Why we still obsess over the Tudors

The Tudors ruled for just 118 years, but their drama, power plays and religious upheaval still captivate us

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Watching the BBC’s excellent adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, I was struck by our endless fascination with the Tudors. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen screen depictions of the hapless Anne Boleyn’s decapitation at the hands of a specially imported French swordsman. And the last Tudor, Elizabeth I, has been portrayed by a slew of top-flight actresses ranging from Bette Davis to Glenda Jackson and Margot Robbie.

The Tudor dynasty was an unlikely one, lasting only 118 years and producing just five monarchs. Thanks to Owen Tudor making a fortuitous marriage, the dynasty’s paternal line was Welsh. In fact, there were two fortuitous Tudor marriages, the second by Owen’s son, Edmund. And the product of Edmund’s marriage inherited a distant claim to the throne through his mother. As Henry VII, he founded the Tudor dynasty in 1485 “by just title of inheritance and by the judgement of God given in battle.”

Only two of the four subsequent Tudors were consequential: Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. By breaking the ties between the English Church and Rome and thus initiating the English Reformation, Henry changed the country forever. Elizabeth consolidated the Reformation, stabilised the country and thwarted a foreign invasion by vanquishing the Spanish Armada. But refusing to marry and produce an heir, she also ended the Tudor dynasty.

The catalyst for Henry’s rupture with Rome was the Vatican’s refusal to nullify his marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, who’d failed to provide him with a male heir. In addition, he’d become infatuated with Anne Boleyn, a younger woman whom he wanted to marry. So, frustrated by his inability to get his way, he had the Acts of Supremacy (1534) declare him head of the English Church. This came with a financial bonus. The English monasteries were rich and Henry felt empowered to dissolve them, appropriating a significant chunk of the proceeds for the Crown.

Still, Henry remained a cultural Catholic. In the words of historian Robert Tombs, he “ferociously enforced orthodox theology and almost the whole Latin liturgy throughout his reign.” Nor did he have much enthusiasm for the “heretical” ideas emanating from the likes of Martin Luther. To quote Tombs again: “Henry continued to have Lutherans burned as heretics throughout his reign.”

After Henry died in 1547, he was succeeded by his only legitimate male heir, the nine-year-old son born from his third marriage. But Edward VI died in 1553. This paved the way for Mary I, the Catholic daughter of Henry’s first marriage.

Mary took her religion very seriously and set out to undo the English Reformation, burning nearly 300 “heretics” in the process. However, she ran out of time, dying in 1558 and being succeeded by Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, Henry’s executed second wife.

Elizabeth was a genuine Protestant, albeit not a particularly dogmatic one. Nor was she into religiously motivated burnings. Her precarious early life had imbued her with an abiding wariness of others and a cautious circumspection informed her approach to most issues, religion included. She wasn’t interested in peering into people’s private souls. Outward conformity with the new order would suffice.

One description of her religious establishment is that it “looked Catholic but sounded Protestant.” In other words, a compromise. It wasn’t likely to satisfy partisans on either side, but detailed dogmatic purity wasn’t her thing.

However, there was no way of entirely escaping the religious extremism prevailing on the European mainland. In February 1570, Pope Pius V issued Regnans in Excelsis (which translates as either Reigning on High or Reigning in the Highest), declaring Elizabeth a bastard and “the servant of crime,” releasing her subjects from allegiance and excommunicating anyone who obeyed her orders. The Vatican had effectively declared open hunting season and there were people, including monarchs, ready to answer the call.

What followed was a series of plots, some real, some exaggerated and some entirely fictitious. What they all had in common was Catholics from the continent working with English Catholics to remove and kill Elizabeth. Nothing came of it in the end, but there was repression and spilled blood along the way, not to mention the inevitable lingering resentment.

So what is it that persistently draws us to the Tudors?

In large part, it’s a function of the historic significance of the era. The Reformation dramatically changed Europe, with its reverberations echoing through the English-speaking world for centuries.

And there were the larger-than-life personalities, Henry himself being a case in point. This isn’t necessarily meant as a compliment.

Europe in the 16th century was a violent place and Henry was by no means the only monarch to kill significant numbers of people. But there was a particular quality to his mayhem. For instance, it was capricious to behead Anne Boleyn on what are now generally considered trumped-up charges of adultery. Although he’d tired of her and she’d failed to produce a male heir, he could’ve just divorced her. Likewise, the execution of Thomas Cromwell, his hitherto loyal enabler. Today, we’d characterize Henry as a psychopath.

Elizabeth fascinates us for other reasons. A woman in a patriarchal society, she insisted on running her own show for 44 years. Whatever her personal defects, that took some doing.

Troy Media columnist Pat Murphy casts a history buff’s eye at the goings-on in our world. Never cynical – well, perhaps a little bit.