A Cardboard Crown: Kingship in The Tudors

Abstract

Henry VIII first appears in The Tudors wearing a crown. It is so that we know he is the king—for we might not otherwise. He arrives to chair a meeting of his council. Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ Henry wears something like an über version of the gold cardboard crowns much favored by the three kings in school Nativity plays. As with the best of those, it is pointy and glittery. Wearing it, the king looks every bit as authentic as the child kings imagine themselves to be before their disbelief-suspending audience. It is thus an apt symbol of the simulacrum of kingship presented in this television extravaganza.¹