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Nicola Machiavelli 

As observed in my earlier blogs on SPANISH PRINCESS, Starz gets the major historical events right, but leaves out or fictionalizes many (very entertaining!) details. Here is a breakdown of the 11/8 "Plague" episode, if you care to separate facts from fiction.

 From the "real' history (my specialty, as a writer of "real history mysteries") we know that "Plague" occurs during 1515 (when Louis XII died, reportedly from too much sex, and Mary promptly wed Charles Brandon), 1516 (when Katherine gave birth to Mary), 1517 (when Queen Margaret discovered her husband's affair with Jane Stewart), and 1519 (when Bessie Blount gave birth to King Henry's first surviving son).  Much was simplified and major facts were left out: Charles Brandon's previous two wives and Margaret's daughter by Angus, for example.  (See my blog illustrated with Mary and Charles' wedding portrait at  https://www.maryannphilip.com/blog for details.)  But the basic history is correct, including Thomas Wolsey's meteoric rise to become the second most powerful man in England.

However, Starz was unfair to Queen Katherine, Cardinal Wolsey and to a lesser extent, King Henry VIII, at least in my opinion.  

Before discussing that unfairness, let's be clear on the fiction in "Plague": first, Bessie Blount – a legendary beauty, inexplicably portrayed as very plain by Starz– was hustled away from the court as soon as her pregnancy began to show. Katherine was nowhere near when Bessie gave birth, much less brandishing a knife to do an episiotomy so she could carry a newborn son to Henry.  And William Compton—who was NOT Lady Margaret Pole's suitor, because he was already married—did not die of "the plague" then, much less get dragged off and buried by Thomas More and Lena's fictional husband.  He died more than ten years later, during a "plague" of the mysterious "sweating sickness" that killed many in Tudor England. Starz has evidently borrowed from events in 1528 to promote the fictional romance between Lady Margaret Pole and Thomas More, addressed in my blog  illustrated with Henry's armor at https://www.maryannphilip.com/blog .   

I see why Starz invented the Lady Margaret-Thomas More romance, perhaps.  More on that below.  

Here's why Starz has been unfair to Thomas Wolsey, Queen Katherine, and Henry VIII himself, in my opinion:  Wolsey was a very able administrator and statesman, whom Starz portrays as corrupt, slow-witted and nasty to the Queen. The fact is, King Henry was smart to rely on him—and Henry himself smarter and far less arbitrary than Starz paints him. Wolsey became rapidly wealthy not due to French bribes, but to numerous church benefices–literally, sources of income—that piled on as Henry pushed him to bishop, archbishop and finally cardinal.  While this is a form of corruption, it was a worldwide corruption of the existing church, ultimately one of the causes of the Protestant Reformation and Henry's version of it, which transferred Catholic Church wealth to the Crown.

The relationship between Queen Katherine and Wolsey during this period is mysterious in the histories, but there is evidence that they cooperated (planning for the Battle of Flodden, for example—see my blog illustrated with a picture of Henry's armor at https://www.maryannphilip.com/blog ).  Promoted by Henry because of his many talents, Wolsey was certainly not stupid enough to be rude to the Queen. He was undoubtedly hated by many of Henry's other councilors, if only because of his "low birth."  But if Katherine felt as they did, she kept it to herself.

Necessarily, though, as Wolsey's power rose, Katherine's diminished. Wolsey wasn't the only reason, however.  Starz has not mentioned most of Katherine's known pregnancies: seven, including one false pregnancy, between 1510 and 1518. With the exception of the false pregnancy, this counts only those she carried to term or nearly to term. Constantly pregnant, she gained weight and aged prematurely, something Starz does not show us. When "Plague" occurs, her glamor is mostly gone. She may also have been carrying a fatal illness, thanks to Henry—read the first pages of CANNON CONSPIRACY to see what it was, here:  https://www.amazon.com/Henry-VIII-Katherine-Aragon-Machiavelli-ebook/dp/B08KSKXW2S/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Maryann+Philip&qid=1604341142&sr=8-2 . (Eventually I'll address the circumstantial evidence supporting this theory in this blog. For now, you'll have to read the Afterword in CANNON CONSPIRACY to find the evidence.)

