#documentary: six wives of henry viii with lucy worsley

[smolvenger]

I just came here to say I was #obsessed with your Henry V/reader fic series and was so upset when I finished reading knowing it was done and I hope you continue that series in some way even in one shots cause it was amazing!

Hi there! Awwww, thank you! I loved writing it and incorporating the research and fun facts about Medieval/Tudor Royal life! I used Lucy Worsley’s documentaries “The Twelve Days of Tudor Christmas” and “Secrets of Six Wives”, and the book “Young, Damned, and Fair: The Life of Catherine Howard, Fifth Wife of Henry VIII” by Garett Russell if you want some viewing and reading, as well as the video on YouTube “What Was Sex Really Like for Medieval People” and videos of historians reacting to facts and myths from historic movies. I also used lots of lines from the original plays and bits I found out of the real Henry’s IV and V. So if you find that stuff interesting like I do, feel free to give them a watch or read!

But Thank you again!!!🥺🥺🥺🥺 I LOVE writing for Hal/Henry V. I do want to write for him again! Your ask made my evening!! As for continuing it via a Oneshot, hmmm🧐🧐🧐🧐 I guess I could slightly expand it. I could show things with the kids like Reader finding out she’s pregnant for the first time, Little Hal’s birth and the relief of her having an heir but also Reader and Henry first becoming parents, the kids as older, The cat getting into trouble, more of minor characters, The Battle with the French, maybe the Eastcheap people can somehow reappear, etc. 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️ Then sure! If I get the idea and inspiration for it and enough people want to see it, I’ll write it! If you get ideas, let me know!

But in the meantime you CAN read my oneshot (made into two parts since Tumblr was being an a-hole) Used Goods which features Prince Hal. Or you can always reread The Twelve Days again 😘😘

[catherinesvalois]

Historical Fashion: Stickelchen Cap

Headwear worn by ladies during the 16th century in the North Rhine-Westphalia area (near Cologne). This cap was made of silk and was decorated with pearls and other gemstones. Anne of Cleves wore this cap in her portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger.

[inky-duchess]

what are some good resources for learning about court and everyday royal life? like any books you can recommend? online sources are perfectly okay too, i'd just prefer books so i'd have less of a chance of losing information (and to save my poor eyes lol)

Courtiers by Lucy Worsley

Sex with Kings by Eleanor Herman

Sex with the Queen by Eleanor Herman

Young, Dammed and Fair by Gareth Russell

Game of Queens by Sarah Gristwood

Blood Sisters by Sarah Gristwood

Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser

Ladies in Waiting by Anne Somerset

The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir

The Plantagenets by Dan Jones

Children of England by Alison Weir

Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir

Romanov by Simon Montefiore Sebag

Also here is my list of some good documentaries

[katybirdy95]

I decided to check out TSP twitter fandom and it really is something else. I had seen some tweets beforehand, but was not too fussed about going through everything to see what people have been saying (I still haven’t), but today I decided to take a quick glance and came across one tweet that made me laugh.

Firstly, The Spanish Princess is not the first production to feature Katherine as a young woman and have Henry show a romantic interest in her.

Here are a few examples:

The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970)

Annette Crosbie as a very beautiful and redheaded Katherine of Aragon. Look, blue eyes and everything.

Six Wives with Lucy Worsley, (2016)

Lo and behold Katherine of Aragon played by the beautiful Paola Bontempi an actual Spanish redhead.

Henry VIII and His Six Wives, (1972).

We have a beautiful, curvy redheaded Katherine of Aragon in the form of Frances Cuka.

Isabel (2011-2014)

Katherine of Aragon portrayed by Spanish actress Natalia Rodriguez, but sadly she’s brunette. I included her anyway to show everyone that aren’t history buffs and relay on the show for information that unlike The Spanish Princess, Henry was about eleven when Arthur died.

This doesn’t really have anything to do with the tweet I saw, but thought I’d go ahead and show off some young Katherines. There is also the little girls from The Shadow of the Tower and Mad Love. There are also many Katherines in documentaries, which show the love between her and Henry at the beginning of their marriage, but they are mostly brunettes.

The reason I decided to do this post was because someone tweeted that Katherine deserves this new series and she does deserve a depiction that is accurate to her character, I’m not disagreeing with that part of the tweet, but this tweeter thinks this because for the last 500 years, Anne Boleyn has been stealing the attention from Katherine.

I mean, don’t hate Anne because she’s fabulous and usually when they focus on Henry VIII it’s often features all of his wives, I think the big reasons why Anne gets more recognition is because she lost her head and was the mother to one of England’s greatest monarchs. Anne should not be blamed or be ridiculed just because people are more drawn to her, Katherine is equally fascinating and if people stopped complaining about Anne for one hot minute, they might actually find Katherine material to sink there teeth into.

Also, The Spanish Princess is not a good depiction of Katherine. They’ve basically implied that she killed her children (unintentionally) and have made her lie about consummating her marriage to Arthur - I don’t really mind the latter as it’s an interesting take, but the producers and EF have basically told the audience that Henry is somewhat in the right, Katherine in this depiction is not properly taking care of her babies (cold chapel floor) and is willing to put her unborn babies in danger (Flodden), when none of these things happened and him using the future argument of “she slept with my brother” is valid because we as the audience know she did because in this universe she did and then we have to watch her lie through her teeth about it. She’s also so bloody angry all the time and not the gentle, but stubborn woman we know from history.

[minervacasterly]

On the 30th of May, 1536, Henry VIII and Jane Seymour were married at Whitehall Palace in the Queen's Closet.

Jane Seymour has become a controversial figure as Anne Boleyn once was, and as enticing as it is to have her as the villain of the Tudor era, the truth is that she wasn’t. Like Anne, she was stuck in a dangerous game where she didn’t think things go that far and when they did, what choice did she have but to follow the path that had been chosen for her?

And it is important not to forget that by the time she became Henry’s wife, he was very different from the man he’d once been. This was a more paranoid, hostile king who in dire need of a son and if she didn’t provide one for him, or expressed her opinion before doing so, she would met her predecessor’s end.

