Tudor Cinema Club: Ever After

I was about 12 years old when I was first introduced to Ever After, and wore out my precious VHS copy in the years that followed. It was only on a recent rewatch that I realized it was my first introduction to Thomas More’s Utopia, the work I would later spend much of my career on. Though it is a retelling of a fairy tale, it had a profound effect on me as a budding historian, thanks to the little historical tidbits scattered through the film.

If you haven’t seen it (and you really must) Ever After (1998) is the tale of Danielle (Drew Barrymore, with a fabulously bad English accent), who has been raised by her step-mother, Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent (deliciously played by Anjelica Huston), following the death of her father. Her step-sisters, Marguerite (Megan Dodds) and Jacqueline (an early performance by the hilarious Melanie Lynskey) are raised as ladies while she is reduced to the status of a servant. Of course, she and the Prince (Dougray ‘millennial’s first crush’ Scott) fall in love, and with the help of a ‘fairy godmother’, Leonardo da Vinci (the late great Patrick Godfrey), find their happily ever after.

It may seem odd for the first instalment of Tudor Cinema Club to select a film which does not feature a single Tudor, but it is one of my favourite films about the 16th century and one of my first introductions to it as a child.

So, let’s look at some of the ways that this film touches on the Tudor period and see if we can identify how it grounds itself in historic 16th-century France.

1. The French Court

   The Prince Charming in this iteration of the Cinderella story has been given the name Henry, with parents King Francis and Queen Marie. Given the clues scattered throughout the film, I believe the intention is that Prince Henry is in fact the young Henry II, son of Francis I. He was born in March 1519, and became the dauphin after the death of his elder brother, Francis. His mother was not ‘Marie’, but Claude, who died in 1524 (Francis I then remarried Eleanor of Austria). Of course, Prince Henry did not marry Danielle de Barbarac - largely on account of her not existing - but rather Catherine de’ Medici, at the age of 14. He, however, did fall in love with a French noblewoman named Diane de Poitiers, who remained his mistress until his death.

2. ‘Divorce is only something they do in England’

   Uttered pointedly by the Queen as advice to her son, it is undoubtedly a reference to affairs in Tudor England and the divorce of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, which was indeed much-discussed in France. Of course, ‘divorce’ as a modern term does not quite capture Henry’s Great Matter, which is better understood as an ‘annulment’ (the two terms were used interchangeably at the time). ‘Divorce’ in the modern sense - whereby the marriage was acknowledged to have existed, but was subsequently terminated - was not something that they did, even in England. If the Queen and King were to ‘divorce’ by the Tudor meaning of the phrase, Prince Henry would be rendered illegitimate (as Mary I had been), which at least would make it the more likely he could marry poor Danielle.

3. Leonardo da Vinci

   So far, we have Prince Henry, who was born in 1519 and thus was a young man in the 1540s, and an awareness of Henry VIII’s Great Matter, which again puts us somewhere in the 1530s or 1540s. The appearance of Leonardo da Vinci, who died in 1519, somewhat muddles things. Yes, it is true that da Vinci spent time in France in the court of Francis I, following the latter’s capture of Milan. These were, however, the final years of da Vinci’s life, and the sketch which is shown at the end of the film (see below), known as La Scapigliata likely comes from an earlier period.

   His presence, however, does lead us to another Tudor connection, for also resident at the court during da Vinci’s tenure was none other than Anne Boleyn. Though there is no evidence that they ever interacted, it is likely the young Anne encountered the aging artist and perhaps even enjoyed some of the work he did for the king and his court.

4. ‘The Prince has read Utopia’

   It’s one of my favourite moments in the film, and as far as I’m aware, this is the only film to quote Utopia at length. They have chosen a passage from Book One - a debate about poverty, injustice and - as Danielle does here - giving advice to a prince. It’s a remarkable choice for a film aimed at such a young audience, and clearly paid dividends with this viewer.
   First published in Latin in 1516, Thomas More’s revolutionary text was translated into French in 1550, though both Danielle and the Prince might have read it in its original Latin. The line that she quotes to the Prince: “If you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners corrupted from infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded, sire, but that you first make thieves and then punish them?” can indeed be found in Utopia (here quoted from the 1551 English translation): “For by suffering your youth wantonly, and viciously to be brought up, and to be infected, even from their tender age, by little and little with vice; then a-God’s name to be punished when they commit the same faults after being come to man’s state, which from their youth they were ever like to do. In this point, I pray you, what other thing do you, than make thieves and then punish them?” It’s a stunning statement of some of the themes of the film while also linking to the historical moment in which it takes place.

Despite the final line of the film (below), there is not much true history in this cinematic fairy tale, but the tidbits they drop in do help create world which (slipping accents aside) does its job of making you believe. It stirs the imagination and, for me at least, left me wanting to know more. And, of course, some 20 years later, I found myself poring over the line that Danielle quotes to her Prince, working on an edition of Utopia and a biography of the man who wrote it.

What historical films mattered to you growing up? Which would you like to see next in the Tudor Cinema Club?