“The Spanish Princess” Trailer Promises a Fresh Look at Catherine of Aragon

Starz released the first trailer for The Spanish Princess, the highly anticipated third installment in its ongoing historical drama series focused on the story of the Tudor dynasty from a female perspective.

Following the success of the premium network’s earlier miniseries The White Queen and The White Princess, this drama will also be based on two of Philippa Gregory’s best-selling novels – The Constant Princess and The King’s Curse. And, also like its predecessors, which chronicled the lives of queens Elizabeth Woodville and Elizabeth of York, The Spanish Princess aims to tell the story of another underrated female English ruler: King Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Only...maybe not the one you expect.

Generally in pop culture, Catherine of Aragon is usually presented as the frumpy, highly religious woman King Henry can’t wait to divorce in favor of the flashier Anne Boleyn. But what people often forget is that by the time the king decided to divorce his first wife, the two had been married for twenty years and had a significant life and relationship that came before that bit of the story.

Catherine initially came to England  as a young princess of Spain, and spent the bulk of her life in what was, to her, a foreign country. The daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Catherine was initially betrothed to Henry’s older brother Arthur as an infant, and raised to believe her destiny was to rule her adopted country as its queen. That plan was derailed by Arthur’s sudden death shortly after they were wed – or at least until Catherine married his younger brother, and claimed her first marriage had never been consummated.

(This was an important point – that would become really, really important later in her life – as it was forbidden for a man to marry his brother’s spouse.)

Charlotte Hope plays the young Catherine, with Angus Imrie as Prince Arthur and Ruari O’Connor as Prince Henry. And Downton Abbey star Laura Carmichael plays Lady Margaret Pole, a figure who will certainly be familiar to fans who watched The White Princess back in 2017.

Watch the trailer for yourselves below:

Unlike Gregory’s novels, however, The Spanish Princess will also focus on the stories of several people of color who also made the journey from Spain with the young Infanta, in an attempt to tell a more diverse and inclusive period tale.

The official press release describes the series as follows:

 

“The Spanish Princess” is a vivid and captivating story told uniquely from the point of view of the women, which also sheds light on a previously untold corner of history: the lives of people of color in 16th century London. Catherine of Aragon is the Princess of Spain, who has been promised the English throne all her life. She arrives in a rain-lashed England with her glorious and diverse court including her ladies-in-waiting Lina and Rosa. When her husband dies suddenly, the throne seems lost to Catherine until she sets her sights on the new heir, the future King Henry VIII.

The Spanish Princess is slated to premiere on Starz in the Spring of 2019. Are you looking forward to it? Let’s discuss.