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Thu 7 Jun, 2007 12:14 pm
A post Setanta wrote on another thread, the "Pirate #3" one, prompted me to start this one. I hope he stops in here.
Is anyone watching the Showtime series The Tudors?
While not as good as HBO's Rome, it's still interesting enough. Most of the enjoyment comes for me in picking up history and being entertained at the same time.
Anyway, in one episode, Henry VIII sends his sister Margaret off to Portugal to marry the king. She's really unwilling, and made a deal saying she would go through with it only if she could marry the man of her choice once he dies.
When she gets there, she sees he's even worse than she imagined. Old, decrepit, stinky and foul. The consummation of their marriage takes place with the entire court standing outside their bedroom curtains. The grunts and other ghastly sounds were wonderfully horrible. When the deed is done, the curtain is drawn back to reveal the old fart clutching his chest, and Margaret with the sheets pulled up to her neck, shell shocked.
Margaret is in love with Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, who accompanied her to Portugal, standing in for Henry at the wedding. On the day he has to take the ship back he says to her something like
"I'm a young man, I might be dead tomorrow. This old man might linger on for years and years" That's a great line.
So
.at the end of the episode, Margaret goes into the kings chambers while he sleeps, and put a pillow over his face.
The end.
Problem is
.NONE of this actually happened!
This particular sister wasn't even NAMED Margaret, her name was Mary, but the script writers thought people would confuse her with Henry's young daughter Mary. She didn't go off and marry the king of Portugal, she first married Louis XII, who died 3 months after their marriage (she then did marry Charles Brandon).
All this happens in the show at the time Anne Bolyn comes to court, when in real life, Margaret was already married to Charles by that time.
Now, I can see some poetic license for entertainment value, but this is ridiculous. If I hadn't bothered to look this stuff up, I would have taken it for truth what was portrayed on the show. I could see school kids, intelligent ones, believing that the shows portrayal is the way it happened.
Do you think a show based on historical events should stray so far from the truth?
Actually, Henry VIII did have a sister named Margaret. He had a daughter named Mary.
Edward III started the Hundred Years War with France in about 1336. His sone, Edward, Prince of Wales, the Black Prince, died before his father. So, his son, Richard II became king of England at age ten. His was not a happy government, and during his minority, England was governed by a regent, John of Gaunt, son of Edward III, and Richard's uncle. John of Gaunt was to be very important in the history of England in the 14th and 15th centuries. John of Gaunt had a legitimate son (he father many bastards, which was to prove important, as well), Henry, born the same year as Richard. That son, Henry Bolingbroke, although raised with Richard II, was not to found of him, and in 1399, when they both were in their early 30s, Bolingbroke deposed Richard, and made himself King Henry IV. People weren't terribly upset. Richard II had not been popular with the nobility, but they feared the power of those who surrounded the throne, and resented the favors done them by the King. The common people saw him as a good man, and an effective governor, especially as he did not impose heavy taxation for the war in France, which he allowed to languish. But they did resent the brutal crushing of the popular uprising known as Wat Tyler's rebellion--Tyler wasn't really the brains behind the rebellion, which was in fact fomented by John Ball, but he was "the man on horseback," and he fatally agreed to meet the teen-aged King (the rebellion was in 1381), when he was betrayed and killed. But the people tended to blame John of Gaunt, whom everyone feared and many people hated.
So, when Henry Bolingbroke usurped the throne from Richard in 1399, there was little opposition. Bolingbroke was ruthless, and no one intended to challenge him. Richard died the following year, so there was no focus for a challenge to Henry. But Henry continued to ignore the war in France, so the common people really hadn't much against him. He died in 1413, and was succeeded by his son, who became Henry V.
Henry V restarted the war with a vengeance, and taking terrible risks, nevertheless succeeded in defeating the French, whose King, Charles VI, le bien aimé (Charles the Beloved) was, although popular, mad as a hatter. His father had successfully dealt with the English, but he couldn't, and the French nobility were fighting among themselves for the throne, precisely because the King was mad. John sans peur (John the Fearless), Duke of Burgundy, conspired to murder his cousin, the King's brother, Louis of Orléans. Louis' son, Charles of Orléans was captured at the great victory of Henry V over the French at Agincourt in 1415. Charles had only been 13 at the time of his father's murder, and he was only 21 when he was captured at Agincourt, so he had not yet succeeded in mobilizing against the Duke of Burgundy. He was to spend 25 years as a prisoner in England before he was finally ransomed by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy and son of John the Fearless. By then, there was no longer a resistance to the Burgundians in France, and the Burgundians had begun to ally themselves with the English, because Philip thought he'd just make himself a bigger, better kingdom than France.
