The Tudors: The Complete Series

Meet King Henry VIII while he's still young and sexy! Like a privileged court guest, you'll weave your way through bodice-ripping escapades and stealthy court intrigues.

Season 1
Meet King Henry VIII while he's still young and sexy! Like a privileged court guest, you'll weave your way through bodice-ripping escapades and stealthy court intrigues. As the king grows in power and arrogance, the queen fails to produce an heir, and beautiful Anne Boleyn rebuffs advances. Starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Alexander) as the frustrated monarch, Natalie Dormer (Casanova) as Anne Boleyn and Sam Neill (Jurassic Park films, The Horse Whisperer) as Cardinal Wolsey, the unlucky diplomat caught in the middle. Filmed on location in Ireland, with "sets and costumes that are magnificent, and cinematography that is luminous and lush" -The New York Times.

Season 2
Passions erupt and powers clash when Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) tries to end his first marriage in order to wed the pregnant Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer). Legendary Peter O'Toole co- stars as the Pope, an immovable obstacle between the king and his dream of a male heir. Recommended for mature viewers. As seen on Showtime

Season 3
Showtime's Emmy®-winning series covers a short but turbulent period in the life of Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), the most notorious sovereign in British history. In Season 3, Henry weds a third time, to demure noblewoman Jane Seymour, in the futile hope she will provide a male heir. Meanwhile, his once-loyal subjects form a rebellion known as the "Pilgrimage of Grace," to fight Henry's crusade against Catholicism. Another marriage follows, to Anne of Cleves (British pop star Joss Stone), whom the king soon finds frigid and, curiously, unattractive.

Season 4
In the final season of the acclaimed Showtime series, Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) discovers his fifth queen's ribald past and adulterous present. He restores his daughters Mary and Elizabeth to the royal succession and chooses the attractive and capable widow Catherine Parr (Joely Richardson) to be their stepmother. Now, the popular but ailing king must face the ghosts of his former queens, who appear for a final confrontation.
Recommended for mature viewers.

Season 1
Episode 1 - King Henry VIII, the young and ambitious monarch of England, prepares for war with France but is dissuaded by the diplomatic manipulation of his powerful Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, who proposes that the King sponsor a "Treaty of Universal Peace." The harmony of the King's domestic affairs is threatened, however, when he discovers that Elizabeth Blount, the young and beautiful lady-in-waiting to his Queen, Katherine of Aragon, is pregnant with his child.

Episode 2 - Allegiances shift at home and abroad. Despite extravagant claims of loyalty to France during the "Field of Cloth of Gold" ceremonies, Henry contemplates an alliance with Charles V, King of Spain, who was recently named Holy Roman Emperor. Because he is dependent on the support of the French cardinals, Wolsey's chance to become Pope is threatened. A gift of Machiavelli's The Prince makes Henry wonder if it is better for a king to be loved or feared. For now, he sets about achieving both. He executes the scheming Duke of Buckingham for treason and celebrates the birth - by Lady Elizabeth Blount - of a first healthy baby son, whom he names Henry Fitzroy.

Episode 3 - A new and important ally sweeps into Henry's court in the form of Charles V, the most powerful man in Europe and nephew to Henry's wife, Katherine of Aragon. To protect the very significant alliance he hopes will aid in his bid for an English role in European affairs, the King is careful not to reveal to Charles the growing distance between himself and the Queen. However, affairs of the heart are more likely to unsettle Henry's resolve as he comes face-to-face for the first time with the beautiful Anne Boleyn. Unbeknownst to the King, he is being seduced by forces more calculating than any young woman.

Episode 4 - While Henry is named "Defender of the Faith" by a Pope grateful for his spiritual and political loyalty, fidelity is scarce in Henry's court. His sister, Princess Margaret, marries the decrepit King of Portugal, only to murder him soon after and returns to the lustful arms of Charles Brandon. The Duke of Norfolk and Sir Thomas Boleyn continue to conspire against Cardinal Wolsey. And the King grows ever more enamored of Anne Boleyn. His increasing disinterest in his Queen, and the realization that he still hasn't produced a legitimate heir to the Tudor dynasty, conjure an urgent desire for radical action.

