Historical scholars have been quick to point out the loose way in which “history” is applied in such dramas. These televised counterparts of well-documented historical figures at times seem to bear little resemblance beyond sharing the same name. [...]
How do these popular interpretations of the past relate to historical scholarship? Reign’s creator Laurie McCarthy suggests: “I don’t feel bound by [history], I feel liberated by it.” Wolstencroft argues for Versailles that “when it comes to history there isn’t one singular truth — we can’t know, it’s all speculation.” [...]
But there is one, perhaps unexpected, way in which both series engage with a historically verifiable experience of the past: our preoccupation with the most intimate moments of courtly life, right down to the bodily emissions of its most powerful members (and I use that word quite deliberately).
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