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| FACT OR FICTION? History buffs! Have you sniffed out a few historical inaccuracies within The Tudors drama? Whether minuscule or huge, catalogue them here to see how the show sizes up against British history. Season 1 |
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| According to The Tudors | According to History | |
| Event or Person | | Cardinal Wolsey died around the age of 60. of an illness en route to London at Leicester Abbey, to answer the charges of treason held against him. Year: 29th November, 1530. |
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| Princess Mary Tudor, the daughter of Henry VIII & Katherine of Aragon is seen at the Field of Cloth of Gold meeting her betrothed, the Dauphin of France and pushing him over, | The princess Mary mentioned was not Henry VIII's daughter (later Queen Mary I). She did not accompany her parents to France for this event despite her betrothal to the dauphin of France. Instead it was Henry's sister, also called Mary, who was mentioned in contemporary accounts. This Mary certainly attended the Field of Cloth of Gold. | |
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| | Princess Margaret married James IV of Scotland. Year:1514 (Mary's marriage to Louis) | |
| Princess Margaret kills the King of Portugal. Episode #: | | |
| | Princess Mary and Charles Brandon had three children during their marriage. By re-writing history, The Tudors wrote out the existence of Lady Jane Grey, the descendant of Mary, Henry's younger sister, an important historical character, as well as Mary, Queen of Scots -- an essential historical character and the descendant of Margaret, Henry's older sister. Of course, without Mary, Queen of Scots, her son James wouldn't have existed either, who reigned after Elizabeth I, from 1603 to 1625. Year: Henry (1516), Frances (1517), Leonor (1519). Note: Frances Brandon married Henry Grey (1551 became 1st Duke of Suffolk) and had three daughters (Lady Jane Grey, Lady Catherine Grey, and Lady Mary Grey). Lady Jane Grey would end up being "Queen Jane" for only nine days before Mary took the throne. | |
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| | In actuality, no ones knows how long King Henry VIII was with Mary. She is never mentioned in contemporary reports and we only know of her because of the dispensation Henry got when he wanted to marry Anne, her sister, which meant he slept with Mary. It is more likely that the affair was brief. Most historians do not believe he fathered two children with her, Catherine and Henry. Many historic figures claim Mary Boleyn as an ancestor, including Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, and Lady Diana Spencer, the Princess of Wales. At his death in 1528, Mary's first husband left her with massive debts. It was Anne who came to her aid -- she arranged for her nephew to be educated at a Cisterean monastery and secured for her sister an annual pension of 100 pounds. Year: Henry Carey (1526), Catherine Carey (1524) | |
| | Ann was witty, intelligent, proud, brave, quick-tempered, stubborn, ambitious and haughty. Anne was notoriously supportive of religious upstarts, she read - and defended - censored writings. it appears that she had a rather droll, sometimes twisted, dark sense of humor. A sense of humor like that can be easily misinterpreted, and in Anne’s case, probably was. An interesting website to check out is: http://www.nellgavin.com/boleyn_facts/ NOTE: the contemporary writers who described Anne as ugly were either affiliated with the Spanish, the Emperor Charles V, or her enemies within the English court. To those who loved her she was "handsome", "sweet and cheerful." To her enemies she was "the goggle eyed wh*re". Year: N/A | |
| The series shows Anna Buckingham, the daughter of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham having an affair with Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. Later she is called Anna Hastings and is shown as living with Sir William Compton and dying of the sweating sickness after he dies. | Her name was actually Anne Stafford, Lady Hastings and she was the sister of the Duke of Buckingham, not his daughter. The rumoured affair in 1510 was with King Henry VIII himself and Sir William Compton was suspected of being the go-between. However, it seems she probably did later have an affair with Compton because in 1522 he put her in his will to receive lands. She died c. 1544 after having 8 children. | |
| Richard Pace, the King's secretary is framed by Cardinal Wolsey & sent to the tower, where he goes mad. Episode #1:4 | Pace was well respected, and was on the continent as Wolsey's agent at this time. There is no historical reference of him being sent to the Tower. It is recorded that he had an illness & died in 1536. | |