That didn't happen, and Philip drops out of the picture as far as the English were concerned (he usually didn't fight with the English, he just stood aside as a weak France was pushed around and beaten up), except for his capture of Joan of Arc, whom he turned over to the English.
Henry V, long before that, as i've said, defeated the French at Agincourt, in 1415. The French nobility suffered very badly in that battle, with many of them slaughtered in the battle, or taken prisoner and held for ransom (as was Charles, Duke or Orléans). The French were no longer able to defend themselves against the English, who roamed deeply into the valley of the Loire River, which had been the property of the Duke of Orléans, now a prisoner. France was cut in half. The English could not deal with John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, who remained powerful, and militarily strong, and who was snapping up property right and left. He died in 1419, and was succeeded by his son Philip, who stood aside as Henry V imposed terms on the long-lived and hopelessly mad King Charles VI. The excuse for Edward III to start the Hundred Years War was that his mother, Isabella (whom the English hated and called the "Shewolf of France") was the daughter of the King Philip VI of France, and that he had a better claim to the French throne than the Valois who eventually became the royal family of France after Philip died--the French refused to have a Queen regnant, and refused to recognize descent through the female line.
It looked as though the English had won the war. Henry V forced King Charles to recognize him as King of France, and to marry Catherine, Charles' daughter, to Henry. That was in 1420. Catherine promptly produced a son, Henry, and Henry V as promptly died--when his son was only nine months old. They put Cathrine in a nunnery, a circumstance which a bold, intelligent and energetic woman refused to accept. She bolted from the convent and married a Welshman, Owen Tudor. They produced a son, Edmund Tudor (some people believed that he was born before they were legally married, or a least conceived before the wedding, and so many considered him a bastard). Edmund married Margaret de Beaufort. Her father was the grandson of John of Gaunt through his bastard father (i told you John of Gaunt's bastards would prove important--i won't even try to list all of them and how they fit into the story).
Edmund and Margaret produced a son, Henry. Because the Tudors (Jasper and Edmund) were the children of Catherine Valois, they were half brothers to the King, Henry VI. Because Henry was an infant when his father died, he was King of England for a long time. He was said to be a pious man, which was probably a nice way of saying he'd rather go to church than be King of England. Remember Edward III, who started the Hundred Years War, and who produced so many children? Well one of his sons was John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and the another was Edmund Langley, who became the Duke of York when his nephew, Richard, was king.
This was to lead to problems. Henry VI was not much of a King, but his wife was happy to rule England through him, which wasn't very popular with the powerful lords of England. The son of Edmund Langley, Richard Duke of York, challenged the authority of King Henry VI, but he moved too early--however, he was forgiven (sort of). But he wasn't satisfied. Although John Fastolf and John Talbot had won some notable victories over the French, the lack of strong leadership from the top (remember, Henry VI didn't really like being King) left the English unable to mount the kind of military effort which might have really made Henry VI the King of France. Although Charles VII, the son of the mad King Charles VI of France, had been declared a bastard, he was still known as the Dauphin (he had not been formally crowned), and many of the French had come to hate the English enough to keep fighting, and it was at this time that Joan of Arc appeared. Thanks to her, and Dunois, the bastard son of Louis of Orléans, and the bastard half-brother of Charles, the Duke who was still a prisoner in England, the English were defeated on all fronts. Their poor performance probably accounts for the decision of Philip of Burgundy to once again stand aside. Although he turned Joan of Arc over to the English, who trumped up a trial and executed her, the tide was running against the English, and the war which had looked like it had been won ten years earlier, was now being rapidly lost. In 1453, the English were finally forced to give up the struggle, and Charles, who had been crowned King Charles VII thanks to Dunois and Joan of Arc, now truly became the King of France.
Richard, Duke of York, took up arms against Henry VI again, and the Wars of the Roses (Lancaster represented by a red rose, and York by a white rose) broke out. These were not known of the wars of the roses at that time, historians have imposed that title on them. Richard, Duke of York, was killed in 1460, and his son Edward took up the gage, and while Henry VI (actually, his wife, Margaret of Anjou) were fighting rebels in the north, Edward captured London in 1461, and made himself King Edward IV. He had been supported by Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, who became known as the King Maker because it was said that he put Edward on the throne. Edward married Elizabeth Woodville, who had lots of poor relations, to whom Edward gave jobs (but not land, which meant they remained poor), and Warwick resented this. So he pouted, and made a deal with Margaret to lead an army against Edward, and was able to defeat Edward's army in 1469 while the King was elsewhere, and to put Henry VI back on the throne. But the nobles who owed their titles and land to Edward didn't like this, and when rebellion broke out in 1470, he was forced to release Edward, and put him back on the throne. Reluctantly, Warwick allied himself to Edward, the Queen was defeated and Henry VI was made prisoner and put in the Tower of London, where he was murdered.
