Tudor Historian Joanne Paul Breaks Down Tudor Films & TV Shows

whole world knows these pirates sail up the thames all the way to your royal bed yeah don't you would wouldn't say that definitely didn't say that wouldn't yeah don't don't say that hi i'm dr joanne paul i'm a historian and the author of the house of dudley and i'm here to break down some clips from tutor film and tv shows okay so we've got a scene from wolf hall reduction you see much progress in your course we've just had a reference to to cardinal woolsey um which means he's probably still alive which means we're looking at about 15 29. oh significant glance there and and significant glance lady um who i'm sure we'll find out who she is in a moment is holding um a dog and bolin did have a dog um whose name was parkoy which was probably an anglicization of the french word porcua because he had a very sort of quizzical look on his face as if he was always asking why it's very tragic actually he ends up either falling or being thrown out a window and anne apparently they're scared to tell anne because she's so devastated who wouldn't be very nice love it claire foy here is doing a fantastic job as anne boleyn what i think is interesting though about uh her casting um is is she's very she's very pale anne boleyn was known to have what was often identified as a sallow complexion very dark and certainly very dark eyes there's a lot written about her alluring um dark eyes claire foy is is perhaps not an expected um choice for her lady mary god i thought she would slap you yes so it is lady mary berlin who is often presented as as blonde um even though we didn't know what she looked like they say she and the king still haven't it's true okay so this is the idea that ambulan and henry viii um don't do the deed until uh late 1532 when they are in calais there's nothing contemporary to support that idea this idea though that it's anne that tempts but then withholds um is something that comes much much later but we always see it in representations of anne boleyn maybe there will be a representation of ann at some point that doesn't doesn't do that that would be great she lets him pull down her shift and kiss her breasts good man okay that's actually from a letter from 1528 when henry talks about missing anne and especially at night wishing he could uh kiss her duckies um which is a tudor word for breasts so um that is is actually substantiated by the sources this is clearly anne's execution scene um this was in may of 1536 early morning which i think is is represented well here and by the law i am judged to die yeah i can't hear her and therefore i think you'd speak up for a last word spider-man is in this [Laughter] so we have uh the accounts of her execution that her ladies those around her um are removing uh the headdress from her and putting a cap on her that that holds her hair um during the execution most representations of the death of ambulance she doesn't wear a blindfold but it is it is in one of the sources and i think this scene really captures um the the terror anne wouldn't have been very close to these ladies either they weren't the ladies who had served her as queen um many were often assigned to to her and would have been assigned to her in in her imprisonment so the swordsman um of calais he had been especially sent to england in order to behead anne boleyn in fact the execution had been delayed several times because they were waiting on the executioner execution by sword would have been a more humane sort of merciful execution especially uh by an expert um such as such as he was seen to be um the sword that they show as well is is an executioner's sword there's some great examples of those at heaven castle which is is the berlin home he's creeping around her um and if if they're going according to the sources in a second he's going to call for his servant to distract her again that that is from the reports of the execution that we have we do not want men to handle her it's a little late for that so anne's execution um her head is off in in one stroke uh the joke i think that's meant to be francis um brian based on based on the eye patch the joke is of course she was executed for adultery there is no evidence that she did ever commit adultery uh it was it was a political murder in many ways so accuracy rating for wolf hall i mean it is pretty good they got the reference to kissing duckies i think that's pretty good so i'd give it about six seven seven let's let's be let's be nice let's give it a seven all right next up mary queen of scots which i think is is the most recent film iteration of a tudor story and yet you would make us hers so we have elizabeth uh meeting with her privy council i think she is pockmarked so this is probably sometime after 1562 which is when she gets small parks but mary is our foe and a catholic she is only your queen if i should not produce an heir and will you madam ah there he is robert dudley um played here by joe alwyn looking rather shifty there um because uh you know they may have uh had physical relationships uh they may have uh considered marrying each other um for a long time it was it was thought that he would marry her and that would be the route to producing an heir so a lot of eye work from robert dudley there this relationship too between elizabeth and her privy council is is pretty accurate it was often filled with tension she didn't trust them they didn't really trust her after all she is but a woman especially anything to do with um her marriage um and her ability to produce an heir always resulted in precisely these sorts of of conversations she has proven herself in fact far more capable than my own privy council yeah should i die before my time we could do worse than to place her on the throne of england yeah no no sorry i'm going to have to i'm going to have to stamp a big on on this one um elizabeth famously would not declare an heir she she really didn't want to um and fair enough because that just puts a crown over someone who could supplant her it was still also treason to talk about the the death of of the monarch to um compass or imagine the monarch's death so this sort of conversation is is fairly unlikely i understand why they want to pull it out but her saying that it would be a good idea for