| Musician Thomas Tallis joins the Chapel Royal very early in his life and career. Episode #: 1 | Thomas Tallis joined the Chapel Royal in his mid- to late-thirties. (His birth date is unknown; best guess is sometime between 1505 and 1510.) It is true that he went right from Canterbury Cathedral to the Chapel Royal, but prior to his brief stay in Canterbury, he had held appointments at Dover Priory; St. Mary-at-Hill, Billingsgate; and Waltham Abbey. Year: c. 1543 | |
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| Elizabeth (Bessie) Blount was married when she conceived Henry FitzRoy. Episode #:1 | Bessie Blount delivered Henry FitzRoy in 1519 but did not marry Gilbert Tailboys (a marriage arranged by Henry VIII himself) until 1522. Year: 1519, 1522 | |
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| Henry VIII has no beard. Episode# 1: all Note: Season 2 - he has a beard | Henry VIII's beard was an in-today-out-tomorrow kind of thing until he began having trouble with Anne Boleyn. She hated him with a beard, so he wore it for the rest of his life. It has also been said that in May of 1535 Henry decided to grow a beard in the same style as Francis I. Year: 1520 Note to above: It was Anne who liked him with a beard; Katherine did not. In fact, there is a funny anecdote that Henry said he would not shave his beard until he met Francis again, but then he found out Katherine did not like his beard, so he shaved it off! He almost caused a war because of the love he had for Katherine! | |
| | Katherine of Aragon, her name is spelt with a "C" not a "K" NOTE: Incorrect posting above: Letters signed by Katharine herself were signed as "Katharine the Queen". Contributed by IMN2Tudors. NOTE: in Spanish her name would have been spelled with a "C", "K" is the English spelling NOTE: she was born "Catalina de Aragón y Castilla o Catalina de Trastámara y Trastámara" en Alcalá de Henares, Spain and your name is always the same, should not be translated. NOTE: While names would not normally be translated, Katherine's was changed to show her as Queen of England. It proved that she put that title above being a Princess of Spain and made her more accepted by the English people. | |
| | People traveled on horseback or in litters, not wheeled carriages. They were 17th century. *NOTE TO POSTING: On one hand, I can not assure they travelled "on wheels", but carriages with wheels appeared at least in ancient Mesopotamia bet. the years 3.500 bc and 3.000 bc. There are no contemporary descriptions of a litter on which to go on, therefore film and TV are left to make an artistic choice. The inaccuracy has more to do with the type of carriages depicted, not whether they were used as conveyances. As a practical matter, carriages weren't used much for human transportation (especially the nobility) because springs and leather slings weren't in use during the period depicted. As a result, they were VERY uncomfortable to ride in. The carriages used in the series are 18th- (perhaps late 17th-) century vehicles. The post above is correct in that there were no wheeled “carriages” in 16th-century England. However, there was a wheeled vehicle sometimes used by the aristocracy for travel. It was called a whirlicote, also sometimes called a chariot. Think of it as a large rendition of a child’s wagon (no springs or suspension of any kind), sometimes covered with a top, with the horses led or ridden rather than driven from the vehicle. | |
| | Princess Mary was 12 in 1528 | |
| Anne Boleyn is referred to as "Lady Anne" when she and her sister are still at the French court in Episode 2, and also when she first appears at Henry's court. In later episodes, she is sometimes referred to as Mistress Boleyn | When Anne was at the French court and later when she made her first appearance at Henry's court, her proper title would have been Mistress Boleyn. She did not become "Lady Anne" until her father was created Lord Rochford, at which point it would have been incorrect to refer to her as Mistress Boleyn. | |
