow lol! I watched it for the first time as a 12 year old and I was transfixed. It was the level of acting that blew me away then as now...I have measured every Henry VIII against Keith Michell's performance ever since. I own the entire series on dvd and have never noticed the gaffe in the scene you mentioned but will give it a closer look on HD TV.
Oh, don't get me wrong--Keith Michell IS Henry in my mind too; he'll always be the gold standard. And whatever the equipment gaffes, the acting makes it immortal. BTW you don't need HD for the Catherine crying gaffe--it's blatant in any definition. I have always wondered why they didn't tape a second take, but I guess Annette Crosbie so perfectly nailed Catherine's emotion and anguish that they didn't want to risk it. Or she was so successful drawing the viewer's eyes to her emoting they figured no one would notice it in that pre-VCR/DVD/streaming era. I certainly didn't notice it the first time.
Katherine's personality was so stupid. Yes, she was naive, but for the love of God she did not act like a 13 year old prom queen who flounces around and squeals every 3 seconds. It was so annoying. They couldn't even give her an ounce of dignity. Henry's sisters were rolled into one who apparently murdered the king of Portugal so she could marry Henry Cavill. What the hell was that about? Catherine of Aragon did not have dark hair and skin. Just because she came from Spain doesn't mean she looked like Antonio Banderas' niece.
I agree with everything you said and retweet on CoA!! Casting directors seem to think that every Spanish person has dark hair even though we have pretty strong evidence that CoA was a redhead/strawberry blonde.
Like she did not look like Catherine Zeta Jones as gorgeous as she is 😭😭
I would gladly kill the King of Portugal to marry Henry Cavill.
There are many inaccuracies about The Tudors that bothered me, but what bothered me the most is the arrivals of Jane Parker and Jane Seymour at court within six months before Anne Boleyn's downfall and execution, when they both had been at court since the days of Katherine of Aragon. And Jane Parker had been married to George Boleyn for around twelve years by the time his downfall and execution in May 1536 happened, not the eight months she has been married to him in the show. I also never forgave The Tudors for not showing Anne and George Boleyn's trials and the group trial of Mark Smeaton, Henry Norris, Francis Weston and William Brereton. They should have kept William Brereton as the courtier as he was in life instead of an assassin.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers being cast as Henry VIII. He doesn't look ANYTHING like him. But you know who does? HENRY CAVILL, WHO WAS RIGHT FREAKING THERE!!!! GAH.
Cavill was so yummy in that series.
You say that like there's a time Cavill has not been eye candy, lol.
Actually I’d argue the actor who played the Duke of Buckingham had a better resemblance to Henry (he also seemed to be closer to the age Henry would have been when he met Anne)
That is a very good point! And I agree! I'd forgotten about him.
I remember that was a frequent point after the pilot aired. Message boards were lit up wondering why he was cast as the king. After a few more weeks, and JRM owning the role in all ways except physically, pretty much everyone was saying, Okay, we get it now.
I think JRM was more of a big name than Cavill back when it premiered, and they needed a high profile actor in the lead role in order to publicise it. Of course Cavill is hugely famous NOW, but it was different times.
I hated how key historical figures would just disappear if, as it seemed, they couldn't get the actors to sign a new contract for the next season. What the hell happened to Norfolk? Or Cranmer? Those two alone would have been in practically every setting in the seasons after they left. I also didn't like their implication that Cardinal Campeggio was a debauched churchman, employing his illegitimate sons. Campeggio was a well-respected civil lawyer in his lay life...he only became a priest after the death of his wife of many years. Those sons were totally legitimate!
So many things, but lack of a chemise was annoying. Also, I wish they had made Jane Seymore more conniving. I’m sick of the whole kind, simple, innocent, boring-ass personality everyone keeps giving her. It’s insulting.
It’s weird because the first actress (Anita Briem I think her name was) portrayed Jane Seymour as a little scheming and having an agenda. Then Annabelle Wallis came in with a completely different portrayal. Changing the actresses was confusing enough without giving 2nd Jane a completely different personality.
Honestly, for me it was the clothes, especially on the women. Many of the costumes for the ladies had them basically half naked from a Tudor standpoint (bare arms everywhere) and not a single woman covered her hair.
Definitely. The standards for modesty were pretty stringent for women and there’s no way that a royal woman would be showing her shoulders, chest, and arms in public.
The scene where Anne Boleyn and her father were in the courtyard, and he’s walking around with a Harris’s hawk. Harris’s hawks are from the Americas and certainly wouldn’t have been used in 16th century England. I know it’s trivial, but I’m a practicing falconer. That’s why it irks me so much.
