The teenage Henry VIII falls in love with the beautiful Spanish princess Katherine of Aragon. As his first queen she leads the kingdom at war, wins the love of the people, and teaches Henry how to rule. They are together for over twenty years. But tragically, Katherine cannot give Henry the son he desperately needs to save the Tudor dynasty. When an ambitious younger rival, Anne Boleyn, appears Katherine is cruelly rejected by the man she loves. But she refuses to go without a fight...
Dan and Suzannah recount how Henry changed history to divorce Katherine of Aragon and marry the woman who had captivated him, Anne Boleyn.
After decades of disaster Henry VIII's third wife, Jane Seymour, finally gives him the son and heir he craves. But tragically she dies within days of childbirth, and Henry's joy turns to despair. Convinced to marry again, Henry chooses the German princess Anne of Cleves. But all he sees before the engagement is a painting, and in the flesh he finds Anne so ugly he becomes impotent. Now he must fight to escape the marriage, while his advisor Thomas Cromwell pays for the fiasco with his head.
In 1539, after four failed marriages, Henry VIII falls in love with the seductive teenager Catherine Howard. But she turns out to have a hidden sexual past. Finally her secrets catch up with her, and she becomes the second of Henry's wives to lose her head. Old and sick, Henry makes one last attempt at marriage. In the kindly Katherine Parr he seems to have found the perfect wife at last. But when she tries to push Henry into religious reform she too comes within hours of the executioner's block.
Suzannah Lipscomb
Host
Dan Jones
Chris Holt
Director
Writer
