How the Spanish Princess Fucks Up Early Tudor Costume

We have been all over the Starz TV miniseries adaptation of a Philippa Fucking Gregory book, The Spanish Princess. This production purports to tell the story of Catherine of Aragon, the Spanish princess who married first Arthur, Prince of Wales in 1501 and then Henry VIII, King of England in 1509 — the first decade of the 1500s. We previewed the costumes, did a deep analysis of Catherine’s wedding dress, recapped every episode, and discussed how much the production fucked up the actual history (hint: really, really badly). Well, now we need to turn to an in-depth analysis of the costumes. We’ve looked at the Spanish styles worn by Catherine and her ladies, now we’re going to look at all the English styles.

This time, we turned for expert analysis to Kimiko Small, aka Dame Joan Silvertoppe in the SCA, who has spent years researching early English Tudor costume. She hasn’t been watching the show, but I sent her photos and asked her to weigh in, so I’ll be adding her thoughts throughout.

Yet again, the fact that the timeline is compressed messes things up a bit — Catherine married Arthur in 1501, and Henry in 1509, so we’re generally looking at the first decade of the 1500s. However, sources from this era are scarce, so we’ll consider slightly earlier and slightly later years as well.

The Spanish Princess: The Women’s Costumes

Henry VIII’s youngest sister, Princess Mary, gives us a good overview of women’s very early 16th-century dress. This image is from when she married the King of France in 1514, so just slightly after our focal period. Nonetheless, her fitted yet naturally-curved bodice, wide skirt, and wide sleeves, plus draped and not-too-structured hood on the head touches on all the main stylistic points of 1500s English dress:

Now, let’s look at individual characters.

Elizabeth of York

Queen Elizabeth’s costuming annoyed me the least, because they managed to occasionally dress her in vaguely early 1500s clothing — and they got her hair up, even if there wasn’t a hood in sight.

ALL ladies of this era wore “hoods,” or draped head coverings, as you’ll see in every single comparative image.

Kimiko adds: “Starting at the literal top of the head, the older ladies were often well groomed, hair up in braids, or tucked under their headdresses, but Elizabeth of York in a head necklace minimizes her status as queen.”

Despite the princess seam down the front (SO not a 16th-c. approach to dressmaking), I generally liked Elizabeth’s main dress. It’s got a natural bodice silhouette, the sleeves are long, wide, and hanging, and the wide ties at the front can be seen in other images of maternity dress. However, Kimiko says, “The dresses with trumpet sleeves are close. But some, with the cords in front, wear more like a bathrobe, than a proper gown” (note: she might not have realized the character was pregnant).

Elizabeth’s mourning dress confuses me. I feel like someone looked at Elizabeth’s funeral effigy and got confused?

Margaret Beaufort

Henry VII’s mother was a mishmash — some things worked, and some were WTFrock.

First, the fact that she almost always wore a hood was a massive bonus. However, most of the time she wore a 30-years-too-early, incorrectly-sticky-uppy French hood of the kind that came into fashion during Anne Boleyn’s time.

She also wears this weird attempt at a Flemish hood, with an overly structured cap and unnecessarily flippy sides:

Both Kimiko and I were happy with Margaret’s gable hood — this was the one and only piece of female headwear in the entire show that was accurate to the period! But, Kimiko notes, “Margaret Beaufort is wearing an almost suitable Tudor style bonnet with long textured lappets in the front. The extra touch of studs on the headdress begs the question why are we going for a punk theme?”

Margaret’s dresses were also pretty close to period-accurate with their natural torso fit, A-line skirt, and wide, trumpet sleeves — if you lost what I call the “welding apron,” aka their bad attempt at a sideless surcoat. Kimiko explains, “The sideless apron, or is it a surcoat? I can’t see the back to know if there is a back, nor a side, so apron is what I will call it. The waffle fabric apron just looks badly out of place. If it is supposed to have been inspired by the sideless surcoat, a fashion of the 1300s, its many decades out of fashion. By this point, it is used as a marker of a queen in illuminations, usually displayed in furs and jewels, may have been worn by royalty in court functions, but Margaret Beaufort is not a queen, and would not have worn it around the house as a general frock. Either way, aprons just do not belong on Margaret.” She also mentions Margaret’s kicky shrug (far left), “The partlet should not be worn as a Victorian bolero jacket with demi-sleeves.”

This gown was probably the best, if only because No Welding Apron:

Margaret Pole

Poor “Maggie” Pole, mostly lost in WTFrock land.

I don’t remember ever seeing this promo still dress on screen, which is too bad, because it’s the most historically accurate style Margaret Pole wears (despite the sewn-in stomacher):

The rest? I got nothing.

This one is just 100% 1530s (i.e., 20ish years later) Florentine (in no way culturally or geographically near to English fashion):

And this one? The fabric looks Indian (so, 17th century at the earliest, as that’s when Indian textile imports started reaching England), the cut looks vaguely-Elizabethan (i.e., post-1550s).

Princess Margaret

POOR PRINCESS MARGARET. She’s either 30 years out-of-fashion, or the Queen of Dumpytown. Kimiko agrees, “But poor Princess Margaret. One outfit, which I think was the Burgundian you mentioned, just made her look dowdy in beige, like her bust had nowhere to go but down and out. The burgundy with oversized green tie-on sleeves made her look like a child.”

This dress is 1460s-70s-ish:

And her range of Dumpy Dresses(TM), compared with actual period sources to once again show just how totally unrelated they are:

Finally, Kimiko makes me laugh by adding, “Crescent rolls should be enjoyed as food, not sewn on coifs to wear.”

The Spanish Princess: Men’s Costumes

Predictably, we’ve got less to say, just because 1. we’re tired, and 2. boys = zzzzz.

Henry VIII

Kimiko says, “Arthur was the only male I studied. In general he looked acceptable. But the various cosplay leather armor makes me think he’s auditioning for the role of Medieval Green Arrow, complete with unattached arm bracers. It doesn’t improve much when he’s wearing the sleeveless gown that still shows the arm bracers. And somebody get that young man a proper hat! He’s a Prince, not a pauper.”

Agreed! Minus the lack-of-hat, Henry looked acceptable when wearing surcoats:

And completely ridiculous when he didn’t:

Henry VII

Fine? His hair could have been longer, as could 99% of the men. Props for 1. any hat, and 2. getting the hat style pretty close!

Prince Arthur

And a final shout-out for the historically-accurate bowl haircut, even if I have my doubts about the layered back.

 

 

Dear god, does this mean I’m done covering The Spanish Princess??!!