| | Henry didn't have an uncle. His father Henry VII was an only child, and his mother's two brothers, the famous Princes in the Tower, disappeared in 1483. It is generally presumed that they were murdered by Richard III. However, William Courtenay was married to Henry's Aunt Katherine of York. He died of pleurisy in 1511 (4.7 years before Princess Mary was born). He was never the ambassador to Italy. TRUE CAUSES OF THE WAR AGAINST FRANCE The war against France in 1512–14 was the most significant opportunity for Cardinal Wolsey to demonstrate his talents in the foreign policy arena. The justification for going to war came in 1511 in the form of a plea for help from Pope Julius II, who was beginning to feel threatened by France. England formed an alliance with the Pope, Ferdinand V of Spain, and Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor against Louis XII of France. The first campaign against France was not a success, partly due to the unreliability of the alliance with Ferdinand. Wolsey learned from the mistakes of the campaign, however and, in 1513, still with papal support, launched a joint attack on France, successfully capturing two French cities and causing the French to retreat. Wolsey's ability to keep a large number of troops supplied and equipped for the duration of the war was a major factor in its success. Wolsey also had a key role in negotiating the Anglo-French treaty of 1514, which secured a temporary peace between the two nations. Under this treaty, the French king, Louis XII would marry Henry VIII's younger sister, Mary. The wedding took place on October 9, 1514. Mary, age 18, was married to the 52-year-old King Louis XII at Abbeville. The wedding was 16 months BEFORE Princess Mary, Henry's daughter, was born. | |
| | Actually Wyatt loved quite a few women. Only a couple of his poems are generally accepted by scholars as having been inspired by Anne Boleyn. One is the famous "Whoso list to hunt" (an adaptation of a sonnet by Petrarch) . The other refers to Anne as "Brunet, that did set my wealth in such a roar." Originally the line was "Brunet, that did set our country in such a roar," but Wyatt changed it to make the allusion to Anne less obvious. *See Thomas Wyatt's Poetry page on the wiki | |
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| In one of the early episodes Thomas Boleyn is referred to as being from "an old family." | In fact, the Boleyns were parvenus who married well. Thomas Boleyn's wife Elizabeth was the Duke of Norfolk's sister; hence his alliance with the Howards. | |
| Henry seems still to be quite young when he first becomes infatuated with Anne Boleyn, while his wife Katherine is well into her middle years. | In fact, Henry was well into his thirties when he fell for Anne. Katherine was 6 years older than Henry, making her about 40 at the time. As for Anne, she may have been in her late teens or mid-twenties depending on whether you accept 1501 or 1507 as her year of birth. | |
| | Anne's brother George was actually married to Jane Parker before Henry fell for Anne. While a rape can be disputed, Jane Parker was the historic character who testified against George and Anne, claiming the two had a sexual relationship. | |
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| Henry Fitzroy is seen to be born about the time the Duke of Buckingham was executed. Episode #1: | Henry Fitzroy as born in 1519, and the Duke of Buckingham was executed in 1521. | |
| | He was arrested and executed based on probably unfounded accusations that he tried to prophesy the King's death. | |
| Henry's sister, the Duchess of Suffolk, dies of consumption while Henry is still struggling to obtain his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Episode #1: | Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, died in the summer of 1533, shortly after Anne Boleyn's coronation. | |
| | This type of musket was not invented until 1630, a century later. If Henry did fire a gun, it would have been a matchlock or possibly a wheelock. | |
| | The Palace of Whitehall only fell into Henry's hands in 1530, after he removed Cardinal Wolsey from power. Up until this point in time, it was called York Palace. The Palace was not referred to as Whitehall Palace until as much as a decade after. | |
| Pope Alexander is depicted as on his death bed at the time of The Field of Cloth of Gold meeting between Henry & Francis in 1520. Cardinal Orsini is depicted as being elected following the death of the fictional Alexander. Episode #1: | The actual Pope at that time, Leo X, died suddenly at the very end of 1521. There had not been a pope named Alexander since 1503, before the beginning of Henry's reign. Adrian of Utrecht was elected to succeed Leo, and following his death just a year later, Cardinal Medici became known as Pope Clement VII. He was the one who refused to permit Henry's divorce. | |
| | Any Tudor organist could not have worked alone, as any pipe organ, regardless of size, would have required at least one other person to pump the bellows in an era before electric blowers. Likewise, the instrument depicted could not make any sound without one of the 'stop' knobs drawn, which are all clearly 'closed' (in the same position) in the scene. There is also no evidence of an organ having a pedal board in England until the very late 17th or 18th century. | |
