MISTAKES/GOOFS

• FACT: The papal politics depicted have no clear relation to actual events. A Pope Alexander is depicted as on his death bed at the time of the Field of the Cloth of Gold meeting between Henry and Francis (in 1520), whereas the actual pope at that time, Leo X, died suddenly at the very end of 1521, and there had not been a pope named Alexander since 1503, before the beginning of Henry's reign. A Cardinal Orsini is depicted as being elected following the death of the fictional Alexander, which, again, does not correspond to actual history, when the Emperor's tutor Adrian of Utrecht was elected to succeed Leo, and, following his death just a year later, Cardinal Medici, who as Clement VII would refuse to permit Henry's divorce, was elected to the papal throne.
• MISC: In the credits, Gabrielle Anwar is credited as 'Gabriel Anwar.'
• CONT: In the scene when Thomas Wyatt drops from a tree to talk with Anne Boleyn, who is lying in the grass, her hair changes styles after she sits up. When shot from behind, Anne's hair is done up with pins. When facing the camera, Anne's hair is down and loose.
• DATE: The series is set in somewhere in the 1500's, during King Henry's middle twenties. However, the scene in the Vatican before the Pope's death shows the iconic Saint Peter's dome, which was not completed until 1621, almost two hundred years later.
• DATE: When the Spanish Emperor arrives, Henry's musicians play "Lilliburlero". In reality, this tune was written a century and a half later than is depicted here.

TRIVIA