Katherine was aware of and angry about Henry's adulteries from the first, contrary to Starz' portrayal. While infidelity was typical behavior for monarchs of that era—Katherine's father, among others—her marriage was undoubtedly fraying because of it. Henry also bedded more women than Starz acknowledges during Katherine's pregnancies, perhaps because she was unavailable to him sexually until she was "churched" after she gave birth—a Tudor custom explored in my book, CANNON CONSPIRACY and discussed in my blog  illustrated with Henry's armor, at https://www.maryannphilip.com/blog .  (By the way, CANNON CONSPIRACY lays out the Tudor customs around royal and upperclass births, all of which were attended by skilled midwives.  Starz' consistent portrayal of ladies-in-waiting attending births in hallways has no basis in fact.)

Starz was also unfair to Queen Katherine in portraying her as cold towards her only child. By all accounts, Queen Katherine was a loving mother to her daughter Mary.  We also know that Mary was extremely fond of her, an attitude that seems unlikely if she was shunned as a small child. It is also well documented that together, Queen Katherine and Margaret Pole—both very educated women for that era—oversaw Mary's excellent education and preparation for her future as Queen. (Margaret Pole was appointed as Mary's governess in 1520, when Mary was four.)

 Like them, Thomas More was an early proponent of women's education, insisting on it for his own daughters even though it was very controversial at the time.  I suspect that Starz has created the fiction of a romantic relationship between Lady Margaret and Thomas More (identified as such in my blog illustrated with the Princess Mary-Charles Brandon wedding portrait) in order to emphasize their agreement on women's education in later episodes.  We'll see.

While Starz does not emphasize Katherine or Margaret's religiosity, history reveals them as very pious women, just as Thomas (later Saint Thomas) More was an intensely pious man. It is probably no coincidence that the future Queen Mary grew up fervently Catholic—just like them.  Starz, in the "Plague" episode, shows us the roots of future tragic conflict without touching this religious aspect. That is understandable, because piety is not entertaining. But I wonder if they can continue to pull it off.

Episode 4 of Starz' Spanish Princess, "The Other Woman," again gets the essential history right but plays with the human details. There is little real history in this episode, and therefore a lot of romantic fiction.

What Starz got right: first, Queen Margaret did secretly marry Angus, reluctantly relinquish her sons, and escape to Henry's protection in England because she feared for her life. All the details in the episode are wrong, but the result is correct. Her oldest son becomes the grandfather of Mary Queen of Scots and great grandfather of James I, Queen Elizabeth I's anointed heir and the monarch who united England and Scotland and thus brought peace between them thereafter. Mostly.

The remainder of Margaret's story is racy and bizarre enough that I hope Starz will simply document the truth in future episodes. 

Second, "The Other Woman" documents the ascendancy of Thomas Wolsey, wisely relied on by Henry VIII because Wolsey was a brilliant and enormously capable man—not the foolish misogynist pictured by Starz. Henry's Council, all from ancient families, despised Wolsey for his low birth and power. While Queen Katherine may have felt the same, the real histories document only cooperation between them (before the Battle of Flodden, for example, discussed in my blog on the "Flodden" episode) at this time. 

We can date "The Other Woman" episode to 1516, when Margaret fled Scotland, Katherine gave birth to Mary and Bessie Blount became Henry's next mistress, probably during that pregnancy. But Starz stuck some of the earlier and later history into "The Other Woman"—and inevitably got most of the details wrong in the process.

Where to begin in identifying the fiction in this episode?  Probably five years earlier, in 1510, when Henry's affair with Anne Hastings actually occurred, during Katherine's first pregnancy and "confinement." (Starz skipped that entirely—Katherine's first stillborn was a daughter. She also had another stillborn son in 1514.) There was a well-documented explosion between Katherine and Henry at that time, when she found out about Anne. Details, along with what actually happened to queens during "confinement"  are in my book, CANNON CONSPIRACY, available through the link below. Anne was bundled off to a convent by her husband and never reinstated as lady-in-waiting to the Queen.  She had eight children by Lord Hastings—at least three by the time of this episode—so her marriage was hardly sexless. William Compton covered for them during her affair with Henry, and was himself accused of living with her eleven years later, in 1527—a mysterious and unproved accusation, since both remained married to their respective spouses.

