Dopey Prince Charles, Slutty Minette and Other Disastrous Stuarts: On Why They Can’t Replace The Tudors

Ever since “The Tudors” ended in 2010, producers have been trying to find a royal family that can fulfill an audience’s craving for dysfunctional bluebloods. An article by Elizabeth Fremantle, a renown historical fiction author, got me thinking if the Stuarts could be the new trend. I happen to love the Stuarts, but I must display skepticism at such elevation.  Judging by contemporary period dramas, they were not exactly the most exciting or most positive royals around. One tremendous example is what Starz “Outlander” (and Diana Gabaldon) have done with Bonnie Prince Charlie, the most famous and charming of the Stuart family.

While preparing for the third season of “Outlander,” I decided to watch earlier episodes.  I was struck by the tragic Jacobite devotion for The King over the Water. On the first season, Claire is mystified by this readiness to die for a king that she knows was undeserving. After we catch a glimpse of the real item, viewers share her impression. In books and series, Bonnie Prince Charlie is shown as a selfish dunce, but that is how historical fiction perceives the Stuart overall, some bunch of useless idiots. I cannot see them ever replacing the Tudors.

Stuartmania vs Tudormania?

To replace Tudormania with Stuartmania, writers and producers would have to wipe our minds clean of any preconceptions and misconceptions dealing with the regalest of Scottish clans. Michael Hirst, Philippa Gregory and Hilary Mantel were the architects of the second and more everlasting wave of Tudor fascination but they had to work their heads off rewriting historical facts and characters and making them palatable to the public.

History tells us Henry VII, founder of the Tudor dynasty, was a tyrant, and usurper, and a greedy man. In comes Pippa Gregory and turns him into a frightened young man who stands king only through the joint efforts of his formidable mother and his little York wife. In Starz’s crazy adaptation of “The White Princess” Queen Lizzie became a badass and a black hearted dominatrix, bent into making her monster children the future rulers of England.

The White Princess and her king

We all know Henry VIII was a fat satyr, a wife-murderer, and a despotic king, but modern historical fiction gives us a thin and brooding tragic hero. His daughter, Bess, who was a distrustful, neurotic bully has been transformed into a cross between a British Madonna (the Virgin Mary not the former Mrs. Guy Ritchie) and Spencer’s idealized Fairie Queen. Even her sadistic sister, in “The Tudors,” falls into the wronged little princess stereotype, the Sansa Stark of Henry’s Court.

No such treatment has befallen on the Stuarts.  There is always Mary, but let’s be honest, there was more Guise and Tudor in the genes of the Queen of Scots, than Stuart wishy-washiness. She was French born, and French bred, had no understanding of Scotland, and no cultural links to the British Isles.

Mary's happiest years were in France

Dull King James and the Two Charles

 And yet, once the Stuart princes projected a glamorous image on the silver screen. David Niven in kilt was a proud and gallant Bonnie Prince Charlie, and a fantastic dashing Sam Neill was his uncle Charles II in lovely “Restoration.” It’s the Third Millennium which has taken the Stuarts to task by conferring them infamous fame. The family is well represented in current television series, and some films as well, but none of these Stuarts kings (or their kin) can muster up the same allure mad Tudors exercise upon us.

Sam Neill as Charles II

 Poor King James who united England and Scotland, has only shown his face in two recent dramatizations. In “Gunpowder: Love and Treason” he was played by the ever-competent Robert Carlyle, but something went wrong. Carlyle, fresh from his starring role in “Hitler,” enacted James as if the actor was still in a brown shirt. The king came across as a paranoid tyrant, not a man who would rewrite the Bible.

Tormented King James and his Danish queen

Jonathan Pryce also played Mary Stuart’s only son in “The New World,” but he was overshadowed by a steamy triangle where Colin Farrell and Christian Bale fought for the hand of lovely maiden Pocahontas.  We as public have yet to know the factors that made King James interesting. None of those films showed his remarkable knowledge, his literary patronage, his witch-hunting, or his bisexuality.

So much for James, then comes his poor beheaded son. Rupert Everett was a decent Charles I, in the film “To Kill a King,” but he seemed a bit dazed perhaps because there were so many historical inexactitudes in that account. Also, because Tim Roth, impersonating a bloodthirsty Cromwell, was bent to chew the scene to the point that he climbed to the scaffold with the king. For a moment, I thought he would chop off Charles’ head. He could have, since in real life, the two official hangmen of the reign refused to commit regicide. To this day, nobody knows who decapitated Charles.

