The Tudors Season 1, Episode 5 turns up the drama and turns down the accuracy. From the death of Henry Fitzroy to the marriage of Margaret Tudor and Charles Brandon, this episode plays fast and loose with historical fact. In this detailed fact check, we explore what really happened. Henry’s attempt to legitimize his son, Anne Boleyn’s cautious courtship, Catherine of Aragon’s legal mind, and the fallout of Rome’s brutal sacking. Dive into the real stories behind the scandals, politics, and power plays of the Tudor court.

Inside This Post:

• Did Henry Fitzroy really die young?
• Did Catherine hate Mary leaving for Ludlow?
• Did Margaret and Brandon defy the king?
• Can a Pope really undo a Cardinal Sin?
• What’s true about Anne and Henry’s romance?
•  Was Catherine of Aragon powerless?
• What happened when Rome was sacked?
• Minor errors and modern slip-ups

Episode 5: Arise, My Lord

On their way home from Portugal, Princess Margaret and Charles Brandon decide to marry, incurring the wrath of the king. Henry makes his illegitimate son his heir by bestowing lands and titles upon him, at the same time depriving his wife, Catherine of Aragon, of their daughter Mary, by sending her to Ludlow Castle in the Welsh Marches. Anne Boleyn sends the king mixed messages about her desires.

The Fitzroy Fiction: From Royal Favorite to Sudden Death

In the series, Henry VIII honors his illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, with the titles of the Duke of Richmond and Somerset, and by giving him his own estates and a separate household from his mother. Catherine of Aragon objects to this, since it places him in the line of succession ahead of her daughter, Mary I. As a result, Mary receives lands and titles and moves to Ludlow in Wales. A distressed Catherine objects to her being “taken away from me.” Fitzroy dies at the end of the episode from the sweating sickness, with the doctor informing his mother he took ill in the morning and perished by nightfall.

The actual story is more complicated. Henry honored his son by Bessie Blount with a dukedom and property at six years old (1525), but he was still illegitimate and ineligible to inherit the throne. Princess Mary remained the heir to the throne until the birth of Prince Edward (Jane Seymour’s son). Henry still had hopes of producing a male heir at this time, if not with Catherine then with Anne Boleyn.

Fitzroy married at age fourteen to Thomas Howard’s daughter, but they never consummated the marriage or lived together. He died of consumption in 1536, at age seventeen. (He outlived Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn!)

Wales, Loyalty, and the Politics of Place

A contemporary tells us that Catherine of Aragon “resented the earldom and the dukedom conferred on the King’s natural son and remained dissatisfied.” Henry, as he often did, blamed her Spanish ladies for her feelings (rather than assuming she had legitimate emotions) and dismissed them from court, to teach her a lesson. (This is not the first or the last time he deprived her of her ladies; in the show, she blames Wolsey for it.) While she might not have wanted her daughter to go to Ludlow, it was not Mary’s permanent residence. She went there to preside over the Council of Wales and the Marches, which solidified her in the eyes of the public as the heir to the throne. (The same thing her uncle, Prince Arthur, did when he married Catherine of Aragon, and they established a court.)

Henry VII was Welsh, and his victory at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 came about because of Welsh support. He wanted to unify England and Wales beneath the Tudor dynasty, and honored Ludlow Castle as his second primary estate. Sending the royal children to Ludlow showed Wales that the king had not forgotten them or his roots, and took an active interest in their affairs and interests. It stabilized Wales for the throne.

The series does not mention this, but the woman who escorts Mary to Ludlow is Lady Margaret Pole.

A Royal Elopement or a French Chess Match?

Lying together in a berth on the ship returning to England from Portugal, Margaret and Brandon wonder what to do about their relationship, and Charles proposes. This leads to a fiery confrontation between Henry and his sister upon her return to court, in which he condemns them for their secret marriage and tells her he has not yet decided whether to make her bedmate “a head shorter.”

Putting aside the obvious fact that they would not be in bed together, the actual event was more nefarious. After King Louis died, Mary Tudor was left alone in France for a forty-day seclusion, to ensure she was not pregnant. She sent her brother a frantic letter, begging him to keep his promise to her and allow her to marry Brandon. If Henry did not, she threatened she would “enter a nunnery, and never no man shall joy of me.”

The new French king, Francis, visited her, and feared Henry might now marry her off to a Hapsburg Prince, thus forming an alliance against France. Francis knew Brandon was on his way to France to bargain for the return of Mary and her dowry, so he schemed for them to marry, thus depriving Henry of using her against him. He convinced Mary to insist Brandon marry her; so they married in secret in 1515 in France.

Brandon wrote to Cardinal Wolsey to ask for a proper marriage in England to legitimize their union. The king (probably led by Wolsey) saw a way to benefit from their impulsive match. Henry demanded they pay back Mary’s dowry, and return all the gold/silver plate and jewels. And they had to beg the king for his forgiveness. Both entreated him in letters and asked permission to return to England.

There’s no record of what happened in the private meeting between them, but Henry either forgave them or felt mollified by their gifts. They were married again at Greenwich Palace, with the king and queen in attendance. While it makes for good cinema, it’s doubtful Henry considered executing his friend for this offense; he was merely upset they did not ask royal permission and allowed Francis to undermine him.

