Four Centuries Later, Why Are We Still So Obsessed With the Tudors?

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The last Tudor monarch may have passed away in 1603, but Hollywood’s obsession with Henry VIII-era stories shows no signs of dying out anytime soon.

For decades, Tudors have been the subject of popular films and television series (think Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth in 1998, or the late aughts Showtime series The Tudors starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers), but this summer, Henry VIII, his wives, and their many relatives are trendier than ever. Among the projects that have premiered in recents months (deep breath): The Serpent Queen season two, which features Minnie Driver as Queen Elizabeth I; Firebrand, a film about Henry VIII’s final wife, Katharine Parr; My Lady Jane, a historical fantasy that features Edward VI, among other Tudors; and Shardlake, a historical mystery set in the reign of Henry VIII. The transparent number led the Times to declare summer 2024 a “Hot Tudor Summer.” Tudormania continues later this year with Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, adapted from Hilary Mantel’s book of the same name, following the final years of Thomas Cromwell’s life.

The Tudors—the name of both the royal house that ruled England from 1485 to 1603, beginning with Henry VII and ending with Elizabeth I, and the era in which they reigned—continue to fascinate. “You have a king who marries six times and executes two of his wives, a Virgin Queen, the Reformation,” historian Tracy Borman, the author of Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother & Daughter Who Changed History, says. “It’s also the age of Shakespeare, Raleigh, overseas exploration and a burgeoning national identity.” In a sense, these stories were made for the screen. Minnie Driver, who plays Queen Elizabeth I in The Serpent Queen describes the Tudors as “larger-than-life characters.” “That is why we return to that period over and over again,” she says. “The Tudor characters were just so extraordinarily powerful. I think that's why they fascinate us, because the stories around them are incredibly vibrant. They're not sort of mealy-mouthed. And even though, of course, religion as politics defined them, religion didn't solely define them.”

And notably, many of the most interesting figures of the time were women. “It was a time when these powerful institutions were being challenged,” My Lady Jane co-showrunner Meredith Glynn said. “Women were getting power. There was a Protestant Reformation happening. The old ways were dying and the new ways were being born. We always are drawn to those periods of extreme transformation.” Tudor women, particularly Anne Boleyn, feel relatable to modern audiences, especially in a post-#MeToo world. “Anne Boleyn, in many ways, was years ahead of her time: A woman in a man's world who was not afraid to express her ideas and stand up to a male-dominated court—including Henry VIII himself,” Borman says.

The continuous reassessment of historical women, a trend that has picked up steam in the last decade, looks at their motivations, their desires, and telling their stories from a more feminist perspective—and fits neatly into the continued popularity of Tudor tales. In Firebrand, Alicia Vikander brings Katherine Parr vividly to life. Director Karim A?nouz says that “what Alicia did was she brought complexity. She was saying, “oh, but she was very privileged,” and she was looking at her sometimes as an arrogant character. She brought all these elements beyond just a profound understanding of what Katherine meant and what she did.”

For Vikander, Tudors are compelling because of their actions. “Most historical British dramas reflect more upon a Victorian kind of vibe, but the Tudors were more like the rebels,” the actress tells T&C, “It's grittier, and I think there’s something about the grandeur, how it's bold and big and robust. There’s also obviously something about how brutal Henry was, and why people know more about the women who died than the person who outlived him.”

The interest in this period isn’t just isolated to the screen; on stage, there’s Six, the musical about Henry VIII’s six wives, which premiered on Broadway in 2021 but continues selling out audiences in New York and London (and has since launched multiple North American and international touring productions). In fiction, too, readers are seeking out stories set in England during the 15th and 16th century; Amazon even has a category dedicated to “Tudor Historical Romance” (which, confusingly, includes Regency romance novels—an entirely different time period). It’s not perfect, but the algorithm knows people want to read about this era, and writers continue to find inspiration in the lives of the these royals, particularly the Tudor women.

Recently published books inspired by the Tudors include everything from straight historical fiction—like The Passionate Tudor: A Novel of Queen Mary I, Allison Weir’s fictionalized recreation of the drama of Mary I’s short reign—to contemporary reimaginings, such as An Inconvenient Wife by Karen E. Olson, a modern retelling of Henry VIII where Henry is a billionaire businessman who runs Tudor Enterprises and Kate, his sixth wife, tries to discover who beheaded a woman near their summer home. Even children’s literature dips its toe into this time period; Andrew Beattie’s forthcoming The Secret in the Tower, a historical adventure novel for ages 8-12, grapples with the fate of the princes in the tower—telling the story of when Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York where placed in the Tower of London for their “protection,” but were never seen again. The Tudors are still so beloved by writers and readers, author Juno Dawson tells T&C, because “it's far enough back to feel like another world, but we have a cultural understanding of that era—it's not too complex for casual non-historians.”

The court of Henry VIII, in particular, remains ever-interesting, Dawson continues. “He was a tyrant; he had six wives; two of them met with violent ends. It's everything we love and hate about our own history. Anne is particularly intriguing because she fulfills the role of 'scarlet woman'; it would be easier to write her off as a skilled seductress who lured Henry away from his first wife with sexual wiles. Historically, I think people enjoyed seeing that sort of woman be 'punished' for her overt sexuality. In a post feminist revolution, we've reevaluated Anne and repositioned her as a victim of a great wrong.” And, she adds, “as an author, courtly intrigue is brilliantly scandalous. Plus the big dresses!” (The period outfits are perhaps why viewers enjoy Tudor-set shows, too; as actor Edward Bluemel, who plays Lord Guildford Dudley in My Lady Jane tells T&C, “[The Tudors] were all about tiny waists, hot leather, a lot of laces, a lot of buckles—all of the things that make costumes fun.”)

Dawson set Queen B, the prequel to her hit contemporary fantasy series Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, during the reign of Henry VII, reimagining Anne Boleyn as a witch. She chose to focus on Anne specifically after she learned that no contemporary paintings of her exist. “I became obsessed with what survives of her,” she says. When Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, was executed in May 1536, “one of the accusations leveled at her was that she was a witch and used this skill to bewitch Henry,” Dawson explains. “We now know she was the victim of a smear campaign by the king's men but I was keen to ask the question 'well, what if she was a witch? Would that be a bad thing?' Now, it's no bad thing to explore your relationship with the natural world.”

It’s not just screen, stage, and page where the Tudors are thriving, either; at the National Portrait Gallery in London through September 8, there’s an exhibition titled Six Lives, featuring various representations of Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Katherine Parr over the centuries. (There’s also a new book, Six Lives, released in tandem with the exhibit, by curator Charlotte Bolland.) The portraiture, Borman says, keeps modern audiences interested in the period. “Artists such as Hans Holbein painted such strikingly detailed and realistic portraits of the Tudors and their courtiers—it's like meeting them in the flesh,” Borman says. To date, over 45,000 people have booked tickets to see the exhibition, according to the museum.

The art continues to evoke strong reactions from contemporary audiences, just as the TV, movies, and books find their enthusiastic audiences. Tamzin Merchant, an actress who played Howard in The Tudors, visited the exhibition, and shared to her Instagram story a portrait thought to be of Howard. “I have endless love and compassion for her,” she wrote. “She was still a girl when she was killed by Henry. She has no grave because he ordered her body to be destroyed. This makes me so genuinely angry I am tempted to go and dance on his grave in revenge.” The plight of the women wronged—one that shows up throughout history, but is in acute focus during the Tudor era with regard to Henry VIII and his six wives—continues to summon powerful emotions, bringing audiences back time and again to the Tudors.

As Borman says, “there's no sign of our fascination with the Tudors ending any time soon.”

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