History Daily - Saturday Matinee: Biography

Episode Date: July 25, 2026

On today’s Saturday Matinee, we are transported into the life of the powerful figure who- for better or for worse- helped shape Britain in the 16th Century: Henry VIII.  Link to Biography: https://www.noiser.com/biography Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more. History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.

There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at bellair direct.com. Ever since I first heard him utter it, I have adopted the late David McCullough's quip, History is Human as my own. It's short, it alliterates, and it says perfectly and succinctly why the study of history is important. It's about us. No humans, no history. Maybe if there were another sapient species on the planet,

this aphorism would stop working, but only as pithy rhetoric. Because the point remains, without living beings, making decisions, planning, striving, succeeding, and failing, history doesn't matter. It becomes something else like geology or paleontology. So history is human. And on today's Saturday matinee, we're sharing an episode from a fantastic new Noiser podcast that focuses tightly on the humans with the most impact throughout history, a show called Biography.

The episode you're about to hear is a biography of Henry VIII, one of the most colorful and consequential rulers England has ever seen. I hope you enjoy. While you're listening, be sure to search for and follow biography. We put a link in the show notes to make it easy for you. There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at bellairdirect.com.

It's the 24th of January, 1536. Greenwich, a magnificent palace on the banks of the River Thames near London. Today a royal pageant is in full swing. The air is rich with music, smoke from a hog roast and the throm of the crowd. A joust is underway, a battle for strength and courage held on a long runway known as a tilt guard. The arena is decorated with flags and bunting in the red rose. delivery of the ruling house of Tudor. The tilt yard is flanked by octagonal towers that support seating platforms, a VIP area

for courtiers. Their chatter turns to cheers as Henry the 8th canters onto the field. The king looks resplendent in gleaming armour, like a knight off to war. For a monarch who inherited his crown, rather than winning it on the battlefield, the joust is an important show of his physical prowess. But Henry's armour hides a secret. The king is not a well man. Contrary to the invincible image he presents, he has suffered bouts of smallpox and malaria. Now at the age of 44 he's weakened by the varicose veins on his legs which have turned into painful ulcers. The open sores may be caused by the tight guards as that he wears to emphasize his

shapely calf muscles. Nonetheless, Henry looks every inch the warrior as he grasps the reins of his armoured stallion. The horse stamps and snorts, its breath misting the winter air. Jousting is not for the faint-hearted. On the tilt yard, privilege is pushed to one side. Henry will face his opponent as an equal, man to man. The moment the flag falls, the king leans into a full charge.

His horse accelerating beneath him as he balances a three-meter-long lance under his arm. But then suddenly the roar of the crowd stutters to a hush. Something is wrong. Maybe it's the top-heavy bulk of his armour, or a stumble of hooves or a weakness in his muscles. But the king topples to one side. His weight drags the horse with him, and half a ton of animal crushes Henry into the hard-packed earth. After the accident, the king lies unconscious for two hours.

His wife, Anne Boleyn, is told that he may die. The shock apparently causes her to miscarry the son that the pair have been desperately awaiting. But Henry comes round and seems to be restored. The king lives to fight another day. Except, today even five minutes of concussion indicates a brain trauma. Henry's two hours of unconsciousness then suggests a considerable injury. Some say the king changes that day on the tilt yard

from party prince to terrible tyrant. Within a few months, he will have his wife beheaded, mainly because she lost that vital son and heir. The next decade he will burn through four more wives, bankrupt his nation, and vandalize England's cultural herons. in his quest for supreme power. So what went wrong for Henry VIII?

How did England's most eligible bachelor degenerate into a bloated despot? And one of the worst husbands in history? Was the king a psychopath who ruthlessly disposed of those closest to him? Or was he a more complex character? A man driven to distraction by physical pain and political pressure? the leader who dragged Britain from the dark ages into the modern era. I'm Paul McGahn, and this is Henry VIII. Henry Tudor is not born to rule.

He is the second son of King Henry the 7th and Queen Elizabeth of York. From his birth in 1491, the young prince is pampered and festooned with honours and titles, but he is nonetheless only a spare heir after his brother, Arthur, The younger boy is of little interest to his father, free to enjoy a childhood of privileged leisure, especially keen on hunting and jousting. But everything changes when Henry is ten. On the 1st of April 1502, a flag hangs limp over the keep of Ludlow Castle. A stone fortress atop a cliff, the royal resident stands on the border of England and Wales, in what is now Shropshire.

This is home to Arthur Tudor and his new wife, Catherine of Araberon. They were married four months ago, a wedding that sealed the diplomatic union between England and Spain. Arthur is heir to the English throne. Fifteen years ago, his mother was sent to give birth to him in Winchester, believed to be the site of Camelot, King Arthur's court. But despite these extreme efforts to imbue the baby with all the parents, powers of his mighty namesake, the young Tudor grows into a sickly boy. Now, Arthur falls seriously ill.

