How accurate is The Tudors, Season 1, Episode 1? From fabricated assassinations and casting inconsistencies to nuanced depictions of Sir Thomas More and the Treaty of Universal Peace, the premiere takes bold creative liberties with Tudor history. In this detailed breakdown, I explore where the show sticks to the facts (and where it veers into fiction), backed by over 25 years of historical research. Whether you’re a die-hard history buff or just curious about what really happened in the court of Henry VIII, this episode dissection reveals the truth behind the drama.

Read More From This Series:

1. The Tudors, Season One: In Cold Blood
2. The Tudors, Season One: Simply Henry
3. The Tudors, Season One: Wolsey, Wolsey, Wolsey!
4. The Tudors, Season One: His Majesty, The King
5. The Tudors, Season One: Arise, My Lord
6. The Tudors, Season One: True Love
7. The Tudors, Season One: Plague
8. The Tudors, Season One: Truth and Justice
9. The Tudors, Season One: Look to God First
10. The Tudors, Season One: The Death of Wolsey

Inside This Post:

• First Impressions: Henry’s Height, Catherine’s Hair, and Casting Gripes
• Fabricated Assassinations: Henry’s “Uncle” and the Urbino Incident
• The Real Politics: France, Italy, and the Road to War
• Bessie Blount’s Timeline Gets Blurry
• Brandon and Buckingham’s Daughter: Fiction with Roots in Truth
• Henry and Catherine at Dinner: True Quotes, False Outrage
• Symbolism & Piety: Pomegranates, Prayer, and Infertility
• Serial Womanizer? Not Quite.
• The Consent Scene: Modern Values, Tudor Power Plays
• Saint or Sinner? Sir Thomas More’s Complex Devotion
• Buckingham’s Lineage: Oops, Wrong Edward
• Wolsey vs. Buckingham: A Rivalry with Conflicting Reports
• Assassination Plot Origins: Real Father, Wrong Intent
• Donkey Diplomacy: Wolsey’s Triumphal Entrance
• The Treaty for “Universal and Perpetual Peace”: Humanism in Action
• Final Thoughts: A Solid Start with Some Creative Liberties

Episode 1: In Cold Blood

After an assassination in Italy, Henry VIII plots war against France. Cardinal Wolsey urges peace, backed by Thomas More. Catherine of Aragon tries to rekindle intimacy with her husband, who is distracted by his mistress, Bessie Blount, who discovers she’s pregnant. Meanwhile, the ambitious Edward Stafford, the Earl of Buckingham, conspires against the King, with Norfolk and Thomas Boleyn in the room.

First Impressions: Henry’s Height, Catherine’s Hair, and Casting Gripes

Okay, let’s clear the air first with the visual problems of the casting.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers is too short (5’10”), slender, and dark-haired to be Henry Tudor. Steven Waddington, the actor playing Buckingham, is a better fit. The real Henry had a kingly stature and red hair. He was 6’2” and built like a tank. In 1520, Henry VII was 28 old. Jonathan was 30.

They (again) depict Catherine of Aragon as a dark-haired Spaniard, instead of as a famous golden-redhead. Because of this, Princess Mary can’t have red hair, either. Catherine was 34 in 1520. Maria was 43. (I complain, but I love Maria in the role. She does a magnificent job, and single-handedly turned me from an Anne Boleyn stan into a Catherine devotee. And she has a gravely voice, which is accurate for the real Catherine, whose sultry, deep voice often surprised ambassadors, since she was so tiny!).

Minor Nitpicks: Thomas Tallis did not come to court until 1543 (over twenty years later). Catherine of Aragon says their son lived for only four weeks, when it was seven and a half weeks. Henry VIII occupies Whitehall Palace, but it did not fall into his hands until after Cardinal Wolsey fell from favor. And Catherine is praying in English so the audience can understand her, when Catholic prayers were always in Latin.

Fabricated Assassinations: Henry’s “Uncle” and the Urbino Incident

They start off with a huge inaccuracy in the first two minutes! We watch Henry’s “uncle,” the ambassador to Urbino, get murdered, prompting Henry to consider war with France.

Um, what?

VIII had no uncles or aunts. Both his grandparents were only children, and they produced only one offspring, Henry VII. Not only was the Urbino diplomat never assassinated, but he could not have been related to the Tudors!

(The scene makes me laugh, because his uncle drives up in an anachronistic coach and walks into a Regency-style mansion.)

The Real Politics: France, Italy, and the Road to War

The circumstances of their debate about war are accurate, though. France overran a bunch of cities in Europe in the early 1500s, prompting concern in England. France once held Milan and Naples, and wanted to reclaim it. Since Italy was rich, prestigious and vulnerable, France saw a chance to expand its influence, seize valuable assets, and compete with its rivals, Spain and the Habsburgs in Germany and the Netherlands. Francis and his father’s ambitions prompted decades of war (1494-1519).

