Eugene Finerman, my friend and fellow-blogger, had some fun last week with the new Showtime series, The Tudors. In a post entitled, “The Imbecile’s Guide to History” (http://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2007/04/11/213/),
Eugene quotes Irish heartthrob Jonathan Rhys-Meyers on his reasons for playing Henry VIII without the English monarch’s trademark red hair, beard and girth.

Rhys-Meyers says, “You’re trying to sell a historical period drama to a country like America, you don’t want a big, fat, 250 pounds, red-haired guy with a beard. It doesn’t let people embrace the fantastic monarch he was, because they’re not attracted to the package. Heroes do not look like Henry VIII. That is just the world we live in.”

Like so many show-business rationales, this one is as self-serving as it is untrue. In 1972, five years before Mr. Rhys-Meyers was born, the BBC series The Six Wives of Henry VIII garnered both critical acclaim and a significant popular following when it aired on Masterpiece Theatre. Henry VIII was played -- with red hair, beard and full figure -- by actor Keith Michell

So popular was the series that it even inspired a New Yorker cartoon. A husband and wife are watching TV as one of Henry’s wives is shown laying her neck on the block. The wife says to the husband: “There you go again! Always sticking up for Henry!”

The series –- which is available on DVD and still fascinating to watch –- made no attempt to dumb down English history for American audiences, or to make historical characters look and act like punk rockers. Indeed, the quality of the historical research and the scripts matched the quality of the acting.

The writing was very good indeed. How good? Well, not long ago, I was having coffee with a friend of mine at Starbucks, when the series came up in the course of our conversation. To my amazement, my friend started raving about the great speech that the Imperial ambassador makes at the end of the first episode, which tells the story of Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Henry was devoted to Catherine, but when she could not provide him with a male heir, he resolved to put her aside in favor of Anne Boleyn. When the Pope refused to grant Henry a divorce, he broke with Rome and made himself head of the Church of England. The shock waves from that split are still being felt in the 21st Century.

Catherine could have avoided the schism, had she either permitted her marriage to be annulled, or retired to a convent, leaving Henry free to marry someone else. Instead, she insisted fiercely that she was Henry’s lawful wife and queen, and that their daughter, Mary, was the only legitimate heir to the throne. As he invariably did whenever he was crossed, Henry retaliated with anger, bluster and cruelty.

At the end of the episode, Catherine has just died –- banished from court, wretchedly poor and forsaken by nearly everyone. She has failed at all points. Henry has married Anne Boleyn; England is lost forever to the Catholic Church; and Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry and Anne, will one day humble the Spanish empire.

One of Catherine’s faithful ladies-in-waiting turns to the Imperial ambassador (sent by Catherine’s nephew, the Habsburg emperor Charles V) and asks, “Was she wrong?”

In reply, the ambassador observes that when Catherine sailed from Spain to England as a young bride-to-be, the ship was beset by fierce storms and was nearly lost.

“When a storm strikes,” he goes on to say, “it sometimes happens that everyone on board runs about from side to side, trying to save themselves. There is no hand at the wheel. The ship yaws to and fro, with every gust and every wave.

“And then some hand –- more determined than the others –- grips the wheel and turns the ship into the wind and holds it there. Perhaps this course drives it upon the rocks. But though the ship may be broken, some fragments of it remain.

“Our Queen, when danger threatened, turned her ship’s head to the wind, and held it upon the only course she knew: the course of truth. It struck upon the rocks of passion and circumstance, and all aboard perished … But they did not disappear without a trace, as they might otherwise have done. Some spars and timbers of that ship remain to show that there were human beings there –- and that they cared profoundly about the terms on which they lived and died!”

I have not seen the Showtime series, but I rather doubt that it contains any speeches as fine as that one, by the author of that Six Wives episode, Rosemary Anne Sisson.

If you want a real glimpse into early Tudor England, have a look at the 1972 BBC series. And then decide which Henry you prefer to watch.