They were not banished to the country or prevented from returning to court; thus, later episodes with Thomas Boleyn returning Brandon to favor are exaggerated.

Can a Pope Really Undo a Sin?

Cardinal Wolsey and Sir Thomas More have an argument about the king’s marriage, with More insisting the papal dispensation would have erased any sin between them. (This is accurate to how he would have thought and is one of my major beefs with The Spanish Princess, because nobody ever brings it up or cares about it.) The Catholic Church was the ultimate ruling authority on all things moral and divine, above kings; if the Pope said you could marry your brother’s wife, that meant God approved of it.

Wolsey argues that “kings get divorced all the time, and Popes always find an excuse,” to side with them.

This is wrong. Divorce was extremely rare. The Church granted annulments rather than divorces (it declared a marriage invalid from the beginning). Why? The Church considered marriage a sacrament and indissoluble. To get an annulment, you had to prove the couple never consummated it, or had existing impediments (previous marriages or marital contracts) or were related by blood, which made it incestuous. The Pope, and everyone else, understood royal marriages were strategic alliances and dissolving them could destabilize regions, so they were reluctant to annual them.

Annulments were sometimes granted, such as between Louis VII of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine, because of their inability to produce a male heir. The Church ruled them as “too closely related by blood” to be in a legal marriage (they were third cousins once removed).

Pins, Passion, and Premarital Promises: Anne Plays the Long Game

Henry asks Anne to become his official mistress, which she rejects, but then changes her mind. The two of them make out, half-dressed, on a bed, before he graciously says he will honor her maidenhead until they are married. This is … um, nice, but unlikely.

Everything in history suggests Henry was the driving force behind the divorce, with Anne refusing to become his mistress on moral grounds, but then becoming infatuated with the idea of becoming the queen. It’s possible she wanted to get rid of his constant sexual harassment and gave him an ultimatum she thought would never happen: if you want me, give me a throne and a crown. Once he started the process, Anne had no choice but to go along with it and got invested in it. She would not have been intimate with him, and given the chance to sleep with her, he would have done so. (Henry was famously impatient on that point; it’s her withholding herself from him for so long – seven years – that produced the divorce and remarriage.)

She also sends him a ship pin with a diamond on it, which he interprets as being symbolic of their relationship. This happened. It showed him her willingness to “brave the storms of life” with him, symbolized her love, and asked for his protection (which in Tudor times meant marriage). Show! Henry decides he is the ship, and she is the diamond, but historically, Anne’s gift meant Henry was the diamond guiding the ship to a safe harbor (their lives together).

The Queen Does Not Yield: Catherine’s Legal Mind

Show! Henry solemnly visits his wife and informs her their marriage is over, and he no longer considers it legitimate. He leaves her in tears on the floor. But the real Catherine did not give up so easily!

She broke down in tears, but then pivoted and argued with him point by point. She stubbornly insisted their marriage was valid. The dispensation made it so. She never lay with his brother, and their daughter proved God did not disapprove of the match. In fact, whenever Henry brought it up with her, Catherine defeated his arguments with fierce ones of her own. (This makes Anne Boleyn’s later statement in the series that every time Henry argues with the queen, she is “sure to have the upper hand” true; she did. Henry had to stop debating with her, because she would hammer him with scripture and legal arguments.)

I like it they have Sir Thomas More and Cardinal Fisher on her side from the beginning; both were staunch advocates for her, and Fisher accurately senses Henry has a replacement in mind, which would give him an ulterior motive for demanding to replace a popular queen, and call his morals into question. (Something the Pope would also consider.)

When Rome Fell: How a Mutiny Toppled the Pope

I love when Henry finds out his divorce ain’t happening, because the emperor’s army sacked Rope and captured the Pope. Catherine looks a bit shocked at first, then smug as she leaves the court.

The “Sack of Rome” in 1527 happened not because Emperor Charles commanded it (that would be a sin in his eyes) but because he failed to pay his German and Spanish mercenaries on time, so they mutinied and looted Rome for its wealth. Charles had been engaged in a power struggle with Pope Clement, who sided with France (his enemy). The sacking lost the papacy prestige, shifted power in Italy, and destroyed valuable art and artifacts.  

Dirtbags, Dispensations, and a Drop of the F-Word

• This isn’t technically an inaccuracy, but it irks me. Henry is mad that Catherine sends her nephew a letter in which she says she is “his servant,” and complains that she ought to be HIS servant instead. (Like she should serve and honor the man who ten seconds ago insisted they were never married!) I hate that little dirtbag.
• He tells Sir Thomas More he feels terrible about living in sin with Catherine for all these years; More just looks grave, but I scream at my television every single time that the greater sin is all the adulterous sex he has 24/7. 😛
• Margaret Tudor uses the f-word. It wouldn’t have happened. I’m not even sure she would know what that word meant!
• As noted in the previous episode, Thomas Tallis did not come to the court until after William Compton’s death, so they never had a homosexual love affair.

Curious what personality types feature in The Tudors? Check out my analysis here!

More in This Series:

Have you read all the posts yet?

About the Author: Charity Bishop writes historical fiction, historical fantasy, and suspense novels that explores the darkness in human hearts, and the light that refuses to be extinguished. Discover her books.