| The woman by the name of Joan, that Tallis meets in episode 7, dies shortly after of the sweating sickness; and he then courts her sister. Episode #1 :7 | Tallis married a woman by the name of Joan in 1552. | |
| | There were five serious epidemics of sweating sickness (or "English Sweat") in England during the reign of the Tudors. The worst was in late May of 1528, which was actually a pandemic that also spread into Scandinavia, Russia, Holland, Poland, Lithuania, and Switzerland. The disease was so rampant in London that King Henry fled court, frequently changing where he stayed to avoid being exposed to infection. Sir William did in fact die from the sweat during the 1528 outbreak. Anne Boleyn was rumoured to have caught the disease and survived, as well as her father and her brother George. William Carey, Mary Boleyn's first husband, was one of the thousands across England who died of the sweat that year. The epidemic that hit Oxford and Cambridge occurred in 1517. | |
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| | Since the series killed off Fitzroy's character much earlier than he actually died, his titles were granted earlier and quicker than they occurred in real life. Fitzroy was given the title of Knight of the Garter at age six in 1525. Almost two months later, he was given the titles of Earl of Nottingham and the Duke of Richmond (which Henry VII held before he was king). He was also made Admiral of England, Ireland, and Normandy, as well as Lieutenant of Ireland later on. When he died at age seventeen, Fitzroy held an income that made him the richest man in England second to the king. Despite being granted his grandfather's title of the Duke of Richmond, Fitzroy's ennoblement in 1525 was not meant to demote Princess Mary's position as next in line to the throne. The reason why Mary was sent to Ludlow was not because of Wolsey's scheming against Katherine, but because King Henry had made Mary Princess of Wales in 1526, and she was sent to rule the principality as the first and only woman to do so in her own right. | |
| When Henry asks Elizabeth Blount how her husband feels about their tryst, she says that he threatened to send her to a nunnery. Episode # 1 :1 | It was Elizabeth Fitzwalter, one of Henry's first alleged mistresses, who was actually sent to a nunnery after her husband suspected she was sleeping with the king. At the time, Katherine of Aragon was pregnant with their second child, a boy who would die two months after birth.Year: 1510 -11 | |
| In episode 2, Henry, Wolsey, and the rest of his court go to France to sign the "Treaty of Universal and Perpetual Peace" at the Palace of Illusions constructed by Francis I's artisans. The Treaty would not only create an Anglo-French alliance between Henry and Francis, but also allow the creation of "pan-European institutions" and a NATO like condition set where violators of the peace will be rejected as belligerents. Episode #1:2 | The event the episode alludes to is The Field of Cloth of Gold which took place for three weeks in June 1520 between the French towns of Guines and Ardres. The name of the meeting got its name from the pavilions constructed out of cloth of gold. The meeting did not result in an alliance between France and England, as no treaty was signed, much less a treaty promising "universal and perpetual peace" in Europe. The treaty in "The Tudors" more closely resembles the Treaty of London of 1518 which was a nonaggression pact constructed by Wolsey. "Pan-European-ism" is a fairly modern concept that was born out of the creation of the European Community in 1957 and the European Union in 1993. There were earlier examples of intergovernmental-ism in Europe before the 20th century, but they were not supported or masterminded by Henry VIII. | |
| | The trumpet of that era, a cornet, did not have valves as modern trumpets do, and had different piping. That means the sound was not so bright and would not have rung that clearly and cleanly (or so perfectly in tune, especially in that key). The intervals are also too small and frequent to be playable without valves. Also, the fanfare is an amalgam- based on the overture to l'Orfeo by Monteverdi (1605) and the first trumpet voluntary by Purcell (end of the 17th century) | |
| More sentences Simon Fish, author of Supplication for the Beggars to death and watches him burn at the stake. Episode #1.10 | Simon Fish was arrested on charges of heresy but died in 1531 of bubonic plague in prison before his trial. In November of 1531 a book peddler was burned named Richard Bayfield, whose death was similar to the fictional one of Fish portrayed in The Tudors (he prayed in English while burning). The series was correct to state that Thomas More had 6 people burned (but Fish was not one of them) for heresy during his Chancellorship and also had 40 others imprisoned. EDIT to add (by Katharine_fanatic): only four people were burned during Thomas More's chancellorship; there is no evidence for or against his involvement. He made the arrests, but the trials were held by a religious court in which he had no involvement. | |