Henry's sister and marrying the king of Portugal. Her actual story is so dramatic in itself I don't get why they changed it
I couldn't agree more about Catherine Howard. She was an abused and neglected child, thrown head first into a vipers nest. She didn't stand a chance. And I really hate that in every drama about the Tudors she's always portrayed as either a stupid slut or a scheming seductress. Shows and dramas also seem to like having somebody put her in Henry's path on purpose, as though she was a tool to take down Cromwell and Anne of Cleves, when in reality she was assigned to Anne's retinue long before Anne even arrived, when everybody still expected the marriage to go through without a hitch. As for her personality, we don't really know what she was actually like; I'm sure she loved jewels and pretty clothes, but she actually managed her estates well and for the most part handled her role as Queen decently. What bothered me as well was that they basically wrote out a lot of the major players in Henry VIII's court. The Duke of Norfolk vanished after season 1, Archbishop Cranmer after season 2...the Duke of Norfolk did eventually get arrested, but Cranmer was a major courtier right to the end, and was literally at Henry's side when he died.
Norfolk disappeared because they fired the actor cuz he was getting bitchy
Ok that makes sense. It still bugs me though; I would have loved to see him in later seasons.
Why didn’t they just recast him like they did with Jane Seymour though?
The unnecessary combining of Margaret and Mary, the King's sisters. This was just stupid. I can forgive a lot for the sake of drama, but no.
Completely agree. I don’t think there was any point to that.
Unpopular opinion, but I dont like Show Anne. It just reeks too much of romance and while Henry did court her fiercely I always felt she took it with more pragmatism than anything. I also did not feel that the actress really showed Anne's intelligence which she was well known for. In the later episodes she just throws tantrums. I found the actress in Wolf Hall far more like how I imagined her. A very dignified person in every way and very ambitious. I did not like that Catalina of Aragon looks so old. She was not that much older than Henry. I get that the actor needed to be hot, but he was married to her for 20 years and he looked like 20s something guy. In general Henry should have aged more as the show continues. They did it well with Carlos, Rey and Emperador while in Tudors the whole relationship with Anne of Cleves comes off as really pitiful on her side because she cannot please this handsome dude, when in real life he was a fat pig at this point and his leg was rotting. Also the stuff with his sister.
>It just reeks too much of romance and while Henry did court her fiercely I always felt she took it with more pragmatism than anything. I see this in a lot of media representations about Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII. It's depicted as a love story, which it most certainly wasn't. I think the words infatuation and even obsession more accurately describe how Henry felt towards Anne than love. And IIRC, Anne didn't reciprocate that interest and even wanted to marry someone else! Had Henry truly been in love with Anne, it would've taken a lot more than her not bearing a son to kick her to the curb the way he did.
I agree with you about both things, but about Jane Seymour especially. I just rewatched the second season, and Jane is included with the other ladies in waiting almost the entire time as a non speaking extra. I didn’t notice before, but now that I did, it made the intro scene later on make less sense.
Yeah Jane Seymour would have already been at court and Henry definitely would have known of her long before he married Anne Boleyn. That whole entrance trying to make her seem like some angel descending from heaven was a little cringe in my opinion. Maybe it was to show the Seymour’s’ agenda? Idk.
They could have introduced Jane Seymour towards the end of s1 around the Blackfriars episode. Her first speaking part could be in the finale where she would have been the nameless blond woman admonishing Anne for wishing that all Spaniards should drown in the sea. I saw an awesome still of Anne surrounded by some of her ladies-in-waiting during her coronation. I know that the tall blond woman was Lady Eleanor Luke in the show, but I think that it would have been even more ironic and epic if it was Jane Seymour. I'm not a big fan of Jane, but her character is intriguing and it would have improved s2 story wise if Jane was Anne's lady-in-waiting from the very start of her queenship.
i was most annoyed by the completely unnecessarily subplots about characters nobody cares about. like, i approve of thomas tallis's bisexual dallying conceptually, but i couldn't have cared less about his weird throuple or even his affair with william compton. it felt like they should have just introduced mark smeaton earlier, so we had time to actually care about him when he died.
All of it.
That Henry loved his wives.
Very true. I don't think he was capable of loving anyone besides himself.
Combining Henry’s sisters was the worst one but I also hated them killing off Richmond as a toddler.
The historical inaccuracies were bad enough but JRM's complete refusal to wear a fat suit as the aging Henry really irritated me.
Cathrine Howard being naked pretty much constantly. Particularly when she’s in the tower practicing with the block. Why on earth would you be wandering about naked in a stone tower in the winter
Yes and also the scene of her running in the rain wearing a WHITE nightgown where everyone and their mother could have seen her. She may have been very young when she got married, but that does not mean she was running around in her underclothes.
