I love The Tudors, I probably shouldn’t, but I really do. The history is so ridiculous and mashed together and I wonder why at various times they make up stuff when the actual history is far more interesting and dramatic, but the acting is good and the costumes are stunning. It would take far, far… Read More The Tudors, Artistic Licence and Outright Fictions
Happy New Year all! This month is history on film month, because I have decreed it, and what better way to start than looking at the most filmed British monarch; Elizabeth I. Here is a selection of the more modern filmic depictions of Gloriana (and one early one) and whether they are worth a watch.
It’s almost Halloween! Therefore break out the ghost stories! Yay! Given that Henry VIII and his six wives are still immensely popular centuries after their deaths, it is hardly surprising that people still claim to have seen them, haunting various palaces and castles. Ghosts are thought to remain in places of importance, especially if a… Read More Henry VIII and his Six Ghosts
Recently I watched The Last Days of Anne Boleyn, part of the BBC Tudor season. It is a documentary but also a debate between historians and authors of historical fiction, trying to piece together what happened to cause Anne Boleyn’s downfall and the events of her last days. While looking at the hows, whys and… Read More Sidelining Jane Seymour
Pssst, I’m going to let you in on a secret. Anne Boleyn was Queen of England for three years! We know, you cry! But think about it, how much of our fiction shows Anne Boleyn as a queen, performing her duties or highlights any of her achievements while she held the crown? Now compare this… Read More Anne the Quene
Recently, I watched the 2008 film version of The Other Boleyn Girl. (Why, why did I do this to myself?) While musing on the sheer historical inaccuracy and wondering where Benedict Cumberbatch disappeared to halfway through the team, we came to a rather disturbing rape scene between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. It’s a common… Read More The R*pe of Anne Boleyn
During the medieval/early modern period (and many others but I’m working to a deadline here), a woman was defined by her marital status. As an adolescent, she was unmarried and therefore a virgin. As an adult, she’d marry and would either die a wife or survive a widow. The sex lives, imagined or real, of… Read More Fiction, Feminism and Marriage
