Few British monarchs loom as large in the public imagination as King Henry VIII. Straddling the line between man and myth, he is best known for his infamous six marriages and his penchant for beheadings. But where does fiction meet fact? In cinema and on television, he has been portrayed by a host of actors, but have any of them captured the real Henry VIII?
In this discussion, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and fellow historians look at how Henry VIII has been reimagined on screen, what those portrayals get right and wrong, and why this towering figure continues to fascinate us, more than 500 years after he came to the throne.
Joining Suzannah Lipscomb for this Not Just the Tudors Late are Jessie Childs, Tudor England specialist and the author of Henry VIII's Last Victim; Doctor Joanne Paul of the University of Sussex, an expert of early modern English history, who wrote Thomas Moore: A Life and Death in Tudor England; and with first-hand experience of depicting historical figures on film, historian and screenwriter Alex Von Tunzelmann.
Join us for the first in our new series of 'Not Just the Tudors...Lates' for another entertaining and thought-provoking conversation.
Up Next in People Who Made History
-
Sir Thomas More - Not Just the Tudors...
How far would you go to save your immortal soul?’
This is the question that plagued Tudor High Chancellor, Sir Thomas More. Lawyer, philosophiser, and advisor to Henry VIII, when the court turned on its head at the arrival of Anne Boleyn. Hounded by prolific characters like Thomas Cromwell, his ...
-
Mary Ellis: Touching the Sky
During the years of World War Two, a short lived, but remarkable, organisation existed. The Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was a civilian service that was tasked with the delivery of aircraft from factories to the squadrons of the RAF and Royal Navy, and the delivery of supplies. Featuring pilots ...
-
Remembering Mary I: The Role of Memor...
By virtue of being England’s first crowned queen regnant – a queen in her own right – Mary I set a precedent for English regnant queenship. She struggled to establish her reign amidst the religious, nationalist, and gendered contexts of sixteenth-century England. Focusing particularly at the mome...
11 Comments