Rain patters down as a physician hurries over the drawbridge. Ludlow Castle is unusually quiet. Servants and soldiers go about their business with heads and voices lowered. The prince is suffering from uncontrollable shivering, dizziness and exhaustion. The mysterious sweating sickness. The medic examines him, but he's seen this illness many times before. There's nothing they can do but wait and pray. The next day the bells of Ludlow ring a solemn toll.

Prince Arthur is dead. As soon as word reaches his father in Greenwich, King Henry the seventh sends for his second son, the spare heir, young Henry Tudor. Though the monarch could scarcely know it yet, the substitution that has, Henry Tudor, the reigns of power, will change the course of England's history. Tracy Borman is a historian and broadcaster who specialises in the Tudor period. Her latest book about the British monarchy is called Crown and Scepter. There was a time when he was destined for a career in the church, particularly ill-suited for

that, I'd have said, but he had an elder brother, Arthur, who had been really chiselled from birth into a future king. But then he died young. He was just 15. He'd recently married Catherine of Aragon. And it was a disaster, completely, you know, unexpected. And so Henry the eighth, the future Henry the eighth, his younger brother was thrust into the spotlight. But by then, it was a bit late to shape him. And Henry had been raised the typical indulged spare air. Now, I hastened, you know, to not to draw any modern day parallels. But, you know, There are two princes. One is the older, sensible one.

The other runs a bit wild. And that was definitely the case with Henry. And so too little too late really summarises his father's approach to trying to mould him suddenly into a future king and stop him jousting and drinking and staying up late. And Henry hated that. He wanted to express himself. And I think he really did when he became king.

Henry Tudor takes on the duties expected of him, especially when it comes to protecting the diplomatic ties between England and Spain. This includes marrying his dead brother's widow, Catherine of Aragon. By contrast to her first wedding to Arthur, which was a lavish affair at the old St. Paul's Cathedral, the ceremony between Henry and Catherine is subdued. It is the 11th of June 1509, the feast day of the Catholic Saint Barnabas,

and just a month after the burial of the old king, Henry the 7th. A bell tolls at the church of the observant friars next to Greenwich Palace. Inside, the 17-year-old Henry Tudor stands in full armour, his hand on the hilt of his sword, in the manner of a medieval knight. It's taken six years of negotiations to reach this ceremony. Henry has sought the Pope's permission to marry his brother. mother's wife, and he prays for God's approval too. The heavy wooden doors swing open to reveal a woman who is little older than him,

in her prime, the summer sun gilding her urban hair. Catherine is the child of the Catholic power couple, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile. Their daughter was groomed to rule, betrothed since the age of three to the heir to the English throne. When she wed Arthur in 1501, England received from the Spanish a vast dowry of 200,000 crowns. And when Arthur unexpectedly died only a year later, the English did all they could to avoid paying back that fortune. Hence, her marriage to Henry. They need to keep Catherine in the family and her dowry in the royal coffers.

Catherine joins Henry at the altar, vows are spoken before. for the Archbishop Bukhantubi, and a new golden couple walk arm in arm into the Greenwich sunlight. Henry saw himself as rescuing her, this beautiful Spanish princess. I think Henry was already a bit in love with her when, as a very young man, he had led her to her wedding with his brother Arthur. So it was all very chivalrous for Henry. And I think Catherine felt the same. She'd never really loved Arthur, but she was bowled over by his gorgeous younger brother. other. Queen Catherine is not the only courtier who is besotted. The ambassador of Venice writes about the physical and mental beauty that God has combined in the eighth King Henry. Another diplomat says

Henry excels above anyone who has ever worn a crown. In the early years of his reign, the party prince becomes the king of hearts. I think he was deeply impressive. We tend to think of Henry as that bloated tyrant and from the later portraits of him. But actually in his youth, He was, as described by a contemporary, an Adonis. He was very athletic. He was six foot two, kind of towered over most other people at the court. He was very proud of his fine calves in particular and would show them off in beautiful white tights and the like.

And he did actually cut a very impressive figure. He was very, very good looking. He kind of had it all. He was the ultimate Renaissance prince, very cultured, very well educated. He had a sharp intellect. Good at music, good at sport. But it becomes obvious when Henry takes the throne in 1509

that the new king has more talent for pleasure than politics. He enjoys his newfound power, but not the duties that accompany it. Luckily for Henry, there's always an ambitious aid, king to climb the greasy pole of courtly life. Thomas Woolsey is one such man. Woolsey's talent lies in recognition. recognizing the king's true desires and fulfilling them. If Henry wants to run after stags and women, Woolsey will govern for him.