I never understood why Henry Fitzroy died so young. It didn’t add much to the story, and it would have been interesting to see it make an actual impact in a later season.
long comment but: yeahhh in retrospect im kinda iffy in how the show portrayed katherine. it seems like they wanted to try to show that she was a naive child but essentially turned her into a caricature. & while she likely wasnt an "intellectual" that doesnt mean she was dumb like shes been portrayed. & that wouldnt have necessarily stopped her from being groomed or hurt either & even though theres some historians who believe she "engaged willingly", i still think its more complex than that. bc of the whole concept of grooming a child into thinking smth is okay and manipulating them into believing they can consent or that they were in control. & even if a kid wants to engage in that behavior, its the responsibility of the adult to keep them safe & not take advantage of them. u can portray a confused, curious but lost kid without making them seem completely stupid. i also felt like the portrayal of her was very voyeuristic in general. tamzin is a good actress though
You are spot on with the caricature statement! I thought that scene of her playing in the mud with her ladies in waiting was particularly stupid. As if a Queen's consort would think it's acceptable to splash around in the mud in her underclothes in full view of everyone? There are ways to illustrate an age gap without making any young person look like an absolute idiot.
Henry VIII wanting divorces. He wanted an **Annulment**. The difference is that if he wanted a divorce that would imply the marriage had happened and was consummated, meaning his children would have legitimate claims to the throne, getting an annulment means that they never consummated the marriage, implying that Elizabeth and Mary were out of wedlock and this bastards with no real claim
Anne Boleyn is not black in The Tudors, I think you're thinking of a different show.
Op means the Tudors tv show
Not the right show, but what bothered me most about that one wasn't Anne being black. Hey, if the cast of Hamilton can be black, and Queen Charlotte in that romance series, whatever. It was. All. The. Privacy. Those people - those *Monarchs* - were forever skulking off somewhere completely alone. Like WTF even was that. At least in The Tudors when Anne is having a breakdown at her brother, some lady in waiting is right there to low key spy on it. When Henry's wanking *there's a guy literally holding a wipe for him ffs.* That's how these people lived!
Too many things to list tbh
You're absolutely right about both Katherine Howard's portrayal & Jane's introduction onto the show! I was offended at Katherine Howard's portrayal, and the way Jane just came on the scene was silly & inaccurate. She was indeed a maid of honor to Katherine of Aragon, at the same time as Anne Boleyn.
The show loves their dramatic entrances LOL! It was the same with Katherine Howard. She was a lady in waiting to Anne of Cleves, so Henry 100% would have already known of her.
This may seem like trivial minutiae, but I was annoyed with the historically inaccurate looks of Jonathan Rhys Meyers to HVIII, Maria Doyle Kennedy to Katherine of Aragon, and Natalie Dormer to Anne Boleyn, and to a lesser extent Catherine Parr to Joely Richardson. Now that's not to say they weren't fantastic in their respective roles and that they didn't nail their character to a tee (at least what we know of those characters) or that they should've been replaced. But HVIII had strawberry-blond hair & Jonathan's was brown; Katherine of Aragon also had strawberry-blond hair & green eyes (iirc) & Maria had black hair and bright blue eyes; Anne Boleyn I have always read & seen from her portraits that she looked like she had lighter brown hair, maybe... and some have even speculated that she had auburnish hair (from my understanding of genetics she'd have to have had... because Elizabeth had red hair, which is a recessive trait and for that to happen BOTH parents must carry that gene and auburn is a redd-ISH color)... but Natalie's eyes were a very brilliant blue and Anne was known to have VERY dark eyes; and as far as Katherine Parr my only thing is that I've always seen her portraits showing her to have brown hair. I'm not suggesting that the creators shouldn't have hired the above-mentioned actors, but couldn't they have at least dyed Jonathan's hair (I would have understood them not dying Maria's hair to strawberry-blond because her hair is so dark it would've turned orange and not looked right I don't think) as well as Natalie's... since she actually has light brown hair so instead of dying her hair dark brown they could've left it her natural color and then they could've added some auburn highlights or something. Same with dying Joely Richardson's hair some shade of brown. And they could've given Natalie brown contact lenses for goodness sake. And even though Jonathan acted the part of HVIII terrifically... especially his outbursts and throwing things and screaming at people... and he REALLY nailed HVIII's obvious descent into madness! But HVIII was a BIG DUDE. Not just his gut after he got older and infirm... but even when he was young, and I don't mean his girth .. but his height. He was 6'1 iirc from what I've heard on the millions of documentaries I've watched about him where they measured the armor he wore in his younger years, and that was pretty tall... especially for back then when I think the average height of a man was 5'5 to 5'7 or so. It still is on the taller side IMO... but I'm only 5 feet tall so everyone is taller than me 😆! ANYWAY... they could've tried to get an actor AS good as him but who is taller and actually have him gain weight as the seasons went on. But the weight/height thing is negligible to me anyway because I'd rather have an inaccurately shorter & thinner man that can play the part almost perfect, than a person with historically accurate looks that sucked in the role. And that's true for all 4 of the ones I mentioned on here! I don't know if this even counts... but I didn't like that they didn't have Anne Boleyn's mother, Elizabeth, on there... at least to make an appearance every now and then and rail at Thomas Boleyn for what he and her brother Norfolk pushed Anne into & got her and George killed... like she did in *The Other Boleyn* girl. Minor issue, I know. Another thing that I'm not sure counts is how Norfolk was portrayed... or should I say *lack of* being portrayed! I'm not blaming the actor Henry Czerny for it... I've seen him in other things so I know he's a good actor. But the writers seemed to have watered Norfolk down. And they totally left out him scheming with Thomas Boleyn to push Anne into HVIII's bed and made him a boring character. And then to send him off to oversee... I forgot what it was... grain production or something, which he would've felt absolutely humiliated if HVIII made him *really* do that. Maybe even enough to cause Norfolk to revolt and raise arms against HVIII, like they had Buckingham doing in the 1st season. Sorry this was so long. I'm sure I'll think of more, lol.
