How preoccupied the Tudors were with removing rival dynastic claims is an interesting question. The period appears to ha
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davidoud — 11 years ago(March 09, 2015 12:18 PM)
By 1530 the Tudors had been on the throne for 45 years, and no one was making any noise about removing them in any dynastic sense
Absolutely. He was Edward IV's grandson after all!
He and Arthur were the perfect princes in a sense since they were sons of the best Lancastrian and Yorkist claimants alive at the time of their birth.
I don't feel that George of Clarence's descendants had a better claim than Henry VIII -
dizzy-b — 9 years ago(January 07, 2017 01:31 PM)
The fact is British history and cultural portrayals of that history on end Plantagenets, eg Richard iii, is written by flacks like Shakespeare who had to portray that history a certain way to legitimize henry vii and therefore Elizabeth.
Interesting. May I ask, have you actually watched the full cycle of Shakespeare's Plantagenet History plays? The series of 8 beginning with Richard II, and including Henry IV parts I and II, Henry V, and Henry VI in three parts, culminating in Richard III?
You see, a lot of the people who say these plays were 'Lancastrian propaghanda' have not seen them, or at least not all of them. They just repeat what other people say.
If they were 'Lancastrian propaghanda' they weren't very good, as they portrayed a number of Lancastrians in a decidedly unfavourable light, including Margaret of Anjou, the Beaufort Dukes of Somerset, and William De La Pole Duke of Suffolk, who was murdered in 1450. Conversely, Edward IV actually comes across in quite a favourable light, and even his father is portrayed sympathetically at times. It is known that Elizabeth I said she identified herself with Richard II, whom she was not descended from, probably more than any other figure in the plays.
Shakespeare's depiction of Richard III can be demostrated to be based on rumour, gossip, and opinion and about Richard that were around at his time- some of which developed during Richard's own reign- such as the rumour about him wanting to marry his niece, or killed his nephews. It was not so much 'propaghanda'- in the sense that it was really nothing new. Just recycling things people already believed. The Bard's plays were simply the Historical Fiction of the time, no different from that we have today.
IMHO, they are far superior to the Tudors, or anything by Philippa Gregory. Though its interesting that she and other fiction authors are able to get away with portraying Richard III bedding more than one of his nieces, and even impregnating them, when historians and Shakespeare, are attacked for so much as suggesting he considered one of them as a potential wife. -
Korios — 11 years ago(March 06, 2015 10:20 AM)
A correction, The Tudors was not a BBC (produced) series, it was an Irish - Canadian - American co-production who happened to be broadcasted by the BBC in the UK. Wolf Hall, on the contrary, is produced (as in
funded
) by the BBC.
Fanboy : a person who does not think while watching. -
PaulDowsett — 11 years ago(March 06, 2015 10:27 AM)
Thanks for the correction, Korios. Although, this had been covered here:
http://www.imdb.com/board/13556920/board/flat/239114525?d=239323841#2 39323841 -
rrb_1 — 10 years ago(April 25, 2015 03:49 PM)
be better than the abysmal BBC series, The Tudors.
OP - THANK YOU for saying that. The Tudors was nothing but soft-core porn dressed up as historical drama (minus any concern for accuracy). Jonathan Rhys-Meyers must'v been paid a lot of money. It's a shame to see a talented actor waste his gifts on such trash. -
njgill — 9 years ago(November 20, 2016 08:18 AM)
Most rational adults would think that a representation of real people who actually lived and are historically documented and uses their names and at least SOME facts from their lives was meant to be taken at face value. If this was meant to be seen as pure fiction, they should have prefaced each episode with a disclaimer, and - preferably - changed the characters' names, so as not to confuse tham with real people.