The Tudors is a historical fiction television series created and entirely written by British screenwriter Michael Hirst. The series is loosely based upon the early reign of English monarch Henry VIII, and is named after his dynasty, the Tudor dynasty.
The series is produced by Peace Arch Entertainment for Showtime in association with Reveille Eire (Ireland), Working Title Films (United Kingdom) and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and is filmed in Ireland. The first two episodes debuted on DirecTV, Time Warner Cable OnDemand, Netflix, Verizon FiOS On Demand, Internet Movie Database and on the series' website before the official series premiere on Showtime. The Tudors' 1 April 2007 debut was the highest rated Showtime series debut in three years. In April 2007, the show was renewed for a second season, and in that month the BBC announced it had acquired exclusive United Kingdom broadcast rights for the series, which began airing on 5 October 2007. Canada's CBC began airing the show on 2 October 2007. Season 1 is repeating on CBC's digital cable channel bold beginning in April 2008.
Season 2 of The Tudors aired on Showtime in the Spring of 2008, started airing on BBC 2 on 1 August 2008, and will be broadcast on other channels in the fall of 2008.
Season 3 of The Tudors is set to premiere on April 15, 2009, with production having begun on 16 June 2008 in Bray, County Wicklow Ireland.
International distribution rights are owned by Sony Pictures Television International.
Season One of The Tudors chronicles the period of Henry VIII's reign in which his effectiveness as King is tested by international conflicts as well as political intrigue in his own court, while the pressure of fathering a male heir sparks the rise of Anne Boleyn.
Season Two finds Henry as the head of his own Church of England, paving the way for the banishment of Katherine of Aragon; Anne becomes Henry's new Queen, but her own failure to produce a son dooms her as Henry's attention sways heavily toward Jane Seymour.
Season Three will focus on the deteriorating relationship between Henry VIII and the Catholic Church, as well as his marriages to Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves. The season will end with the marriage of Catherine Howard, Henry's fifth wife. The following is the new trailer for The Tudors Season 3.
This is a preview trailer for upcoming Season 3 of the Tudors.
Events in the series differ from events as they actually happened in history. Liberties are taken with character names, relationships, physical appearance and the timing of events. As creator Hirst noted, "Showtime commissioned me to write an entertainment, a soap opera, and not history ... And we wanted people to watch it." He added that some changes were made for production considerations and some to avoid viewer confusion, and that "any confusion created by the changes is outweighed by the interest the series may inspire in the period and its figures."
Time is conflated in the series, giving the impression that things happened closer together than they actually did or along a different timeline. By the time of most of the events in this series, King Henry VIII was already in his mid-to-late 30s and at least a decade older than Anne Boleyn; they were not married until he was in his early 40s. In The Tudors, the two are cast younger (and seemingly closer in age) and the courtship lasts about ten episodes. Historically, Cardinal Wolsey died in Leicester en route to London to answer charges of treason, while in the series he is imprisoned and commits suicide (though the fictional Henry insists that this be covered up). Wolsey's death came in 1530, three years before the death of Henry's sister; in the series, the two events are juxtaposed. In episode 2.7, Katherine dies, May Day is celebrated and Anne discovers she is pregnant. In episode 2.8, Anne miscarries. Historically, Anne's miscarriage and Katherine's death happened on the same day, on 29 January 1536 and not in May.
The character of Henry's sister, called "Princess Margaret" in the series, is actually a composite of his two sisters: the life events of his youngest sister, Princess Mary Tudor, coupled with the name of his eldest sister, Margaret Tudor (to avoid confusion with Henry's daughter, Mary I of England). Historically, Henry's sister Princess Mary first married the French King Louis XII. The union lasted approximately three months, until his death; Louis was succeeded by his cousin Francis I, who was married to Louis' daughter Claude of France. Mary subsequently married Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. As The Tudors begins, Henry is already negotiating a peace treaty with Francis; the series' Princess Margaret thus marries the Portuguese king, who lives only a few days until she smothers him in his sleep. By the time of the events of this series, the historical Brandon (who was already in his early 40s) and Princess Mary were long married with three children. Henry's eldest sister, Margaret Tudor, was actually married to King James IV of Scotland and became the grandmother of Mary, Queen of Scots.
While Bessie Blount was famously one of Henry VIII's mistresses and did give Henry an illegitimate son (Henry FitzRoy), historically, her son did not die as a small child. FitzRoy died at the age of 17 in 1536, roughly 10 years before the death of his father, Henry VIII. Blount was also not married until after the birth of Henry FitzRoy.
The papal politics depicted in the first several episodes of the series also have no clear relation to actual events. A Pope Alexander is depicted as on his death bed at the time of the Field of the Cloth of Gold meeting between Henry and Francis (in 1520), whereas the actual pope at that time, Leo X, died suddenly at the very end of 1521, and there had not been a pope named Alexander since 1503, before the beginning of Henry's reign. A Cardinal Orsini is depicted as being elected following the death of the fictional Alexander, which, again, does not correspond to actual history, when the Emperor's tutor Adrian of Utrecht was elected to succeed Leo, and, following his death just a year later, Cardinal Medici, who as Clement VII would refuse to permit Henry's divorce, was elected to the papal throne.
William Brereton did not confess to adultery with Queen Anne and was not a Papal agent. He was in fact a wealthy magnate who had large landholdings in the Welsh Marches, where he was ruthless and unpopular, and is believed to have been accused due to Thomas Cromwell's desire to remove a festering political problem. Brereton's assassination attempt on Anne during her coronation procession in episode 2.3 was also invented by the series.
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