Soon, despite his lowly origins as the son of a butcher, Woolsey becomes cardinal Woolsey, as rich and powerful as any noble. His power expands until he is known as the altar rex, the other king. Always keen to flatter his master, Woolsey organizes a fabulous event in Calais, in 1520, where Henry can show off the opulence of his court to the French. The meeting between Henry VIII and King Francis is part diplomatic summit, part summer festival. It becomes known as the field of the cloth of gold, after the sumptuous temporary palace that is built, especially for the occasion. 1520, that's when Henry VIII met his greatest rival, Francis I, King of France.

They were close in age. They were both good looking. They both had these very culturally vibrant courts. They both fancied themselves as rather good with the ladies. You know, everything was a parallel and therefore a rivalry between them. So this masqueraded as a sort of expression of peace between England and France, but nobody was fooled. This was one king trying to get one over on the other to be more magnificent, more spectacular, but it all came to a rather sticky end. because they both fancied themselves as great sportsmen. But Henry got a bit drunk one evening, and he actually challenged Francis to an impromptu wrestling match. So Francis accepted, and he pretty much immediately threw Henry to the floor. He won, and things turned very sour. So it was a real kind of wound to Henry's vanity, I think. As time passes, Henry suffers more dense to his ego than to his armour.

Not least is the fact that after a decade on the throne, Henry still has no air. Now aged over 40, Catherine of Aragon has given birth six times and lost five babies, including a son who died after a few weeks. Only the Princess Mary has survived. Grief has driven a once happy couple apart. Catherine was the ideal wife for Henry. I think it's easy to forget that because there were five others that. followed. So you see it as a bit of a failure, but far from it, was the most successful,

really, of Henry's marriages. The only thing that goes wrong for Catherine is her failure, as Henry sees it, to give him a son. So she has quite a tragic history in this respect. They do have a son very early in their marriage, but tragically, he died after just a few weeks. And then it's just a catalogue of miscarriages, stillbirths. And at the end of it, Catherine's only living child is a daughter, Mary, and though Henry dotes on her, that's not good enough. This isn't an age where women are seen as equal to men in terms of the royal succession. You only have a queen if there's absolutely no other person who could possibly take the throne. Henry needs a son.

If Catherine had had a son, there wouldn't have been the other five wives. Late one night in 1527, Henry lies alone in his bed. He's long since stopped visiting his wife, Catherine, for comfort. Now in the dying days of their marriage, Henry picks up his Bible. But instead of solace, he finds torment. A verse in Leviticus chills him. If a man shall take his brother's wife, it is an unclean thing. They shall be childless.

His fate is written there in black and white. God is punishing him for marrying his wife. brother's wife, Catherine. He snaps the book shut. As Henry slides the Bible under his pillow, his mind settles on one thought that consoles him. Anne Boleyn, she is young, she's clever. She refuses to share his bed, which is a tantalizing torture. And so Henry falls asleep with one hand on the empty pillow, sure that this woman is his destiny. He will move, heaven and earth to have Anne Boleyn. There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple.

Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at bellair direct.com. It was 1522 when she first joined the English court, serving as maid of honor to Catherine of Aragon. But Anne Boleyn is a cut above the other ladies. Trained in the French court, she is stylish and exotic, but also shrewd. Like the political advisors of exploit Henry's foibles, Anne knows what the king wants, but instead of giving it to him, she settles down to play a long game.

Over the years Anne has become Henry's obsession. When he writes her name, he draws love hearts around it. He has been candid in his letters, telling Anne, if you give your heart, body and soul to me, I will make you my only mistress. Her reply, in a letter of 1525, was blunt. Your mistress, I will not be. There are many women, including Anne's own sister, who have accepted the low-hanging fruit of temporary popularity,

that comes from sharing the king's bed. But Anne wishes to climb higher. She tells Henry that she is saving her virginity for her future husband. Her purity and resolve only make Anne more alluring. Henry is a man who likes to hunt, and she realizes it's the thrill of the chase for Henry. So she keeps him at arm's length. She refuses to be his mistress, and it proves an absolute masterstroke. Henry wants what he can't have. And for seven long years, he tries to get Amber Lynn for himself to marry her. But to do that, he has to overturn the entire religious establishment because the Pope isn't going to give him his divorce or annulment from Catherine of Aragon.

Certainly not without a fight. So, yeah, you definitely get the sense. Henry is this great hunter, and Anne Boleyn is his prey. Henry is used to getting what he wants, and now nothing can stand in his way. Not Anne's resistance, not his vows to his first wife, Catherine, not even his Roman Catholic faith that forbids divorce. Henry's quest for separation from Catherine becomes known as the Great Matter. His advisor Cardinal Woolsey takes up the legal challenge of freeing his master from his marital bonds. The verse in Leviticus that tormented Henry becomes the backbone of their case.

