History Characters / TheTudors

* TheHighQueen: Jane become Queen, 10 days after Anne Boleyn's execution. Jane was a kind woman who loved by many.

* TheBeard: Marries the Duke of Buckingham's daughter.

[[folder: UsefulNotes/{{Jane Seymour|Royalty}}]]
!!Jane Seymour

!!UsefulNotes/Anne of Cleves

[[folder: UsefulNotes/AnneOfCleves]]
!!Anne of Cleves

!!Useful/Notes/CatherineHoward

[[folder: [[Katherine Parr]]

[[folder: UsefulNotes/CatherineHoward]]
!!Katherine Howard

Henry's fifth wife and the youngest among the all. Katherine was barely an adult when she caught Henry's eyes and was more concerned with having a fun time rather than understanding her role as queen. Immature and reckless, she fell in love with Thomas Culpepper and soon entered into an affair with him. A former lover of hers prior to her marriage returned to her life, making statements that led to an investigation regarding her past. After finding out, Henry had her and all her lovers executed for treason.

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Despite Henry's affections, Katherine proves to be very unpopular due to her immaturity. She sees this firsthand when the people of England cheer for Mary, her enemy, and doesn't even notice Katherine's absence. She punishes Mary for her lack of respect but even Elizabeth, who is polite to her, truthfully can't stand her either.

* AntiHero: Katherine is sweet-natured, vivacious, helpful, altruistic (for the most part), kind, tolerant, and tries to be a good person. She is also ditzy, shallow, spoiled, lustful, weak, cowardly, and has a poor judge of character.

* DrivenToVillainy: Against Mary. Despite an initial attempt at friendship, Mary's disrespect drives Katherine to make some [[BrutalHonesty especially cutting remarks]] about her superior marital status.

* FirstBlood: A variation. [[KilledOffScreen Her execution takes place off-screen]], but a few drops of blood from the previous execution of Lady Rochford fall from the headsman's axe onto Katherine's neck as he raises it for the final blow.
** More ArtisticLicenseHistory as Katherine was executed before Lady Rochford in real life.

-->'''Katherine''': Will you stay awhile? My maids have made some cakes.\\

* ParentingTheHusband: Gender inverted. Katherine is even younger than Henry's eldest daughter. This shows as he witnesses her giddy exuberance with all the energy of a teenager's father, and spoils her rotten.

[[folder: [[UsefulNotes/CatherineParr Katherine Parr]]

* {{Bookworm}}: She was personally invested in the education of Elizabeth and Edward, and was a proponent of allowing citizens to read and interpret the Bible for themselves. She also writes a book of her own during the series, becoming the first English queen to write a book published in her own name.

[[folder: Jane Seymour]]

[[folder: Anne of Cleves]]

[[folder: Katherine Howard]]

[[folder: Katherine Parr]]

* HundredPercentAdorationRating: Almost universally beloved across Europe. She was incredibly beloved by the common people even decades after her death - TruthInTelevision - which proved a significant advantage when her daughter needed to fight for the throne. Even Reformists like Thomas Cromwell, who played a big part in her banishment from court, at least pitied and respected her. And it says a lot that even the French court, her family's sworn enemies, recognized her as the legitimate Queen of England.

* GratuitousFrench: When meeting the new French ambassador, [[SurprisinglyGoodEnglish whose English is perfect]], in Season 1.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[DeadPersonConversation Her ghost]] accuses the elderly Henry of condemning Edward to [[DeathOfAChild an early death]] by [[OverprotectiveDad overprotecting him]].

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Later in the series. In RealLife, thanks to his jousting accident, he became a lot less active and a lot more gluttonous, weighing over 400 pounds by his 50s and becoming one of the biggest {{Trope Codifier}}s for AdiposeRex. In fact, it is presumed this gave him diabetes and led to his death. In Season 4, though it is evident he is ill, he is still played by the muscular and handsome Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

* TheGoodKing: Subverted. He sees himself as this, though in truth he is closer to being TheCaligula. By around the end of Season 4, which depicts his last years, England is both broke due to Henry's extravagant lifestyle and several war campaigns that didn't bring any significant gains whatsoever and politically isolated due to the King splitting from the wealthy Catholic Church, his nasty tendency of breaking off deals and treaties (in some cases, only days after signing them) and his tendency to declare war on his neighbors. The few people competent enough to solve this situation, such as Wolsey and Cromwell, are dead due to Henry's paranoid mindset of seeing even the ''slightest'' act as a betrayal - even of those 100% loyal to him and him buying to rumors delivered by greedy and corrupt individuals.