In fact, she did provide her opinion at one point, attempting to dissuade Henry from acting against the rebels that formed part of the Pilgrimage of Grace but Henry only needed two words to remind her what happened to those who disagreed with him: Anne Boleyn.

Jane Seymour was not the meek woman she made herself out to be but neither was she a homewrecker. Had she taken the moral high ground, the consequences for her and her family would have been disastrous and her refusal wouldn't have stopped Henry from looking elsewhere or have a sudden change of conscience.

After Anne and her alleged lovers had been executed, Jane knew that this was an entirely new different ball game and she was under more pressure than her predecessors to give Henry what he was in utmost need of: a son.

And it probably wasn't lost on Jane that Henry must have looked at other women, finding them more attractive and probably regretting his decision to marry her. Had she lived, some authors have inferred that she would have revealed her true colors or at least, become more influential.

Jane's attitude reveals that she was a survivalist first and foremost. Henry wanted something different from Catherine and Anne, and if her submissiveness continued to attract him, then that is what she was going to stick with.

In the recent documentary on the six wives, The secrets of the Six Wives, historian Lucy Worsley says that it is difficult to know what was going on inside Jane's head and if she had been in Jane's shoes, she would have played the silent and submissive figure as well to keep her head.

Jane acted with tact, speaking when she felt was wise, and crossing the line only once when she voiced empathy for the pilgrimage of grace. Jane served two Queens -possibly three if the theory of her serving Princess Mary when she married Louis XII of France is correct- and under them she had seen many things, learned many things. The number one lesson she learned was not to get on Henry’s bad side, not just for her own safety but for her family.

Marriage was like a business contract and it was the goal for many highborn at the time. As with Anne, Jane would have viewed the opportunity of becoming Queen a golden one.

Read more here: https://tudorsandotherhistories.wordpress.com/2015/05/30/jane-seymour-henry-viiis-marriage-reassessing-the-phoenix/

[monik911hsm]

Only A Little Neck

[ultimatebottom69]

AAARGH

this is an outrage. this is king henry.

[peremadeleine]

just-another-fangirl-22 replied to your post:

Hey, I’ve been interested to learn more about Anne Boleyn so I was wondering if you could recommend any good books about her?

Absolutely!

Book recs: The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (Eric Ives), The Creation of Anne Boleyn (Susan Bordo)

I 110% recommend you start with Eric Ives’ The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, which is sometimes called the “Anne Boleyn Bible” in that it’s by far the most thorough and least-slanted examination of her life (though Ives does admit that he admires his subject). It’s a little bit dense, but very informative, and I wouldn’t suggest beginning with any other biography just because almost every other is so biased one way or another.

From there, if you want to keep going, Susan Bordo is the author of he excellent The Creation of Anne Boleyn, part biography, part cultural critique examining how Anne has been portrayed in literature and on film in the 500 years since her death (thus the title). It’s entertaining, readable, and fascinating.

Of the three most common/well-known books about all six of Henry VIII’s wives, all of which have somewhat lengthy sections about Anne, I’d shoot for the ones by David Starkey or Antonia Fraser. Both have their drawbacks--Starkey’s a lifelong Tudor scholar but is also notoriously sexist and states a lot of questionable or biased information as the gospel truth, and Fraser thinks Anne was a poser in terms of her religious convictions--but they’re better than Alison Weir, who I would highly recommend you avoid. She’s everywhere in popular Tudor nonfiction (and fiction...), so you’ll probably end up seeing her name a lot--she has a biography of Anne, too. But she’s...not...very reliable.

Online resource recs: The Anne Boleyn Files, On The Tudor Trail 

The Anne Boleyn Files is another good starting point (especially if you can’t get your hands on new books right now). It’s a website run by Claire Ridgeway--who also does a series of videos about Anne and Tudor history in general on YouTube--and is a really accessible, invaluable resource. 

Documentary recs: Claire Ridgeway’s YouTube channel, “Henry and Anne: The Lovers Who Changed History”

My go-to source for audio/visual information would still be Claire Ridgeway’s videos, and I’d be wary of most documentaries until you read more about Anne and form your own thoughts based on the actual evidence we have for her life. That said...

“Henry & Anne: The Lovers Who Changed History,” presented by Suzannah Lipscomb, is a pretty even-handed (if somewhat romanticized) analysis of Anne Boleyn’s life and marriage. It’s available on YouTube! 

David Starkey has a documentary series on all Henry’s wives, but again, make sure to take his biases into consideration if you watch them. 

“Secrets of the Six Wives” is another widely available, recent documentary presented by Lucy Worsley that DOES have some decent points to make about Anne...but also notable exaggeration, misinformation, and omissions. There are a number of other Wives documentaries from the past 10 years or so that I haven’t watched, but which might also have some decent info...if you start with credible sources like Ives or The AB Files, you’ll know what’s missing or misleading in a lot of this media and can appreciate the good stuff!

(I would not recommend “The Last Days of Anne Boleyn,” which gives way too much airtime to George Bernard--the only academic I’ve ever heard entertain the notion of Anne being actually guilty--and histfic authors Mantel--whose attitude is more or less “Anne was probs innocent but deserved to be taken out”...gross--and Gregory, of “Other Boleyn Girl” infamy.)

And finally, there are a lot of great blogs on this website that you can use as jumping-off points, too! Some are dedicated just to Anne; others are run by Anne enthusiasts.

@lucreziaborgia @alicehoffmans @madamedepembroke @historicwomendaily @anne-the-queen-daily @lapetiteboullan @theladyelizabeth @marriageandthecrown @tiny-librarian @fyeahanneboleyn @redxluna @glorianas ...just to name a few.

Sorry that this turned into such a wall of text. Ives really is the place to start, or check out Claire’s site/channel. Hope this is somewhat helpful rather than intimidating, and happy reading!  😅

[bforbetterthanyou]

I don’t know if you’ve already been asked this but what are your thoughts on six the musical?

I probably have, but it’s been a while...so I’ll answer it again. Under the cut because this got longer than I anticipated.