Edward IV was now the undisputed King of England. When he died in 1483, he was succeeded, supposedly, by his son Edward V. But Edward's two eldest brothers were already dead, and his youngest brother, Richard, suborned a bishop, and Edward V was declared a bastard, with the claim that his father was already married when he married Elizabeth Woodville. Edward V and his brother, the Duke of York, were imprisoned in the tower of London, and were never seen again. In 1674, the Tower of London was being renovated, and a box was found under a set of stairs. Although originally throne on a rubbish heap, a few days later someone pointed out that these were probably the remains of Edward V and the Duke of York. King Charles II had the remains buried in Westminster Abbey.
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Now surely, by now, you are asking just what the hell any of this has to do with Henry VIII and Margaret Tudor.
Remember Edmund Tudor, who married the great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt? His son, Henry Tudor, was now the Earl of Richmond, and was very anxious to put his oar in in the Wars of the Roses, which everyone in England probably thought were over. So Henry Tudor raised a small army, and landed in Wales, where he hoped to round up some recruits and challenge the King, Richard III for the throne. Richard was not the monster which Shakespeare has portrayed, and he was an effective leader and a courageous soldier. He marched west, and met Henry Tudor as Bosworth. As these things tended to go, he could not rely on his followers. Most of his army were troops under the command of the Earl of Northumberland, because Richard had rounded up his army in a hurry, and most of the nobility weren't anxious to support him (by now, more than half the families of the peerage in England had been extinguished in the direct male line thanks to the Hundred Years War and the Wars of the Roses, and those who were left were not taking any chances). Richard, being courageous and a genuine leader of men, charged Henry's army, sure that the Earl of Northumberland would fall in behind him with the rest of the army. But the Earl decided to sit on a hill and see how things went. At the same time, the King's reserve, under the Earl of Stanley, also did nothing, because the Earl of Stanley decided to wait and see. Stanley's brother, Sir William Stanley, couldn't stand to wait, so he joined the battle--on the side of Henry Tudor.
Richard fought bravely, but his horse was killed ("A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" in Shakespeare's words), and so, eventually was he.
Now Edward Tudor was King of England, as Henry VII. He promptly married Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, to join the two houses of Lancaster (his house) and York (his new wife's house), in order to end the constant strife for the throne. It mostly worked (there was a landing in 1487 by a pretender with some German mercenaries, but Henry scooped them up rather quickly). With the nobility so badly bled down, and everyone tired of war, Henry moved quickly to consolidate his power, by-passing the nobility (whose titles he confirmed to keep them quiet) and appealing to Parliament, who were happy to gain some power at the expense of the King. He also decided to obviate any threat from Scotland by marrying his daughter Margaret to King James IV of Scotland, in 1502.
So, Henry VIII did have a sister named Margaret, but she married James IV of Scotland. That was to have far reaching effects. Henry VII's oldest son, Arthur, died before his father, which meant that his younger brother Henry was now the heir apparent. When nobody thought Henry was going to be King, they sent him off to be educated in the Church, so a vigorous and intelligent man (and a mean, stubborn bastard) became King Henry VIII when Henry VII died in 1509. Henry VIII went to war with France, and even though James IV was now supposedly an ally of England because of his marriage, the ancient alliance with France meant more to him, so he invaded England. He was killed at Flodden in 1513, and was succeeded by his son, James V, who was still an infant, born in 1512. Margaret then married the Earl of Angus, although she eventually divorced him. Margaret Tudor didn't like the politics in Scotland which had lead to the invasion of England, so she ran off (Queens of Scotland did a lot of running off), and was lodged in style in Scotland Yard, where there used to be a palace for the Kings of Scotland whenever they visited England. She was eventually returned to Scotland, where she showed the energy and intelligence of her father, Henry VII, and her brother, Henry VIII, and managed to preserve the throne for her son, James V. She married him off to Mary of Guise, a Frenchwoman. She had in the meantime, after getting her divorce, married Henry Stewart, which would lead to even more interesting complications with marriage. Margaret and James IV had produced two sons who died in infancy, and a daughter, Mary, who was born just a week before her father died. She (Mary) eventually married Lord Darnley, Henry Stuart (yes, they were cousins--there were a lot of Stuarts and Stewarts running around Scotland in those days--and as a matter of fact, he was the grandson of Margaret Tudor), and they produced James VI of Scotland.
