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 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 8: Peace
The finale of The Spanish Princess finds Catherine of Aragon at a crossroads. Her once unshakable bond with Henry VIII falters as he turns toward Anne Boleyn and questions the validity of their marriage. In this powerful conclusion, Catherine clings to her role as England’s rightful queen, marking the end of one era and the beginning of the English Reformation. Tudor drama reaches its emotional peak in a poignant farewell to Catherine’s reign
Lady Pole, Traitorous and Defiant
I am here today to defend the honor of Lady Margaret Pole, who was not the idiot this series paints her to be. She is becoming increasingly unhinged and mouthing off to people who could imprison her for treason. Since she has seen many of her extended family members executed (murdered), there is no way in hell Margaret would ever do anything this stupid. She risks not only her life, but her children. At one point in this episode, she asks Catherine how she can bear being married to a “monster” like Henry. Later scenes have her publicly the court “rotten,” and saying, “I will see the Tudors burn in hell.”
Philippa Gregory insists she is accurate, defends her books as historically correct, and whines that screenwriters ruin the accuracy with their absurd additions, but the truth is… all she does is take whatever nasty rumor existed at the time and make it true. In her version of history, Anne Boleyn does commit incest. Catherine of Aragon did lie about her virginity. Etc. In this case, Margaret Pole is the traitor Henry VIII accused her of being. Which bothers me. Margaret Pole’s arrest and execution was a travesty, and her death was horrible. (The executioner had trouble severing her head and “hacked her upper body all to pieces.” It’s nightmare fuel.) When you write stories in which figures “deserve what’s coming to them,” you vindicate historical atrocities.
What happened to these INNOCENT women was awful. Anne did not deserve to be falsely accused of adultery, incest, and witchcraft, and killed. Catherine did not deserve, after serving England for two decades and going through eight miscarriages in her husband’s bid for a baby boy, to get abandoned in a moth-eaten castle to die in isolation. Margaret Pole did not deserve to get hacked to pieces. Henry VIII was the monster here, not any of these women or the other victims of his brutality. (He executed almost all of his advisors, some of his cousins, and a chunk of his friends, not to mention two wives. The dude was a f-ing psychopath.)
So, Margaret Pole hating them openly, mouthing off about them, and defying them makes my eyes bleed. They are setting her up to deserve what’s coming to her, and she deserves better.
But let’s dig into it more.
She has been staying with Stafford, who got axed for treason last week, and when the king attainders his property, she refuses to vacate. When her son Henry demands she stand aside, she accuses him of siding with the king instead of with his mother and sister, as if she doesn’t know that to do otherwise is death. Doesn’t she understand how “serving the king” works by now?? She refuses to vacate the Stafford house, even though she has her own extensive properties, and tells her son, “I won’t be commanded by a boy, and one who answers to a tyrant rather than his own conscience” IN FRONT OF HENRY’S MEN. When Thomas More shows up to reason with her, she calls him a torturer. And is knocked flat when he tells her that her titles have been revoked. She cries out, “I have struggled my whole life to be a loyal servant to God and the crown, and look where it has gotten me!” Then she flounces off to betray Catherine.
None of this ever happened, of course. At least not at this point. Her titles were revoked in1539, after Henry accused her of treason, and then went on to execute her family. In the series, Margaret goes to tell the king the truth, that Catherine lay with her first husband many times and lied to him. This puts her on his side in the divorce, and against Catherine. Wrong! At the time of the Great Matter, Margaret Pole still attended to Princess Mary and ran her household. When Mary’s royal status was demoted, and men came to fetch away her royal jewels, Margaret refused to surrender them. When the king dissolved Mary’s household, Margaret loved her so much she offered to serve her without a salary. She remained loyal to Mary and her mother, which soured her relationship with the king and he sent her away.
Henry VIII as a Violent Brute? Not So Fast
I hate that this show makes Henry out to be physically abusive, which he wasn’t. (It’s not just this series that runs with this narrative, either. In The Other Boleyn Girl, and in the miniseries Henry VIII, he rapes Anne Boleyn… and in Firebrand, he tries to rape Catherine Parr and drags her around by the hair.) Henry was invested in the chivalry codes of the time, and saw himself as a true “knight,” which means he altered his actions to fit a romantic ideal. Physical violence toward a woman would be an unchivalrous thing to do, yet this series and the one before it insists on making the Tudor men physically abusive. In The White Princess, Henry VII drags his own mother by her ankles out of his chambers, and here, Henry threatens to drown Catherine if she does not tell him the truth about Arthur. The real Henry’s evil was less in your face and hands on, and more grounded in callous “abuses of power.”
