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The Spanish Princess
This past week’s episode of The Spanish Princess, “An Audacious Plan” straight up turned swordplay into foreplay…and we’re still not over it.
Starz’s steamy Tudor drama may have opened with a funeral for Prince Arthur (Angus Imrie), but it quickly made it clear that Catherine of Aragon (Charlotte Hope) has the hots for her dead husband’s cute brother. She challenged Prince Harry (Ruiari O’Connor) to a duel that was way more about sexual penetration than it was about impenetrable armor. The two probably would have ended the mini match with a steamy makeout session were it not for the meddling Margaret Beaufort (Harriet Walter).
The scene is hot because both these fiery young royals are meeting their match in real time. Even as Catherine’s bragging about her mother’s ferocious Spanish army, Harry is outlining a very real plan to update England’s. She’s able to best him in combat, and he’s able to turn and take her. They go back and forth, testing and teasing each other, communicating that they want one another.
“All of the emotions are heightened. Everything’s so dramatic, and that’s really exciting as an actor,” Hope told Decider during an interview at Winter TCA.
“Yeah, and add on top of that, we’re essentially teenagers and we get to play with the hormones of people just getting to grips with sexuality,” O’Connor said.
Hope added, “It’s rare they even get to be in the same room together so those moments are really fraught.”
“There’s an incredible presence when it’s two people in a room who have never been together before and they get that bit of privacy because you were always with your handmaid or entourage constantly. You were never left alone, especially as the Prince of Wales. So you could feel the importance of being alone together and the electricity from that,” O’Connor said. “So it’s very fun.”
A huge part of why the scene works is that it’s choreographed so well. Catherine and Harry are able to not only spin circles around each other, but they use the blunted swords to specifically flirt. She spanks him with the broadside of her blade and he uses the point of his to slowly lift her skirts. Actress Charlotte Hope shared behind-the-scenes rehearsal footage of this scene on her Instagram where the chemistry between her and O’Connor is arguably even more palpable.
This week’s episode ended on another tragic note. Elizabeth of York (Alexandra Moen) died delivering a stillborn child. The teaser for next week’s episode, ominously titled “The Battle for Harry” shows that the older Tudors are going to be pitted against the younger. Harry wants to marry Catherine for political reasons — uh, yeah, sure, “political reasons” — and Margaret Beaufort is over Catherine’s control over the court.
