Warning: This article contains spoilers for the series finale ofThe Spanish Princess.
It’s time to say adios to Catherine of Aragon.
On Sunday night,StarzconcludedThe Spanish Princess.
Credit: Nick Briggs/Starz
Maggie divulged the truth to save her own hide, including her title and her possessions.
Of course, Catherine’s real tale had a far sadder ending.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Catherine’s story is not over.
How did you decide where to end?
What we felt was while the Tudors around her descend into madness, Catherine rises above it.
She finds her own inner center through God, through her devotion to her daughter, and through love.
That felt to us both truthful and a really important message of positivity.
MATTHEW GRAHAM:Politically, she’s finished.
She’s out of court, and she’s ostracized.
But emotionally, she is centered.
That’s the only thing you might do.
And the other half don’t know anything.
You want to try and find a journey that has a conclusion.
At the same time, you want to honor the reality of the history.
We were actually going to end and fire off the final credit over Catherine’s tomb.
You see tourists walking by, and you just pull back and there she is.
You want to say to the audience, “She really lived.”
This isn’tGame of Thrones.
She was a real person, and her body is in that stone sarcophagus.
We just didn’t do it in the end, which is a bit of a regret.
That would have been the best coda.
It could have contextualized everything.
Those last words, that letter to Mary, did you draw that from a particular historical document?
FROST:We looked very deeply at what the material was toward the end of her life.
Particularly, they were her letters.
One was her letter to Henry.
I am your wife in the eyes of God.
Nothing will ever change that.
And I love you, and I forgive you."
She could see his demons.
She had an emotional intelligence.
She had an ability not to descend into bitterness and hatred and vindictiveness and spite.
She just loves him.
That is incredible strength, and I think it’s strength that isn’t recognized often enough.
The other was her letters to her daughter.
That was another gigantic victory that Catherine’s spirit wasn’t vanquished.
Catherine, as a person and as a spirit, wasn’t vanquished.
We just leave her forever blasting a cannon at the unwanted husband and descending into madness.
FROST:Meg’s story is very identifiable.
She’s ruled by her heart or by lust, whatever it was that was driving those choices.
She kept trusting the wrong men.
I think she’s a heroine because of that.
We can all understand that.
We enjoy watching her spirit as she fights for her sons and grows up.
There’s a lot of maturity that Meg finds before we leave her firing cannonballs at Angus.
For Maggie Pole, she too had a very tragic end.
GRAHAM:There are so many different interpretations of Margaret Pole.
We wanted to try and find a bit of that.
So we loved the idea that she became Margaret Beaufort.
In the last season, Margaret Beaufort had been her nemesis and such a figure of terror for Maggie.
Margaret Pole was a pretty tough and clinical woman.
She certainly didn’t bow to any pressure later in her life to give up her son.
Where did the idea for her ultimately doomed emotional affair with Thomas More come from?
He stayed behind, and he did get sick.
It just started a little cog turning in our brains.
We started talking about the idea of all the court leaving London, leaving Westminster Palace empty.
Then we thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if Maggie was the one who nursed him?”
Originally, Thomas was going to get sick and Maggie was going to nurse him.
He felt like the closest to her spiritually and character-wise.
You’ve always had more leeway with Lina and Oviedo’s story.
Ultimately, they decide to leave for somewhere they feel is safer.
Where did that choice come from and why?
GRAHAM:Well, Lina did stay with Catherine.
We just wanted a happy ending, if I’m honest.
We wanted one couple to go off into the sunset and be content.
Lina and Oviedo are so close to our hearts, both the actors we love, and their characters.
We didn’t want to leave them stranded.
FROST:Also, it would have been very difficult to end Catherine’s story.
It would have just limped to a close.
If Lina’s still with her, would they all leave court together?
And what does that mean for Lina and Oviedo?
It felt like we needed to punctuate a different fate.
That Lina and Oviedo should go off into the sunset with Rosa to a better future.
Catherine learns acceptance, and also, really importantly learns to let her best friend go.
I was so thrilled you brought Rosa back twice this season.
FROST:Oh my God, we wanted Rosa back right from the beginning.
We had to work quite hard to think how we could do it.
And then we fell in love with Nadia Parkes.
What we wanted was for Rosa to be really pivotal in defining Catherine’s journey.
Catherine is at a crossroads when she sees Rosa in episode 6.
Essentially, she could go to the dark side or she can go to the light.
Rosa turns up at the right moment and says, “Don’t be ridiculous.
Forget all of that.
You’ve got a daughter, and a daughter is worth just as much as a son.
You’ve got to find your way.”
FROST:Good Lord, yes.
We did a lot of graying tests, we tried out aging to a lot of different degrees.
We did all of that at the end of season 1.
Because we have had to conflate history in some ways.
Why did you want this more recognizable image of her to be the last view we got of her?
Now you’ve got the option to understand the person behind the portrait.
Or pick up on a later wife, say give Catherine Parr her due or something?
you’ve got the option to spin up the risk of repeating yourself.
There is a certain rhythm to the storytelling when you’re dealing with true events.
I am desperate to be writing contemporary stories.
I’m thrilled that there are now so many historical female shows in the world.