Woolsey petitions the Pope, stating that the king's marriage must not be binding because Catherine had been married to his brother. But, hundreds of miles away in Rome, other matters are afoot. In 1527, troops of the Holy Roman ember. the Empire besieged the Vatican and imprison the Pope. They are under the command of King Charles V of Spain, who happens to be Catherine of Aragon's beloved nephew. By asking the Pope to annul Catherine's marriage, Cardinal Woolsey is effectively asking him to rule against the very people on whom his life depends.

Not surprisingly, the Pope stools for time. Back in England, Catherine puts up her own legal fight to retain her title. She argues that her first marriage was never consummated. The teenage Arthur was already ailing when they wed and died four months later. After years of delay, the Pope sides with the Spanish. He insists that divorce will mean Henry's excommunication from the Catholic Church. Henry was a good Catholic. He'd been given the title Fidei Defensor or Defender of the Faith by an earlier Pope.

And I don't think he ever really embraced the new reformist ideas that were sweeping across Europe and that Anne absolutely did embrace. She was a genuine reformer. Henry was always rather uncomfortable about that. But increasingly, he came to realize this was his Trump card. This was how he was going to get his divorce or annulment and also become a very, very rich king along the way. Because when it gathered ground, it wasn't just a reformation of England. religious life and creating a new church of England, separating us from Rome. It was the destruction of the monasteries and the diversion of their wealth, which was immense to the royal coffers. And so Henry was tempted by money, really, as well as by what it would give him, i.e. Anne Boleyn. In 1529, Henry blames Cardinal Woolsey for the inability to resolve the great matter and fires him. A year later, Woolsey is accused of treason. He dies on his way to trial in London, where it's likely he would have been executed. It's a dangerous job, serving Henry.

But another man steps into the hot seat. A minister, Thomas Cromwell. Believing that the Pope will never sanction Henry's divorce, hatches an audacious plan. If the Catholic Church won't give his blessing for an annulment, then Henry should simply start a new church. a Church of England, based on Protestant ideas that are sweeping through Europe, and with Henry himself as its supreme head. It takes time for Cromwell to persuade the Conservative King, but on the 11th of February 1531,

an act of Parliament confirms Henry a supreme head of the Church of England. Now Henry doesn't need the Pope. He can effectively arrange his own divorce. The annulment will still take years to become legal, but Catherine has already been sent away to live in Richmond Palace, some ten miles upriver from central London. Anne Berlin is now confident enough to become Henry's mistress. Soon enough, the king finds he has a more pressing problem. Anne is pregnant. The couple will have two weddings.

The first is held secretly in 1533 to ensure the child is legitimate. The divorce isn't yet confirmed, but it's legal enough for Henry. In his excitement for a new start with a new wife, Henry commissions a new palace. In the grounds of the Tower of London, the King and Queen's apartments are decorated with their entwined initials, A and H. Henry restores the tower, too, giving the white stone turret's onion-shaped domes in a French style that pleases Anne. They remain in place today. The annulment of his marriage to Catherine is announced on the 23rd of May 1533. One week later, Henry Florence is young and fertile new wife,

with a lavish coronation that includes a flotilla of 50 barges on the Thames and a model of a fire-breathing dragon. When Anne finally goes into labour, Henry thinks that God is smiling on him at last. The years of frustration, the break with Rome, the betrayal of Catherine, it will all be worth it when a son and heir arrives. On the 7th of September 1533, Queen Anne gives birth to a healthy baby, but it's a girl. The arrival of little Elizabeth, named after both her grandmothers, teaches Henry the meaning of disappointment, and Anne Boleyn learns just how swift, and brutal the fall from Henry's favour can be. She was already pregnant when Henry married her.

So when she was finally sure she really was going to be queen, she'd consented to sleep with him, and she fell pregnant very quickly. And, of course, everybody expected it to be a boy, not least Henry, and then it turned out to be a girl. The future Elizabeth, the first, my favourite irony in history is that actually she turned out rather well and was seen as an absolute disaster at the time

and neglected by her father. Then there was the same familiar, very sad catalogue of miscarriages, really, and had at least two, possibly three miscarriages. And the last of those took place in January 1536 on the same day that Catherine of Aragon was buried. And that really, I think, was the last straw for Henry. He said something like, I can see God is not going to give me any male children. So suddenly, Henry's very good at doing this. He employs God when it suits him.

