If you have seen Showtime's "The Tudors", which traces the early years of the reign of Henry VIII, you may not be aware of the serious error in the production.
Where were the black faces? More specifically where was the employee of Henry VII and Henry VIII who was known to be at court in 1507 and who should have been depicted in the big tournament scene in the first series?
On New Year's Day 1511, Catherine of Aragon gave birth to a son by Henry VIII. It was traditional to celebrate coronations and royal births and marriages by holding a tournament. Henry decided to hold one at Westminster and wanted a pictorial record of it, sort of like a Tudor Kodak moment.
Henry commissioned what is now known as the "Westminster Tournament Roll". This is a long pictorial description of the opening, middle and closing of the tournament that is about 60ft long. Similar in idea to the Bayeux Tapestry it is a pictorial narrative of the event, rather like a cartoon strip. It is currently owned by the College of Arms, the body responsible in England for granting coats of arms to individuals and organizations.
Henry is depicted arriving and leaving the tournament surrounded by members of the court and with a troupe of trumpeters playing a salute. Among these is what is believed to be the first depiction of a black person in English art.
![](http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff147/libdemfop/ebs_trumpet1_440.jpg)
You may notice that in this depiction, the artist had forgotten to paint in his hand as it was in the other image. The trumpeter is believed to be the same person first referred to in the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber in November 1507 (during the reign of Henry VII) The accounts read "to John blanke the blacke Trumpet for his moneth wages of Novembre last passed at viij d the day - xxs" or, to translate "To John Blanke, the black trumpeter, for his month's wages for November at 8d per day - 20 shillings" This showed he had worked every day that November.
Virtually nothing is known of John apart from these entries, even his name is in doubt as "Blanke" is the old word for "white" (and still is in Afrikaans) and it is thought this was a jokey nickname. One possibility is that he came to England from Spain with Catherine of Aragon.
What's undoubted is that film makers blank out the presence of black people in Renaissance Europe in their depictions. Unfortunately they seem to be pandering to their audiences assumptions of society during that period rather than the actual situation.