The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

Wednesday 1 December 2004

The Return of The King - "Henry VIII"

This four-hour series starts out with burning titles, like the recent King Arthur film. This evokes a macho, sensual, military image of King Henry. And mostly, we get it, although in truncated form. This is the Cliff's Notes version: Six Queens in Two Parts.

One wishes it were otherwise, because there is potential here. This TV production, recently shown on Masterpiece Theatre in the US, portrays Henry as action man. He comes out swinging! He jousts! He brawls! He slaps his women to the floor! He doesn't take sass off anybody!

He's kind of a low-life guy, all around. Revisionist history at work here, of course. In this era of myth debunking, you'll never see a King portrayed as a great leader, or a hero. This cynically minded series minimizes his great national achievements in favor of exaggerating his boorishness. And Ray Winstone plays him like a prizefighter. Even his Henry's accent is rather lower-class. This is unintentionally amusing, since almost everyone else in the series, including Henry's son Edward, speaks with cut-glass, BBC broadcasters' accents. Mightn't the historical Henry have spoken with a slight Welsh inflection, since his father was born in Wales?

Some scenes are very reminiscent of the film Anne of the Thousand Days. As in that movie, Henry is shown listening in person, hidden around the corner, at Anne Boleyn's trial for adultery. Winstone's Henry is as much a great bull of a man as Richard Burton's. And many scenes are as frankly sensual as the ones in that movie, such as Anne wiggling her finger at Henry, something other women at court would never have dared to do.

The six Queens for the most part look more like their historical counterparts than the actresses in the great, highly stylized BBC-TV series of the '70s, "The Six Wives of Henry VIII." Helena Bonham Carter as Anne Boleyn is luminous, natural, almost pagan. Though the historical Anne, formerly a lady-in-waiting at the French court, was probably much more mannered and artificial, Bonham Carter makes her a sexual free spirit, a challenger whose King speedily loses his religion for her.

But in this series Henry has deeper motives for precipitating the English Reformation. He doesn't do it for love, as suggested in Anne of the Thousand Days, nor even for a legitimate son, as in A Man For All Seasons. Here, it's done purely out of greed. He's keen to appropriate for himself the wealth of the English monasteries; he even tells people so. My sense of the historical Henry is that even if he lacked a higher purpose, he was cunning beyond compare and wouldn't have boasted of his real motives in anything (as nor did his daughter Elizabeth I), but no matter. It's a realistic and entertaining hypothesis. Other courtiers fall in with the King's wish to end his first marriage for their own selfish reasons. The series suggests that Boleyn was the figurehead of a larger conspiracy, tied in to the Protestant Reformation sweeping Europe at the time, to make Henry a Protestant too.

Unfortunately, the series then concludes that all Henry's wives came to him through intrigue, not by his own will. Royal love, or lust, doesn't enter into it at all, according to the script by Peter Morgan. Thus the Seymour brothers put their sister Jane into Henry's bed.in a plot against the Duke of Norfolk, whose power they covet and whose Papist religion they hate. Anne of Cleves is pushed on Henry because, as he is told, "England needs Germany." Catherine Howard is discovered to be promiscuous, but his marriage to her is promoted anyway, and her trysts are encouraged afterward by the King's advisors. They reason that since Henry is not able to impregnate her, if she gets pregnant by her lover Thomas Culpepper, at least it is another heir for the King. But this emphasis of conspiracy over character ignores the historical fact of Henry's strong personality, and his great personal impact on his country. He could not have been a stupid man, but this series makes him into one.

Some other historical stereotypes, and royal cinematic conventions, are likewise turned on their heads. Here Jane Seymour (Emilia Fox), historically shy and prim and proper, looks like a tart. And she gets a lot of screen time. She's quite a talker here, conversing and arguing with Henry, asserting herself as his Queen. Anne is no flighty airhead, either: she's learned and religious. "She reads Tyndale," scoffs a courtier. Reading Tyndale, one of the first translators of the Bible into English for Protestants, would be the equivalent of a modern Queen reading Camus or Sartre. But Lara Belmont, playing Henry's eldest daughter Mary, is proud, pouty, and just right. One would expect a half-Spanish Tudor Princess to act so. Sean Bean (lead actor in the Lord of the Rings films and the "Sharpe's" miniseries) was heavily advertised in the US as a star player in this series, but really has just a supporting role. He plays Robert Aske, the leader of the counter-Reformation rebellion in the north of England. Henry dupes him, and he meets a gruesome, but historically accurate, end.

The sets are grim too: dark, close, minimalist. The production tends toward the claustrophobic and stifling. One feels boxed in by Henry's physical size and intensity, just as he himself was boxed in by circumstances, it's suggested. There's no sense of the magnificence of Henry's court, of his vast palaces and their interiors; no sweeping shots of royal architecture or gardens. There are only one or two scenes of court festivity with the obligatory Renaissance music and dancing, as when Henry meets Catherine Parr. And almost all scenes are extreme close-ups. Saving the need for expensive sets and wardrobes? Whatever happened to the grand old British costume extravaganzas?