Henry uses Catherine’s confession as an excuse to refuse to speak to her, and to bring the Boleyns into her household. I’m not sure when this episode is supposed to take place, because Mary Boleyn became his mistress in 1522, and he started pursuing Anne in 1526. Here, Mary doesn’t exist. Anne Boleyn has no dialogue but we see her boobs when she teases Henry in the garden! How… feminist.
Margaret Tudor: Scorned and Trigger-Happy
Continuing in her hate campaign against her brother and his wife, Margaret rallies the Scots to her side, pays them in stolen English gold to help her reclaim her regency, and seizes her castle from Albany. She takes over the Scottish throne, denounces her brother and his ‘deceitful wife’ to earn the approval of the Scots, and burns their letters without reading them, since they are “lost” and no longer her concern. In the series, it’s Catherine who sends her an insulting missive about being submissive as a good wife… but in real life, Henry who did so. He opposed her annulment and found it scandalous. He lectured her about the sanctity of marriage and called it a “shame and a disgrace” that she would un-join what the Lord had brought together. HE sent her a letter emphasizing the divine nature of marriage and urging her to be a good wife, not Catherine. There is no indication he changed his mind on this matter.
I am delighted they showed her firing cannons at her husband. That’s a piece of history that needs more exposure, although I wish it had been with a less emotionally reactive Margaret than this show gave us.
The Hated Spanish?!
Catherine finds a voodoo doll labeled “Spanish dogs” on the palace grounds, and stabs it with a knife into the earth. WHY? The Spaniards were not out of favor at this time, and she had no enemies at court. Everyone loved their Spanish Queen, which is why the public sided with her in the divorce and screamed that the king should get rid of “Nan Bullen”!
The Ending
Catherine is both in and out of historical character in this final episode to the series. In history, she fought until the end, and refused to be removed from Henry’s side until he sent her away. She continued to act as if nothing was wrong at court and hosted functions, which upset him because he thought she was not treating the situation with the gravitas it required. Catherine kept up all pretenses and social roles, even containing in her wifely duty of sewing him new linen shirts, until he banished her. But in the show, because Catherine knows she is in the wrong and mislead him, she quietly accepts her fate. She tells him, “I will leave court and live quietly, but you will not push me out of this marriage; there is nothing you can do to change that. I hope you may find peace.” She decides to leave the palace, rather than be sent away. And suddenly is wearing period authentic gable hoods! 😀
Catherine is finally similar to the real one in the last ten minutes of the finale, in which she cares about Mary, looks to protect her, spends hours in prayer, and has a quiet but dignified fade-out. Too bad the rest of the show did not go this route; it would have been way more compelling!
Closing Thoughts
One might wonder, why does any of this matter? And maybe in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t. But I care about historical figures not being maligned or written out of character. It’s one thing to invent your own stories and to set them in the past, and another to play with historical figures in a way that leads the audience into believing something that is not true. In the same way I would not want anyone putting words into my mouth that do not fit with my personal beliefs, changing my sexuality, inventing heinous actions I never took part in, or leading future generations to believe lies about me, I feel the same about historical figures. In my opinion, historical novelists and screenwriters have a responsibility to be as truthful as possible when it comes to people who actually lived.
Why? Because most people aren’t going to do research to find out if your script or novel told the truth. They are going to assume because it looks and sounds authentic that this is how it really happened.
If someone saw this series, they would think Margaret Beaufort was a controlling bitch rather than a patron of female education, Catherine was a liar who got what was coming to her, Margaret Pole was a traitor and not an innocent victim, that Henry was a passive man who let his wife do all the talking, and that Sir Thomas More, famous humanist and statesman, tortured people in his own home. That bugs me. Maybe it doesn’t bother you, and so you can enjoy the series without “picking for nits” (nitpicking). But I can’t live with myself if I don’t set the record straight. I include a “how I changed history” section in the back of my Tudor novels, which admits to my fabrications and tells the real story, and I wish more authors would do the same.
Because these were real people, not my fictional playthings.
Step Back in Time with The Tudor Throne Series
While The Spanish Princess revamps Catherine’s story with dramatic flair, The Tudor Throne Series offers you a more historically accurate interpretation to the tapestry of events in her young life. Set earlier during Catherine of Aragon’s formative years, each novel blends rich historical details (family loyalties, dynastic alliances, and peril) with the emotional depth and suspense you crave.
