Catherine of Aragon and King Henry VIII’s love is stronger than ever in The Spanish Princess part 2 and will continue to be the focal point of the show. However, any British history buff knows they don’t get a happily ever after. Anne Boleyn comes into the picture and changes the course of history. HollywoodLife asked executive producer Matthew Graham about how Anne Boleyn’s role in the second season.
“I’ll be a bit cryptic and just say Anne Boleyn does feature, and she is a part of this season in a little way,” Matthew told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY during the show’s press junket. “But we are very much focused on Catherine and Henry. That is the prime objective of the show, to see everything through the prism of their marriage and their relationship. I’d like to say that I don’t feel that what we’ve done is create a show where they start off happy and just get sadder and sadder and sadder over each week. What we’ve done is you’ll see them fighting for their relationship, fighting for their marriage, and winning victories in it. So they’re not just getting more and more miserable.”
Catherine and Henry were married for 24 years. Throughout their marriage, they suffered a number of miscarriages and stillbirths. Only one child survived to adulthood, Mary. Henry eventually became involved with Anne Boleyn, one of Catherine’s maids of honor, and sought to annul his marriage to Catherine so he could marry Anne. When the Roman Catholic Church wouldn’t grant him permission to do so, Henry broke from the Roman Catholic Church and kickstarted the English Reformation.
Henry and Anne eventually married and had a daughter named Elizabeth, who would later become the Queen of England. Henry and Anne’s relationship didn’t get a happy ending either. Henry had Anne arrested for high treason and eventually had her beheaded.
Matthew noted that the end of the season will feature a “Catherine of Aragon perhaps a little bit more like the one we know from history and a bit more of the Henry we know from history, but the journey to get there will be full of surprises. Even the ending itself is not necessarily the emotional thing that you’re maybe expecting it to be. It might be you might have a different emotion at the end.” The Spanish Princess airs Sundays on STARZ.