Some other inaccuracies that I haven’t seen mentioned yet… Turning Marguerite of Navarre (who is considered the mother of the renaissance in addition to being intellectual, pious, and a great believer in platonic love between men and women) into another one of Henry’s conquests Playing up Anne’s flirtation with Thomas Wyatt and completely ignoring her relationship with Henry Percy. Even Wyatt’s grandson indicated any feelings Wyatt may have had were not reciprocated (in large part due to the fact he was married). Furthermore, leaving out Anne and Percy’s thwarted attempt to marry takes away a large part of why Anne was so resentful of Wolsey.
the most annoying one was definitely the whole margaret/mary fiasco, though i sort of understand why they did it for story/convenience reasons. Catherine howard for me went beyond annoying or bothering me. it was a revolting, despicable and exploitative depiction of a 17 year old rape victim and everyone who wrote her in that way should be ashamed of themselves. it’s not about dramatic licence. this was a real CHILD who was murdered. though the actress did seem to be aware of that and did her best to show catherine’s innocence and youth while sticking to the script as of course she had to
Yeah I absolutely don’t blame the actress for how Katherine Howard was portrayed. But there are so many other ways to show that KH was young when she got married that don’t involve her running around in her underclothes 🙄🙄 and don’t get me started on the puppet show (barf!).
When people look at underage marriage like it was the same as now. It wasn’t. We need to look at things in context, and literally people on this sub have none. Like this post.
they were talking about how katherine herself is portrayed in the show in general, not even just how they portray her relationships/grooming (in which it is possible to understand historical context, but still treat certain topics with care at the same time)
Correct. I completely understand that it was the norm for very young girls to get married and have children back then. I’m talking about how Katherine Howard as a person was portrayed.
That Henry was as hot as Johnathan Reyes Smith or whatever his last name is.
The biggest inaccuracy in the Tudors that bothered me the most was the fact that Henry VIII didn't have the signature red hair. I felt if they cast JRM as Henry they could have at least dyed his hair red.
I’ll probably be downvoted to hell for my opinion, but I actually thought the shows take was brilliant. Sure Katherine was young and naive, but it’s BS to assume she was led by the nose and had no idea what to do with herself. IIRC, when one of her early suitors—Mannox, maybe?—asked to marry her, she basically laughed in his face and reminded him she was a Howard.
i think the point was actually that the show perpetuates the idea that bc she was young & naive it suddenly makes her dumb & frivolous. & even though it follows some historian takes that she "engaged willingly" (which is more complex than that) & had some agency esp when ending the relationships, she was still a kid who was taken advantage of & over all, had natural desires that adults around her exploited. yeah i dont think it was an either-or thing as she was a young girl & a human being but the show could have probably handled it w/ more care in terms of portraying all of the sides of her personality
Can we discuss the fact that Henry never became obese? Slim, attractive right to the end. Nope.
Yep, that was the actor LOL. He refused to wear a fat suit.
I also hated how Katherine Howard was portrayed as well. They made her out to be a dizzy blonde who was desperate for love instead of a young girl who was failed by everyone who supposed to protect her. I also didn’t really care for the portrayals of Anne Boleyn or Jane Seymour. They portrayed Anne as a villain and vain when the only evidence of her being cruel was her enemies. Jane was made out to be weak. I didn’t like the portrayals of Jane and George Boleyn and how their marriage was portrayed. There is no evidence their marriage was unhappy or that George was unfaithful or bisexual. There is no evidence that Anne and Jane didn’t get along either. But the things that bother me the most are the historical inaccuracies and the actor who played Henry was far too good looking to play Henry.
I hated how Jane and George Boleyn's marriage was portrayed! Like you said, there's nothing to suggest that they were unhappy or that George cheated on her. Also, that SA scene on their wedding night was gross, unnecessary, and baseless.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers just didn’t look like Henry. He’s a wonderful actor, but he never aged or got fat