*shrugs*.

These old BBC productions like Elizabeth and TSWOH were awesome, but they were meant to be educational before (or at least beside) being entertaining, and meant to interest primarly a British audience that already had a background on this period (and much later, in the age of DVD, to interest a limited worldwide audience, essentially fans of BBC style dramas and/or avid History lovers). Their whole point was to present to the public a dramatized but accurate biography of each monarch. Of course they were not taking very significant liberties with History to make this a better drama or more entertaining to a wider audience, that would have defeated the whole point of these productions.

The Tudors was entertainment first and above all, a lavish period drama, not an historical biopic, meant to be sold worldwide (ie: well out of the anglo-saxon countries) and draw a much wider audience than those with a great interest in British History, or even a background in it. They didn't make "sloppy mistakes", they made choices to depart from real History. The Tudors is dramatic fiction, largely based on history but it remains fiction! E.g: the production believed some features of Elizabethan costume, richer and more showy, rendered better to their audience aspects of Henry VIII's personality and style they wanted to be perceived well and that purely accurate costume would not have as well, that's all (not all the costuming is anachronistic, by the way). I'd bet the changes made to Henry's sister's mariage, for example, were motivated by the fact what interested them in the episode was Henry's attitude toward Mary (how he acted toward women being a main theme of the show), and his friendship with Charles as man, versus the actions and decisions of the monarch. That they wanted to include in the show, but François Ier's court already played a large role in the season and they didn't have the space or interest to go delve in French politics, nor to dilute the aspects of them they include or go in the transition between the old court and the new one, and England's relations to each. So they moved the events to Portugal and changed which sister they would use, where this wouldn't have to have any later impact on what they chose to use of Henry's European diplomacy. They had certain themes in Henry's life they wished to emphasize, and they built their drama to best develop those, and those alone. If you watch this show under the delusion you're getting a valid History course out of it it's bad (not that the show is totally worthless in this respect - some aspects of Henry they nailed really well, often through "innacurate" episodes), but if you're watching it for what it is: a good period drama/fiction inspired by the life of an historical figure, it's perfectly fine!

It's perfectly all right for some history lovers to dislike shows like the Tudors or Rome for lack of accuracy, but bitching about this is totally pointless as it's not their purpose. Rome for instance chose to show a more realistic vision of life in the late Republic, but they took massive liberties with the political/biographic facts to create a better drama. It's a bit laughable when what people see instead is that Hnery's sister married the wrong King or that whole campaigns were shown as one battle and so on... To me, this is missing the whole point.

I have a keen interest in History myself, but I can perfectly enjoy shows like these. I just don't confuse historical fiction and History.