So God was displeased with his marriage to Catherine. Now God doesn't think much to Anne Boleyn either, so she has to go. Though Henry barely mourns Catherine's death at 50, January 1536 is a dark month for the monarchy. The jousting accident ends his sporting career, and then Anne Boleyn suffers another miscarriage. Midwives say it was a boy. Despite her many virtues, in Henry's eyes, she is beyond forgiveness. He overturned the entire church and state for her, asking only for a son in return. She had one job, and she failed.

It's Henry's new advisor Thomas Cromwell, who devises Anne's downfall. She is accused of adultery and incest, of trying to get pregnant by her brother so the child wouldn't resemble another man. But the lewd charges, including accusations of witchcraft, are trumped up. It's more likely that Anne's only misdemeanors are those of failing to produce the necessary son, and objecting to the king's renewed passion for hunting the ladies of the court. Though during the trial evidence surfaces that Henry may be impotent, ultimately, of course, the decision goes his way. And so, three years after building a palace for his new bride at the Tower of London, it's

there that he sends her to be executed. It's the 19th of May 1536. A cold morning mist hangs over the River Thames. Ravens line the white flint walls of the Tower of London, chuckling together. The constable of the Tower has followed the King's instructions to the latter. Today's event is to be somber. Henry has been humiliated enough without his wife's execution, bringing him more discomfort. The constable comes to inspect the new scaffold.

that has been built near the north tower, scenting the air sharply of cut wood. Seeing that a small crowd has managed to sneak inside, the constable orders the gates closed, so that no more can enter. He doesn't wish his own head to be the next to fall. At eight o'clock, the door of the Queen's apartment opens. The crowd murmurs as a petite woman emerges, flanked by a small entourage. A wail cuts through the ear. hair, but it's only one of the ladies in waiting who folds onto the ground like a dropped

handkerchief. Anne Boleyn steps over the dewy grass. For many onlookers, it's their first glimpse of the woman renowned as a French whore, a schema, a witch. In the steely light of an English morning, Anne looks unexceptional. Aged in her mid-30s now, she is prettier than most and clad in silk clothes. But, unsurprisingly, she is pale and weak. She mounts the scaffold. A man in her hood awaits her, holding a long sword that is shiny as glass. Anne speaks, her voice steady and low.

I pray God save the king, she says. The crowd scoff. They've heard how she plotted the king's death. Anne raises her chin and addresses the ravens on the wall. never was there a gentler nor more merciful prince she says if she's hoping for mercy from henry none comes he is two miles away at whitehall palace while the treason charge against anne is the work of thomas cromwell the organization of her death is micromanaged by henry he even pays for an executioner to travel from france one who is skilled enough to behead anne with one swipe of his sword Perhaps Henry is being merciful when he makes his wife's death quick

Or maybe it appeals to his vanity Death by sword harks back to Arthurian legend A method that reflects Henry's love of chivalry And Berlin will die in the same noble manner As King Arthur's wife, Gwynnevere On the scaffold, before the waiting crowd Anne kneels upright And a blindfold is wrapped over her eyes

She folds her hands in prayer. When the French executioner moves, it's so fast there is a moment before the audience reacts. Amid the cheers, one of the ladies-in-waiting wraps the head in a white cloth, while the others carry the body from the stage. The constable gives a signal, and the cannon that line the walls boom out over London. And Berlin is dead.

By the time the ravens settle, the crowd has moved on. And so has Henry the 8th. He hears the gunshots from Whitehall and immediately boards his barge. He has an engagement with Jane Seymour, the woman he has chosen to be his third wife. They will announce their engagement the following day. His callous timing leads some to say that Henry is a cold-hearted killer, unable to feel emotion. Perhaps even someone whose faculties were impaired by the jousting accident only four months earlier. recently there's been a lot of talk about he sustained some kind of head injury, that it led to

this sudden personality change. I kind of don't buy into that for a couple of reasons. We're not looking at a sudden change in Henry's personality. These traits, these rather less savoury traits in his character had always been there. And I think they had their roots in his indulged childhood. The fact he was rather spoiled. He was allowed to have free reign, really, as the spare air. And he was used to having his own way. And they just really came out more, I think, in his later years. Now, we don't know what he thought about. And Berlin's execution, he didn't leave behind any trace. But I think Henry was a great one in at least appearing to believe in his own publicity. So when somebody was out, they were out and he was moving on to the next thing.

But I think the truth is he probably felt it a lot more than he showed it. Nonetheless, ten days after Anne's death, Henry is married again. He keeps it in the family. Jane Seymour is the second cousin of Anne Boleyn, whose body is buried in an unmarked shallow grave beneath paving stones. Soon, things are looking up for Henry. Jane Seymour proves to be an obedient, attentive wife. More importantly, she quickly falls pregnant.