Those true events are the likely basis for Starz' fiction that Lady Margaret fobbed Compton off on Anne Hastings.  We know Henry did NOT try to marry Lady Margaret off to Compton, ever, because Compton was already married, as documented fact. Neither did Margaret flirt with Sir Thomas More, at least then, because he was never her son's tutor and not yet active at court. That comes later. (See my blog on the "Grief" episode for more on this point.) It is true, however, that Margaret was well-educated and that Thomas More promoted womens' education by raising erudite daughters. So they had something in common. But they could not have carried on a flirtation in 1516 because More was not there.

Why did Katherine have all those stillbirths, and all Henry's children except for Elizabeth die young, the boys in their teens and small, constantly ill Mary at 45? Why did Anne Boleyn have three miscarriages before she was beheaded?  And why did Katherine die before Anne Boleyn did, and Bessie Blount also die young? There is a simple though disputed explanation, which you can learn FREE by reading the first pages of A CANNON CONSPIRACY, available at https://www.amazon.com/Henry-VIII-Katherine-Aragon-Machiavelli-ebook/dp/B08KSKXW2S/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Maryann+Philip&qid=1604341142&sr=8-2  (Just tap the picture of the book, for access to the FREE pages.) For a summary of the circumstantial evidence supporting that theory, though, you'll have to buy the e-book—or get it FREE if you have KindleUnlimited—and check the Afterword. CANNON CONSPIRACY is full of wonderful portraits from that era, including the one featured in this blog. Like my other "real history mysteries,"  it averages 4 out of 5 stars in early reviews.  And it's only $2.99. Please write a review if you enjoy it! 

As in Episode 1, Starz got the broad historical outline right in Episode 2. Henry did indeed leave Katherine behind as Regent and therefore Commander in Chief of his armies when he went to France to fight what became known as "The Battle of the Spurs." That battle was soon followed by the birth of their second son, who lived a few hours at most.

But Katherine was not present for the victory at the Battle of Flodden on the Scottish border, which was very different and much more modern than Starz portrayed. She did have an important role and something famous to say about it, however.

Understandably, Starz left out some details that might have made the storyline too complicated. Losing those details, though, made some events difficult to understand. And some of the minor characters are doing things they did not do in real life.

In fact, the Battle of Flodden had been anticipated by Henry, who had a standing army in the north,  ready to repel a Scottish invasion and already under the commend of Thomas Howard.  Katherine undoubtedly helped Wolsey with logistic details—supplies and the like—and may have had a part in organizing a second Midlands army under Thomas Lovell. Her involvement thus went far beyond what was expected of queens in that era—but not to the extent of donning armor and participating in the fighting.

The battle was not as portrayed, either. First, both sides had cannons—the atom bombs of that era—and the English were not wielding farm implements and pitchforks. They had their famous English longbows and something called a "bill," a kind of halberd that was superior to the medieval pikes wielded by the Scots. Contemporareous accounts give the English archers much of the credit for the victory, but Howard's superior skills as a tactician also played a part.

Flodden also involved huge numbers of men, for that time. Modern estimates put the English army at around 26.000 and the Scottish around 30,000. Casualties are estimated at 4.000 Engish dead and 10.000 Scots. Scotland not only lost its king, but most of its nobility.

Here's the famous story about Queen Katherine, after the battle of Flodden: when Howard brought her the King of Scotland's bloody cloak, she complained both to him and by letter to Henry that she should have been brought King James's head. She actually had his body brought back to England and kept embalmed and unburied in Sheen Priory, ostensibly because the Pope had excommunicated him for siding with the French. The English thought her quite bloodthirsty.

The diplomatic background to all this was also simplified by Starz. Essentially, most of Europe including the Pope was at war with Louis XII of France, who declared Edmund de la Pole the true king of England and gave Edmund's younger brother Richard a command in the French army. So Starz' explanation of the execution of Edmund de la Pole before Henry left for France was incomplete. Edmund was not a simple innocent, locked in the Tower.  He was the man the French wanted to put on the English throne.

There are other oddities about Margaret Pole's family in this episode. Reginald Pole did indeed spend part of his childhood in a Carthusian monastery, among monks who were silent much though not all of the time. However, there is no historical evidence that he had trouble speaking or any reluctance to speak. (I realize Philippa Gregory treats Reginald that way, but the three biographies of Katherine and Henry I read, listed below, do not.) To the contrary, he started at Oxford the year before the events in Episode 2,  graduated with a B.A. three years later, took another degree at Padua (the oldest and most famous university in Europe at the time) and became a renowned scholar and diplomat. 

