Henry VIII

Alison Weir, best-selling historian of the medieval and sixteenth-century royal families, explains how she first encountered the power of history in a strange feeling of identification with Anne Boleyn.

Retha Warnicke unravels the evidence on the rise and fall of Henry VIII's second wife.

Jez Ross takes issue with the traditional view that sees the early foreign policy of the second Tudor monarch as a costly failure.

In our Film in Context series, Greg Walker explores the wider messages of Alexander Korda’s historical classic, in terms of the opposition to Appeasement and the mood of 1933.

Eric Ives looks at the cases of two English monarchs who broke with convention by selecting spouses for reasons of the heart, rather than political convenience.

Richard Rex argues that the main inspiration for the king's pick-and-mix religion was neither Protestant nor Catholic but Hebraic.

Greg Walker challenges the view that court intrigue, favourites, 'new men' and new manners took root under the Tudor monarch.

John Guy doubts whether policy was ever imposed on the most wilful of kings.

Glenn Richardson profiles the French king's relationship with Henry VIII and the cultural PR and diplomacy that went with it.

David Starkey provides an introduction to the remarkable ruler and places his achievements in a European context.