Six Wives: Katherine of Aragon & Anne Boleyn

How much do we really know about William Shakespeare, his wife Anne Hathaway, and the family tragedies that may have shaped the bard's greatest work? This is the premise of Maggie O'Farrell's luminous novel Hamnet, now adapted into a major film starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buc ...  Show more

This episode contains discussions of incest and sexual assault.Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by historical novelist Elizabeth Fremantle to explore the harrowing story of Beatrice Cenci, a young woman executed in Rome in 1599. They discuss how Beatrice survived an abusive ...  Show more

How did Anne Boleyn go from being a commoner to being the Queen of England?

As soon as she arrived in the Tudor court she stood out from the other beautiful women who were throwing themselves at Henry VIII, but made him wait for seven years before they eventually got ...

Anne of Cleves gets a pretty raw deal in the history books.

She's often accused of being ugly, after Henry VIII claimed the painting he had made of her was overly flattering.

While their marriage was short-lived, is it time we give Anne of Cleves, who haile ...

At the time, surely Kateryn Parr had her reservations about being Henry VIII's sixth wife?

Aside from being a tyrannical maniac who'd just beheaded his last wife, Catherine Howard, he was getting old, angry and his ulcerous leg was getting smelly.

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We know the fates of Henry VIII's wives, but what were these iconic women really like?

In the first episode of this limited series, Secret Lives of the Six Wives, we'll explore the ways that Catherine of Aragon was a formidable queen and leader, and ...