Modern Obsession With The Royal Family Sheds Light on Henry VIII, says Ruairi O’Connor of THE SPANISH PRINCESS

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede Just think of how many heads could have been saved had Henry VIII been able to speak with a therapist. Or maybe some couples counselling for Henry and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, might have kept some of their internal demons at bay – and cut down on the cost of many subsequent royal weddings, too. That’s the view of Ruairi O’Connor, the Irish actor who has played Henry VIII over two seasons of THE SPANISH PRINCESS, the series finale of which airs Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on STARZ. Kidding aside, O’Connor has honestly developed a great deal of empathy for Henry. And O’Connor points to the public fascination with members of the royal family that continues unabated to this very day as a window into what Henry was going through, back when kings actually ruled kingdoms. “Sometimes people will say having empathy for Henry VIII is a weakness, but I think it’s a real strength, because all it means is that you can understand what was going on in his mind a little bit more,” O’Connor said. “That’s only a useful thing. I think knowledge is always useful.” Henry, of course, is one of the most notorious monarchs in history. As the title suggests, THE SPANISH PRINCESS is first and foremost the story of Catherine of Aragon, played by Charlotte Hope, but inevitably it also has been Henry’s story, too. With pressure mounting over their inability to produce a male heir, Henry and Catherine’s marriage is hurtling toward its famous end. In last week’s episode, for the first time, an increasingly depressed and paranoid Henry reached the point of being completely unreasonable – and someone close to him lost his head over it. As another member of the court observed, “none of us is safe now.” “I can’t imagine what it would have been like for them, at a time when knowing if the queen was in a fertile window or not was a matter of national interest,” O’Connor said. “But then again, you still have the obsession with the royal family that a lot of people have. I guess it’s a continuation of that – it’s not quite as important as it was, but it’s still very interesting for people.” What’s more, Henry really was on his own. Sure, there were people all around him trying to influence him, but he never knew whether they were doing it for their own benefit, or for nefarious means. And reducing Henry to merely a cartoon-ish character with a hot temper and a wandering eye doesn’t do justice to the real-life consequences of not producing a male heir back in the 1500s – it emboldened all of Henry’s enemies, and in those very religious times, it was a signal to everyone that God was frowning upon Henry’s reign. “It certainly dawned on me while playing Henry that he didn’t have a psychotherapist to talk to,” O’Connor said. “He could have done with a little bit of therapy, maybe couples therapy – Esther Perel (famous Belgian psychotherapist) probably could have done wonders with their relationship. But Henry didn’t have those outlets, and over a long time, with so much pressure, you can become a little bit tyrannical, or monstrous, or just emotionally volatile. Basically I just saw Henry as being forced down an alleyway that there was no escape from, and he had to try and fight his way back up, through these demons, and monsters, and all the obstacles in his life. And there’s a lot of collateral damage.” As Henry loses himself to madness, the collateral damage – at least as far as Henry and Catherine’s marriage is concerned – reaches its climax on Sunday. billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv