The Tudors

Television series
German title	The Tudors Subtitles: Season 1: The King's Mistress Season 2: The Queen and Her Executioner Season 3: A Son for the King Season 4: The King's Last Days
Original title	The Tudors
Country of production	Ireland , Canada , United Kingdom , United States
original language	English
Year (s)	2007-2010
length	50 minutes
Episodes	38 in 4 seasons
genre	historically fictional
idea	Michael Hirst
music	Trevor Morris
First broadcast	April 1, 2007 on Showtime
German-language first broadcast	June 7, 2008 on ProSieben

The Tudors (Original: The Tudors ) is a television series with a historical background and many fictional elements, which was conceived and written by the British screenwriter Michael Hirst . The series is freely based on the events during the reign of the English monarch Henry VIII .

action

1st season

The action takes place in 1518. The young Henry VIII is informed of the death of his uncle and wants to declare war on France, he is persuaded to conclude a peace treaty with France instead. At Camp du Drap d'Or he meets young Anne Boleyn and falls in love with her. Since the beginning of his reign he has been married to Catherine of Aragon , who was six times pregnant and of whom he has no surviving son, only one daughter, Mary . Henry fears for the Tudor dynasty. Heinrich wants the marriage to be declared null and void , but does not get the Pope's consent .

2nd season

Henry is still pursuing his plans in 1532 to have his marriage to Queen Katharina annulled. In 1533, despite the lack of a decree, he married his lover Anne Boleyn and cast out Katharina. But Anne gives birth to a girl, Princess Elizabeth , and two other dead children. Henry's love for Anne dies and he meets Jane Seymour . An intrigue builds up around Anne, and Henry thinks that she cheated on him several times. He has her arrested and locked in the tower. He now spends time with the new candidate. In the last episode of the season, Anne is beheaded.

3rd season

In 1536, Henry, now a little older and weakened by an accident, married Jane Seymour. It takes some time for her to become pregnant; all lovingly care for the mother-to-be. Henry brings his daughter Mary to court and rebuilds a relationship with her. Meanwhile, he also has to fight a rebellion, the pilgrimage of grace , and sends his best friend Charles Brandon onto the battlefield. As a result, his wife loses her child. The birth of Henry's child is complicated, but the child is fine, it is a boy, who will later become King Edward VI. The whole of England is happy about the heir to the throne, but Jane falls ill with puerperal fever. She cannot be saved and dies in Henry's arms.

Henry has become depressed since his beloved wife died. Since his son is rather weak, he wants to marry again. All over Europe people are looking for a suitable wife for him, but nobody wants to have anything to do with the bloodthirsty king. Then Henry sees the picture of Anna von Kleve , he falls in love with her portrait, but when his new bride comes under his eyes he is horrified. In his opinion she looks like a horse. After seven months of marriage, they divorce.

17-year-old Catherine Howard comes to court, and Heinrich falls in love with her.

4th season

1540: Henry, now very old, introduces his new wife, Catherine Howard, to the court. He showered the girl with presents and made her dance at parties. Only his 20-year-old daughter Mary has a big problem with her fourth stepmother. Catherine soon becomes too busy with Henry, who is barely 50, and she begins an affair with Chamberlain Thomas Culpeper , who is only a little older than herself. But everything is exposed. Catherine, her former lover Francis Dereham and Thomas are arrested. All three will be executed.

A little later, Henry discovers the widowed Catherine Parr at his court, she becomes his wife despite her aversion to a new marriage. She brings Henry closer to his children so that they all live at least partially as a family. Henry learns of the death of his best friend Charles Brandon and is shaken. Realizing that he is about to die himself, he sends Catherine and his children away from Whitehall Palace. He sees the ghosts of his deceased wives, the last to arrive is his beloved Jane, who sadly tells him that their only son will not live long.

In the last scene, Henry stands in a room in front of a veiled picture. He reveals it and sees himself in the picture, in all its glory. He looks at the picture briefly, walks out of the picture and tells Hans Holbein , his court painter, that he has done a good job.

Production and broadcasts

The series was produced by Peace Arch Entertainment for Showtime in association with Reveille Eire ( Ireland ), Working Title Films ( UK ) and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ( Canada ). The series was filmed in Ireland. The first two episodes were shown before the actual premiere on Showtime on DirecTV, Time Warner Cable OnDemand, Netflix, Verizon FiOS On Demand, Internet Movie Database and on the series' website.

On April 11, 2007, the series premiered on Showtime. A second season was approved in April 2007, and that same month the BBC announced that it had acquired the exclusive rights to broadcast the UK. The season aired from October 5, 2007. The season was shown on the CBC of Canada from October 2, 2007. The first season was repeated in April 2008 on the digital channel of CBC Bold. The fourth and final season, filmed in Dublin, Ireland, first aired in the US from April 11, 2010 to June 20, 2010.

The German first broadcast of all four seasons was done by ProSieben . The broadcast of the individual seasons began on June 7, 2008, December 27, 2008, December 28, 2009 and December 22, 2010. The fourth and final season was broadcast in the form of five double episodes.

