No escaping the Tudors

Many of you know I don’t do much posting about those ubiquitous Tudors, who already enjoy a Hollywood monopoly, though in fairness, Hollywood was not to blame for the atrocious series, The Tudors. But it is impossible to ignore their annoying dynasty this week. On the 25th, Henry and Anne Boleyn were finally wed, surely one of history’s most accursed unions, not only for them but for the millions of Henry’s subjects whose lives and faith were turned upside down because of his illicit passion for Anne. Today was the birthdate of Henry VII in 1157 and the death date in 1547 of his son, Henry VIII. And tomorrow is the anniversary of the day in 1536 when Anne miscarried of a son. The Spanish ambassador, Chapuys, put it succinctly when he commented, “She has miscarried of her savior.” I personally think that even if she’d given Henry the son he was so desperate to have, her time as queen would have been limited, for Henry had already turned against her and his roving eye settled upon Jane Seymour. But there is no doubt that this miscarriage led to her execution at the Tower just four months later. And as improbable as it seems, the miscarriage that doomed Anne occurred on the very day that her rival and predecessor, Catherine of Aragon, was buried at Peterborough Abbey. No novelist would have dare to invent that, just as no novelist would have dared to invent an eclipse of the sun on the day of Anne Neville’s death or any of the bizarre coincidences and occurrences that cropped up so often in the lives of the Plantagenets and Tudors. I leave the last word to my favorite American writer, the incomparable Mark Twain, who explained that “Truth is stranger than Fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”
And we have lost another talented actor, John Hurt. He had a highly successful career, but I will always remember him for his heartbreaking performance in one of the most powerful films I’ve ever seen, The Elephant Man.