History Documentary hosted by David Starkey, published by Channel 4 in 2001 - English narration
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"Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived". Six lives summed up in a school rhyme. The women who married Henry VIII have become defined not the way they lived but the way their lives ended. They are seen as victims of a bloated tyrant, deserving pity, but not respect. However, have we under-estimated them and are historians right to have merely portrayed them as bit-part players in Henry's story?
In this series Dr DAVID STARKEY, the eminent historian and presenter, reveals them to be vibrant, powerful individuals who showed great dignity, when faced with exile from the King's favour, or even the executioner's axe in the Tower of London.
Queen, lover, mother, outcast, victim and survivor -- this is how historian and series narrator David Starkey assigns the roles of the six wives of Britain's most famous monarch Henry VIII in the sexual intrigue and cut-throat power politics of his long reign from 1509 to 1547. The series THE SIX WIVES OF HENRY VIII takes a fresh approach and presents each wife's story from her perspective.
Perhaps no one in history had a more eventful career in matrimony than Henry VIII. His marriages were tumultuous and complicated, and made instant legends of six very different women. Henry took his first bride, Catherine of Aragon, when he was 17. Their 24-year marriage was a relatively stable prelude to what followed. Anne Boleyn, a pretty, French-educated Protestant who was the mother of Elizabeth I, was eventually beheaded. Jane Seymour served as a demure contrast to the vampish Boleyn, and gave birth to Henry's longed-for son (Edward VI). After a brief marriage to the plain Anne of Cleves, Henry married a flirtatious teenager, Catherine Howard, who would be the second of his brides to lose her head along with the king's favor. Finally, there was Catherine Parr, a shrewd Protestant bluestocking.
Through the women's own words and powerful dramatizations, we learn that the wives were not pitiful victims or pawns but rather knowing players in a high-stakes game and remarkable individuals who managed to show great dignity even when facing exile and death.
Using dramatic reconstruction and passionate narration, eminent historian and presenter Dr David Starkey focuses on the stories of the women themselves, revealing in intimate detail their experiences of sex, childbirth and the glamorous, dangerous life at court, including the deadly intrigues that dethroned them.
Series Producer: Mark Fielder ; United Productions for Channel Four Television
1) Catherine Of Aragon
This is the story of Catherine of Aragon, a remarkable woman whose refusal to accept a divorce in defiance of Henry VIII's wishes changed the course of English history. The beautiful Spanish princess, Catherine of Aragon, was Henry's first wife and succeeded in giving him a child, Mary. Her fierce yet eventually futile resistance to his efforts to divorce her started the religious revolution that made England a Protestant country.
Spanish princess, Catherine of Aragon, marries Arthur, Prince of Wales in 1501. When he dies shortly after their marriage, she is left to fend for herself in the English court. Seven years later, Arthur's younger brother Henry (who has become king) marries Catherine, Making for Peace with Spain and France. In a war with France, Catherine is a helpful strategist to her husband, the King. But after several years of marriage with only one living daughter, Princess Mary, and no surviving sons, Henry turns his attention to Anne Boleyn, one of Catherine's ladies-in-waiting. After years of struggling against the Vatican and being denied an annulment, Henry breaks away from the Catholic Church. He creates the Church of England, in which he acts as Supreme Head on Earth, and divorces Catherine in order to marry Anne.