Historical license is also taken for dramatic emphasis. Did Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon really confront each other? Was Anne really allowed to say goodbye to her three-year-old daughter Elizabeth on the day of her execution? Would Henry have embraced Cardinal Wolsey, or any other courtier for that matter? Would Henry, childless in his youth, have risked himself in a joust that wasn't rigged?

Rather than do bad history, this series just does short history. Hence, no Thomas More. No royal weddings or pageantry. Nothing about Henry's elder brother Arthur, Henry's friendly rivalry with Francis I of France, Henry's betrothal of his son Edward to the infant Mary, Queen of Scots. No real depiction of the English Reformation, just flurried scenes of the sacking of the monasteries, with pounding music reminiscent of the "Carmina Burana." Guess you can't show monks nowadays without it.

There are lots of action scenes, though. The royal joust is beautifully choreographed, as is Henry's swordfight with Aske (which has no historical basis). Significantly, the King is almost never shown in traditional Court costume. He goes about clad only in shirt and breeks. And he's expressive. He grunts, he groans. He's clownish. He's Homer Simpson. When he falls off his horse in Part I, it sounds for all the world as if he yells, "Doh!" He's not regal at all. He fights, he sweats, he swills ale, he bullies. He hits people. He rapes Anne Boleyn. He knocks Jane Seymour down while she is pregnant, when she dares plead for the northern rebels' lives.

Much of his bravado and aggressive behavior, it's suggested, is the result of Henry VII's dying command to him, and his failure to accomplish it. The old King tells his heir that the most important duty of a King is to get a son. This provides the unifying theme for the series. In the Tudor world-view, if you don't have a son, you aren't a man. It cannot be a daughter; that is an unthinkable calamity. So, when Henry gets only a girl-child from Anne, after moving heaven and earth to marry her, he throws a royal tantrum in frustration for his supposed lack of manliness. He screams, he stamps, he curses all heaven with his bootless cries.

But in love and child-getting, though not for lack of trying (the bedroom scenes are sensual, if not overtly explicit), Henry is only unlucky. Jane Seymour's death, with Henry lying beside her sobbing, is poignant. (Though it can't match the racing heartbeats of the fevered Jane as she lies dying in "Six Wives.") One almost feels sympathy for this Henry, despite his frequent abuse of his Queens. Three fleeting wives later, he dies a disappointed and defeated man, made old before his time. And in dying he implores young Prince Edward, likewise, to get a son.

These few powerful scenes, interspersed with the endless scheming and brawling, make the viewer yearn for much, much more. More characterization, not so much quick, blurred action. Next time, royal filmmakers should not be in such a hurry to beget a movie as Henry was, all his life, to beget a son. This newest return of Henry VIII to the screen is like being offered only one cookie, instead of the half-dozen in that lavish box of "Six Wives." Which brings up the query: why bother to make just one?

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The Royal Mail

From Ruth Ann:
I just read in one of your columns, you are from the state right next door to me! I'm an OKIE! I do so enjoy your columns! I am wondering if I might somehow find further online history of the monarchies. I've always been a "Royal Watcher," however, I'd love to learn more about King George III and his family, and more of their personal information, if any exists! If you...could possibly let me know where to search (seems I've been all over the Net), any info would be greatly appreciated! Thank you so much for your time and of course your articles!

MW: On the Internet, you can check the official links from this site, and also do Web searches for such people as John Wilkes, Sir Francis Dashwood, Benjamin Franklin, Lord North, etc., which is how I found info on both the Hellfire Club and George's son William (for these columns see the Archive). Two reference books are great for basic royal info: The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Monarchy, by John Cannon and Ralph Griffiths, and The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England, edited by Antonia Fraser. These are essential for names, dates, portraits, genealogies, spouses, children, significant events of a reign, and the like. Never leave home without them!

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From Ken, aka The Laird o' Thistle:
Excellent column ["The Prince of America," 8 Sept]. I'd known William had been over, but hadn't noted the timing or known the details. I really enjoyed the piece. Another curious "Royal Virginia" bit is that Lord Dunmore's daughter, Lady Augusta Murray, later became the morganatic wife of William's brother, the Duke of Sussex.

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From Robyn Keonaona Gentry, via Geraldine here at etoile:
Aloha Geraldine,
I have written to you before complimenting you on your fabulous Web site. And also to comment on your fabulous columnists. I have been a major fan of Tori's Royal Scribe since it first appeared, and Mel Whitney's great columns....I just wanted to tell you what a great group of columnists that you have writing for you (duh, again like you don't already know)...Thank you so much Geraldine for all that you do.

MW: And I have to second that motion! Thanks also to all who participated in the recent Web site survey, and all who read us. Keep those e-mails coming, whether you agree or disagree with what we write. Please remember that all of us columnists are volunteers. We do not profit off royalty. We write only to inform and entertain. And our opinions are solely our own.

- Mel Whitney