* HistoricalBeautyUpdate: Not at first, since Henry was actually considered very attractive in his youth, having blue eyes, red hair, being very tall, athletic and having a muscular build. The trouble is, he ''stays'' this way even through the whole show. During his marriage to Anne Boleyn, Henry was involved in a jousting accident where he was unconscious for 2 hours and nearly died. The accident left him with an injured leg, ending his athleticism (possibly giving him brain damage as well) and after Jane Seymour’s death, he had become old and obese, having a bushy beard, auburn hair with slightly grey roots, and a foul-smelling leg.

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Later in the series. In Real Life, thanks to Henry's jousting accident, he weighed over 400 pounds by his 50s. In fact, it is presumed this gave him diabetes and led to his death. In Season 4, though it is evident he is ill, he is still played by the muscular and handsome Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

The monarch of England and the main focus of the series. He is obsessed with siring a legitimate a male heir to inherit his throne and is willing to do anything from tearing England away from the pope to executing his closest friends and advisors if it means he'd get his way. Despite being a charismatic man, many of those close to him must learn to handle his increasingly tyrannical and mercurial rule. The father to Lady Mary, Elizabeth, Henry Fitzroy and Prince Edward. And the husband to six women, all who learned that being wed to him does not mean they are safe from Henry himself.

* AbusiveParents: He dotes on Mary and Elizabeth... until his marriages to their respective mothers dissolve. After which, he strips them of their legitimacy, banishes them from his court, and occasionally toys with the idea of having them killed. His extreme protectiveness and sheltering of his son, Edward, also become a form of abuse; which Jane Seymour points out in her Season 4 cameo. Granted, this time Henry really tried to do what he thought was best for him.
* AllForNothing: All his efforts to secure the Tudor Dynasty for generations to come is this. Edward dies young as a teenager and neither Mary nor Elizabeth will have heirs, ending the reign of House Tudor and passing it on to his sister's descendants in House Stuart.

* BigBad: Of the series. Henry might be the protagonist, but he's also a villain through-and-through, and the foremost authority in England as its anointed king. The various {{Arc Villain}}s throughout the series only have as much power as he invests in them, so taking them down primarily involves making sure they lose Henry's favor. Ultimately, for most of the characters the real trial isn't taking down these various favorites so much as surviving Henry's court with their heads intact.

* TheGoodKing: Subverted. What he sees himself as, though in truth he is closer to being the [[TheCaligula opposite]]. By around the end of Season 4, which depicts his last years, England is both broke due to Henry's extravagant lifestyle and several war campaigns that didn't bring any significant gains whatsoever and politically isolated due to the King splitting from the wealthy Catholic Church, his nasty tendency of breaking off deals and treaties (in some cases only days after signing them) and his tendency to declare war on his neighbors. The few people competent enough to solve this situation, such as Wolsey and Cromwell, are dead due to Henry's paranoid mindset of seeing even the ''slightest'' act as a betrayal - even of those 100% loyal to him and him buying to rumors delivered by greedy and corrupt individuals.

* HeirClubForMen: Alas, his motivation and he grows more desperate with each failed attempt at gaining an heir.

* HistoricalBeautyUpdate: Not at first, since Henry was actually considered very attractive in his youth, having blue eyes, red hair, being very tall, athletic and having a muscular build. Trouble is, he ''stays'' this way even through the whole show. During his marriage to Anne Boleyn, Henry was involved in a jousting accident where he was unconscious for 2 hours and nearly died. The accident left him with an injured leg, ending his athleticism (possibly giving him brain damage as well) and after Jane Seymour’s death he had become old and obese, having a bushy beard, auburn hair with slightly grey roots and a foul-smelling leg.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Ultimately, it is his own attempts to secure the Tudor Dynasty that lead to its downfall. His long-desired son, Edward, dies as a teenager, partially due to the stress of becoming king at such a young age. His eldest daughter, Mary, marries at a very older age (partially because Henry feared her possible children would be used in a rebellion) to where she was unable to have children before her death. And finally, his youngest daughter Elizabeth ''refused'' to get married (even though she became queen young enough to have her own children) because her view of marriage was warped by her father and seeing it as a weakness for herself. In the end, Henry only has himself to blame for what would happen to his family.
* HotBlooded: Even in his youth, he's passionate and bold. In his old age, he goes from zestful to constantly pissed-off.