Considering that, every time the musical is brought up in the group chat, most people’s responses are pretty fraught with antipathy, I’m probably the only Tudor history blogger here that feels this way but...I actually like the show. (If you’ve been following me long enough, you’ll know that last year [on May 18th actually] I went to see the North American premiere of the show in Chicago.)

Don’t get me wrong, the show isn’t perfect. Some of the characterization isn’t great, and there are more than a few blatant factual errors. But when I saw the show, I felt like it wasn’t really supposed to be about the wives, but more, the writers were using the wives’ stories to represent all women.

Take Katheryn Howard’s song for example. The whole song is pretty much solely about her sexual history. Now, we all know there was more to Katheryn than just “sexual abuse victim”, but that’s pretty much all the show portrays. Now, yes, that could be because I don’t think the writers did very much research for the show (and the research they did wasn’t very good, but more on that later), but I feel like they’re not trying to accurately tell Katheryn’s story, but instead are trying to tell the story of all women who have been sexually abused. Because, while it’s true that there was more to the real Katheryn’s story, you can’t ignore that the abuse she suffered was a big part of her life (and yet, it often gets glossed over or even flat out ignored in a lot of Tudor-related media, but I digress).

There’s also the fact that the cast is pretty racially diverse (in most productions I believe, Catherine of Aragon, Anna of Cleves, and Kathryn Parr are played by black actresses. In the North American cast I saw, the actress playing Anne was Asian) which is another thing that leads me to believe the show isn’t really supposed to be about real historical events. There’s the whole “modern pop singer” aesthetic (and when the wives change their stories at the end of the show, all of their new endings have to do with music/them becoming singers, forming a girl group and all that. That wouldn’t be the case for the real wives). And when I saw the show in Chicago, all the actresses used their natural American accents and didn’t even try to use English accents.

There are things I think the show could’ve done better (Anne’s whole character for one, the fact that Catherine and Jane are constantly going on about Mary and Edward throughout the whole show but Anne never mentions Elizabeth except as a throwaway joke “like that time I had a daughter and he cut my head off”, also the show perpetuating the idea that Jane was “the only one he truly loved” when any actual Tudor historian knows that’s utter bullshit, also how Kathryn Parr waxes poetic about Thomas Seymour...the whole time I just wanted Anne to scream “that fucker molested my daughter!!”). But I feel like those errors are just because of the writers’ lack of research. I’m not super entrenched in the fandom so maybe a hardcore Six fan can correct me if I’m wrong, but I heard that the only “research” the writers did was watch Lucy Worsley’s documentary about the six wives. And lets be honest, that documentary wasn’t very good. It wasn’t thorough at all and it clearly wasn’t very well researched.

But again, I like to think the show is supposed to be more metaphorical. Like the show is a donut and the history stuff is just the sprinkles on top instead of the donut itself. If that makes sense?

...or maybe the optimist in me just doesn’t want to believe that the writers are really that terrible and lazy?

And, of course, I could be entirely wrong too. Maybe the writers were trying to write an accurate portrayal of the lives of the six wives of Henry VIII. In which case, they did a supremely terrible job.

I don’t really care for the fandom though. I’ve interacted with a few Six fans who were really nice and actually seemed genuinely interested in learning about the real history behind the show, but I don’t like how every time I go into the Anne Boleyn tag, it’s just Six content and nothing else. Like, I don’t mind reblogging some Six fanart every once in a while, but I don’t want to have to scroll for hours just to find some non-Six-related Anne content. And then, of course, there are those Six fans that don’t seem to care at all about the real wives and their actual stories and that just...ugh, I’m not even gonna go there.

Should I put a tl;dr because this got a lot longer than I thought it would?

Long story short, the show has its flaws and there are things about it I wish were different (but, really, the only way to fix those mistakes would be to practically re-write the whole show and, at this point, that’s not gonna happen) but overall, if you take it completely out of historical context, it’s actually pretty good. The songs are catchy and I actually really like the whole aesthetic (except for the fact that Anne’s costume is green, why does everyone always want to put Anne in green? I’m not saying she never wore green in her life, but most historical fiction writers only do it because of the whole “Henry VIII wrote Greensleeves” myth.

[nellygwyn]

Any recommendations for a 16th century-set period drama that isn't Phillippa Gregory? Or especially good documentary?

Period dramas (not all of these are super historically accurate but they are good and at least attempt some kind of historical coherence):

• The Tudors - Obviously.....particularly S1 and S2, and the episodes covering Catherine Howard's tenure

• Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age - Cate Blanchett's performance as Elizabeth I IS amazing.

• The Virgin Queen - Uhhhh Tom Hardy as uhhh Robert Dudley

• Elizabeth I (2005) - I can't recommend this one enough. Helen Mirren is superb. Just..ugh *chef's kiss*

• Anne of the Thousand Days - A total classic!

• Lady Jane - Another classic and young Helena Bonham Carter is super cute.

• Wolf Hall - I don't care for the book but the adaption is really good. I love Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn.

• Shakespeare In Love - I thought this film was like, universally loved until someone told me it was cringe to like it. HOWEVER, I really love it, it's one of the first period dramas I ever saw. The costumes are gorgeous, too. It's worth watching for Judi Dench as Elizabeth I; she's only on screen for 10 mins at most but she won an Oscar for her performance.

• Mary, Queen of Scots (the version with Camille Rutherford as Mary) - I love this biopic, it's really clever and so much more of an interesting take on Mary and Elizabeth I's relationship that OTHER iterations of Mary's life.

• Dangerous Beauty - This is a really nice film set in 16th century Venice. It's a (LOOSE) biopic of the high class courtesan and poet, Veronica Franco. Loves it. It has a bit of that 90s cheesiness about it but I don't care.

• The Princess of Montpensier - This is an adaptation of a novel written by Madame de Lafayette in 1662 but it *is* set in the late 16th century. It's a French film, super visually pretty and with a good plot. Plus, Gaspard Ulliel and Raphael Personnaz wearing eyeliner...

• La Reine Margot - Honestly, a masterpiece. You've probably already seen it.

• Magnificent Century - This is a Turkish soap opera about the harem of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire. SO good and melodramatic.

