In the Season 1 finale of The Tudors, passion, politics, and power struggles reach a boiling point—but how much of it actually happened? Episode 10, “The Death of Wolsey,” delivers high drama with Henry VIII’s lust for Anne Boleyn, Cardinal Wolsey’s tragic downfall, and Sir Thomas More’s unflinching defense of the Catholic Church. In this fact check, we compare the show’s most shocking moments to real Tudor history, from Anne’s royal airs to Wolsey’s rumored suicide, revealing where the series stayed true to the past and where it took dramatic liberties.

We’ve reached the end of the first season, which has been a lot more accurate than other series and films set in the same time period in certain ways, but more inaccurate in others.

Some of the writing decisions make no sense to me, but at least Michael Hirst seems to understand and respect the Catholic beliefs of the period. He doesn’t have the characters being “modern” in their views like The Spanish Princess. His Sir Thomas More is fairly close to the real one, and he respects Catherine of Aragon, although he vilified Anne Boleyn. (She was an innocent woman, sexually harassed by Henry until she gave him an ultimatum, and had no choice but to get on board with his plans once they went into motion.)

Let’s dive into the last episode!

Inside This Post:

• That “Yuck” Opening Scene
• How Poor Was the Cardinal?
• Did He Commit Suicide?
• Simon Fish vs. Thomas More
• Did Anne Really Say That?
• An Author Geeks Out

Episode 10: The Death of Wolsey

Henry VIII embraces taboo teachings against the Church while the Pope stalls his annulment. Catherine of Aragon warns her ambassador to tell her nephew, Emperor Charles, it would be a sin against God and her conscience to act on her behalf with violence. Anne Boleyn becomes the court’s unofficial queen. A fallen Cardinal Wolsey tries in vain to forge new alliances, before being arrested for treason and committing suicide in his prison cell.

Wanking With the King

The show opens with Henry masturbating in front of a servant, who catches “it” in a towel so none spills on the ground. This is a gross thing to depict, but it implies Henry is trying to avoid violating Old Testament Law (even though he doesn’t care about Adultery or Fornication). That verse about it being a sin if “your seed” falls upon the ground. Yuck!

The Cardinal’s Collapse

We find Wolsey destitute, left without servants, and penniless, but this is an overexaggeration of his fall from grace. Henry left him as the Archbishop of York, which gave him a certain amount of influence, a considerable revenue, and the implication that if he played his cards right, he might be restored to favor.

He attempts to convince Catherine to speak on his behalf, which is fictionalized; she resented him for his part in the annulment preceding and rarely forgave those who transgressed against her.

Suicide and the Soul

The king’s soldiers rush in to arrest him and drag him away from his mistress, Joan (remember, at this point she had been married off to another man, and no longer lived with Wolsey). He is thrown into prison, where commits suicide. Since the real one did not, the show “covers it up” by having Henry insist, “No one must ever learn of this.”

Let’s go deeper.

The Church considered Suicide a mortal and unforgivable sin. People who committed suicide could not be buried in sacred ground, and their families were shunned. Prior to 1965, Catholics were taught that suicide was never justified and resulted in eternal damnation, because all people are made in the image of God. If you are made in His image, wanting to commit suicide means destroying the likeness of God. They believe this is “contrary to the love of God.” You must have a love of self if you have a love of God, and you must live a life that reflects the “goodness of creation.” Committing suicide is casting off the vital part of “living.”

They also believe it violated the fifth commandment (“You shall not kill”), because it is self-murder. Every human life has inherent value because of its relationship with God, and no one may take that life except for God Himself. (Funny how they forgot this part in burning people at the stake for heresy.) To kill yourself “steals” what belongs to God.

Wolsey might have been a cunning diplomat and an intelligent statesman, but he was still an archbishop / cardinal of the Church. The series has him aware of the implications of this, since he prays to God that he knows he will not be forgiven for this and is damned to hell. It contrasts his self-murder and his humility in doing it with the violence of Sir Thomas More against Lutherans (we see Thomas weeping and praying hard after burning a man at the stake). But it’s doubtful Wolsey would have ever committed suicide, since he believed it would condemn him to hell, and a lifetime of eternal burning in the flames of hell would be infinitely worse than to stand trial before the king for treason and possibly face execution. In execution, he could keep his dignity, receive the last rites, and “die well” to ensure a shorter term in Purgatory.

In truth, Wolsey fell ill and died on the way to his trial.

The show inter-cuts his remorse, repentance, and death with a cruel play about the downfall of a cardinal who is cast into hell for his sins. This is factual. Thomas Boleyn commissioned a play about “The Cardinal going down to hell,” which was performed at a private dinner at his London home for the French ambassador. (It offended the Catholic ambassador rather than pleased him, because it underscored the current English hostility toward the Catholic Church.)