** Henry will get enraged when someone he's allied to either goes back on their agreement or acts without his consent. However Henry himself isn't one to talk, since he constantly switches between allies, will only keep his word if that suits him, and sometimes will even make promises that he never intended to fulfill to begin with.

* JerkassHasAPoint: While Henry goes to terrible lengths in order to have a legitimate son, he's right to be worried about only having a daughter for an heir. England had ''never'' had a queen regnant before, so a woman being the sole ruler would have been contested both at home and abroad. (Also, Henry had no way of knowing that his second daughter, Elizabeth, would become one of the country's most successful monarchs.) Plus the Tudor dynasty itself is distinctly shaky since Henry's father had an incredibly weak claim to the throne ''and'' overthrew the previous king; in the first season alone the Duke of Buckingham tries to usurp the throne in turn, claiming to have a stronger right to it.

* MrFanservice: Spends quite sometime shirtless and even shows his naked ass on-screen.

* OverprotectiveDad: Of Edward; the last episode of the series [[{{Foreshadowing}} hints]] that his beloved son will [[DeathOfAChild die young]] as a result.

* TheFundamentalist: As a king. He is one of the most fanatical Protestants in this series alongside Anne Boleyn, Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer. So much so that even Protestants at the time thought he was going way too far.

Henry's sister, former Queen of Portugal and Henry Brandon's first wife. An combination of Henry's two RealLife sisters, she's just as headstrong and as passionate as her brother. After being forced to wed to a man old enough to be her grandfather, she murdered her then spouse and then married Charles Brandon without Henry's permission. Punished with banishment, she and Charles watched as their marriage deteriorate. Unfortunately, before Charles could reconcile with her, she dies from consumption.

* BettyAndVeronica: She is involved in two love triangles of this sort, and is the Veronica both times. In the first instance this works out well for her. The second time around... Not so much.

-->''Good Christian people, I have come here to die, according to the law, and thus yield myself to the will of the King, my Lord. And if I ever in my life I did offend the King's grace, than surely with my death I do now atone. I pray and beseech you all to pray for the life of the King, my sovereign Lord and yours, who is one of the best princes of the Earth, who has always treated me so well. Wherefore I submit to death with a good will, humbly asking for pardon from all the world. If anyone should take up my case, I ask them only to judge it kindly.... Thus I take my leave of the world and of you. I heartily desire all of you to pray for me.''
* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Played around with. At first she does feel like the more responsible sibling, working hard to ensure her family's ambition and the rise of their at court. She's also shocked and sided with her father when Mary wedded a man far below her station and without permission at that, making Mary the foolish one. She also has shades of this with George, who tended to be reckless and foolish as well. It's only when she's executed that people viewed Anne (and George) as the foolish ones and Mary the responsible one, as banishment allowed her to escape persecution.

* TakingTheVeil: After one too many delays, she wondered that if this was going to be her final fate. Unfortunately for her, Henry was determined that she's executed.
* VerbalIrony: Her motto as queen is "The Most Happy." By the end of her life she was anything but that.
* WickedStepmother: She's most definitely this to Mary. Although she does offer an olive branch towards Mary during a visit to Elizabeth, asking Mary to acknowledge her and in return Anne would ask the King to restore her to his affections. Mary understandably rejects this and even insults her to her face.

* WarHawk: She absolutly loves the idea of going to war with Spain and Portugal. It doesn't happen, however.

* DoomedMoralVictor: She tries too keep the peace between England, Spain and France. She also tries to have the monastaries restored and return England to Catholicism but fails.