Episode list

Cast and dubbing

The German synchronization was for a dialogue book by Cornelius From man, Benedict Rabanus and Evelyn Köstle and the dialogue director Peter Woratz by the synchronous company Scala Media GmbH in Munich .

Role (link: historical person)	actor	Season	Voice actor
Henry VIII	Jonathan Rhys Meyers	1 - 4	Norman Matt
Charles Brandon	Henry Cavill	1 - 4	Stefan Günther
Eustace Chapuys	Anthony Brophy	1 - 4	Enrique Ugarte
Thomas Cromwell	James Frain	1 - 3	Ole Pfennig
Maria I.	Bláthnaid McKeown Sarah Bolger	1 2 - 4	Laura Maire
Anne Boleyn	Natalie Dormer	1 - 2, 4	Marieke Oeffinger
Edward Seymour	Max Brown	2 - 4	Patrick Schröder
Thomas Boleyn	Nick Dunning	1 - 2	Claus Brockmeyer
Catherine of Aragon	Maria Doyle Kennedy	1 - 2, 4	Elena Alvarez
Ambassador Mendoza	Declan Conlon	1 - 3	Ricardo Eche
George Boleyn	Pádraic Delaney	1 - 2	Benedikt Gutjan
Thomas More	Jeremy Northam	1 - 2	Marcus Off
Thomas Wyatt	Jamie Thomas King	1 - 2	Johannes Raspe
Jane Boleyn	Joanne King	2 - 4	Farina Brock
Cardinal Thomas Wolsey	Sam Neill	1	Wolfgang Condrus
Sir Anthony Knivert	Callum Blue	1	Manou Lubowski
Duke of Norfolk	Henry Czerny	1	Crock Krumbiegel
Duke of Buckingham	Steven Waddington	1	Michael Lott
Thomas Cranmer	Hans Matheson	2	Tobias Lelle
Henry Howard	David O'Hara	4th	Martin Umbach
Sir Francis Bryan	Alan van Sprang	3	Alexander Brem
Elizabeth I.	Kate Duggan Claire MacCauley Laoise Murray	2 3 4	Liv Wagener
Thomas Culpeper	Torrance Coombs	4th	Manuel Straube
Pope Paul III	Peter O'Toole	2	Jürgen Thormann
William Compton	Kristen Holden-Ried	1	Philipp Brammer
Catherine Howard	Tamzin Merchant	3 - 4	Gabrielle Pietermann
Margaret Tudor	Gabrielle Anwar	1	Claudia Lössl
Mary Boleyn	Perdita Weeks	1 - 2	Maren Rainer
Edward VI.	Eoin Murtagh	4th	Giuliano Ceraolo
Charles de Marillac	Lothaire Bluteau	4th	Jean-Yves de Groote
Anna of Kleve	Joss Stone	3 - 4	Sabine Gutberlet
Catherine Parr	Joely Richardson	4th	Carin C. Tietze
Franz I.	Emmanuel Leconte	1 - 2
Jane Seymour	Anita Briem Annabelle Wallis	2 3, 4	Shandra Schadt
Catherine Brandon	Rebekah Wainwright Marcella Plunkett	1 - 3 4	Stephanie waiter
Otto von Waldburg	Max von Sydow	3	Reinhard Glemnitz
Robert Aske	Gerard McSorley	3	Walter von Hauff
Sir John Hutton	Roger Ashton-Griffiths	3	Kai Taschner
Philip the Moot	Colin O'Donoghue	3	Manuel Straube
Lord Thomas Darcy	Colm Wilkinson	3 - 4	Klaus Guth
Thomas Tallis	Joe Van Moyland	1	Johannes Wolko

Historical deviations

The Family of Henry VIII: An Allegory of the Tudor Succession (ca.1572). Painting of Henry VIII, his three children and Philip II of Spain in an anachronistic representation and entwined with mythological figures.

The cinematic staging contains fictional elements relating to the names of some characters, their relationships to one another, their physical appearance and the chronological sequence of events.

The show cuts the time so it seems that things happened closer in time than they actually did. For most of the events in the series, Henry VIII was in his mid to late 30s. Henry was a decade older than Anne Boleyn, who was born around 1501. In historical reality, Heinrich did not begin to seriously pursue Anne until she was in her late twenties.

The character of Henry's sister, called Princess Margaret, is actually a combination of his two sisters: the events in the life of his younger sister, Princess Mary Tudor , have been linked to the name of his older sister, Princess Margaret Tudor (to avoid confusion with Henry's daughter Maria I. . Avoid England ). Historically, Henry's sister Princess Mary first married the French King Louis XII. The marriage lasted about three months, until his death; Ludwig's successor was his cousin Franz I , who was married to Ludwig's daughter Claude de France . Maria then married Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk . When The Tudors began , Heinrich was already negotiating a peace treaty with France. The series' Princess Margaret marries the King of Portugal , who only lives a few days until she suffocates him in his sleep. During the events on the series, the historic Brandon (who was in his early 40s) and Princess Mary had long been married and had three children. Henry's older sister, Margaret Tudor, was actually married to King James IV of Scotland and became the grandmother of Mary, Queen of Scotland .

