9 TV Shows Set in the Tudor Court To Watch This Fall That Will Have You Glued To Your Seat

Not long now till the nights start drawing in, the temperatures drop at night, and we’ll ditch the shorts for jeans, and the evenings outside for a roaring fire inside. This is when I start trawling through the list of TV Shows looking for something to grab my attention.

And nothing pulls me in on a cold evening more than a good historical drama. Now, granted, not all the shows on this list stick rigidly to the truth. Some of the costumes are definitely questionable, not to mention some of the plots. 

But, at the end of the day, it all comes down to what you’re looking for. Entertainment mixed with history or a factual documentary? These TV Shows set in the Tudor Court have a little bit of everything.

9 TV Shows Set in the Tudor Court To Watch This Fall

Some of these are older than others but could be one you’ve missed. A few wander off piste a little, and others are pretty good and don’t play too fast and loose with the truth. 

I’ve flagged which is which so you know exactly what you’re getting.

Henry VIII (2003)

Henry VIII – a two-part ITV drama starring Ray Winstone, produced by Granada Television

Plot: Forget the lean, brooding Henry you might be used to. This one, made a full four years before Jonathan Rhys Meyers ever pulled on a doublet, gives you Ray Winstone as a heavier, angrier, more physically intimidating king, and probably closer to how Henry actually came across in his later years. 

The two parts race through his entire reign, from the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon right through to his death in 1547, so you get all Six Wives Of Henry VIII one after another, in quick succession. 

Helena Bonham Carter plays Anne Boleyn with real bite, and Emily Blunt turns up as the doomed Catherine Howard, whose fate joins a long list of gruesome Tudor executions.

• Where to Watch: You can rent or buy it on Amazon Prime Video.
• Release Year: 2003, across two feature-length episodes.
• Main Stars:
  • Ray Winstone as Henry VIII
  • Helena Bonham Carter as Anne Boleyn
  • Emily Blunt as Catherine Howard
  • David Suchet as Cardinal Wolsey
  • Sean Bean as Robert Aske

Historical Accuracy: This one moves fast, and something has to give when you’re cramming 38 years of marriages, wars, and religious upheaval into two episodes. 

Six wives get compressed into fairly broad strokes, and Catherine Parr barely gets a look in. Winstone’s Henry is vain, paranoid, and frightening in a way a lot of adaptations soften. 

If you’ve read up on the man behind the crown and wondered was he really the worst king of England, this version won’t talk you out of it.

Our Verdict: We’re giving this one 3 discarded queens out of 5 on the Medieval Mayhem Meter. It’s blunt, it’s brutal, and Winstone chews the scenery beautifully. Just don’t expect much nuance.

Gunpowder, Treason and Plot (2004)

Gunpowder, Treason and Plot – a two-part BBC Two drama written by Jimmy McGovern

Plot: This one is really two stories stitched together. Part one follows Mary, Queen of Scots, played by a young Clémence Poésy, from her return to Scotland in 1561 through her disastrous marriages to Lord Darnley and the Earl of Bothwell. 

Part two jumps forward a generation to her son, James VI and I, played by Robert Carlyle, and the conspiracy that very nearly blew up Parliament in 1605. 

• Where to Watch: Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
• Release Year: 2004, two episodes.
• Main Stars:
  • Clémence Poésy as Mary, Queen of Scots
  • Robert Carlyle as James VI and I
  • Kevin McKidd as the Earl of Bothwell
  • Michael Fassbender as Guy Fawkes
  • Catherine McCormack as Elizabeth I

Historical Accuracy: Solidly researched for the most part, though the two halves have quite different tones. The Mary section leans into the emotional chaos of her marriages, while the Gunpowder Plot section plays more like a political thriller. 

Both hit the major storylines accurately enough. Darnley’s murder, Mary’s downfall, and the plotters’ scramble to escape after Fawkes was caught are all there.

Our Verdict: We’re giving this one 4 buried gunpowder barrels out of 5 on the Medieval Mayhem Meter. Grim, tense, and a properly clever way to tell two connected stories in one go.

The Virgin Queen (2005)

The Virgin Queen – a four-part BBC drama, broadcast in the US on PBS Masterpiece Theatre

Plot: Anne-Marie Duff takes on Elizabeth I here, and she’s magnificent, tracking the queen from her twenties right through to her death in 1603. The whole thing hangs on Elizabeth’s relationship with Robert Dudley, played by a young Tom Hardy, and her lifelong refusal to marry. 

You get her imprisonment in the Tower under Mary I, played by Joanne Whalley, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, all threaded through with a love story that never quite gets to happen. 

Tara Fitzgerald plays Kat Ashley, one of the many ladies-in-waiting of the Tudor court who served at real personal risk.

• Where to Watch: Streaming on Amazon Prime Video under PBS Masterpiece.
• Release Year: 2005 in the UK, with a US premiere on PBS in November of that year.
• Main Stars:
  • Anne-Marie Duff as Elizabeth I
  • Tom Hardy as Robert Dudley
  • Joanne Whalley as Mary I
  • Ian Hart as William Cecil
  • Tara Fitzgerald as Kat Ashley

Historical Accuracy: Writer Paula Milne has openly said that she prioritized emotional truth over strict accuracy, and it shows. Elizabeth’s spell under house arrest at Woodstock is stretched out longer than it actually lasted, and there’s a suggestion she and Dudley’s second wife meet late in life that almost certainly never happened. 