I don't really watch enough documentaries about the 16th century to recommend any ULTIMATE docs to see. I guess I really enjoyed The Six Wives of Henry VIII with Lucy Worsley and Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer?

[ladyofglencairn]

Six Wives with Lucy Worsley (2016) “I’m going to tell you a very different story. I’m going to take you back in time and into the lives of Henry’s six wives.”

[millefeuille07]

I recently watched the series Secrets of the Six Wives on PBS. There were only three 1 hr. episodes, but they were jammed packed with info! The docu-drama series is narrated by Dr. Lucy Worsley, PhD, who is the chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces in the UK. This series was interesting because not only does Lucy narrate the episodes, but she also dresses up in Tudor costumes and is part of certain scenes with Henry VIII and his six wives! Very different and unique approach to filming the episodes. I thought it might be weird / distracting but it wasn’t.

I’m very familiar with British royal history, but I learned a lot of new things about the six wives. In particular, I didn’t know as much about the last three wives, so I gleaned a lot from watching this series. Definitely recommend it!

[inky-duchess]

Could u plz link some sources/documentaries/articles about Anne Boleyn?

I've started my researches and I'm trying to collect as much information as possible!

Thanks

Lucy Worsley's Six Wives of Henry VIII (documentary)

Henry and Anne: Lovers who Changed History (documentary)

The Fall of Anne Boleyn (documentary)

Six Wives by Antonia Fraser

Six Wives of Henry VIII By Alison Weir

The Creation of Anne Boleyn: In Search of the Tudors' Most Notorious Queen by Susan Bordo

[sciencespies]

The True History Behind 'Six,' the Tudor Musical About Henry VIII's Wives

https://sciencespies.com/history/the-true-history-behind-six-the-tudor-musical-about-henry-viiis-wives/

The True History Behind 'Six,' the Tudor Musical About Henry VIII's Wives

Meilan Solly

Associate Editor, History

Inspiration struck Toby Marlow during a comparative poetry class at Cambridge University in fall 2016. Participating in a discussion on William Blake, he found his mind wandering and began scribbling a series of unrelated notes: “Henry VIII’s wives → like a girl group … Need Lucy!!” 

Then an undergraduate student tasked with writing an original show for the upcoming Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Marlow brought his idea to classmate Lucy Moss, who agreed to help bring his vision of a Tudor-themed pop musical to life. The product of the pair’s collaboration—Six, a modern reimagining of the lives of Henry VIII’s six wives—premiered on London’s West End in 2019 to much acclaim. (A cast soundtrack released in September 2018 similarly became an unqualified success.) Now, after an extended delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the musical is finally making its Broadway debut.

L to R: Abby Mueller (Jane Seymour), Samantha Pauly (Katherine Howard), Adrianna Hicks (Catherine of Aragon), Andrea Macasaet (Anne Boleyn), BrittneyMack (Anna of Cleves) and Anna Uzele (Catherine Parr)

Liz Lauren

Six “didn’t come out of a love of the Tudor period particularly,” says Marlow, 26. “It came from us having an interest in the representation of women in musical theater, having women on stage doing funny and hilarious things.” Moss, 27, adds, “What we were interested in doing was reframing the way that women have been perceived in history and telling their side of the story.”

The Tudor period, with its “soap opera”-esque political machinations and rich cast of female characters, offered the duo the opportunity to explore contemporary issues like feminism through a historical lens. Though Six prominently features the rhyme historically used to describe the fates of the Tudor king’s queens—“divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”—the musical moves beyond these reductive one-word summaries to present its subjects as fully realized individuals. “With all of them,” says Moss, “there was so much of interest beyond the moment they got married or divorced.”

Marlow and Moss drew on a range of sources when writing Six, including Antonia Fraser’s The Wives of Henry VIII and documentaries hosted by historianLucy Worsley. The musical’s layered repartee deftly balances references to Tudor culture with nods to modern music, like the line “Stick around and you’ll suddenly see more” (a play on “Suddenly, Seymour” from Little Shop of Horrors). Still, Marlow explains, the show’s goal isn’t to convey history with 100 percent accuracy. Instead, “It’s [asking], ‘What if Anne Boleyn was like this?’ And how does that change the way you think about this very famous historical figure?”

Six frames its story as a makeshift talent competition in which the wife whose life was most tragic “wins.” The rules are simple: “The queen who was dealt the worst hand … shall be the one to lead the band.” Each wife sings a solo summarizing her experiences, engaging in acerbic banter in between verses. (During these numbers, the other wives act as both backup singers and dancers; beyond the six solos, the 80-minute show features three group numbers.) Ultimately, the women decide to form a girl band instead, leaving the king out of the narrative and imagining an alternate future featuring far happier ends for all of them.

Historian Jessica Storoschuk, who has written about Six extensively on her blog, has found that in school and popular culture, the queens are usually only talked about in terms of their fate. “[Six] is this kind of ridiculous satire of [that],” she says. “It’s a really intelligent way to explore their experiences, or, I should say, one part of their experiences, because their downfalls are not all of their lives.”

Below, find a song-by-song (or wife-by-wife) breakdown of the true history behind Six. Click through the interactive tools to learn more about specific lyrics from the show.

The song: “No Way,” a Beyoncé- and JLo-inspired “girl boss feminism” anthem, says Moss

Though Catherine of Aragon’s marriage to Henry lasted 24 years—collectively, his five other marriages spanned just 14 years—she has long been overshadowed by her successors. The daughter of Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, Catherine came to England as the bride of Henry’s older brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales. But Arthur died shortly after the pair’s wedding, leading the Spanish princess to (eventually) marry his heir, Henry. 

By all accounts, the couple enjoyed a loving relationship that only deteriorated due to a lack of a male heir and the king’s infatuation with Anne Boleyn. In the late 1520s, Henry sought a divorce from his first wife, arguing that her previous relationship with Arthur was the reason for the couple’s lack of a surviving son. Determined to protect her daughter Mary’s rights, Catherine refused to concede.

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.