Bessie Blount’s Timeline Gets Blurry

The king’s mistress, Bessie Blount, muses about her husband being upset about their affair and wanting to send her to a nunnery. The historical Bessie did not marry Gilbert Talboys until after her affair with the king ended (which happened after she bore him his only recognized illegitimate child, Henry Fitzroy). She became his mistress in 1514/1515, gave him a son in 1519, and married Talboys in 1522.

Bessie was a popular, beautiful girl at court with a bubbly personality. Her contemporaries described her as a woman of “good cheer” and a “preferred dancing partner to the king.” She also had a talent for singing and excelled “everybody in all goodly pastimes.” Not exactly the dour and quiet woman depicted here!

Brandon and Buckingham’s Daughter: Fiction with Roots in Truth

Brandon seduces Buckingham’s daughter for fun and to spite him. This never happened, but it’s clear the writer drew from an earlier incident. (The Spanish Princess also touches on this incident.)

In 1510, Henry tried to have his first affair with Anne Stafford, Buckingham’s sister. (She could have been having an affair with his friend William Compton instead; we’re not sure what really happened.) Her husband caught her with Compton, whom Buckingham believed was delivering secret love letters from the king. The scandal exploded at court, with Henry denying it, Catherine confronting him about it, him being upset with her and sending away her ladies, and Buckingham being offended the king would “disgrace” his sister in that way.

The show has simply substituted Henry for Brandon, Buckingham’s daughter for his sister, and made it explicit.

Henry and Catherine at Dinner: True Quotes, False Outrage

The dinner scene between Henry and Catherine is enjoyable to watch, and the actual king called their daughter, Mary, his “pearl.”

But his reprimanding Catherine for her political interference is implausible. Catherine had served as England’s first female ambassador, and Henry knew it. He would not chastise her in front of Buckingham, since that would get around the court (“the king and queen are bickering”).

Symbolism & Piety: Pomegranates, Prayer, and Infertility

Henry eating a pomegranate before visiting his wife’s bed is a nice historical touch; her sigil was a pomegranate, a symbol in the Middle Ages of fertility (a sad irony, given her multiple miscarriages).

That he found her at prayer is also possible. While always pious, Catherine became even more so as she aged. Her Spanish priest worried about her starving herself during her semi-constant “fasting” rituals.

It’s a delightful contrast between her piety and reliance on God and Henry’s shallowness and his self-absorbed affairs.

Serial Womanizer? Not Quite.

This show does this multiple times, but I will only say it once.

Henry VIII had few mistresses compared to other kings of the period and preferred serial monogamy. We only have proof of two confirmed mistresses (Bessie and Mary Boleyn), and one suspected mistress (Anne Stafford), although there could be two more (Jane Popincourt and Joan Dingley). He had affairs when his wives were pregnant, and therefore unavailable sexually, given the stigma about sleeping with a pregnant woman.

His selecting random women from among his wife’s ladies and bedding them is simply not “Henry.” That wasn’t his style, because it’s unromantic. Henry fancied himself as chivalrous and a lover at heart. He wanted to woo women. To send them love poems, compose music for them, and lavish them with tokens of his affection, as he did with Anne Boleyn. To depict him as a serial womanizer is to miss the true heart of Henry VIII.

The Consent Scene: Modern Values, Tudor Power Play

He asks a random blonde if she consents, which made me snort.

The concept of “consent” reflects our modern values, not the reality of life in the 1500s. We see “consent” today as enthusiastic, freely given, informed, equal participation in sexual activity.

In the early 1500s:

• Women were legally and socially subordinate to men.
• Marital and sexual consent were often assumed or coerced, especially where class and power disparities existed.
• A king, noble, or even employer, did not need to ask permission in any meaningful sense, especially from lower-status women.

A woman had to “consent” to be married according to church law, but she could be pressured, coerced, or raped and forced to marry to protect her honor (as happened to Mary Queen of Scots a generation later). Once married, a woman was expected to submit to her husband in all things, including sex, because the concept of marital rape did not “exist.” It was not considered a crime.

Having Henry ask for consent is a way of making him less awful, but if the King of England expressed a sexual desire for you, it came with certain expectations you would not say no. Anne Boleyn caused a stir because she turned him down, repeatedly, for years. To refuse a king could draw his disfavor on your entire family. To have a woman “consent” to Henry ignores the power imbalance, and how she had no way to refuse, by giving her modern sexual agency.

Saint or Sinner? Sir Thomas More’s Complex Devotion

I like the show’s overall depiction of Sir Thomas More, even if later they demonize him a bit. They got the right number of children in his household (three girls and a boy, although More also had various wards and a ton of animals and pets at his estate).

He tells Henry he has a “humanist” abhorrence of war, which is true. Here’s a couple of quotes from Utopia to prove it.  

