Compared to Tudors?
How does this show compare with the Tudors? (I enjoyed that, although of course, it played very loose with the history.)
shareI like the Tudors much more than this show. Both shows dramatize history and change things to suit the story, but The Tudors was a show where the focus was primarily on Henry and his life. This show is focused mainly on Catherine of Aragon, and as such, is a bit more on the feminist side. I watched The White Queen, The White Princess, and The Spanish Princess with my wife (who is a huge fan and student of Tudor history). After finishing The Spanish Princess series finale last night, I pray that Philippa Gregory never has another of her works adapted for film or television. She has bastardized history too much just to line her pocketbook.
shareI haven't watched The Spanish Princess yet but about to. I liked the Tudors: I felt like they tried to capture how it would have felt to be there (in a dramatized way of course). It seemed like a lot of the known history was correct - my husband and I were googling as we watched, especially once the more gruesome deaths began (trying to figure out if they were really that gory, which, yes they were), and then they filled in the blanks using their imagination and trying to connect the dots to see how it might have happened. I always wondered what Ann Boleyn was really like, and I felt that The Tudors did a good job giving you a picture of what she might have been like and how that character could have had that life path. So if The Spanish Princess does the same kind of thing, I will be quite happy.
shareAnn Boleyn is a very, very minor character in The Spanish Princess. She was always so much in the background that I wasn't even able to place her until the final episode of the series. The focal characters from this show are primarily: Catherine of Aragon, her friend and lady-in-waiting Lina (and her husband Oviedo), Margaret Tudor Queen of Scotland, Lady Margaret Pole, Henry Tudor King of England, Sir Thomas More, and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. Some characters that were featured more heavily in "The Tudors" than they are here are: Charles Brandon, Mary Tudor Queen of France (Henry's sister and Charles Brandon's wife), and Edward Stafford Duke of Buckingham.
Violence and nudity were much heavier in "The Tudors." There are not many executions in this show and only 1 of them stands out as being remotely "gory." Overall, "The Tudors" was better and has a rewatch value for me. This show doesn't...even if they got Catherine right by hiring a red-headed actress (as my wife pointed out to me).
I didn't know Catherine of Aragon was red-headed! I guess with her, I am interested in how she was so well-liked by the public while also being very, very religious. Not that being very religious would mean one is not likeable, but it's just interesting to think about what society would have been like back then that made her so popular with regular people even while Henry was trying to find a way to get rid of her.
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