That it most definitely was. That’s why I was disappointed by The Tudors. The 1970 series Six Wives of Henry VIII was so much better and then I’ve also read many of the books by Allison Weir and others as I’m a bit of an English history geek.
Did you get a chance to see Wolf Hall on BBC? What did you think of it?
I did see a couple of episodes and liked it very much. And Damian Lewis was surprisingly good casting as Henry VIII. Unfortunately, I starting watching it partway through and have just not gotten around to seeing the entire series. I believe it is available to stream on PBS and on Amazon Prime so I intend to set aside a rainy weekend and do some binge watching.
I’ve read some criticisms of Wolf Hall, one for the series as depicting a Tutor era house that was not built until the Elizabethan era, but that to me is not that big of a deal and certainly less glaring than the radiator in Henry’s bed chamber, the use of Victorian era coaches, a macadam driveway leading up to a manor house, the bad costuming and the oh so many other things wrong with The Tudors.
Some have also criticized both the series and the books it was based on for portraying Thomas Cromwell as a sympathetic character and Sir Thomas Moore the opposite. But you know, I also take for granted that some portrayals of Moore as being “saintly” and beyond reproach even as the Catholic Church venerates him as one, maybe somewhat skewed and not perhaps historical themselves.
And that’s not intended to be critical against the Catholic Church, but the political machinations and truthfully the power struggles of and against and the corruption of The Church during this time period lends me to take portrayals that cast either the complete hero or the complete villain with a grain of salt – real people tend to be much more complicated.
While my main interest and focus in English history starts with Stonehenge and runs through the Roman and Viking eras, and ends with the end Elizabeth the 1st reign, I’ve been enjoying the Masterpiece Theater series Victoria even though I do find it a bit Downton Abby-esc. But the main historical points of reference in the series seems to be accurate.
Some of the costumes in The Tudors were just downright silly, they were so far off base. If the makers of the Tudors wanted the series to be “camp”, an entertaining “romp”, inappropriate costumes would have been part of the show. But I think mostly the intention of The Tudors was to be more serious history than camp entertainment.
What I thought most interesting about Wolf Hall was it was the first filmed version of the Henry 8th/Anne Boleyn melodrama (that I’ve seen) where Thomas More was not portrayed to be very saintly. Hey, I’m Roman Catholic, I didn’t know Thomas More had people tortured, LOL. I’ve also seen many versions of Anne’s execution scene on film, she was always bent over a block and the executioner (in a scary black hood and clothes) used an axe to chop off her head. In Wolf Hall she was executed on her knees by a French swordsman who was not dressed as an executioner and he used a sword to cut her head off. He told Cromwell that he didn’t want to dress like an executioner and panic Anne before she was blindfolded. After she was blindfolded he even took his shoes off when he got onto the platform. He quietly tip-toed to the right position near Anne and then made a sound to make Anne turn her head a certain way—all done to get her head and neck into perfect position for a clean slice between heartbeats.
Wolf Hall is interesting precisely because it from a Protestant point of view. It is a bit of a fun house mirror to A Man for All Seasons. The usually hated Cardinal Wolsey is played by a very sympathetic Jonathan Pryce. The usually pious man of deep integrity, Thomas More, is suddenly a bitchy Anton Lesser. Very, very well done and you should finish up the series before the second season is released!