Rupert Everett and Tim Roth, on the scaffold, in "To Kill a King"

The martyred king was again decapitated in the rather dull ITV miniseries “The Devil’s Whore,” where he was played impeccably by Peter Capaldi in his pre-Dr. Who stage. And that is the extent that we get to know about poor beheaded Charles whose sole purpose in life seems to have begotten the flamboyant Charles II. But even the executed king’s son has merited a dull treatment.

Taking advantage of the public’s appetite for royal affairs, the BBC, in 2003, decided to gift us with “Charles II: The Pride and the Passion.” Despite its bombastic title, it was a tepid affair. Not even charming Rufus Sewell could lift that sinking weight. To add insult to injury, the series was cut, chopped, butchered, in the clumsiest manner, so American audiences got to watch a fragmented and confused tale.

Still, Charles II is too good material to waste. In 2004, Rupert Everett, who likes to play kings and charming princes, went on to portray old King Charlie in “Stage Beauty.” As his was a secondary character, we tend to remember that he slept with Nell Gwynn (Zoe Tapper) more than any other kingly things he performed. A much more prominent role was given to John Malkovich in “The Libertine.” Obviously, Malkovich was out staged by Johnny Depp who can out stage a giant kraken, but oddly the king seemed more destructive than his friend and protégé, the infamous Earl of Rochester (Depp). Charles came out as a self-serving, incompetent monarch. Rochester had to drag himself on crutches (and with a face corroded by syphilis) to save his king from Parliament. How torpid can a sovereign be to need that?

That is the image Charles II, and other Stuarts, on the rebound, project on films obviously made by anti-monarchists. Just think of Jeremy Northman in “New Worlds” (I loved his wig, though), Jack Huston in “The Great Fire,” or Daniel Lapaine in “Versailles.” I haven’t seen Charles Dance in the Dutch film “Michel de Ruyter,” but I can bet money that he is not a positive Charles. If the sexiest of the Stuarts gets bad press, what is left for the others?

The Stuart Queens

Charles had a brother, James, but not even his subjects loved him and had him replaced by Mary, his Protestant daughter, whom I have yet to see in any piece of fiction. Oh, wait, "Versailles" showed her on the first season’s finale. A little girl that is offered to William of Orange as a future bride.  Aside from the fact that Maryland was named after her, what do we know of this Queen Mary?  She was barren, had a crush on a girlfriend when she was young and her husband was supposed to be gay. Maybe something could be done with that. 

"Queen Mary and William of Orange

Her sister Anne, who was also a queen, made a career giving birth to dead babies, had chairs named after her, and was totally under the thumb of her favorite lady-in-waiting, Sarah Churchill. Soon we are to see Anne played by Olivia Coleman in “The Favorite,” but in this incoming film, all the action will be centered around Sarah (Rachel Weisz). That is the rub with Queen Anne, she matters only as patron-friend-bitch of the Duke of Marlborough’s wife.

The “Bonnie” Prince

We should go back to rejected king James II  to find a Stuart with an ounce of charisma. Not old James—he comes across as a true monster in literature. Victor Hugo makes him the mastermind behind the deformity of his protagonist, in The Man Who Laughs. By James’ royal whim poor Captain Blood is sold into slavery. We do not need to hear more of James, it’s his grandson who matters, the charmer in the family, the aptly named “Bonnie” Prince Charlie.

The real Charles James Stuart

Bonnie and charming he was in literature, especially in Sir Walter Scott’s novels, or played by Ivor Novello in the silent cinema or David Niven in the talkies. Thanks to those works, I had a romanticized vision of this unhappy prince and his lost Jacobite Cause. It was hard for me to reconcile him with what the historians told me, that he was a petulant stubborn man, who neglected his illegitimate children, raped his wife and led thousands of his subjects to death or misery. Nevertheless, that was the vision “Outlander” spouses. Diana Gabaldon really dropped the bomb on Charles Stuart, and the series echoed her scorn for the Young Pretender.

In the second season of “Outlander,” time traveler Claire and her husband Jaime Frazer decide that the only way to save Scotland from the tragedy of Culloden is to ensure that battle will never happen. They travel to France to thwart Charles Stuart’s plans to travel to Scotland. Through the ministrations of his cousin Jared, Jamie gets an audience with the Bonnie Prince, but since Charles is living incognito, they meet at the most unlikely of places, a brothel.

The setting foreshadows the Prince’s appetites, his lust, and frivolous and irresponsible nature. Charles is charming and not stupid, but he is also naïve and rather cutout from reality. He displays dismissive arrogance with Murtagh (who is escorting his godson) and is angry at Jamie when he is not told what he wants to hear.

In a way, Charles acts like Daenerys Targaryen in a powdered wig. After demanding that Jamie tells him the truth, he feels offended when young Frazer tells him that the clans are too busy fighting each other to rally behind a pretender to battle the English. However, in a twist that displays his volatile personality the prince praises Jamie’s honesty and patriotism and charges him with getting the necessary funds to finance his enterprise.