Six’s account of these events, “No Way,” takes its cue from a June 21, 1529, meeting at Blackfriars in London. After years of debate over the validity of the royal couple’s marriage, a papal court was conceived to address the king’s so-called Great Matter. Appealing directly to her husband, Catherine fell to her knees and delivered an impassioned monologue:

Intending (as I perceive) to put me from you, I take God and all the world to witness, that I have been to you a true and humble wife, ever conformable to your will and pleasure. … If there be any just cause by the law that ye can allege against me, either of dishonesty or any other impediment to banish and put me from you, I am well content to depart, to my great shame and dishonor; and if there be none, then here I most lowly beseech you let me remain in my former estate, and receive justice at your princely hand.

A 1544 portrait of the future Mary I, Henry and Catherine’s daughter

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Portrait believed to depict a young Catherine of Aragon

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

After uttering these words, Catherine left Blackfriars, ignoring the clerk’s calls for her to return. Without turning around, she declared, “On, on, it makes no matter, for it is no impartial court for me, therefore I will not tarry.” The queen was correct in her assessment: Henry had no intention of remaining in the marriage. Determined to wed Anne, he broke from the Catholic Church in order to make her his wife.

Catherine’s Six solo could’ve been a “super emotional [sad] ballad,” says Moss. Instead, she and Marlow chose to emphasize the queen’s defiance, emulating Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls)” and setting the tone for the rest of the musical.

The real Catherine followed through on her fictionalized counterpart’s pledge to remain “queen till the end of my life,” refusing to acknowledge her marriage’s annulment even on her deathbed in 1536. Catherine’s legacy, historian Julia Fox told Smithsonian magazine last year, “is that of a wronged woman … who did not accept defeat, who fought for what she believed to be right until the breath left her body.”

The song: “Don’t Lose Ur Head,” a “cheeky” number modeled on Lily Allen and Kate Nash, according to Moss

Arguably the most (in)famous of the six wives, Anne is alternatively portrayed as a scheming, power-hungry seductress; a victim of her callous father’s vaulting ambition; or a worldly, charismatic woman who rose to the kingdom’s highest office only to be targeted by jealous men.

A near-contemporary painting of Anne Boleyn

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The truth of the matter depends on which scholar one asks. Most of Anne’s letters and papers were destroyed following her May 1536 execution on contrived charges of adultery, incest, witchcraft and conspiring to kill her husband, so much of what is known about her comes from outside observers, some of whom had reason to paint her in an unforgiving light. Even the queen’s date of birth, writes historian Antonia Fraser, is a fact “that can never be known with absolute certainty (like so much about Anne Boleyn).”

Anne’s song in Six, “Don’t Lose Ur Head,” draws its name from her method of execution: beheading by sword. Moss says she and Marlow view the number as a playful response to historians’ continued vilification of the queen as “calculating and manipulative”: “We were like, wouldn’t it be fun to mock [that trope] and make it that she was like ‘Well, I’m just living. I did this thing randomly, and now everything’s gone crazy.’”

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive tool.

Though the tone of “Don’t Lose Ur Head” is intentionally more irreverent than the real queen, who Storoschuk says “was incredibly shrewd, very well educated, well read and well spoken,” the broad strokes of the song are historically accurate. Anne spent her teenage years in the courts of Margaret of Austria and Francis I of France, gaining a cosmopolitan worldview that helped her stand out in England. When she caught Henry’s eyes, she was a maid of honor in service of his first wife; rather than becoming Henry’s mistress, as her sister Mary had, Anne refused to sleep with the king until they were married. To wed Anne, Henry broke with the Catholic Church and established himself as head of the Church of England. Finally, the once-besotted king fell out of love in dramatic—and, for Anne, fatal—fashion just three years after their long-awaited marriage.

The song: “Heart of Stone,” a slow, Adele-like ballad

Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour, has gone down in history as the “boring” one. According to Fraser, she was intelligent and “naturally sweet-natured,” with the “salient characteristics [of] virtue and common good sense.” Historian Alison Weir similarly describes Jane as “endowed with all the qualities then thought becoming in a wife: meekness, docility and quiet dignity.” 

Moss and Marlow tried to flesh out these descriptions by highlighting Jane’s political savvy. During her comparatively brief courtship with Henry, Jane drew on many of the same tactics used by Anne Boleyn, most notably by refusing to sleep with him until they were married. Presenting a submissive front may have been a tactic, says Moss. It’s also worth noting that Jane used her position to advance causes she cared about, including restoring her stepdaughters, Mary and Elizabeth, to their father’s favor and speaking out against the closure of England’s religious houses.

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.

On one occasion, Henry reportedly dismissed his new wife by advising her to “attend to other things, [for] the last queen had died in consequence of meddling too much in state affairs.” “Heart of Stone” acknowledges this risk, but Six’s version of Jane chooses to remain steadfast in her love of Henry and their son, the future Edward VI.

Following Jane’s death in childbirth in 1537, Henry memorialized her as “the fairest, the most discreet and the most meritorious of all his wives”—a distinction no doubt motivated by the fact that she’d given the king his only surviving male heir, writes Weir. (Edward took the throne “Six” reflects this enviable status by identifying Jane as “the only one he truly loved.” As she herself acknowledges in “Heart of Stone,” however, Henry’s affection is conditional on her ability to provide him with a son.

Henry chose to include Jane, rather than his then-wife, Catherine Parr, in this dynastic portrait. Painted around 1545, the work depicts Edward, Henry and Jane at its center and Mary and Elizabeth in the wings.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Speaking with Vulture last year, Moss said, “The idea was about the strength of choosing to love someone and committing to someone, and that being an equally valid feminist experience.” She added, “I love that [Jane] gets to say, ‘I wasn’t stupid, I wasn’t naïve.’”

The song: “Get Down,” a 16th-century take on the rap and hip-hop “trope of being popular and bragging about your Ferrari and your Grey Goose,” says Moss

Anne (or, as the musical calls her, Anna) of Cleves was, in some historians’ view, the most successful of Henry’s six queens. After just six months of marriage, she earned the king’s enduring affection by agreeing to an annulment. Then, she proceeded to outlive her former husband, not to mention the rest of his wives, by a decade. “[Anne] did get pushed to the side in a rather unceremonious way, but she had a pretty good life,” says Storoschuk. “She was given several properties. She gambled a lot. She got to go hunting, she had the best clothes and the best food. She was loved at court.”