mary queen of scots to be her heir uh is is just it just doesn't sit well with what we know about her uh or or the history of the time i am more man than woman now this throne has made me so but i have no enmity with you i mean she does um so this is um the famous non-existent meeting um between mary queen of scots and elizabeth the first they did write each other a lot of letters and adding a dramatic scene in place of someone sitting and writing a letter which is very boring to watch um makes makes a lot of sense if you still seek my protection you would do well to watch your work i will not be scolded by my inferior i do like uh mary queen of scots the presentation the pride uh and the sort of the righteousness um that she is queen of england elizabeth's own claim as a daughter of amberlynn and henry viii it was questioned and questionable um and so mary queen scots did think she was rightful queen of england and and that pride she would keep making that claim even as as a prisoner of elizabeth the first and for that reason would be executed i was jealous your beauty your bravery your motherhood elizabeth definitely did get jealous of of people in in her court may have been jealous of the the representations of mary queen of scots whether she was jealous of of motherhood i think i remember in this film too there's there's a scene where she sort of puts something under her her dress or over her dress and and looks at the shadow of her being pregnant oh that's that's i uh maybe a bit a bit too far um if she had wanted to have children she could have married and had children um it very much seems her choice not to um and so her having this deprived maternal instinct um doesn't doesn't seem to to square so well accuracy rating for mary queen of scots um i think they represent really well uh the the sort of the character of each of the queens and and their motivations um however uh of course the meeting never happened um i i don't think i think they show elizabeth being more sympathetic to mary queen of scots especially as an heir then then would have been the case i'll give it about a 5.5 all right the tudors here we go all right i'll just say before we get too far in um the tudors gets a lot of flack as maybe it should however the last few episodes where they document the downfall of anne boleyn are very very close to the sources um and and i think they do a very very good job of uh of dealing with anne's fall and natalie dormer i could write a love letter to natalie dormer she was the reason in many ways that they stayed so close to the sources henry we have a very dark haired henry here obviously was a redhead he was also very very tall he was about six foot which meant he towered over people in the 16th century who were much much shorter than that um we lack that here with jonathan rhys meyers that sense of his his huge presence henry please for the love you bear our child all right so there's little little elizabeth um who would have been two and a half um at this point this is probably in spring 1536 um it's clearly right before anne's fall um this this almost certainly never happened elizabeth was at hatfield she had her own household and henry was very famous for sort of riding off and leaving discarded wives behind him there is however a copy of a letter that more or less follows this the same sort of structure of of this conversation she brings up elizabeth um she she swears she was always uh good to him they are they are making an effort to um to to represent the sources all right this clip from the tutors um the accuracy on it um i they are trying um there is this letter um and i think it it represents the the desperation of anne at this point and the coldness of of of henry um so i'll i'll give it i'll give it a six if you only ever watch three episodes of the tudors and maybe you should watch those three at the ends of season two for the the downfall of anne boleyn i think i think it's really well done elizabeth the golden age which is the second of the two films the enterprise for giving the orchestra all right already we've got elizabeth walking really really fast and men trying to keep up with her um which is great um and and is pretty accurate elizabeth liked walking and she liked walking fast um and so this idea that she would have a conference with an ambassador while walking really really fast um i think is is is pretty spot on mary stuart has to be set free and placed on the english throne to be assassinated does any of it sound familiar they're combining a couple different plots possibly the throckmorton plot is is here but we're also thinking about the spanish armada and the invasion they're combining a few things in in what she's talking about here with the enterprise of england it is my country that is under attack your so-called parathas your pirates attack our merchant ships daily and you you think we don't know where the orders come from true um english pirates were attacking spanish ships um fairly regularly it was this sort of not warfare warfare that england was waging against the spanish the whole world knows these pirates sail up the thames all the way to your royal bed yeah don't you would wouldn't say that definitely didn't say that wouldn't yeah don't don't say that they've essentially replaced robert dudley with walter raleigh in this film um but robert was extremely important at this time in the 1580s he had been sent to fight the spanish uh in the netherlands during the dutch revolt um so he had been angering the spanish quite a bit and of course uh was rumored to be a um a paramore lover of elizabeth the first so that's it where i think they're combining uh raleigh and and dudley in this um and that's the sort of slant of mendoza's accusation don't peeve off kate blanchett don't do it we'll leave my presents sir go back to your rattle spain is a very nice place [Music] i love cate blanchett as elizabeth fantastic also i think a reference to the fact that it is the wind which essentially destroys the spanish armada and and forces them away from england and she never said anything like that but i don't care um it's awesome and um i would can we watch it again but i've got to knock them down for getting rid of robert dudley that's a big no-no in my books um so i'll give it i'll i'll