The Tudors: Is it Really Good to Be the King?

The Tudors, a ten part series starting on Showtime, is covering familiar ground. The story of "the King's Great Matter" has been told on film, television, and the stage for decades. Past examples include A Man for All Seasons,Anne of the Thousand Days, and the Anne Boleyn episode of The Six Wives of Henry VIII.

One of the things that make The Tudors different from all of its predecessors is the scope it is apparently trying to achieve. The Tudors is trying to depict the very origins of the process that caused King Henry, once so devoted to Catholicism that he was named "Defender of the Faith" by the Pope, to destroy the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church in England and assure that country would be a Protestant one, albeit after centuries of religious strife.

We meet Henry VIII, played by a slender, vibrant John Rhys Meyers, in 1520. He is in his mid twenties, a great athlete, a mighty wencher, eager to make a name for himself as a power in European affairs. He is aided by two of his closest advisers, Cardinal Wosley, played by Sam Neill, and Thomas Moore, played by Jeremy Northam. We'll doubtlessly see a lot more of those two esteemed gentlemen, a worldly cleric and a religious layman, later.

In any event, policy and Henry's desire have placed England in an alliance called the Holy League, which was formed to oppose French ambitions in Italy. The assassination of Henry's ambassador at the court of the Duke of Urbino would seem to be the pretext for war. But Wosley, who secretly favors the French for his own reasons, proceeds to manipulate events so that a peace summit, known as the Meeting of the Cloth of Gold, will result instead of yet another English invasion of France.

In the meantime, Henry's Queen, Catherine of Aragon, the aunt of the Holy Roman Emperor, is getting a little old and frumpy. Worse, only a daughter, the Princess Mary, has survived from her loins. Recent English history, which featured a bloody, thirty year conflict for the English throne known as the Wars of the Roses, dictate that the King have a male heir.

Complicating things, Catherine was previously married to Henry's older brother, Arthur. Technically, Henry's marriage to Catherine is forbidden by Church law. True, Catherine swore that the marriage to Arthur had not been consummated, hence a dispensation from the Pope. But after years of near barrenness, with five dead kids, Henry is starting to wonder (or starting to convince himself) that his marriage may be cursed by God. In the meantime, Henry consoles himself in the arms of one of his wife's ladies in waiting, Betsy Blount, who has become inconveniently with child who, sadly, will not be legitimate, hence cannot be an heir if a boy.

As the date for the summit meeting draws closer, Henry's ambassador to France, Thomas Boleyn, sees the opportunity for great personal advantage. He has two very lovely teenage daughters, Mary and Anne, who have taken very well to the loose atmosphere of the French court. King Henry will meet them both at the meeting and, if he fancies one (or both) of them, the rewards could be rich for the Boleyns. Doubtless if Thomas knew what was to occur, he would have left both of his little girls in Paris.

Finally, the Duke of Buckingham is very put out with the King, for both political and personal reasons. He resents the influence of Wolsey. He suspects that Henry, the son of a man who took the English throne by sword point, may not be as legitimate a king as--say--a scion of a much older family, say Buckingham. Finally, he is outraged at the attentions be made toward his daughter by Henry and one of his favorites.

The Tudors has promise to be a sprawling historical epic. True some of the actors don't seem to resemble the characters they portray. Rhys Meyers is not the bluff, stout, red bearded Henry VIII with the drum stick. Sam Neill is much thinner than Cardinal Wolsey. But still, Episode 1 was an enjoyable hour of television, with the promise of nine more to come.