As usual, Henry is obsessed. When Jane craves fresh quail that are out of season in England, Henry orders a delivery from France. He consults astrologers who say the child is a boy, but who would tell the increasingly belligerent Henry any different. In the autumn of 1537, Jane goes into labour. It takes three days and three nights, but on the 12th of October, she delivers a healthy boy.

Henry finally has a son. At midnight the child is christened and named Edward. He is proclaimed heir to the English throne. Now in his mid-forties, Henry is relieved of the burden of maintaining the Tudor line of progression. He celebrates with days of pageants, feasts and even jousts. But by now he's unable to show off his skills in the tilt yard. It's been over 18 months since the king was able to ride. His jousting injury and the ulcers on his legs have left him unable to exercise.

His appetite remains hearty, and soon the king is, as one chronicler writes, overgrown with corpulence and fatness. Sometimes he's carried about the palace in decorated chairs. There's even a kind of Tudor stair lift installed in his privy chambers. But still he dresses the part. Armour is bespoke. It fits as well as a seat. Savileau suit, and so it reveals the truth. Henry's armour for the field of cloth of gold in

1520 testifies to a neat 36-inch waist. 20 years later, his suit of armour for a Mayday parade measures no less than 51 inches around the middle and 54 at the chest. The king is tormented both physically and mentally. I think we don't consider enough the pain that Henry was in, the physical pain and discomfort. Now, that is enough to make anybody quite irascible and short-tempered. And thanks to the medicine of the time and the treatment of his physicians, rather than putting a fairly swift end to the infection in his legs, it actually prolonged it. It made it a lifelong condition for Henry. And he gained a lot of weight, which put pressure on his wounded legs. So it was this vicious circle. And I think we can't separate out the physical from

the emotional and the intellectual really. So there's little wonder that Henry seems to change because he's a man tormented by pain and so he remains for the rest of his days. The consolation of a happy marriage blessed by a son is short-lived. Eleven days after the birth of Prince Edward, Henry is called to his wife's chamber.

When the king enters the room, it's dark and heavy with incense. midwives and ladies in waiting shrink back into the shadows. Henry looms over the bed, conscious of his huge proportions in this feminine environment. He stifles a grunt as he leans down to take his wife's hand. It lies pale across his swollen fingers, limp as a fish. He demands an explanation from the physician. Jane, he is nervously told, has succumbed to a fever, probably as a result of exhaustion.

from the prolonged labour. Henry holds Jane's hand as a priest reads the last rites. She dies in the early hours of the next morning when Henry has gone to his own bed. Years later, while married to his sixth wife, he will commission a painting of himself with Jane Seymour. When Henry dies, he is entombed with her at Windsor.

They're only married for 18 months, but Henry seems to value her memory more than he values any living woman. It suited Henry to present Jane as the ideal wife because she gave him a son. So she would always be of sacred memory, really, and she had to be the wife he loved the most because she's the only one of the six who succeeded and gave him that vital male heir, the future Edward the sixth. But I think the reality is he didn't particularly love her any more than the others or even at all. He expressed regret at marrying her a few weeks after the wedding

because he said there were better-looking women at court. And then within a week of her death, he was described as being as merry a widower as you could ever see. So it wasn't, I think, quite a case of the heartbreak that Henry liked to present it us for future generations. In middle age, Henry grows increasingly destructive. Under the influence of Thomas Cromwell, he exploits the break from Rome to seize church-owned land, property and valuables.

Monastries, abbeys and convents are looted, closed or destroyed. Precious Catholic manuscripts and entire monastic archives are confiscated. Oxford University is left without a library after its collection is burned. But the Reformation goes even deeper. It aims to overhaul the hearts and minds of the English faithful. There are over 9,000 parish churches in England, and some maintain their allegiance to the old religion. Particularly troublesome for Henry VIII is a cult that persists around St. Thomas of Beckett, who died in 1170. Then Archbishop of Canterbury, Beckett was murdered inside the cathedral on the orders of the king's ancestor, Hemley II.

Beckett was canonized and given a tomb inside Canterby Cathedral. Almost 400 years later, when Tudor pilgrims continue to visit his golden shrine, Henry has the lavish memorial torn down and disposes of Beckett's bones. This spiteful deed sends shockwaves to England. It sends a clear message to Catholics. This king will show no mercy to true believers or their sacred sites. But Henry's mind is once again occupied with matters of the heart. Now a widower, and mindful of his own rise from spare heir to king, Henry needs another son.

Thomas Cromwell steps in as matchmaker. He has his eye on Anne of Cleaves. The German noblewoman has connections to powerful Protestant houses on the continent. The match would offer Henry some protection from the Holy Roman Empire. Should it decide to invade England and take revenge for their exit from the Catholic Union? Trying to win Henry round to the plan, Cromwell sends the artist Hans Holbein to paint a portrait of Anne. Henry approves, but when the woman herself arrives in England in 1540, he takes one look and declares, I like her not.

