‘The Spanish Princess’ is Reclaiming the Truth about Women of Color in Tudor England

When you think of Tudor England, Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and bloody beheadings probably spring to mind. That’s thanks to countless dramatic adaptations and docuseries about those dramatic days. One thing that’s often been cut from the narrative, though, are the people of color whom historians know lived in London and contributed to the Royal Courts of the day.

Starz’s The Spanish Princess is trying to amend this by putting the Moorish members of Catherine of Aragon’s court front and center in the story. Stephanie Levi-John co-stars in the series as Lina, Catherine’s real life lady-in-waiting, whom we know was a woman of color blooming in the courts of the Tudor rose.

“Hundreds of people of color lived and worked quite happily with the indigenous English people in that period,” The Spanish Princess writer and executive producer Matthew Graham told Decider during Winter TCA. “Lina was real, she married Oviedo. We wanted to tell their story, because their story definitely existed, it was just in the sidebar of history.”

The Spanish Princess executive producer and writer Emma Frost said, “And it’s there to be found for anybody who actually bothers to read the accounts of the time. It is incredibly glaring that Catherine of Aragon has a very diverse entourage, that one of her main ladies was a woman of color. For centuries, everyone pretends that isn’t the case. Even us at the beginning of this journey, we cast people of color because they were there and peoples’ reaction, a lot of people they go, ‘Why did you put people of color in when they weren’t there?'”

“Okay, wow, the misconception people have and the lack of awareness that this is,” Frost said. “Look at the parish records, all the research out there, there are countless books that show people of color lived in Tudor, England. And they weren’t slaves. England did not have any of that until much, much later. So it’s a really important thing for us to actually say, ‘Wake up, everybody, and look at the reality of what was happening.'”

Nevertheless, even the actress who plays Lina, Stephanie Levi-John, was surprised to pop up in a traditional period drama like The Spanish Princess.

“Honestly, probably six months before I even got this, I was like, ‘Me? A period drama? Let’s be real.’ So the fact that I’m in one has blown my mind. So I really wanted to treat it with the care and respect that I believe the people in those time needed,” she said.

While Frost and Graham seized upon historical records to inform Lina’s story, Levi-John said she had to draw from a variety of unique sources.

“Personally, for my character there really isn’t that much. So what I had to do is I had to draw from the information I was given within the script and then find out historically that would work in relation to my character,” Levi-John said. “So we know that Lina is a Catholic. Now the Moors were Muslim. So then it made me think, ‘Okay, if she’s now Catholic, what happened in order for her to become Catholic as opposed to being a Muslim?’ I then pieced together information like, ‘Okay, her parents must have been Moriscos,’ which were people who instead of being persecuted, they chose to denounce their Islamic faith and become Catholics instead.”

Levi-John also says she looked at the historic roles of people of color in Tudor England, with particular attention to London. “There was actually a very tiny population of people of color, black people, who were there to study. They were there as teachers. They were there to work. So I took all of these experiences, all of these things, put them all together…there’s Lina!” said Levi-John.

The first episode of The Spanish Princess is available to stream on Starz. New episodes will be available on Sundays. 

Where to stream The Spanish Princess