Why so much of the Tudors?

[HenriettatheChicken]

Just that really. Why so much about the Tudors, particularly Henry VIII? It’s been done again and again and again and we never seem to tire of it. What is it about that period that makes us all so fascinated?

AIBU to not tire of it, whilst accepting there are other interesting period that could be covered?

The Tudor period contained every ingredient of compelling drama: passion, murder, adultery, intrigue, betrayal, jealousy and ruthless political manoeuvring. Add a charismatic king, a succession of beheadings and the seismic upheaval of the Reformation, and history rarely offers a richer study of the human condition. Perhaps part of its enduring appeal, compared with Rome, is that it feels so accessible. These events unfolded only 500 years ago, in places that still exist and in a country many of us know intimately. The personalities seem recognisably human rather than remote historical figures, making the drama feel remarkably immediate.

I think a reason could be habit formed when the Church of England (C of E) was the main founder and provider of primary education? In 1900, the Church ran about 14,000 schools. So even when the state assumed greater control in the 1940s, the legacy from church schools and the C of E remained. Even now about 25% of all primary schools in England are C of E.

So the habit of teaching the period of when and why the C of E was created is logical given that’s where the schools came from too?

Because it’s the closest thing to a historical soap opera.

Exciting, interesting, lots of stuff happening, big shifts and changes, gorgeous clothes and visuals, tons of creative potential. Sex, death, power, competition, betrayal, major international and interpersonal drama.

It's just a shame it's so rarely done well.

Because of the Reformation. It’s also like a soap opera with the six wives and their different personalities, plus all the backstabbing at court.

I suspect this thread shows why: it’s familiar to many of us, it’s almost always painted in bold brush strokes that mask it’s complexity, and it’s usually only the exciting/dramatic parts that get highlighted.

@HenriettatheChickenomg I completely agree! I’m almost stunned that there’s anything new that could ever feature in a Henry VIII documentary that makes it worth making! He was also just a complete arsehole and horrible murderer? And we are just taught to glibly say “divorce beheaded died divorce beheaded survived”. That’s just his wives of course let alone all the other deaths he’s responsible for. Of which you are all aware because we never hear the end of him 🤣

if you like history I love The Rest is History podcast. Just listened to their series on the fall of the Incas, it was amazing. Plenty of non Tudor material on there

Mary Queen of Scots was pretty key to it- tragic, particularly given her son got the lot anyway.
It was always called Tudors and Stuarts in the primary curriculum.

It’s good for small children- lots about toilets, castles, distinctive architecture that explains daily life- overhanging upper storeys, wooden frames with wattle and daub…

There was no UK in the Tudor period.

If you like the political intrigue, wars, back stabbings etc go back one Royal house and look at the Plantagenets. Massive plotting, inter familial fighting, power struggles especially at the tier below the actual monarchs.

Henry VII wasn't the no.1 candidate by a long way, especially as his claim was through the female side only. He just happened to have a very ambitious mother who played the game to perfection and chose her husbands politically. Probably helped along the way by the excessive power the Woodville family accumulated which put the other great families noses out of joint. Possibly my favorite period of English history.

There's also loads of documentaries on TV around the ancient Egyptians, an era popularised by the finding of King Tutankhamun's tomb in the 1920s which was the culmination of a century of fascination with everything Egyptian. Plenty on the Romans, nowhere near enough on the Greeks.

Periods that I feel should be looked at a bit more include more about the Saxon era and the aftermath of the Norman invasion, maybe the Napoleonic wars, definitely the Greeks from a political point of view.

Oh and a bit more about Warwick (the "kingmaker") - he shaped history so much pre Tudor.

And please less of the stuff judging the behaviours of centuries past kings and queens by today's standards! Recent years there's been a tendency for example of examining "Good Queen Bess" and the political shenanigans and executions of her reign - in those days, whether someone was ambitious or not they could become a rallying point for other factions. Executing them would be the only way to ensure her own safety & hold on the throne.

Mary Queen of Scots was pretty key to it- tragic, particularly given her son got the lot anyway.

Exactly my point above about Elizabeth 1. As long as Mary lived, she would be the focus for every attempt at ousting Elizabeth especially by the Catholics.

At the same time, Elizabeth was nervous about setting the precedent for executing a born and anointed queen. What happened to her mother was unprecedented and worrying enough.