A 1540s portrait of Anne of Cleves by Bartholomaeus Bruyn the Elder

St. John’s College, University of Oxford, via Art U.K. under CC BY-NC-ND

“Get Down” focuses on this victorious period in Anne’s life, celebrating her independence as a wealthy, unmarried woman at Tudor court. In line with the musical’s goal of reclaiming the narrative, the number also reframes the incident that led to Anne’s annulment. Henry, enchanted by a flattering Hans Holbein portrait of his bride-to-be, was reportedly repulsed by the “tall, big-boned and strong-featured” woman who arrived in England at the beginning of 1540. Declaring “I like her not! I like her not!” after their first meeting, the king only went through with the wedding to maintain diplomatic ties with Anne’s home, the German Duchy of Cleves, and other Protestant allies across the European continent.

After just six months of marriage, Henry, eager to replace his short-reigning queen with the young, vivacious Katherine Howard, had the union annulled on the grounds of non-consummation and Anne’s pre-contract with Francis, Duke of Lorraine. Anne, from then on known as the “king’s beloved sister,” spent the rest of her days in luxury.

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.

Moss studied history at Cambridge and says much of her schoolwork centered around early modern German visual culture. Six actually includes a standalone song, “Haus of Holbein,” that satirizes 16th-century beauty culture and Henry’s portrait-driven search for a fourth wife: “Hans Holbein goes around the world / Painting all of the beautiful girls / From Spain / To France / And Germany / The king chooses one / But which one will it be?”

Given Holbein’s reputation for accuracy and Henry’s own declining looks (at the time of the couple’s wedding, the king was 48 years old), Marlow and Moss chose to turn the tables, having Anne proclaim herself a fan of the much-vilified portrait. Further cementing Anne’s mastery of the situation, “Get Down”’s refrain finds the supposedly unattractive queen hanging up her likeness “for everyone to see.”

The song: “All You Wanna Do,” a catchy number modeled on the work of “young pop stars sexualized early on in their careers,” like Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears and Ariana Grande, as Marlow told Vulture

For much of history, Henry’s fifth wife, Katherine Howard, has been dismissed as a wanton woman of little import. Writing in 1991, Weir described her as a “frivolous, empty-headed young girl who cared for little else but dancing and pretty clothes.” Fraser, meanwhile, wrote that “[h]ere was no intelligent adult woman, wise in the ways of the world—and of course courts.” More recent scholarship has taken a sympathetic view of the queen, with Gareth Russell’s 2017 book, Young and Damned and Fair, leading the conversation. As Russell argues, “[Katherine] was toppled by a combination of bad luck, poor decisions, and the Henrician state’s determination to punish those who failed its king.” 

Katherine’s Six solo, titled “All You Wanna Do,” echoes Russell’s characterization of its subject as a victim of circumstance and predatory older men. Though her exact birthdate is unknown, Katherine may have been as young as 17 when she was beheaded on charges of treasonous adultery in February 1542. Henry, comparatively, was 50 at the time of his disgraced wife’s execution.

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.

The king was far from the first man to sexualize Katherine. “All You Wanna Do” details the queen’s relationships in heart-wrenching detail, from a liaison with her music teacher, Henry Manox (the song suggests that he was 23 to Katherine’s 13, but as Storoschuk points out, he may have been closer to 33), to an affair with Francis Dereham, secretary to the dowager duchess, Katherine’s step-grandmother. When each new romance begins, the teenager declares herself hopeful that this time will be different. By the end of the song, however, she realizes that all of her suitors have the same goal in mind.

According to Moss, she and Marlow wanted Katherine’s song to start out with a “sexy, seductive” tone before transforming into a “narrative of abuse” with echoes of today’s #MeToo movement. Marlow adds, “It was kind of like us talking about what happened to one of the queens and finding a way of relating it to something that we would recognize as a modern female experience.”

Katherine’s “life was so tragic,” says Storoschuk. “She was so young, and she really had very little agency over her own life. ‘All You Wanna Do’ really encompasses that.”

The song: “I Don’t Need Your Love,” a soulful, Alicia Keys–inspired love song

Often reduced to the one-word summary of “survived” or the role of nursemaid to a succession of ailing husbands, Henry’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr, was actually a renowned scholar, religious reformer and perhaps even protofeminist. In Six, she takes ownership of these attributes, refusing to be defined by her romantic relationships and instead listing her manifold accomplishments: “Remember that I was a writer / I wrote books and psalms and meditations / Fought for female education / So all my women can independently study scripture / I even got a woman to paint my picture.”

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.

As the last of the six to take the stage, the fictionalized Catherine has dual obligations: namely, sharing her story and setting up a satisfying musical finale. “We needed one of the queens to be like ‘Wait, we shouldn’t be competing with each other. We should support each other,’” says Moss. “Fortunately, [Catherine’s role] as a writer, educator and advocate for women helped with that.” Encouraging the wives to take back the microphone, Catherine calls for them to assert themselves outside of their marriages to Henry. “It’s not what went down in history,” the six admit, “[b]ut tonight, I’m singing this for me.”

Catherine Parr’s fourth husband, Thomas Seymour

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The real Catherine led a rich life beyond what’s captured in “I Don’t Need Your Love.” As alluded to by the song’s first verses, which find Catherine telling a lover that she has “no choice” but to marry the king, the twice-married young widow initially had another suitor in mind: Thomas Seymour, the dashing younger brother of Henry’s third wife, Jane. (The would-be couple wed soon after Henry’s death in 1547, but their marriage was tainted by Thomas’ improper conduct toward his new stepdaughter, the future Elizabeth I.)