The king, though, does his duty and marries Anne, but orders Cromwell to fix an annulment at once. She puts up little resistance, apparently relieved to be excused from consummating her. marriage to the now monstrous Henry. He was so embarrassed and he was particularly embarrassed by the fact that he couldn't consummate it. So now he put this down to the fact he found Anne so deeply unattractive in all ways. But actually, he was probably impotent by the time he married her. There had been rumours of impotence even as early as his marriage to Anne Berlin.

And I think that was the case now. He was not a well man. And that was really humiliating for him to have to admit. But he needed to admit it. Because if the marriage had been consummated, he couldn't have got out of it. He kind of admitted that he'd been unable to. But that's why all the blame was put on Anne. He couldn't do it, but that's just because she's so repulsive.

The blame for the failed fourth marriage lies at Thomas Cromwell's door. Born the son of a blacksmith, Cromwell rose through the ranks due to his intelligence and merciless political vision. But though his reforms suited the king, his ruthlessness has made him few friends at court. Soon, rumours circulate that Cromwell is plotting treason and planning to marry Henry's daughter, Mary. And so, in 1540, the paranoid king has Thomas Cromwell beheaded at the Tower of London. On the very same day, Henry weds his fifth wife, Catherine Howard. For Henry, this was his midlife crisis, I think. So Catherine was much younger than him, probably about 30 years.

younger, really. We don't know exactly how old she was, but probably a teenager when she met and married Henry. And he sort of fell head over hills in love. But I think he was just trying to recapture something, recapture his lost youth. Soon enough, this relationship too collapses. Catherine develops a dangerous relationship with the courtier, Thomas Colpepper. She was seen as this kind of airhead, really, until recently, when now actually we realised what a victim she'd been, how she'd been preyed upon throughout her life, probably child abuse, really, we would call it now. Her music teacher when she was just 13.

And then there's a whole catalogue of men kind of taking advantage of her, including actually the King of England. But what she didn't have was political now, sort of shrewdness. And she was very foolhardy. She took colossal risks with her relationship with Thomas Culpeper, who was one of the King's own servants. And an attraction developed between them, although again, that's been reassessed because Colpeper,

had actually been convicted for rape. And when you read the letter that Catherine wrote to him and that helped to condemn her, you realize she's actually quite frightened of him and he's got some kind of hold over her. But she did commit adultery, undoubtedly. Whereas Anne Boleyn's was fabricated, Catherine's was not.

And so her reign ended in the same bloody way that Anne Boleyns did. There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at bellairdirect.com. One February day in 1542, Catherine Howard is dressed in black velvet

and taken on a barge to the Tower of London. She passes under London Bridge, past the severed heads of her lovers, Thomas Culpepper and Francis Derham, and through Traitor's Gate. She is locked in a chamber to await her fate. It's said that the... The young queen asks for the executioner's block to be brought to her quarters, so that she can

practice getting into position. When she comes to the scaffold, she's too weak to speak. But the blade comes down nonetheless, and Catherine Howard is the second of Henry's wives to die by beheading. The King's midlife crisis sends him off to war, desperate to prove himself by defeating the French. By July 1545, Henry is having dinner. on board a battleship just off the south coast of England. At war with the French, his fleet is moored in the Solent,

a protected body of water between the Isle of White and the naval town of Portsmouth. When word comes that enemy ships have been sighted in the channel, Henry has hurried off the ship to the safety of South Sea Castle, an artillery fort from where he watches the sea battle. A lack of wind means the English Navy cannot set sail to engage with the French, whose fleet enters the Solanen. But Henry's favourite ship, the Mary Rose, takes up the challenge. She is his finest vessel, a state-of-the-art battleship,

recently refitted with increased firepower. Out on the Solent, the Mary Rose turns one flank to fire its cannon. It seems the English Navy has the upper hand. But as the Mary Rose comes round, it suddenly lists to one side. The king shouts out in horror. It's unclear what is happening to his beloved Mary Rose. Perhaps her gun ports were left open, and water has rushed in to flood the lower decks. Perhaps it's the squawly wind.

