I was thinking this morning of what to say about TV’s The Tudors. The phrase “dry humping” recurred, as in, ‘The Tudors is punctuated by gratuitous bouts of dry humping’. But then I thought, ‘Actually, the dry humping - prime-time’s version of actual sex - is probably the one thing we can be certain is spot on.’ We know the Tudors had sex (except Elizabeth; but do we believe that?) so it is the sex that provides the visceral bridge between now and then. We know the pious Henry VIII was a philandering cock-cunter - he perfectly illustrates the failure of religious faith to rein in primal urges or impious expedient duplicities - and so The Tudors is to be congratulated on getting that more-or-less right. Henry even cheated on beloved third wife, Jane Seymour, though you wouldn’t have guessed it when Keith Mitchell donned the royal codpiece back in the early 1970s.
Some critics say Jonathan Rhys Meyers is too pretty as Henry. But this is to forget that the young king was a bit of a Dorian by all accounts. The Venetian ambassador Piero Pasqualigo describes Henry in his mid-20s as having a “round face so very beautiful that it would become a pretty woman”. Rhys Meyers is certainly a beautiful man, a great loss to cock-cockers to be sure, but lacking Henry’s bloat: let’s forgive that. A period dramatisation tells us more of our own times than other times, so a slimline Henry will inform the future of the Noughties’ concern with obesity and the need for un-fat role models; just as the rampant dry humping will tell the future of the creeping pornographisation of entertainment. A Tudor interracial bukkake - sandwiched beween family TV ads for fish fingers and the Halifax - cannot be far off now.
Thinking of Henry VIII reminded me of an esoteric book I read once called Tudor Story: The Return of Anne Boleyn by WS Pakenham-Walsh (first published in 1963). The elderly clergyman author established contact with the spirit of Queen Anne and learnt that she was in fine humour, had regained her head; and he reported via séances that Henry VIII was begging for forgiveness, still. The king, alas, in other respects was still in a terrible temper and insisting that his royal supremacy be accepted by all about. This failure to accept his lot had delayed his spiritual progress, at least as of 1963, but who knows what might have happened since? The book was reissued in paperback last year, by the way.
So, my mind was full of the Tudors this morning, as I cycled to my seaside news agents to settle a bill. As I entered the shop, the radio (as if on cue) started playing Phil Collins. The shop owner brightened. “I did a lot of work for Phil Whatsit,” he said.
“Really? What?” I asked, thinking of goss.
“I worked on that barn of his, when he had that big house in Loxwood near Billingshurst" [in West Sussex, England].
Turns out Phil Collins wanted to convert his giant “barn” into a Tudor hall - “He must have spent a fortune on it,” said Mr News Agent, who is a period carpenter, too. “For over a year I carved woods for window frames and the gallery and lots of other things. Phil would say: ‘Buy all the oak you need. The wood merchant’s just down the road, mention my name and they’ll give you what you want. The nicest bloke he was, no airs. Course, he lost the house when he divorced his wife. Shame.”
So this morning I couldn’t get away from the Tudors or The Tudors. Sam Neill is fabulous as Wolsey, a fine study in avaricious solicitude - though I think the cardinal’s own cock-cunting side is being somewhat underplayed.
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