Leaving aside another tedious recitation, the Scots weren't very nice to Mary, Queen of Scots, and she had to get out of Dodge. In 1568, she fled to England, where Elizabeth was now Queen (when Henry VIII died, he was succeeded by his son Edward VI, who died young, and was succeeded by his sister Mary, Bloody Mary, who died five years later, and was succeeded by Elizabeth). Mary, Queen of Scots was a big problem for Elizabeth, who had been backing her opposition, and who wasn't happy about the idea that Mary, a Catholic, would succeed her on the throne when she died. (Elizabeth never married and had no children, which meant that Mary, Queen of Scots, granddaughter of Elizabeth's aunt, Margaret Tudor, was next in line). After being imprisoned for 19 years, in 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was tried on trumped up charges of treason, and was executed.
When Elizabeth died in 1603, she was succeeded by King James VI of Scotland, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots. Although almost certainly a homosexual, James took his marital duties seriously, and produced seven children by his wife, Anne of Denmark. Two were important. His first son Henry just after attaining his majority, so James' son Charles became King Charles I. James also had a daughter, Elizabeth. She married the Elector Palatine, who was elected King of Bohemia, and so she is known as Elizabeth of Bohemia. She had a daughter, Sophie, who married the Elector of Hanover. Her son, George, Elector of Hanover, became King George I of England.
Margaret begat James, who married Mary of Guise, who begat Mary, Queen of Scots, who begat James, who became King James I of England. James begat Charles, who begat Charles and James. Charles II died without legitimate issue (who had more bastards than rooms in his palace), so his brother James became James II. James had already begotten Mary, who married William of Orange, who mother was her Aunt, Mary Stuart (another one of the begats of Charles I). William and Mary invaded England in 1688 and drove James from his throne. When they died without children, Mary's sister Anne became Queen of England (she was another begat of James II). She did not produce an heir, and therefore, Sophie of Hanover, the descendant of Margaret Tudor (Margaret begat, etc.) was to succeed her. Sophie died in 1714, just before Anne, and therefore, her son George, Elector of Hanover became King George I. The present Queen Elizabeth is directly descended from George I (via his greatgranddaughter, Victoria), and therefore, from Margaret Tudor.
So Henry VIII did have a sister named Margaret Tudor. She never married the King of Portugal, but she did marry three Scotsmen. The first one she married was the grandfather of James VI, who would become King James I of Scotland. The last man she married, Henry Stewart, was the grandfather of the man who would marry Mary Queen of Scots, mother of King James VI of Scotland and James I of England. Her oldest son, James the first, fathered the woman whose descendant, Sophie of Hanover, was the mother of George who would become George I of England.
It's a damned good thing she never married the King of Portugal--the whole story is difficult enough as it is.
Wow, there is a lot of info in that Hundred years war post, I need to reread it a few times to figure out the connection, I couldn't get it right off.
On the main topic of historicity of the Showtime series, I remember feeling mad about the Mary/Margaret character a few times, and some other things but I need to see them again to have many examples. I think that evidence that Anne B's relatives were scheming and put their daughter in the path of a blood-soaked lecher is pretty sketchy. The fact that they nearly abandoned her when she was marked for destruction was consisten enough for such a depiction, I guess.
One thing that I thought of that perhaps is the reason that docudrama writers take drastic liberties is that especially in the case of series, they may draw more people in to continue watching if they don't know exactly what is going to happen. Viewers may be less likely to skip and just think they'll hop back in after 10 years have passed than if they are basically just an updated redo of the same historically verified details over and over. If anyone has a comment on this theory I'd be interested, because it is the main thing I have thought of.
Otherwise, it would make much more sense to be true to the details that every historian pretty much agrees with, and then make up the things in between. But even that would make viewers less dependent on the show itself for information on the characters and plot.
One personal example, I was just not too interested in seeing the new Pride and Prejudice since I heard that it was king of a lot of the same lines, even actually fewer since it was much synopsized and even spoken unnaturally quickly so it would fit into two hours. It isn't that I don't like the book, I love it, but I didn't know what else I'd be getting except the contemporary actors, which wasn't too much. Knightley was just wrong for that role. I ended up watching it just to see the new art direction and sets, which was indeed all I got.
Mind you, this doesn't justify anyone having reworked the book or history, it just didn't make me want to see it. I think for example there's not much reason to watch this story because I think all that is actually known about Henry has already been dramatized.
My mom's car still bears the scars....
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