In Book I: “For most princes apply themselves more to affairs of war than to the useful arts of peace; and in these I neither have any knowledge, nor do I much desire it …”

In Book II: “They detest war as a very brutal thing, and which, to the reproach of human nature, is more practiced by men than by any sort of beasts. … They think there is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war.”

His Utopians favor intelligence over brute force, and use propaganda, sabotage, and deception to minimize bloodshed. More argues that these “dishonorable” tactics are more humane than prolonged, brutal battles.

In the series, More removes his robes to pray, and we see he not only wears a hair shirt, but his back has scourging lines across it. This is true. More did practice self-flagellation and wore hair shirts (designed to itch and cause constant discomfort). Since More considered becoming a monk at one point, he felt influenced by their tradition. Erasmus, his friend and fellow humanist, wrote in a letter that “He wears a hair shirt next to his skin and sometimes scourges himself.” William Roper, More’s son-in-law, mentioned it in his biography about More (“[More] wore next to his skin a shirt of hair, which he never left off wholly, and would frequently whip himself.”).

In modern times, we cannot fathom doing this, but in the 1500s, devout Catholics like More and Catherine of Aragon saw these actions as necessary and pious. The practice came from Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 9:27: “I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”

Catholics believed sin leaves behind temporal consequences, even after being forgiven (like a “spiritual wound”) and acts of penance, like fasting, prayer, or self-punishment, are ways to heal those wounds. Saints and mystics of the time believed the body and its desires (lust, greed, pride, sloth, gluttony) needed to be disciplined for the soul to thrive. Self-scourging helped them resist temptation, strengthened their spiritual vigilance, and kept in check their bodily impulses.

The Church did not require this, but it was encouraged in certain rigid doctrinal circles. (The Church recommended it be guided by a spiritual confessor, in atonement for certain sins, and never to cause pain for its own sake.) It imitated the Passion of Christ, who was scourged before his death. Early believers believed self-punishment was one way to share in His suffering and grow closer to Him.

Buckingham’s Lineage: Oops, Wrong Edward

Buckingham is actively plotting treason, but the show gets some facts wrong. He talks to Norfolk about how he is a direct descendant of Edward II, when it’s actually Edward III. (Stafford’s grandfather was Edward’s youngest son, on his mother’s side.)

More reminds Henry not to antagonize Buckingham, since he is “richer than you, and can call upon a private army […] not even your father crossed him.” This is true, but I want to elaborate on it.

Henry VII knew nobles like Buckingham had the power, resources, and bloodlines to challenge his kingship, which made him wary of them. Buckingham was at the top of his “to watch” list because his family had a long history of ambition and rebellion against the seated monarchs. So, Henry VII kept him on a tight leash. He controlled Buckingham’s upbringing, and used bonds and fines to keep him in check. If Buckingham did anything wrong, Henry made him pay a fine.

Henry VII politically sidelined him and kept him out of court politics, but when his son took over as king, he let Buckingham and his family return to court. Henry VIII cared more about popularity than keeping his father’s treasury intact.

Wolsey vs. Buckingham: A Rivalry with Conflicting Reports

The show references a deep hatred between Buckingham and Wolsey; and my research found conflicting reports. Some places said there was no enmity, while others claimed tension existed between them. Historian G.R. Elton describes Wolsey’s court management as “frequently antagonizing the nobility to centralize royal power,” which would be a credible reason for Buckingham to hate him.

Assassination Plot Origins: Real Father, Wrong Intent

Buckingham shows Norfolk and Boleyn how he intends to assassinate Henry VIII, based on his father’s intention to do the same to Richard III with a “knife secreted about his person.” His father wanted to dethrone Richard III, but in favor of Henry Tudor. He switched sides, first helping Richard III come to power, then uniting with Henry VII and his mother, Margaret Beaufort, in an unsuccessful rebellion against him.

Donkey Diplomacy: Wolsey’s Triumphal Entrance

Cardinal Wolsey rides into court on a donkey. The historical Wolsey did this many times to conjure up images of humility despite his opulence. It’s a throwback to the Messiah entering Jerusalem on a donkey. (How could a Prince of the Church arrive on a horse, when the Lord Himself did not?)

The Treaty for “Universal and Perpetual Peace”: Humanism in Action

Mostly, the series introduces the treaty for universal and perpetual peace, born of humanist ideals, accurately. Inspired by Renaissance humanist ideals, it was innovative for its time. Its goal was to establish lasting peace through diplomacy, marriage alliances, and mutual respect rather than war. Those of education in Tudor England were heavily influenced by Humanist ideals led by thinkers like Erasmus and More, who idolized peace and pushed for Christian unity. They may have even drawn on the similar ideas expressed in More’s Utopia (printed in 1516) for inspiration.

The treaty had an emphasis on reason and dialogue over brute force, the ideal of moral leadership based on virtue and justice, and a vision of the Christian commonwealth of nations cooperating for mutual benefit.

Thomas Boleyn arranges the Cloth of Gold meeting in the series, but in history, Cardinal Wolsey handled all the details.

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