The Spanish Princess has captivated audiences with its lush costumes and dramatic portrayal of Catherine of Aragon’s early years, but how accurate is this Tudor-era television series when held up against the historical record? Based on Philippa Gregory’s novel, the show blends fact with fiction, often taking significant liberties with real events, characters, and timelines. In this essay, we’ll explore the historical inaccuracies in The Spanish Princess, separating the dramatized narrative from the documented truth about Catherine of Aragon, Henry VII, Elizabeth of York, Henry VIII, and the Tudor court.
With over 25 years of studying the Tudor period and a seven-book Tudor historical fiction series to my name, I bring a well-researched and passionate perspective to the lives of Henry VII, Catherine of Aragon, and the court that shaped them. If you enjoy peeling back the layers of fact and fiction in Tudor dramas, you’ll feel right at home here, and maybe even find yourself intrigued enough to explore my novels that bring this world to life in rich, imaginative detail.
Episode Two: Fever Dream
As illness sweeps through the court, tragedy strikes, leaving Catherine’s future uncertain. Amid grief and instability, the young Spanish princess must decide how far she’s willing to go to secure her destiny in England.
Scottish Rage? Not So Fast!
Everyone in this show seems to hate Scotland and the Scots. From an English perspective, that makes some sense; the two nations had a long-standing, often violent rivalry. Along the border, raiding parties frequently stole goods, burned barns, and retaliated in turn. But Henry VII’s designed his arrangement to marry his daughter Margaret to James IV of Scotland to end this cycle of hostility. Margaret would have known her destiny was to unite the crowns and produce heirs, not to throw a tantrum over her husband being “too old.” Margaret never expressed such childish resistance in public. That sort of behavior was unheard of for a royal woman educated to accept her dynastic duty. The real complaint about “forced marriages” comes more accurately from her younger sister Mary, who objected to marrying the aged King of France years later and bargained for the right to marry whom she pleased afterward.
As for Catherine of Aragon, she had no reason to hate the Scots, nor did she. Scotland wouldn’t become Protestant for another twenty years, so her contempt isn’t based in religious friction. The show seems to invent this hatred to foreshadow the Battle of Flodden a decade later. When the Scots invaded England, the English nobility responded with force, particularly the Howard family who had long suffered from Scottish raids.
Not a Time For Dancing
The show depicts Catherine attending a banquet and dancing the day after her marriage. In reality, she spent the day in prayer and reflection. Arthur accompanied his father to church to offer thanksgiving, while Catherine remained in seclusion, as was customary. She did not participate in courtly entertainment or English dances immediately after the ceremony. English courtiers, aware of her Spanish upbringing, would not have forced her into unfamiliar customs or tried to embarrass her socially.
Temper Tantrums in Public? Unthinkable
This episode indulges in a lot of very modern emotional outbursts: Princess Margaret tantrums, and Harry and Arthur shove each other in full view of the court. In the 1500s, this kind of public discord would have been considered disgraceful. Royal children were trained from an early age to maintain composure in public. Disputes were handled privately, behind closed doors. Henry VIII, age ten at the time of Arthur’s wedding, is remembered for one mild breach of decorum: he danced too energetically and removed his outer jacket. Even that drew whispers. Publicly wrestling his brother? Unthinkable!
Catherine’s Tolerance Speech? Fictional
Catherine’s monologue about the “beauty of Islam” is lifted straight from Philippa Gregory’s book, and it’s historically implausible. Catherine was a Catholic Monarch, raised in a country still reeling from centuries of religious warfare. She was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, whose regime included the Inquisition and forced conversions of Muslims and Jews. Catherine would have seen Islam as a heresy to be rooted out, not as something to be celebrated or philosophized about. While she may have appreciated the architectural achievements of Moorish Spain, it’s unlikely she voiced admiration for the religion itself.
Did Catherine and Arthur Consummate their Marriage?
If you ask me, the answer is no. The question of whether Catherine and Arthur consummated their marriage has defined centuries of Tudor history and the entire premise of Gregory’s novel hinges on them sleeping together. In reality, Catherine swore under oath, multiple times, before priests and ambassadors, that she never slept with Arthur. As a devout Catholic, she believed lying in confession risked eternal damnation. Her religious convictions were absolute; her actions later in life underscore her unwavering piety. In my opinion, if she claimed virginity, we have every reason to believe her.
Sudden Death: What Was the Sweating Sickness?
Here, the show goes off the rails. People wear plague masks, which weren’t invented until the 1600s, and Lina, Catherine’s Blackamoor lady-in-waiting, falls ill from the sweat, unlikely, as the mysterious disease targeted only people of northern European descent. Africans, Spaniards, and Moors appeared to be immune. In the show, Arthur and Catherine both fell ill, but she recovered while he died. Some historians now think they caught pneumonia. When Arthur died, his parents were in London and received the news there, not in person. Elizabeth of York mourned Catherine as a daughter and sent her best coach to carry her home, wrapped in black ribbons, not the cold indifference we see onscreen.
The sweat was a major epidemic illness that struck England in five waves between 1485 and 1551. We still don’t know what it was, but people felt a sudden onset of fever, anxiety, and profuse sweating, followed by death within hours. It only affected English people, mostly from the upper class. It mutated rapidly, with sudden outbreaks burning through towns within days and then vanishing for months. There is no consensus on what caused it or why it disappeared.
Come and Meet the Real Tudors!
If the drama of this episode intrigued you, you’ll find a deeper, more historically grounded take in my novels. The Usurper’s Throne explores Catherine and Arthur’s time together at Ludlow Castle, capturing their marriage, the courtly life in Wales, and the heartbreak of his death with vivid, researched detail. And the seeds of Margaret Tudor’s political marriage to James IV of Scotland, hinted at here, bloom into full story lines in The Last Fire-Eater, where ambition, duty, and dynastic alliances ignite on both sides of the border.