| | It is not really known if Henry VIII did write Greensleeves, although it is popularly accredited to him. For the musical style of the piece, it fits better during the time of Elizabeth I. Some music historians believe it was written about a man in love with a woman who was a prostitute. | |
| The twin sisters Joan and Jane surprise George Boleyn by performing a very recognizable pose in the nude. Episode # 1.06 | This pose is actually taken from a painting that portrays Gabrielle d'Estrees, the mistress of Henry IV of France, with her sister pinching her right *Ahem*, titled Gabrielle d'Estrees et une de ses souers. It was painted by an unknown artist circa 1594, long after our two Tudors sisters could have used it as a cultural reference. | |
| Queen Katherine of Aragon is heard praying in English Episode # 1.01 | Catholic Prayer was in Latin. Changing it to the concerned country's language was one of the major steps of the Reformation and one of the major differences with Catholicism. That difference was to remain until the Lateran Council in 1963, when the Pope introduced lay languages prayer to the Catholic Church. | |
| | Though Machiavelli wrote the Prince in 1512, it was not published until 1532, and it is highly unlikely that Henry would have received a copy before the 1530s. |
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MsSquirrly |
Latest page update: made by MsSquirrly
, Oct 18 2009, 8:25 PM EDT
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| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | ||
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| viennawoods | portraits | 1 | Oct 14 2009, 7:34 PM EDT by LNor19 | ||
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Thread started: Oct 14 2009, 6:34 PM EDT
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I was amazed to see the portrait of Richard III hanging on the wall of Henry's private room, along with other 15th century kings. Richard was of course killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field by Henry's father's troops, after being denounced by the Lancastrians as a usurper, and the murderer of his nephews (story written and published by Sir Thomas More, by the way), who would have been Henry's uncles, as their sister Elizabeth married Henry VII. SO it would be very unlikely that his portrait would be in Henry's private chambers.
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| JuliaLeigh711 | Anne Boleyn riding and other comments | 0 | Apr 27 2009, 11:04 PM EDT by JuliaLeigh711 | ||
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Thread started: Apr 27 2009, 11:04 PM EDT
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I too was surpised when I saw Anne Boleyn not using a side saddle. However, I am glad in the movie they put her on a horse and allowed her to ride, like women do today. I suppose it's difficult to follow every thing that was done in those times. I've studied the History of this King, and the production of the writers and directors, they do am AWESOME job. I did have a problem with the buzz cut of season 2, I couldn't wrap my mind around King Henry VIII until he came back in the third season and he allowed his hair to grow out. He looked like one of any our devoted soldiers in Iraq with that Buzz. The lighting people do an out standing job, as the lighting in each scene is wonderful. But, the best job of all after the great actors in this documentary, is the wardrobe people. I will watch it over and over just to enjoy the majestic costumes designed for each character. Marvelous Job, simply marvelous.
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| iurodeocowgirl | Anne Boleyn riding | 11 | Feb 14 2009, 6:34 PM EST by karenofbethany | ||
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Thread started: Feb 13 2009, 4:15 PM EST
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I'm just finished with the first season and I'm shocked to see that Anne Boleyn is NOT riding sidesaddle!!! Even back then the women "peasants" who could not afford a sidesaddle would swing both their legs to one side once in few of others in order not to be vulgar and have their legs seperated. I participate in side saddle shows and reinactments and was truly disappointed to see that Anne's riding style was overlooked. What is the reason behind this decision?
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