But the emotional arc, a woman who chose the crown over love and spent the rest of her life proving it was worth it, rings true. It picked up a BAFTA nomination for Best Drama Serial, so it’s not just me.

Our Verdict: We’re giving this one 4 unsent love letters out of 5 on the Medieval Mayhem Meter. A slow, heartbreaking watch rather than a flashy one, and all the better for it.

Reign (2013)

Reign – a four-season CW drama created by Laurie McCarthy and Stephanie Sengupta

Plot: Right, let’s get the obvious out of the way first. This is not history. This is Gossip Girl in corsets, and the show’s own creators have said as much, calling it “fantasy history” rather than anything you’d want to cite in an essay. 

Adelaide Kane plays a teenage Mary, Queen of Scots, growing up at the French court, falling for Prince Francis, and eventually returning to Scotland to reclaim her throne, all while wearing gowns that would make a real Tudor seamstress weep. 

There’s something compulsively watchable about the scheming, the love triangles, and Catherine de’ Medici, played brilliantly by Megan Follows, plotting everyone’s downfall from behind a fan.

• Where to Watch: Streaming on Netflix.
• Release Year: 2013 to 2017, across four seasons.
• Main Stars:
  • Adelaide Kane as Mary, Queen of Scots
  • Megan Follows as Catherine de’ Medici
  • Toby Regbo as Francis II
  • Torrance Coombs as Sebastian “Bash” de Poiters

Historical Accuracy: Almost none, and that’s putting it kindly. USA Today called it anachronistic, which is generous. The costumes borrow more from modern bridal fashion than anything Mary Stuart ever wore, and entire characters and subplots are invented wholesale. 

Even the broad shape of Mary’s story gets bent to fit the pacing of teen drama. If you want the facts, this is not your source. If you want a guilty pleasure with a crown on, it delivers.

Our Verdict: We’re giving this one 2 historically inaccurate ballgowns out of 5 on the Medieval Mayhem Meter. Ridiculous, addictive, and about as accurate as a costume shop’s idea of the 1500s.

Queens (2017)

Queens, also released as Queens: The Virgin and the Martyr – a six-part Spanish-British co-production

Plot: This was made for Spain’s national broadcaster, RTVE, and filmed in English with an eye toward international audiences. 

It follows the parallel lives of Mary, Queen of Scots, played by Olivia Chenery, and Elizabeth I, played by Rebecca Scott, as their rivalry unfolds across two courts and eventually ends at the executioner’s block. 

There’s a decent supporting cast too, including Robert Dudley and a young Lord Darnley. It had a reported budget of around two million euros per episode and still looked cheaper than shows made for a fraction of that. There was a stir at the time over misleading claims that the BBC had co-produced it, which it hadn’t.

• Where to Watch: Streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
• Release Year: 2017.
• Main Stars:
  • Olivia Chenery as Mary, Queen of Scots
  • Rebecca Scott as Elizabeth I
  • Tom Christian as Robert Dudley
  • Harry Jarvis as Lord Darnley

Historical Accuracy: The broad historical arc is sound enough. Both queens’ downfalls and their fraught, never-quite-meeting relationship are handled with some care. Where it falls down is in the execution, and all the budget in the world doesn’t help if the pacing and production don’t back it up. 

Several reviewers noted the finished show didn’t feel like it matched its reported spend.

Our Verdict: We’re giving this one 2 mismatched budgets out of 5 on the Medieval Mayhem Meter. An interesting angle let down by the execution, in more ways than one.

Anne Boleyn (2021)

Anne Boleyn – a three-part psychological thriller for Channel 5, also released on AMC+

Plot: This one takes a completely different approach. Rather than covering Anne’s whole rise and fall, it zooms right into her final five months, from suspecting she’s pregnant with the son that never comes to the scaffold. 

Jodie Turner-Smith plays her as watchful, exhausted, and increasingly cornered, which is a properly fresh take on a woman usually shown either as a scheming seductress or an innocent victim.

 The series drew plenty of attention for its identity-conscious casting, with Turner-Smith and Paapa Essiedu, who plays her brother George, cast in roles traditionally played by white actors. 

Mark Stanley’s take on Henry is colder and more calculating than the usual larger-than-life version too.

• Where to Watch: AMC+ in the US, Channel 5 in the UK.
• Release Year: 2021, three episodes.
• Main Stars:
  • Jodie Turner-Smith as Anne Boleyn
  • Mark Stanley as Henry VIII
  • Paapa Essiedu as George Boleyn
  • Barry Ward as Thomas Cromwell
  • Lola Petticrew as Jane Seymour

Historical Accuracy: This isn’t trying to be a documentary, and it says so upfront. The psychological framing means some scenes lean more into mood than fact, but the sequence of events in Anne’s final months sticks close to what actually happened. 