There is also no evidence that Thomas More was ever Reginald's tutor, or that More carried on a flirtation with Lady Margaret. More had been married for years and was educating his daughters, practicing law, serving as a Member of Parliament, and acting as one of the undersheriffs of London. Margaret, then, was impoverished. There is no possibility that More would have chosen to tutor her son. 

As for Sir Charles Brandon—he undoubtedly flirted with Princess Mary, because he was a rake, and had known her since childhood. What goes unmentioned is that he has already had two wives and several children. However, by 1513 he was a widower.

Even though I know the history fairly well, I can't wait to see what happens next!  

Recommended biographies of young Katherine and Henry (all a bit dull but serious history): 

Hutchinson, Robert. Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII (St. Martin's Press 2011)

Williams, Patrick. Katherine of Aragon (Amberley Publishing 2009)

Fox, Julia. Sister Queens: the Tragic Lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana Queen of Castile (Ballantine Books 2011). 
 

Katherine of Aragon was reigning queen of England for twenty-two eventful years, which Starz is packing into eight episodes. Viewers who complained that the first episode was rushed were right: it roared by some scandalous and fascinating events detailed in my latest real history mystery, Cannon Conspiracy. For example, Episode 1 did not mention Henry VIII's affair with the Duke of Buckingham's sister during Katherine's first pregnancy, which ended in stillbirth (a daughter) and a rip-roaring royal fight when Queen Katherine found out about Anne Stafford. Go to link below if you want that missing story.

To be fair, Starz got what historians would regard as the important historical details right. King Ferdinand of Spain did double-cross Henry, which left English soldiers stranded and starving while Ferdinand conquered Navarre, using Henry's army as a distraction. And wily old Ferdinand wrote letters bragging about how he had outfoxed his young, naïve son-in-law. The diplomatic history behind those events involved Pope Julius II's campaign against France and was much more complicated than portrayed. But the essence was right.

However, while Starz portrays Ferdinand and most other central characters well, it changed some human details to make the story more dramatic. As an amateur historian that saddens me, because the real history is dramatic already:  

Baby Henry only lived 53 days, and did not die lying on a cold floor next to Katherine while she was praying. Cannon Conspiracy gives a (minority view) reason for his death.  It was definitely natural causes, but Henry—not Katherine—may be accountable. Cannon Conspiracy is only $2.99 and the first chapter addresses this question. Go to https://www.amazon.com/Maryann-Philip/e/B009WCCZ6O?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1601576474&sr=8-1  or follow the link on this site.

King Ferdinand never visited his daughter Katherine in England, much less dragging his "heir, Charles V" with him. Charles—his grandson, oldest son of Juana "La Loca"—was eleven years old and known as "Charles of Burgundy" when this scene occurs. He didn't become Charles V for another 7 or 8 years, lived in the Netherlands (then called "the Low Countries") with his paternal family, and was not yet Ferdinand's heir. (Ferdinand remarried after Queen Isabella died, and still hoped for a son. He and Isabella had five children but only one boy, who died in adulthood.) Princess Mary was, at the time of this scene, betrothed to Charles of Burgundy—Starz got that much right. But she was only 14 or 15 herself, if we fix the date for the scene to 1511. (Baby Henry was born January 1, 1511 and Henry held an enormous celebratory joust shortly afterwards, as shown by Starz. King Ferdinand's double-cross that stranded the English army occurred in 1512.) So both Princess Mary and Charles of Burgundy were portrayed as being much older than they actually were. They never met, at least in youth.           

Their betrothal was broken off for diplomatic reasons, shortly after the events in Episode 1, and Princess Mary ended up marrying….but no, Starz will surely cover that. And you will find yourself saying, "Poor Princess Mary" because Henry forced her to marry someone repulsive.
 

To my knowledge, Katherine never gave a speech like the one at the end of Episode 1, though she was certainly capable of it. The English loved her throughout her reign and beyond, and her loyalty to Henry (as opposed to her father) was not questioned.

I will continue to blog about the real history behind the events as portrayed by Starz as new episodes play. (Some of you saw Episode 1 early. How did you do that?)  You will be able to find those blogs at https://maryannphilip.com  or through my Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/nicolamachiavellimysteries/  

Meanwhile, enjoy this great new series!