* {{Historical Beauty Update}}: The real Jane was thought to be rather plain. She was short, pale, had a large nose, small eyes and wasn’t very fashionable, her only feature considered attractive being her long, blonde hair (which was quite rare at the time). Like Anne Boleyn, Henry seems to have fallen in love with Jane because of her personality. Anne was confident, witty and funny, while Jane was shy, reserved and kind. It’s likely Henry loved her for being so different to Anne.

Henry's fourth wife and the only one of his spouses whom he wedded before seeing her. Due to cultural clash, Anne accidentally repulses Henry who then rejected her. At first, he was unable to call the wedding off due to the current political climate weds her albeit grudgingly. Unfortunately, neither of them were able to make the marriage work and Henry soon found himself falling in love with the young Katherine Howard. After the alliance between Henry and Anne's brothers were no longer worth keeping, Henry began the process to annul his marriage to her. Fearing for her life, she accepted and was soon raised to the rank of the King's sister and is known as the one of his two wives who survived him. The failure of this marriage led to Thomas Cromwell's downfall and execution.

* LoveAtFirstSight: A platonic variant, regarding Mary and Elizabeth. While evidence suggests that she was not much more thrilled to be married to Henry than Henry was to be married to her, she was immediately fond of her two stepdaughters. While her remark that she would love them as her own was likely said at first to be polite, she maintained her relationship with both of them after divorcing their father, and and seems to have sincerely loved them both.

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Despite Henry's affections, Katherine proves to be very unpopular due to her immaturity. She sees this first hand when the people of England cheer for Mary, her enemy, and don't even notice Katherine's absence. She punishes Mary for her lack of respect but even Elizabeth, who is polite to her, truthfully can't stand her either.

* AntiHero: Katherine is sweet-natured, vivacious, helpful, alturistic (for the most part), kind, tolerant and tries to be a good person. She is also ditzy, shallow, spoiled, lustful, weak, cowardly and has poor judge of character.

* DistractedByTheLuxury: Since Henry gifts her with new jewels and dresses nearly every day, it's hard to see how this ''couldn't'' happen to her.

* IdealizedSex: With Henry. In real life, he was [[AdaptationalAttractiveness grotesquely obese and infirm]] by the time he had married Katherine and sex would ''not'' have been enjoyable with a partner in such condition. Here, given Henry is more attractive and healthy, she apparently enjoys his company [[ImmodestOrgasm a great deal]]. A notable exception is in episode 4.04, in which sex with Henry is [[LieBackAndThinkOfEngland more of an obligation]] as she would rather be with Culpeper.

Henry's last wife. Another passionate reformer, Katherine reluctantly weds him after he made his feelings known. She nonetheless raises to occasion but her desire for a complete Protestant Reformation in England made her powerful enemies and she nearly lost her life after one too many debates with Henry. Loves all of her step-children and it was due to her influence that both Mary and Elizabeth were restored to the line of succession. She and Anne of Cleves were the only wives of Henry to survive him.

Initially a rake who spent more time seducing women and being concerned of having a fun time, he soon grew more and more jaded as his loyalty to Henry forced Charles to act against his better judgement. As Henry became more like a tyrant, Charles became more grounded and started to take his own responsibilities seriously. In the end he became the only person Henry could trust implicitly and that loyalty took a toll on him and eventually costs Charles his second marriage.

* TheRival: When compared to most potrayals, his rivalry with Thomas Cromwell is rather downplayed. Charles Brandon is Thomas Cromwell's main rival in the Tudors.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: He loses support of everyone, including Richard Rich and Thomas Cranmer. He also fails to bring down the Catholic faction in king Henry VIII's court.

* ShameIfSomethingHappened: A variation on this trope in that it's meant as a warning, rather than the usual threat, but he does warn Thomas Wyatt to tread carefully at court, lest his unsavoury past come back to haunt you.

* CoDragons: With Charles Brandon to king Henry VIII. He is later this with Bishop Gardiner to queen Mary Tudor. The latter is not shown because the Tudors ends with the death of king Henry VIII and the former is downplayed because Thomas Howard is not shown after season 1.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He can be rutheless towards his enemies, but he also loves his family and makes a good team with Mary Tudor and Bishop Gardiner.