Now the Frasers must double their efforts to hinder the upcoming rebellion. It’s an impossible task, the Jacobean Cause does get French support thanks to Bonnie Prince Charlie’s personal magnetism, which appears to be his sole virtue. The Frasers and the public are dismayed since this future king seems to be more into conducting affairs of the boudoir than of states. He is soon involved in a liaison with his sassy married cousin Louise de la Tour D’Auvergne and gets her pregnant.

What horrifies Claire is Charles’ incompetence and his lack of care for both the people and the land he expects to rule. He’s never set foot in Scotland, he knows nothing of his people, and has no interest in learning. He is driven by a sense of mission inadmissible to modern logic. He believes to be divinely anointed, almost as if Melisandre had whispered such notion in his ear. We, historical fiction fans, are used to hear monarchs harping about their divine right to reign, but there is something tragicomic in Charles, an actual Beggar King, making that claim in the middle of a brothel.

This negative portrait of legendary Bonnie Prince Charlie was noted by a public that still saw him as the epitome of Charming (ergo ill-fated) Prince. In an interview in IGN, Sam Houghton, who plays Jamie Frazer, expressed his shock  at learning that a beloved Scottish folk-hero was, in fact,  not very heroic:

“He’s been romanticized in Scotland to an extraordinary degree. The Skye Boat Song is about him, our main theme is about him. There’s pictures of him in Scotland,” Heughan said of Bonnie Prince Charlie. “It’s been romanticized about the great rebellion and his escape, and actually when you look at history you see that he was useless. He was completely ineffectual and led these Highlanders to their doom.”

With this sad portrayal of the selfish pretender, the Stuart Cause was lost. There was no way the public could be galvanized by that royal last name once its most fascinating bearer was outed as a narcissistic idiot. Henry VIII was egotistical and vain, but he won battles, got his women, and ruled his country. Poor Charlie couldn’t rule himself.

Minette, the Silly Slut

Moreover, the same year that “Outlander” pulled down Bonnie Prince Charles from the altar of historical heroes, another show went after another Stuart icon. For centuries, historians and writers have portrayed Henrietta Marie, the sister of Charles II, as a victim; a wronged wife, forced to marry a homosexual, and probably murdered by her husband’s jealous lover. In real life, she who was nicknamed “Minette,” was a hysterical anorexic, an adulteress, and a bad mother to boot.

“Versailles” characterizes Minette as a silly slut, indulging in an affair with her brother-in -law, the Sun King, a relationship that in those days was deemed as incestuous. Played by Swiss actress, Naomi Schmidt, Minette lies, schemes, betrays and breaks the heart of her poor husband.

 She also lets her royal lover use her body as well as her mind. He sends her in a secret mission to England to ensure her brother’s support in France’s war against William of Orange. Although in real life, Minette did possess diplomatic skills, in the series she’s seen just like a talking doll delivering her lover’s words to her brother, the King of England. Daniel Lapaine as Charles II didn’t seem very bright either, so we can say “Versailles” did its best to show us the Stuarts as a family of dull morons.

Lesser Stuarts may prove to be more fetching

If the Stuart Kings prove to be less than appealing, we would have to look among their siblings to find stories deserving to be told, for example tragic Arabella Stuart, the Queen of Scots’ niece,  who is the protagonist of The Girl in the Glass Tower, Elizabeth Fremantle’s latest novel.

There is also James Stuart, Duke of Monmouth, Charles II’s illegitimate son who attempted to grab the throne from his uncle and namesake, and ended up losing his head. If you add that Monmouth could have been the real Man in the Iron Mask, you have plenty to work with.

The Duke of Monmouth

The current British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II can trace back her Stuart ancestry to Princess Elizabeth, daughter of the first King James. The Winter Queen, as she was known, could have been queen of England had the Gunpowder Conspiracy succeeded. She made a love match (a rarity in royal families of the time) to Prince Frederick of the Palatinate, became the mother of thirteen children, and was the grandmother of George, first Hanover king of England. Dear Lieselotte of “Versailles” fame was her granddaughter, too. Elizabeth did eventually rule Bohemia, part of modern Czechoslovakia. Alas, her reign was short and sad.

The Winter Queen

I’m fond of Elizabeth of Bohemia, but my favorite Stuart is her son, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, famed military man, inventor, artist, and rumor has it, wizard. He even had a magic dog that died fighting alongside his master. So, it is possible to sell the Stuarts to the public, but only looking beyond their dysfunctional kings. Do you have a favorite among that outlandish royal family?