Despite being forced into a relationship with Henry, Catherine made the most of her position, pushing her husband to embrace Protestantism and encouraging him to restore his daughters to the line of succession. She narrowly escaped an attempt by the court’s conservative faction to have her executed on charges of heresy, winning back Henry’s favor even after he’d signed a warrant for her arrest. Catherine died just a year after the king, succumbing to complications from childbirth in 1548.

Based on a True Story

British History

Elizabeth I

England

Henry VIII

Kings

Medieval Ages

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Tudors

#History

[minervacasterly]

Tudors, the Masters of Propaganda: When the Pen is Mightier than the Sword

The biggest winners of royal history because as far as European dynasties go are the Tudors. Let’s face it. There’s been no dynasty or group more successful in rewriting and shaping the modern world as the Tudor clan. “The story of our past is open to interpretation. Much of British history is edited and a deceitful account of events … The sooner you do a little digging, you discover it is a tapestry of different stories, woven together by whoever is in power at the time.” (Lucy Worsley in “British History’s Biggest Figs) ^This! How we see history is in accordance to our politics. Her first episode focuses on deconstructing the wars of the roses, presenting the facts and the different accounts that have come up of the men and women involved in this conflict, leaving the viewer to decide what might have likely happened. In regards to the Princes, in other pages I administer, some have said that it would be good to have the bodies that were found in the Tower of London examined to find once and for all who ordered their deaths. But assuming that the crown allows for DNA testing, allowing the world to finally know if they are the Princes in the Tower or not, supposing they are, it wouldn’t provide us with an answer. Like with Richard III, science would tell us how they died -and offer us an accurate description (based on facial reconstruction) on how they looked- but it wouldn’t tell us who kill them. Unless we were to discover a letter of Richard, Margaret Beaufort or any other suspect, declaring their guilt, the Princes in the Tower will remain one of history’s greatest cold cases. What is undeniable though is that the Tudors were crafty in making the people believe that they were chosen by God to rule over England. There were prophecies by the Welsh, made up ancestry, and of course a wedding that was promoted as the union between Lancaster and York that would put an end to the war and bring forth a dynasty that would last forever. “The line between fact and fiction often gets blurred.”  (Lucy Worsley in “British History’s Biggest Figs) It’s true. Often fiction becomes the new history. Most of the times, it is because we have great storytellers who give us a simpler version that isn’t too complicated or convoluted, that it is easier for us to accept. The wars of a roses a turbulent period but it wasn’t chaotic. People were tired of civil war, and it might be one of the reasons why they were ready, after Henry VII put many rebellions down, to accept their new overlords. Not only that but fast-forward to the sixteenth century when religious tensions were at an all-time high, when there was divisions among Catholics and even Protestants, the Tudors were more desperate than ever to solidify their power. Henry VIII needed a son to secure a dynasty that many abroad still questioned its legitimacy, while also a tool to make themselves immortal. Henry VIII wasn’t a fan of Protestantism but he liked the idea of Kings being above reproach, subject to no judgment but God’s. Kings were no longer half-divine, in Henry’s mind, English Kings were now completely divine. What their conscience wanted is what God wanted. Going against the King was no longer treason but a sin as well. When Edward VI succeeded his father, his coronation pageant included many religious symbolism, primarily figures of the Old Testament like Josiah and Moses. These powerful visuals were meant to tell the people that their new King was God’s messenger on Earth and that he would turn England into an Evangelical nation. Then there is Mary I. Mary was seen as the great Catholic hope and to some extent she was but she soon proved that she her father’s daughter. And like her father she was determined to be the sole sovereign of her nation. She engaged in theatrics as her mother had done, playing the part of the dutiful wife to her Spanish husband, Prince Philip, King of Naples and Sicily, begging him not to leave, writing to him constantly about how much she needed him. But once he was with her, she proved that she was more like her Tudor ancestors than their Spanish ones. Mary was also compared to religious figures. These matronly figures helped her justify her reign before her subjects who weren’t used to the idea of female monarchy. When her friend, cousin and Archbishop of Canterbury, Reginald Pole, advised her to return Church lands to the Church, she pretended not to listen. Those lands had benefited many powerful subjects she didn’t wish to antagonize, not to mention that some of those lands were now in possession of the crown. Would Mary really give them all up after all the revenue they had provided her family? The answer is obviously ‘no’. When she confronted the rebels that were led by Wyatt, she inspected the troops as a King would, and gave a rousing speech, where she said that she was a mother protecting her children from harm, and that she would be ruled by her people rather than by her needs. Mary ended up pardoning many of the rebels but had no mercy for most of their leaders. At the end of her reign despite her efforts to cleanse the Catholic Church in England of corruption and restore a Humanist curriculum in the universities, as well as re-funding some of them; Mary suffered from Protestant propaganda and her own failure which was not giving the kingdom an heir to continue the Tudor line and her religious ambitions. As soon as Elizabeth I got her sister’s reign, she quoted one of the psalms where she said that “this is the Lord’s doing” and “it is marvelous in our eyes”. Curiously, it is recorded that when she said this, she was next to a royal oak, similar to what her ancestress, Elizabeth Woodville, when she reputedly encountered the Yorkinst King for the first time. As always, another Tudor monarch who employed great rhetoric, and used biblical and classical symbols to justify her reign. As she got older, she continued to dress extravagantly. While many people expected her to marry, she chose to remain a Virgin. Nobody knows the full extent of her relationship with her male favorites but given how strict she was with her ladies, it is safe to say that her religiosity wouldn’t have allowed her to be intimate with them. While supporting many Protestant groups overseas, she was quick to dismiss them when they preached about a Republican government. Elizabeth didn’t like this because that meant that the King was no longer close to God, but another public servant who was under strict scrutiny by his people. In various paintings, one can see Elizabeth being led to victory by classical goddesses, being given the sacred fruit. She is their chosen one, the one who will vanquish all of England’s enemies and is closer to God than anyone else. Using her single status, she became a substitute for the Virgin Mary. One whose virtue was no longer mocked but praised. But, in spite of this, Elizabeth I was also a pragmatist and as previously stated, when she found that some of her councilors were leaning towards more radical branches of Protestantism, she confronted them and fought them hard using her best tool: her words. Turning them against one another, and foiling their plans to institute Evangelical measures. When she died, she was hailed as one of the greatest. This is largely due to nostalgia. James VI of Scotland succeeded her becoming James I of England. He and his wife, Queen Anne were jointly crowned on Westminster Abbey. Despite James’ efforts to be a good ruler, people grew disappointed of him and soon began to look towards the past, transforming it into a place of beauty and mysticism. Despite some writers looking down on Catholic Margaret Beaufort and her son Henry VII, and his granddaughter Mary I, they made figures like Henry VIII and Elizabeth I into national icons. Henry VIII’s split from Rome and Elizabeth I’s defeat of the Armada became legend. What they wrote endured for centuries. Some will argue that it endures today, with many people still buying into the myths that these figures wrote about their reigns, proving that nothing is more powerful than propaganda. The pen is truly mightier than the sword. Recommended reading: Tudor by Leanda de Lisle; Wars of the Roses: Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors by Dan Jones; Armada by Garrett Mattingly, Elizabeth I: The Struggle for the Throne by David Starkey, Henry VII by SB Chrimes, Plantagenet Chronicles by Derek Wilson; Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen & The Queen’s Bed: An Intimate History of Elizabeth’s Court by Anna Whitelock; Blood Sisters & Game of Queens by Sarah Gristwood; The Myth of Bloody Mary & Tudors vs Stewarts by Linda Porter; Inside the Tudor Court by Lauren Mackay; The Anne Boleyn Collection by Claire Ridgway; In Bed With the Tudors & Elizabeth of York & The Six Wives and the Many Mistresses of Henry VIII by Amy Licence; Blood will tell by Kyra Cornelius Kramer; Margaret Beaufort by Elizabeth Norton; The King’s Mother by Elizabeth Norton; 1536: The Year that changed Henry VIII by Suzannah Lipscomb; Private Lives of the Tudors by Tracy Borman; The Woodvilles by Susan Higginbotham; The Wives of Henry VIII & Mary, Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser.In terms of documentary, there is the source quoted which comes from the first episode of the new documentary series “British History Biggest’ Fibs” presented by Lucy Worsley.I also recommend her six wives documentary which is currently being shown on PBS every Sunday on the US; Suzannah Lipscomb and Dan Jones’ documentary on the six wives and David Starkey’s documentary on them as well. They also have other documentaries that also focus on the wars of the roses and the Tudor era. Bits and pieces of some of these can be found on YouTube, while others you have to buy or watch if you have subscription on Netflix or Hulu.