If you’ve wondered whether Anne was really the villain history painted her as, this take sits firmly on the sympathetic side.

Our Verdict: We’re giving this one 4 forged accusations out of 5 on the Medieval Mayhem Meter. Tense, claustrophobic, and a properly different way into a story you probably think you already know.

Becoming Elizabeth (2022)

Becoming Elizabeth – an eight-episode series for Starz, also shown on Channel 4 in the UK

Plot: This one picks up right after Henry VIII dies, when a teenage Elizabeth, played by Alicia von Rittberg, is left navigating the treacherous court of her young half-brother Edward VI. 

Most of the tension stems from her relationship with Thomas Seymour, her stepmother Catherine Parr‘s new husband, whose attention toward Elizabeth was inappropriate and deeply uncomfortable even at the time. 

It’s a shame this one only got one season. It ends right as Edward’s health is failing, just before everything with Jane Grey and Mary’s rise to the throne kicks off properly, and Starz canceled it before any of that could play out on screen.

• Where to Watch: Starz in the US, Channel 4 in the UK.
• Release Year: 2022, eight episodes.
• Main Stars:
  • Alicia von Rittberg as Elizabeth Tudor
  • Romola Garai as Mary Tudor
  • Jessica Raine as Catherine Parr
  • Tom Cullen as Thomas Seymour
  • Bella Ramsey as Lady Jane Grey

Historical Accuracy: Better than most on this list, if I’m honest. The uncomfortable Seymour storyline is drawn directly from the historical record rather than invented for drama, and Catherine Parr’s own remarkable survival story gets more nuance here than in almost any other adaptation. 

Where it takes liberties, it’s mostly in compressing timelines and inventing dialogue, not in bending the actual events.

Our Verdict: We’re giving this one 4 unwanted advances out of 5 on the Medieval Mayhem Meter. Easily one of the better Tudor dramas of the last decade. Shame we’ll never see season two.

My Lady Jane (2024)

My Lady Jane – an eight-episode Amazon Prime Video series based on the novel by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows

Plot: My Lady Jane takes the real, tragic story of Lady Jane Grey, the teenager crowned queen for nine days before losing her head, and rewrites it completely. 

In this version, Jane’s husband, Guildford Dudley, turns into a horse every day at sunrise; the kingdom is secretly full of shape-shifters called Ethians; and Jane herself gets to fight for her life instead of meekly accepting her fate. 

I’ll admit I went in skeptical and came out completely charmed. Emily Bader plays Jane with real wit, and the whole thing has a knowing, fairy tale energy that never takes itself too seriously. 

It’s basically what would happen if someone crossed Reign with a fantasy novel and gave it a sense of humor.

• Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video.
• Release Year: 2024, one season of eight episodes.
• Main Stars:
  • Emily Bader as Lady Jane Grey
  • Edward Bluemel as Guildford Dudley
  • Anna Chancellor as Frances Grey
  • Kate O’Flynn as Princess Mary
  • Jim Broadbent as the Duke of Leicester

Historical Accuracy: None whatsoever. This is a fantasy reimagining from the ground up. The real Jane’s story ended on the scaffold in 1554, a far cry from the shape-shifting fantasy here. Amazon canceled the show after one season despite a vocal fan campaign, and even George R.R. Martin publicly weighed in, asking for a second season. He didn’t get one.

Our Verdict: We’re giving this one 5 shape-shifting horses out of 5 on the Medieval Mayhem Meter. Pure, joyful nonsense, and I mean that as the highest compliment.

Shardlake (2024)

Shardlake – a four-part Disney+ series based on the novels by C.J. Sansom

Plot: Arthur Hughes plays Matthew Shardlake, a hunchbacked lawyer sent by Thomas Cromwell, played by Sean Bean, to investigate a suspicious death at a remote monastery during the dissolution of the monasteries. 

It’s atmospheric, slow-burning, and properly tense in places, closer in spirit to a period detective drama than a court intrigue soap. 

What I liked most is how it uses the dissolution as a backdrop rather than the focal point. You get a real sense of the fear and upheaval that swept through England’s religious houses as Henry’s men closed in, without it ever feeling like a history lecture.

• Where to Watch: Disney+ outside the US, Hulu in the US.
• Release Year: 2024, four episodes.
• Main Stars:
  • Arthur Hughes as Matthew Shardlake
  • Sean Bean as Thomas Cromwell
  • Anthony Boyle as Jack Barak
  • Ruby Ashbourne Serkis as Alice Fewterer
  • Peter Firth as the Duke of Norfolk

Historical Accuracy: Shardlake himself is fictional, invented by novelist C.J. Sansom, so this was never trying to be a factual account. What surrounds him is well grounded. 

The dissolution of the monasteries really did unfold with exactly this mix of greed, fear, and religious upheaval, and Thomas Cromwell’s role as Henry’s ruthless fixer is drawn accurately, right down to the compromises he was willing to make to keep his king happy.

Our Verdict: We’re giving this one 4 ransacked monasteries out of 5 on the Medieval Mayhem Meter. Sadly, Disney+ confirmed there won’t be a second season, so enjoy this one while you can.