It was a time of fascinating change. Religious, scientific, exploring, understanding the world, art. A sort of 1960’s but centuries ago.
Henry himself is an interesting character. An intelligent man who after an accident became very ill and diseased. And a tyrant. The fascination is that he beheaded two of his wife’s. Not something that had happened in our history before.
We broke with Roman Catholicism due to Henry.
And he produced Elizabeth who never married and never had children. Whose mum was beheaded. A soap opera couldn’t make that up.
And we are still fascinated because much of our history is retained. From buildings, to clothing, to art work, plays. We want to understand it. To understand why things happened. History helps us understand today.

This . Plenty of material for programme making .

Mary Queen of Scots was not involved in the periods referred to by the poster I replied to.

Yes

Because we’re all so invested, from knowing so much (well, some fictional tales) about that time. I’m also invested in the Mayflower era, when Europe ‘found’ the new world. Again because I grew up with stories about it. And there’s a lot of positivity in the stories of the tudors and the New World / US independence. I like stories of Scotland and the clans too. Not all about the Tudors but nationally we have a soft spot for them.

I love Tudors, always have, especially Henry and Anne Boleyn. Even more so since I found out I'm related to her too. Unlike most descendants you hear about I am not from her sister Mary but her Uncle, the Duke of Norfolk is my 14th great grandfather, meaning I am also related to Catherine Howard.

Because Henry VIII* was a larger than life character in every sense, besides being a despot and infamous for having his wives’ heads chopped off, not to mention sticking two fingers up at the Pope and founding the Church of England. For that alone he was a pivotal factor in our history.

*Or Henry Vill, as dd1 used to call him, since we had the Ladybird book about him before she’d come across Roman Numerals. He’s still known as Henry Vill in this house.

this. It was corn laws and enclosure for two bloody years. And a bit of tariff regorm thrown in for light relief. Give me the Tudors any time over that.

I have a history degree and ended up studying 20th century British political history for my dissertation which I find fascinating.

I think these programmes are great for inspiring an interest in history, but some do distort facts for dramatic purposes. The depiction of Queen Victoria in Victoria was not what I had learned about her.

Edward VII’s reign was pretty soapy. At his funeral there was a special pew for all his mistresses. It was informally known as the horse box.

I wish there was more about pre-Norman Conquest Britain. The Early Medieval period is fascinating right from the retreat of Rome up to the Conquest.

Well you must admit it makes for a good story. I mean, SIX wives? Very soap opera.

I think it's also maybe partly because he's kind of the first monarch where the sources give us a decent sense of him as an actual personality - and the same with a lot of the people around him. Go back any further and we know what kings and nobles did but it's a lot harder to get a sense of what they were really LIKE. However interesting the history, a TV drama or novel needs to be quite heavy on personalities, and if you were going to do a show about Edward I or something you'd pretty much have to make it up.

Henry VIII also seems to have something quite "modern" about him, in the way that he seems to have always been led by his heart (or other body parts) in how he conducted his relationships - always married for love or what he thought was love, ended the one arranged marriage because he didn't fancy her etc. Modern people can empathise; we can't so much with the medieval-royal pattern of private life (marry a stranger for diplomatic reasons and then stick with it til death no matter how it's worked out or how you feel). We're so led by our emotions these days; so was Henry VIII.

The visuals probably help, too (thanks, Holbein). There's just not much decent portraiture when you go further back. Having that strong mental image of someone before you even know anything else about them makes us more interested, I think. It's just how our minds work, or at least how modern minds have been trained to work, in our world where we're receiving and processing a lot of visual imagery all the time and are conditioned to judge things on appearance.

Maybe he also chimes somehow with a modern concern about tyranny (he really was a tyrant), bad government, a madman having the power to destroy the lives of everyone else etc. I always think he seems to have been a very similar personality to Donald Trump - the total narcissism, the seemingly genuine belief that he could create reality with his mind, that what he thinks must be true, that what he wants must be the will of God. Henry is scary.

And there's a lot of women in the story, which is rarely so true before or after. Probably appeals to female audiences.

i think the English Civil War should get more time to be studied - it was a time when the constitution of the country moved from a King ruling by divine right and only calling Parliament when he wanted more money, through regicide, a republic for a short time then the restoration of Charles 2nd but to a different form of democracy. Plus you had the Levellers and diggers advocating the division of the land for all to use, the Putney debates on the rights of men…plenty of stuff to get your teeth into. As an aside, as a percentage of the population, more men of fighting age died in the Civil War than the First World War, the effects were profound. Many great houses and castles were destroyed (Basing House, Corfe Castle) and churches and cathedrals desecrated by the more extreme Puritans.
I am an English Civil War reenactor though so I could be a bit biased!