* MyGreatestFailure: Not being able to save Thomas More and John Fisher. Its not shown in the show.

[[caption-width-right:250:[[labelnote:''Click to see Elizabeth is Season 3'']]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_tudors_elizabeth_young.png]][[/labelnote]]

* TheFundamentalist: Downplayed. While she was staunchly Protestant and had similar religious viewpoints of Martin Luther, King Henry VIII, John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli, she did not want to "make windows into people's souls". While Catholics were executed under her reign (similar to Henry VIII and Edward VI) they were executed for treason, not heresy. She hated Spain and Portugal and helped the "black legend" spread, contuined the alliance with Northern European Protestant majority countries, etc. Even other tolerant monarchs at the time such as King Henry IV of France kept his distance from her. At the same time, some hard core Protestants at the time thought she did not go far enough and left to the Netherlands, other Northern European countries, Switzerland and North America to spread their Protestant views there.
* FutureBadass: There have been some hints to this in the show. Although a minor character, anyone who knows English history knows she becomes by far the most successful monarch out of Henry's children. There's a reason Anne's ghost gives a coy grin to Henry as she leaves.

-->'''Anne:''' To see my daughter. She was the only pure thing in my life and in my life I neglected her because she was only a girl and I wanted so much to give you a son. But now I'm so proud of her. Fiercely proud. She is so clever... you must be proud of her too, Henry.

* CoitusEnsues: Has a random, inexplicable tryst with Thomas Culpeper.

** Later reversed. Mary [[SecretRelationship secretly gets married]] to a man of little standing who adores her, while Anne... well, you know. In this case, being the foolish sibling paid off far more than being the responsible one as Mary was able to survive the fall of her family due to her disownment while her brother and sister were both executed.

* MayDecemberRomance: The real Katherine was somewhere between 14 and 17 when she married the 49-year-old Henry. In the show, she is 17 when Henry marries her; with him even boasting about her young age.

* ParentalAbandonment: She grew up under the [[HandsOffParenting very lax supervision]] of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, who either turned a blind eye or was completely unaware of her dalliances with other men.

* OddFriendship: With Mary Tudor and Bishop Gardiner both of whom are fanatical Catholics.

* JerkassHasAPoint: While Henry goes to terrible lengths in order to have a legitimate son, he's right to be worried about only having a daughter for an heir. England had ''never'' had a queen regnant before, so a woman being the sole ruler would have been contested both at home and abroad. (Also, Henry had no way of knowing that his daughter, Elizabeth, would become one of the country's most successful monarchs.) Plus, the Tudor dynasty itself is distinctly shaky since Henry's father had an incredibly weak claim to the throne ''and'' usurped it; in the first season alone the Duke of Buckingham tries to usurp the throne in turn, claiming to have a stronger right to it.

* As well as that,: The real-life Anne was not particularly beautiful, in a time where pale, fair-haired women were considered traditionally attractive, Anne had olive skin, brown (almost black) eyes, long black hair, a very slender build and a tooth that was larger than the rest of her teeth. Henry VIII was attracted to her dazzling wit and humour. However, Anne did have a bold sense of fashion.

* {{Historical Beauty Update}}: The real-life Anne was not particularly beautiful, in a time where pale, fair-haired women were considered traditionally attractive, Anne had olive skin, brown (almost black) eyes, long black hair, a very slender build and a tooth that was larger than the rest of her teeth. Henry VIII was attracted to her dazzling wit and humour. However, Anne did have a bold sense of fashion.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Became Queen by becoming one of the King's mistresses and encouraging him to get rid of his first wife but is absolutely irate at the possibility that Jane Seymour could be doing the same. It would seem that Anne only has a problem with infidelity when she's the wronged party.
** As well as that, Anne disowns her older sister Mary Boleyn (along with her father) for marrying William Stafford, who is a soldier of lower-class. William had nothing to off Mary, no title, no land, while Mary was the sister to the Queen of England. Despite this, Anne seduced Mary’s former lover, King Henry VIII, and married him, as a noblewoman, not a foreign princess like most wives of Kings. Yet Anne has a problem with her sister marrying someone poorer than them.