Abstract
This article explores representations of Mary I of England, wife of Philip II of Spain. Specifically, it examines the portrayal of the queen – perhaps most famously known by the epithet ‘Bloody Mary’ – in the TV series Carlos, Rey Emperador (2015-2016), and in its associated online supporting materials. It details how textual representations of Mary underpin European visual depictions of the queen, and considers the ways in which Mary transcends stereotypical, quintessentially English-language portrayals of Mary for Spanish and Portuguese audiences. In doing so, it posits wider observations on the mnemonic strategies underpinning the series Carlos, Rey Emperador, and its different framings for Spanish and Portuguese audiences on the Internet.
Highlights
It’s a decade since the scholar Cynthia Herrup assured members of the American Historical Association that the twenty-first century is an age in which early modern history is considered sexy; we can say with conviction, she declared, that the “Tudors are a hot dynasty.”
Her analysis of the marketability and relative ‘hotness’ of England’s monarchy for much of the sixteenth century was, based on the astonishing popularity of the TV series The Tudors, which first aired on English-language channels in 2007.1 Hot Tudors have become big, voluptuous business in the English-speaking world
The Protestants were seen to have ‘won’ in England, and Catholics needed to accept that Mary was forever to blame for the deaths of hundreds of Protestants during her reign. These executions were seared into English memory by the enduring success and vivid images of burning portrayed in John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, more popularly known as the ‘Book of Martyrs.’[4]. First printed in 1563, this martyrology is a classic piece of Protestant propaganda, urging English readers and viewers to remember the more than 300 people who died for their Protestant faith during the reign of Mary and Philip
Summary
It’s a decade since the scholar Cynthia Herrup assured members of the American Historical Association that the twenty-first century is an age in which early modern history is considered sexy; we can say with conviction, she declared, that the “Tudors are a hot dynasty.” Her analysis of the marketability and relative ‘hotness’ of England’s monarchy for much of the sixteenth century was, based on the astonishing popularity of the TV series The Tudors, which first aired on English-language channels in 2007.1 Hot Tudors have become big, voluptuous business in the English-speaking world. An enduring image of one of England’s queens remains: that of ‘Bloody’ Mary – an unattractive, ‘hysterical’ woman, either seen as a foolish woman at the mercy of her faith, her emotions, and foreigners, or as a blood-thirsty monster whose cruelty knew no bounds.[2] Mary was born in 1516 and was the daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife, Katherine of Aragon She became queen after the death of her half-brother, Edward VI, and reigned for just five years: from 1553 until 1558. I look more closely at the portrayal of Mary Tudor in Carlos, Rey Emperador: her femininity and relationship with her Spanish husband, Philip, and how this presentation relates to Spanish and Portuguese national memory of this royal couple, and why, for Spanish and Portuguese audiences, this English queen is presented as more than a little ‘caliente’
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