'The Spanish Princess' Season 2 Finale Ending Explained: How is Catherine finally replaced by Anne Boleyn?
Spoilers for Season 2 Episode 8
The titular Spanish Princess, Catherine of Aragon's journey as a Tudor queen finally saw its demise in the form of leaving court. She did it on her own terms though, thus obtaining an emotional victory over her fateful tragedy as opposed to a physical one, but it is the latter that manifests itself in the form of one Anne Boleyn that piques our intrigue. History documents Anne as the prime reason behind Catherine losing her position in the Tudor court, but the blame is not entirely on her husband King Henry VIII's descent to madness. Anne herself lit quite the flare in her ascension to the Queen's position and that continues to be a topic of curiosity as time went on.
To begin with, it was yet another miscarriage that finally pulled the plug on Catherine and Henry's marriage. When her husband discovers Catherine not only hid it from him but also chose to confide about the same in the now beheaded Strafford, he pretty much loses it in rage and threatens to behead her too. His biggest aides in the matter happen to be Thomas Boleyn and Maggie Pole. While the latter chooses to affirm her position in the Tudor court by giving away Catherine's biggest secret, Thomas plays his finest cards in the form of his daughter Anne. So armed with the confirmation of Catherine's consummating her marriage to his brother Arthur, and with a newer, younger love interest on the horizon, annulling their marriage becomes really easy for Henry.
Due blame of reducing Catherine to banishment however goes to Anne, who also played extremely smart in luring the king with her appeal until the final moments of their marriage becoming assured. After Henry appoints his courtier Thomas' daughters Anne and Mary to the queen's household, Catherine spots her husband with one of them, frolicking in the gardens. It is Anne, and although the story conveniently omits henry's affair with the other Boleyn girl, we shall let it slide simply because of the skillful way Anne played her cards right.
In the gardens, Anne can be seen stripping down to her bare skin, asserting that she would allow Henry to just look and not touch her. This bears proof of yet another instance of Henry's infidelity to a wife who has been tormented with stillbirths, miscarriages and death of newborns. But it doesn't matter to Anne who debuted after a youth spent mostly in France, establishing the vibrance and allure of her persona unlike any other at the time. There's no defending Henry for falling prey to Anne's charm because he was beyond responsible for Catherine's distress on his own, but Anne was still very much a part of Catherine's retinue, and thus, going behind her back is a crime we cannot condone.
At that moment where Anne is luring Henry with nothing but the sight of her lithe frame, the show once again gets extremely true to life as the real Anne Boleyn didn't allow Henry to take her to bed either until their marriage was assured. She did allow him to court her, but perhaps her biggest weapon was not allowing Henry a piece of what he could have until he assured her what she wanted. Thus Anne managed to bag the king as a husband with a vested interest in her and not just become another notch of unfaithfulness in his infamous belt. And in the long run, the teasing seduction of not letting the king pursue his desires until it was on her own time is also what helped Anne replace Catherine without looking back at the crime even once.
