Dear Starz: Bury Me Alive In Your Bloody, Sexy Tudor Soaps

Late last week, Starz announced that they would be making The Spanish Princess. It would be the network’s third limited series based on Philippa Gregory’s dishy historical novels and would continue the sexy feminist saga started years ago by The White Queen. This time, though, we wouldn’t be focusing on a proud daughter of England, but Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife.

Now, some people would look at this news and say, “Why?” That is, “Why do we need another lavish miniseries about the messy Tudor clan? There have been, like, a lot.”

I look at this news and say, “Yes. Bury me in Tudor soaps now and forever.”

British history has long been the playground of dramatists. Plantagenets, Tudors, and Windsors have inspired plays, poems, novels, films, and premium channel miniseries. Even though we’re constantly bombarded by tales of kings and their mistresses, queens and their courtiers, and ladies in waiting who are actually waiting to pounce, I still want more. I want more queens, more princesses, and more swarthy kings who are constantly making mistakes. These shows are lush, bloody, sexy, and above all, addictive.

Specifically, though, I want more of showrunner Emma Frost‘s take on Tudor history. While most of the historical dramas set in this time focus on the kings and lords, Frost has found a lane adapting Philippa Gregory’s feminist-slanting historical novels for Starz. (Yes, Frost did both The White Queen and The White Princess, and she’s back for The Spanish Princess — all of which are based on Philippa Gregory novels.) Though the history nerd in me often quibbles with some of the minor choices Gregory makes in her retellings, her work as a novelist is still incredibly important. She has made a career resurrecting the women often left out of the history books (or cut from other historical dramas for time). Gregory focuses not only on the queens and princesses of England, but their sisters, mothers, confidants, and rivals. And so it is that The Spanish Princess won’t just be about Catherine of Aragon, but Catherine’s lady-in-waiting Lina, a Moor.

But there’s another reason why I’m excited for The Spanish Princess besides the feminist angle and it has to do with the completionist in me. The Spanish Princess will be the continuation of a saga. The White Queen gave us a look at the War of the Roses from the perspectives of the ambitious women secretly pulling the strings. The White Princess showed us the aftermath of that struggle, and what happened when the next generation of rulers chafed at their mothers’ command. The Spanish Princess will not only show us what happens next to the Tudors and Yorks, but it could potentially set us up for the most scandalous part of British history: Henry VIII’s world-rocking affair with Anne Boleyn.

The Spanish Princess isn’t just continuing a story I’m already invested in, it’s giving me hope that Starz might just give me still more. The network could be on the verge of giving me an avalanche of extravagant feminist soap operas about misunderstood vixens and maligned ladies. I could actually literally be buried in Tudor soaps: me, in a ball pit, but instead of technicolor plastic balls, I would be covered in DVD boxed sets of Starz historical miniseries. And I would be happy.

Where to Stream The White Queen

Where to Stream The White Princess