[peremadeleine]

#an actual well done look into the six wives of henry their persecution etc #and not the bs sensationalism that a lot of other historians go for #its done by a woman #who is also lucy worsely who is awesome

These are nice thoughts in theory. But not quite correct.

Unfortunately being done by a woman doesn’t make it any fairer than any other look at the wives. I’ve already typed up exactly what I thought about “Six Wives with LW” back when it aired, and tbh my opinions have only grown more critical since then.

Worsley has also written Tudor-era fiction that makes me question her ability to examine the wives with any kind of nuance even further. There are other things to consider, too: with her little weird little smirks at the camera (such as when talking about Anne Boleyn being “too exciting for her own good”), her fangirlish devotion to Katherine of Aragon--versus the comparatively lacking treatment she gave basically every other wife--along with her presentation of some information (i.e., Anne’s coronation) in a misleading. or sometimes completely inaccurate, manner...

It’s also an issue of marketing, of course. She presented it as a “new” and “different” story and there was nothing either new or different about it whatsoever. The only truly valuable information was really about Kathryn Howard as an abuse victim,  and even then, in presenting Kathryn’s story that way, she again reduced the poor young woman’s life to little more than her sexual history (and failed to mention literally anything else about what Kathryn did during her time as queen.) Oh, and the old stereotype of Jane-as-the-Peacemaker was thrown in for good measure. And “Jane was probably fierce but hid it”--not a new opinion at all!!!

And it still bothers me that she picked and chose which reenactments to include. KOA got a scene gloating over the death of James IV, then the famous Blackfriars speech, but there was apparently no possibility of including either Anne’s trial speech or her execution speech, when on both occasions she was observed to be more beautiful, eloquent, and regal than ever before???

misinformation, misconceptions, stereotypes, etc., in “Six Wives” include (but I’m sure there are more):

that Anne Boleyn’s coronation was a somber occasion and a “scandal”

that Anne Boleyn and Henry’s desire for her, specifically, were the root causes of the Great Matter

that Jane Seymour was just a spirited, ambitious, and probably intelligent woman who played the part of meek-and-mild wife to “keep her head”

that Jane Seymour was a pretty princess a “rosy-cheeked English rose”

(implied) that Katherine Parr was the first queen consort to have an English Bible in her household

information Worsley chose not to include:

the charitable works of most of the wives (especially Anne Boleyn’s, which were in fact v. significant, but the failure to mention Kathryn Howard’s charity for elderly, imprisoned Margaret Pole was particularly glaring as well as her intercession for Thomas Wyatt)

the relationships--good and bad--that the wives had with Henry’s children (again, especially Kathryn Howard, who was reportedly very fond of her cousin/stepdaughter Elizabeth)

Anne Boleyn’s miscarriages/stillbirths (apart from the one in January 1536)--even though she made a Big Deal of emphasizing KOA’s tragic gynecological history

Anne of Cleves becoming fully integrated into English culture--learning the language and all these social graces she was never taught as a child--in just one year?!

And for a supposedly new/different/unique look at the wives, I’m sure there are more things that she could or should have included that she didn’t.

So, despite me rambling about it for a lot longer than I ever intended to, I will say that Lucy Worsley’s is not the worst possible documentary about Henry VIII’s queens that you could watch. But there are definitely better ones. All of them have “sensational” moments, and some (Jones/Lipscomb, I’m told) are weaker than others (Starkey--boo, hiss).

In short...none of the documentary series about Henry’s wives are great. I would recommend reading a book, or several books, on the subject over watching any of these options tbh. But “Six Wives with Lucy Worsley” is definitely not a stand-out, though some of her reenactment scenes are nice.