More vs. the Begger’s Supplication

More questions Simon Fish and asks him about his stance on heresy and whether he wrote A Supplication for the Beggars, to which he admits he did. This conversation did not take place between them when they said it did; in reality, Fish wrote the document in Antwerp. It was smuggled into England. Within months, More wrote a defense of the Church that was ten times longer than Fish’s sixteen pages of complaints.

The original pamphlet was “vehemently anti-clerical,” dedicated to Henry VIII, and accused the Catholic Church of everything from avarice to murder and treason. It accused the Church and its clerics of holding a disproportionate amount of English resources out of greed, and said the monasteries heaped taxes upon the poor rather than helping them. It contested the existence of purgatory (he said “there is not one word spoken of it in all holy scripture” and “we have no command from God to pray for the dead”) and the sale of indulgences (he argued if the Pope could save souls from damnation, why would he not do it out of charity rather than demanding payment for it?).

In the show, Fish is arrested and burned at the stake. More offers him multiple opportunities to recant, but he refuses. More stands there and watches him consumed by flames, visibly troubled by what he has witnessed, but firm in his convictions.

It’s true Sir Thomas More arrested Reformists, interrogated them, and turned them over to a higher court for a judgment, which burned five of them at the stake. He did not attend any executions, but approved of them “on principle.” By placing him there, the show does him a disservice; it’s easy to agree with someone’s death if you’re not there to have empathy for their human suffering.

But… Fish was not among those burned. He died of bubonic plague in 1531 before he could stand trial, and More said that Fish “recanted.”

Anne’s Savage Tongue

Anne sweeps into the court dressed in purple, and when people give her dirty looks for it, she makes a snide remark about longing to see all Spaniards at the bottom of the sea. When someone shames her for it, and reminds her she serves a Spanish queen, she retorts, “I would rather see Catherine hanged than acknowledged as my mistress.”

The first two portions of this scene are not far-fetched, since purple was the color of royalty and by this point, Anne Boleyn was putting on airs. She did not make a recorded statement about wanting all Spaniards dead, but Ambassador Chapuys claimed she made the latter statement against the queen. Since it’s unsubstantiated, it may or may not be true, since he was a biased source looking for nasty things to write home to the emperor about Anne and her family.

In the same scene, he tries to convince her father to speak on Catherine’s behalf, which is an irrational thing to do, since last week, Catherine told him the Boleyns are her worst enemy. Thomas Bolyen shoots back a fiery statement that the Church is corrupt, and he doesn’t “believe Jesus had apostles.” He calls them all liars and charlatans. This is a weird piece of theology to put into his mouth, and I’m not sure where it came from, since that wasn’t (and still isn’t) a common Reformist belief.

Brandon’s Bride-to-Be

Charles Brandon has recovered from his wife’s tragic death and is now eyeing marriage to his fifteen-year-old ward, Katherine Willoughby. This is an aside, but allow me an author’s indulgence.

Katherine was the daughter of Baron Willoughby and Maria de Salinas, Catherine of Aragon’s favorite and most faithful lady-in-waiting. Maria was the only one to defy the king’s refusal to allow Catherine any visitors on her deathbed. She rode for hours through the snow, fell off her horse, injured herself, pleaded to rest inside Catherine’s castle from her jailers, then locked herself in a room with Catherine until after her death. Henry did not punish her for this, either. By this time, she had been widowed, and her daughter became a ward of the court, which “sold” her wardship to Brandon.

In my novels, Brandon and her father have a notorious rivalry that revolves around Brandon’s (factual) mistreatment of various women at court. Maria, whom I call Estrella, is one of my main characters, and their romance unfolds slowly across all seven books (but comes mainly to the forefront in The Secret in the Tower). I knew anyone curious enough to look up what happened to them after my series ended would find a hidden gem of her marrying the man her father detested, and her mother not being able to do a damn thing about it, as a quiet illustration of the pitfalls of living in a Tudor court, even if you survived the king’s displeasure.

Woodland Passion

The episode ends with Anne and Henry, overcome with impatience and lust, getting it on in the woods before being unable to “finish” because she cannot get pregnant before they are married. She did get pregnant before the wedding, but it was not until much later. And there’s also the fact that they would not ride out without an armed escort and companions, or be able to be “alone” in the woods.

There are some delightful moments…

• Catherine tells the ambassador to inform her nephew not to use force against his majesty on her behalf, because it would be a “sin against God and against my conscience.” (This is true, but came from Chapuys, who was biased in her favor and may have exaggerated her goodness, modesty, virtue, and piety to gain empathy for her plight.)
• She tells Henry, “For every scholar that votes for you, I could find a thousand who would vote for me.” This is a popular anecdote, but there’s no evidence for it. Enjoyable to watch, however.
• Sir Thomas More says, “If the lion knows his own strength, no man can contain him.” (He said this, with a slight twist: “If the lion knew his own strength, hard were it for any man to rule him.”)

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.