give it a five no i like campbell and chat i'll give it a 5.6 shakespeare in [Music] [Applause] i rescue love the name of queen elizabeth i'll rest who mr tilney all right so uh this is i think filmed at the globe in london sorry i can't get over um ben affleck in the background of this um looking looking very very upset uh this is at the end of a performance of romeo and juliet romeo and juliet was a play uh probably written in the early 1590s maybe late 1580s so certainly of of elizabeth's period this i think is is going to be mr sir edmund tilney i'll just play a little bit that woman is a woman why a woman you mean that goat [Music] can we just have a moment for a ben affleck's english accent um a woman on stage um was was illegal in uh the the tudor period it was illegal up until 1661. the uh gentleman with a fantastic drop earring um is i believe meant to be sir edmund tilney who is the master of the rebels was originally his job to put on court performances master of the rebels he was supposed to create revelry but he takes the job and and turns it more into censorship and he certainly censored some of shakespeare's plays the deposition scene in richard ii for instance and so here he's stormed the stage in order to uh arrest everyone apparently um because there is a genuine woman on stage i'll see you all in kink in the name of her majesty queen elizabeth the clink is a place um in elizabethan england it is a prison that then becomes a word for all prisons the clink mister kill me have a care with my name you will wear it out so jeffrey rush in this one as well he had been wallsingham in elizabeth um we've seen many of the actors um we're gonna see joseph fines in a second who is not robert dudley he's william shakespeare it gets very confusing if you watch these in succession if only lord wessex were here all right uh lord wessex um colin firth there was no lord wessex uh in elizabethan england there hadn't been a lord wessex since the 11th century um somewhere around there um there is however a lord wessex now um he is edward the youngest son of elizabeth ii who is who is earl of wessex what's very interesting is that part of the reason that edward took the title of lord wessex apparently is that he saw this film and thought it was a great title and so the reason that we have a lord wessex again is because of this film um so history impacts cinema cinema impacts history i i think there's there's some truth to the time that's that's that's in it um so we'll we'll give it we'll give it a four that which seems mean but it's it's a great film um i may go watch it again this evening speaking of historical inaccuracies we're going to watch the other berlin girl now first question though do i have to do i actually do i actually have to yes all right i'll see the truth will be out i cannot beat you you have me burned as a witch all right first off um she the witchcraft thing later rumor um she wasn't executed for being a witch um and the idea that her inability to produce a child would have anything to do with a witchcraft accusation just completely doesn't doesn't make sense i think the other berlin girl too is is very interesting because it speaks to that sort of dual presentation that we see of women of you have one who's um the and one who's the sort of virgin madonna type presentation which is probably why mary belin is often represented as blonde as is in contrast to the sort of morally darker uh and and bolin must i spell it out okay another moment for uh hilarious english accents um natalie portman but lying with another man would be treason true [Music] stupid yeah do stop it so this this they they pursue the suggestion that um anne committed adultery with her brother um this was something that she was convicted but both of them were convicted of of and executed for entirely trumped up charges um but here they're exploring the possibility that it would have been considered as a way to get and pregnant without involving someone outside the family this is the definition of keeping it in the family and it's madness it's also really gross no don't you see you're my only i can't listen anymore it's monster mary no come join george please my life depends on it would have been way more concerned about her soul um and was very very religious uh committing adultery bad committing incest really really bad so would would not have crossed her mind and the fact that it was brought as a charge against her is is one of those historical realities that is difficult to explain that it would have even been thought of that she would have done this because yeah get out of there [Music] all right we've got juno temple playing jane parker here jane parker george bolin's wife has often been thought of as someone who reported on ann and george that that she's the reason that people thought um that they were committing incest there's no actual contemporary evidence for that that's something that comes about as an accusation much later when she is actually involved in the affairs of a later queen catherine howard and she is executed for that so everybody in this room ends up ends up executed it's a bad room to be in good on mary belin for leaving yeah gross gross gross gross gross [Music] okay good so yeah they they don't they don't go through with it it's all fine the other berlin girl is also the sort of the worst example of that anne boleyn who tempts but with holds it would just be great if we could we could get past that representation so um so we can have a two thank you for watching you can get my book the house of deadly in hardback ebook and audiobook by clicking the link below in the description and don't forget to subscribe to penguin for more videos just like this

Channel: Penguin Books UK

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Keywords: Penguin, Penguin Books, Penguin Books UK, break it down, penguin break it down, breaks down turdor history, historian breaks down films, historian breaks down, tudor historian breaks down tudor, joanne paul, penguin joanne paul, expert breaks down tudor, expert breaks down, the tudors, expert breaks down mary queen of scots, expert breaks down eliabeth, expert reviews history

Id: hvspZZWyTzg

Length: 24min 8sec (1448 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 25 2022