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey commits suicide in the dungeon in London in the series. In reality, however, he fell seriously ill on a trip and died as a result.

It is reported in several episodes that Henry VIII is King of Ireland . The title of King of Ireland only existed since 1541. In the period covered by the series, Heinrich was historically only called Lord of Ireland .

Elizabeth Blount was one of Henry's mistresses and gave birth to an illegitimate son ( Henry Fitzroy ). While her son dies as a young child in the series, Fitzroy did not actually die until 1536 at the age of 17, about ten years before the death of his father Henry VIII. Elizabeth Blount was also not married before Henry Fitzroy was born.

In the series, Pope Alexander is shown on his death bed during the meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I in Camp du Drap d'Or in 1520. The actual pope at that time, however, was Leo X , who died in 1521.

Cardinal Orsini is portrayed as if he had been elected after the death of the fictional Alexander, which does not correspond to reality, because the teacher and confessor of Emperor Charles V , Adrian von Utrecht , was only elected as Leo's successor. In addition, only a year later, after his death, Cardinal Medici became Pope of the Roman Church, who then, as Clement VII, refused to consent to the divorce from Henry VIII.

Charles V was engaged in the 2nd part to a Princess Maria of Portugal, who is at least 25 years younger than him. In reality, Karl was married to Isabella of Portugal , who was only three years his junior .

In the first episode, an English ambassador reported that Henry VIII's uncle was murdered by a French in Italy ; the real Henry VIII had no such uncle. The name of this character is Courtenay and was based on William Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon. He was married to Heinrich's aunt Katherine of York , but died in 1511 of pleurisy . There is also no historical evidence that composer Thomas Tallis was bisexual as portrayed in the series.

The Whitehall Palace is shown as the home of Henry VIII. From the beginning of the series. However, the palace fell into Henry's hands only after the deposition of Cardinal Wolsey (1530). Until then it was called York Place and was used by Heinrich as a house for him and his fiancée Anne Boleyn.

In the first season you see Heinrich composing the song Greensleeves for Anne Boleyn , which is often ascribed to him, but in reality the song is not his. Also, he actually plays the tune "What Child Is This" rather than the Greensleeves Doric mode in which the song was originally written. The original melody, as known from What Child Is This, wasn't changed until 1865, more than 300 years later.

Simon Fish , a propagandist of the Reformation, did not die at the stake, but of the plague shortly before his execution.

Not Jane Seymour, but Catherine Parr ensured the reinstatement of the daughters of Henry Maria and Elizabeth into the line of succession.

One of the episodes shows Henry VIII with Anne Boleyn walking in the winter park. The copy of Venus de Milo standing there was found in Greece in 1820.

In the series, carriages are shown as a means of transport. However, the first carriages in England did not appear in London until around 1550. Walter Rippon, a Dutchman who lived in London, built a carriage for the Earl of Rutland in 1555.

St. Peter's Basilica with the dome designed by Michelangelo Buonarotti (builder in St. Peter only from 1547), which are repeatedly faded in in the series, were not yet completed during Henry VIII's lifetime Inaugurated in the 18th century (the dome was completed by Giacomo della Porta in 1602). The representation of today's view of the cathedral with the dome in the series is therefore incorrect.

At the time of Heinrich's death, the painter Hans Holbein the Younger († November 29, 1543 in London) had already died and was therefore unable to paint a portrait of the departing Heinrich. In addition, after the erroneous drawing of Anna von Kleve, he fell out of favor with the king and was never allowed to portray a member of the royal family again.

The coat of arms at the court of Kleve does not correspond to that of the United Duchies of Jülich-Kleve-Berg , but represents the coat of arms of Prussia in the 18th century.

In the series, the Spanish ambassador Eustace Chapuys dies shortly after giving up his post at the English court. In fact, he died in 1556, during the reign of Maria I , in the city of Leuven, now in Belgium .

Awards

In 2007, the series was awarded two Emmys for costumes and music. In 2008 Die Tudors received two Golden Globe nominations in the categories of Best Series Lead Actor - Drama (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and Best Series - Drama , but failed to prevail over the US series Mad Men . In the same year, television production won seven awards at the Irish IFTA Awards . Among the winning actors were Jonathan Rhys Meyers and supporting actors Maria Doyle Kennedy and Nick Dunning .

Web links

• The Tudors in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Info ( Memento of the original from April 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at tudorswiki.sho.com  
2. ↑ Sabrina Brixius: ProSieben shows the fourth season of "The Tudors" from December . Cinefacts.de. November 9, 2010. Retrieved December 30, 2010.
3. ↑ The Tudors. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous file , accessed on May 23, 2014 .