28 thoughts on “The Spanish Princess Recap: Episode 4

  1. Let me see if I’ve got this straight, England has been INVADED and everybody at court is too wrapped up in weddings to bother about it?

  2. I just hope you’re being greatly rewarded for watching this effing crap. Not only is the history wrong, wrong, wrong, (do I need to fill the page with wrongs like ‘Romani aut domus’) and the costumes suck Megaly, but I can’t help compare it to Gentleman Jack whose costumes are so period and gorgeous – even though it’s like 300 years later.

    1. I know I’m dating myself, but Prince Henry’s tousled hair reminds me of JFK…

      1. 1) It is very JFK. And very RFK. Both Prince Henry and Charles Brandon also look like c. 2019 bros to swoon over. I cannot WAIT for Mantel’s last Cromwell novel to appear, which will mean more “Wolf Hall” on television eventually. I don’t much like the casting, but at least it’ll be a beautiful, intelligent, carefully researched production.

        2) “…the Fêtes Galantes at Versailles in Paris (go ahead, hate me if you must) swanning about in an 18th-century costume in the Hall of Mirrors.”

        I do hate you, Kendra, but I also admire your excellent taste.

    1. Well it was suggested that Henry the father should marry Catherine. The issues were simple; no Henry wanted to keep Catherine’s dowery, he could certainly use a spare or two and Henry the son was only ten years old. Also Catherine had lost most of her value on the marriage market when her mother died.
      However I am pretty sure this invasion by Margaret Pole’s cousin is fictional or at best displaced chronologically.

  3. Well at least they didn’t go with the whole White Wedding dress thing. But the history still sucks, even if they costumes have improved…slightly.

  4. At this point, I am mainly watching it for Harriet Walter. She is freaking awesome as Margaret Beaufort. Even if the script won’t let her be anywhere near the Real Deal, she steals every scene she is in with her snarky side-glances.

  5. Hot weather + athletic activity ALWAYS me think “this is just the time for some snug leather trousers!” It is like they are reading my mind.

  6. Poor Margaret Beaufort – that this very decent scholarly woman should be regularly slandered in so many fictional renderings (both in novels and now on TV) is simply disgusting.

    1. I don’t understand why every author seems to find it necessary to make Margaret an antagonist. She was much admired in her own time.

      1. Probably because she can’t be made young and hot and get a love interest like a proper female lead should, amirite? Who cares about gross old women, especially when they were (spits) religious? /s

        In all seriousness, this is just sad. Such a great lady and noone does her justice! Then there’s her son, known for his ruthless cunning, being horribly dumbed down since The White princess… I hate Philipa Gregory sometimes.

  7. “Maggie” Pole – clearly she just wants to stay neutral, live a quiet life, and continue to exert her iron grip on the English hairpin supply.

  8. Hopefully, Kendra will take tons of pics of her in the dress at Versailles..
    And has she been to Francois I castles in the Loire?

    1. Has she had the chocolat Africaine at Angelique’s? I consumed it at age twelve, and still remember the taste.

  9. Is Henry’s topless codpiece boules (soon to be added to the Summer Olympics) partner CGI? He looks like he fell out of a mildly risque graphic novel/manga about hunky half-vampire half-angel boyz who’re deep and broodingly angsty and angstily brooding and looking for love (in between slaughtering legions of mooks with their mad fighting skillz).

    Maybe the hairpin budget got spent on protein shakes and chest wax?

    1. I’m also struck by the waistbands cut down to the pube-lines. I can’t even deal with modern jeans cut that low. And the low-waist cut seems to push the codpieces off-target.

  10. This is going to date me, but Henri is VERY 80s: the leather pants, the open shirt, the emo/goth look, the HAIRCUT, for God’s sake!
    Oh, and speaking of leather pants, what’s going on with that codpiece? Boule buddy’s thing seems to stand where it should, but Henry’s makes it look like he’s got an elephant trunk in… Oh, ok, I get it.
    Really, gentlemen, the size of your equipment is not that important. At least, I’ve yet to meet a woman that grants it the same importance that the average male does. Or seems to. Honest, do you really think about it 24/7?

  11. I just heard yesterday that Starz has given the greenlight for a 2nd season of The Spanish Princess, so we can look forward to more historically inaccurate shenanigans and questionable costumes.

  12. Henry VII was genuinely devestated by his wife’s death. According to contemporary accounts he took himself off somewhere private and saw nobody but his mother for a time.
    Margaret B could not declare herself regent. She’d have to be officially named so by Henry. She wasn’t.
    Young Henry would not be visiting his mother’s tomb in his shirt it would be indecent and totally shock Catherine. A shirt was undress.
    At first nobody was quite sure what to do with Catherine, as I recall she went to Durham house which in on the Strand not in the City of London.
    There is no way Catherine or Henry would be wandering the city streets alone and unattended. If Catherine wanted some exercise she’d walk in the garden. If she wanted to shop or see the sights she’d mount a horse or get in a horse litter and be escorted by servants and ladies.
    If Henry wanted to call on Catherine he too would have come on horseback and attended. Honor and respect for Catherine would require it.
    There is no way Henry and Brandon would be bowling topless. One stripped to one’s shirt and no farther. Less in public was unthinkable.

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