Or perhaps the Mary Rose is overloaded with the weight of the additional cannon. It's unthinkable that Henry's flagship has simply been sunk by the French. While his advisors speculate uselessly on land, the king watches his flagship. slide under the waves. The pride and joy of his navy, a ship that outlived many of his wives, whose service lasted most of his reign. By evening, the Mary Rose is gone. She was built in Portsmouth in 1510, so it is all the more poignant that she goes down off its coast. She will lie on the seabed of the Solent until she is recovered and restored in 1982. Henry was definitely, by the sinking of the Mary Rose at this encounter that took place off the South Coast

between his Navy and that of France. And the Mary Rose was his great flagship. He was inordinately proud of it. And unfortunately, due to a number of factors, and the least of which was its attack by the French, it was the number of cannon on board, the waiting of it. It sank before his very eyes. And I think this really epitomised that the fading of Henry's hopes and just really of that bitter disappointment that had started to set in quite early in his reign with his failure to have a son. And then now, what should have been glorious, ended in tragedy with the loss of hundreds of men and Henry's great flagship. And I think for him, it was something he never recovered from. It meant such a lot.

Nothing was more important to Henry than his image as a great warrior king. And there before, his eyes, he'd lost the best of his ships. Of some consolation to Henry is his sixth marriage. He returns from the financially disastrous war to his final wife, Catherine Parr. She is unusually tall, red-haired and fashionable, ordering 47 pairs of shoes in one particularly modish year. But she is also educated and thoughtful. A woman who puts aside her love for another man to serve her country

by marrying its troubled king. What was important, I think, about Catherine is the way she united Henry's children and successes. She had a great relationship with all of her stepchildren, particularly with Elizabeth. And I think this is her major contribution. When Henry went off on that last gasp attempt of military glory in 1544, he left Catherine behind as regent.

So she was acting as queen in her own right. And Elizabeth saw that because Catherine invited her to Hampton, court. And I think that was something Elizabeth never forgot. Here is a woman wielding authority. And that had a lasting legacy and really did help to shape the future for Elizabeth I. On the 27th of January 1547, Henry is bedridden at Whitehall Palace. His doctors whisper furtively outside his chamber. It's clear that the king does not have long left. But no one has the courage to inform him. It's treason to predict the death of the king. Henry's closest aides have lost their heads for less, but someone sends for a priest, and Henry receives his last

rights. Weak as he is, the king whispers a confession. Pardon me all my sins, he pleads, though they were greater than can be. His sins are indeed great in number. History will lose count of the people executed on Henry's orders. Wives, relatives, friends, loyal advisers, innumerable Catholics. Only nine days earlier he sent the Earl of Surrey to the block. Henry VIII dies in the early hours of the following morning. He is 55, obese and plagued by injuries and ulcers. It's probably a pulmonary embolism that kills him, blood clots on the lungs. The king is laid to rest at Windsor Castle, near his third wife, Jane Seymour. Despite his lifelong fears about a lack of heirs,

all three of Henry's children will go on to succeed him. His son Edward takes the throne, but dies while still a boy, probably of tuberculosis. This means that Mary, Henry's daughter with Catherine Aragon, becomes England's first queen in her own right. She earns the title Bloody Mary. for her ruthless attempts to return England to the old religion. But when Mary dies after just five years, her younger sister, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, is crowned. Queen Elizabeth reigns for 45 years, longer than the father who despaired of her.

Elizabeth I presides over a golden age of English culture. But the Virgin Queen never marries, and produces no heir. When she dies in 1603, the Tudor dynasty dies with her. England's most famous king is still best known for his six wives. The history of domestic abuse is reduced to a children's rhyme, and the lasting image of Henry VIII is set by his late portraits that show a gluttonous tyrant who ripped a country apart for his own selfish desires. but whatever the nature of the man, the cultural legacy of the king, lives on today.

Henry VIII launched the Royal Navy. He put Parliament at the heart of the British Constitution. He established the Royal College of Physicians, by which doctors are still licensed. He founded the Church of England, the Anglican faith that is followed by 85 million people worldwide. as a man obsessed with legacy, he triggered a new era of modern Britain. It's thanks to Henry that we have the Church of England and that today the monarch is still head of that church. Really, it was the beginning of the sort of modern bureaucracy

and it was also the beginning, most significantly, of Parliament as a real political force. There was no looking back for it after then, and it grew and grew in power. to the extent that it actually defeated and vanquished and destroyed the monarchy altogether a century later before it was restored. So Henry's reign was of huge significance. I think this could justify, we claim to be the sort of birth of the early modern period. I think Henry the seventh's reign in many respects still felt quite medieval and the instrument of government and the church was still very much as it had been for centuries.

All of that changed during the reign of his son, Henry VIII. There was a sea change, and I think really we can say this is the beginning of modern times. Next time, we'll bring you the first episode of our two-part special, Queen Elizabeth II. Today we can say she is the last surviving head of state who served in World War II. She is the symbolic figurehead who ties us back to the Blitz, to Churchill, to unprecedented female service, to unprecedented national service. is that symbol. And that is extraordinary powerful PR going down the decades, becoming more and more important, in fact, because as they become rarer, that generation, their value, their weight as national treasures increases. That's next time. There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple.

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