CHAPTER THREE
Even before I met Henry Tudor, I didn’t like him.
I blame my mother.
She was a Wisconsin farm girl (with a cheese allergy, no less) turned Anglophile, with peculiar and constant emphasis on the Tudor period. When other moms rhapsodized over, I don’t know, Barefoot Contessa or American Idol reruns or whatever normal moms watched, she would watch and re-watch every movie, every miniseries, every History Channel special about any Tudor, from Tudor Rose with Hardwicke and Pilbeam to The Private Life of Henry VIII with Charles Laughton.
When I subtly expressed my loathing of whatever Tudor drama she was re-reading/re-watching (usually via fake throwing up noises), she explained that our family came from England back in the day
(“Millions, Mom. Millions of families went from Point A to Point B. We are not unique.”)
and she knew, just knew there was royal blood waaaaaay back in the family line.
“That and twenty-five cents,” I said, “will get you...um....” I tried to think of something a quarter could buy. Two grapes? A cherry tomato? Do gumball machines still exist?
My mother’s lust for all things Tudor ruined opera for me. (Well, to be fair, Gaetano Donizetti ruined opera for me.) My mother loved Natalie Portman and Natalie Dormer equally, and solely for their portrayals of Anne Boleyn. She also loved Eric Bana for his Henry VIII, which was harder to forgive.
If there was a Tudor lurking anywhere in it, my mother watched it, bought it, taped it, re-watched it. By the time I was nine, I could recite ’s “thousand days” speech from Anne of the Thousand Days while wolfing down frosted flakes. By the time I was twelve, I would clean the dog shit out of the yard as opposed to sitting through Young Bess again. Though if I had a favorite—which I did not, because I was sick of them all—my favorite queen was Anne (Boleyn, not der Friedfertige) and my favorite actress portraying her was Helena Bonham Carter.
If I had a favorite.
All that to say it should come as no surprise that when I saw Henry VIII for the first time, I thought I was enjoying an amazing hallucination courtesy of my new migraine medication. How else to explain that I’d apparently fallen into one of my mom’s favorite movies? Featuring one of her favorite Tudors? At one of her favorite Tudor get-togethers: the Field of the Cloth of Gold?
It was such a colossal waste of time and money, that hearty party in a Calais field, but even I, numbed to all things Tudor, had to admit it was quite the spectacle.
Wait.
I have to back up.
*****
Like what you’ve seen so far? A Contemporary Asshat will hit shelves in 2018!