Episode 5 - Henry is a king of passion and perseverance. Efforts at alliances - both personal and political - face setbacks, but the King remains undeterred. When his ally, Emperor Charles V, releases Francis I, their mutual enemy, from prison, he is stunned - but resolves to redirect his European ambitions. And when Anne Boleyn is insulted by his offer to make her his sole and unique mistress, it merely redoubles his passion and resolve to one day marry her. However, his separation from the most powerful political figure in Europe may prove easier to affect than an annulment from his wife.

Episode 6 - Personal and political allegiances continue to change in Henry's court. The King grows ever more confident in his role as monarch and more enamored of the young Anne Boleyn. Despite Cardinal Wolsey's influence and efforts - and much to the frustration of the King - the Catholic Church seems unable to make progress in Henry's petition for a divorce. This adds to the growing discomfort of the increasingly vulnerable Wolsey.

Episode 7 - Dark days for Tudor England. The mysterious sweating sickness, almost always fatal to those who catch it, runs rampant. A food shortage adds to the suffering. Henry's natural optimism and energy take a beating as the King's confidence gives way to doubt and delusions. But after darkness comes light. The plague begins to disappear and the King receives news that his mistress, Anne Boleyn, has miraculously survived. Even better, an envoy of Pope Clement is on his way to England to finally convene a court which will decide on Henry's request for a divorce.

Episode 8 - Pope Clement's special envoy arrives in
London to oversee the court deciding upon the legitimacy of Henry's marriage to Katherine of Aragon. The findings of this trial will have far-reaching consequences: the future of the King's amorous relationship with Anne Boleyn, Cardinal Wolsey's career and influence, and England's relationship with Rome all hang in the balance.

Episode 9 - Cardinal Wolsey's fall is quick and pitiless. Stripped of office and authority, he is banished from the court and sent far from his much-beloved King. His unlikely successor is Sir Thomas More, a man unlike the overbearing Wolsey in every way but one - his loyalty to Henry.

Episode 10 - Cardinal Wolsey is down but not yet out. Although exiled, he tries to gather last-minute support from his old enemy, Queen Katherine. She hesitantly agrees to his plan, as she finds herself in a situation similar to that of the fallen Cardinal. But their plot is intercepted by the King's new advisors and Wolsey must pay the ultimate price.

Season 2
Episode 1 - Divorce, Tudor style. As the Catholic Church struggles in vain to control Henry VIII's demands for an annulment, the King appoints himself head of the Church of England. A cook is blackmailed into poisoning a high-ranking bishop; then boiled alive for his crime. When Anne Boleyn insists Henry break all contacts with Katherine, the noble Queen is banished from court. The Reformation has begun.

Episode 2 - Christmas at the Tudor court is a time for ringing in the new. Mistress Anne Boleyn has replaced the banished Queen Katherine. The King's chaplin, Thomas Cranmer, makes a fact-finding visit to Lutheran Germany while Henry withdraws both the authority and taxes of the Catholic Church at home. And a royal visit to France finally convinces Anne to consummate her relationship with Henry, even as his best friend Charles Brandon suggests that she is no virgin.

Episode 3 - Henry destroys all ties with authority and the past. After many failed attempts to have his marriage to Katherine annulled by the Catholic Church, Henry runs out of patience and marries Anne Boleyn in secret. He appoints the young Lutheran Thomas Cranmer to the head of the Church of England and strips Queen Katherine of her title and status.

Episode 4 - Questions of faith dominate the court. As the infant Princess Elizabeth is baptised, the 'Act of Succession' is unveiled declaring that only children of Henry and Anne are legitimate successors to the English throne. A law is passed where every Royal subject must take an oath, on pain of death, recognising the validity of the King's new marriage and the supremacy of Henry VIII in all matters.

Episode 5 - Attempts to legitimise the King's marriage and increase his power hit unmovable obstacles as Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher insist that only God can be head of the church. Imprisoned in the Tower of London they face likely execution unless they take the Oath of Allegiance. Meanwhile Henry's wandering eye continues to roam.

Episode 6 - As the Reformation gathers pace Sir Thomas Cromwell becomes ever more powerful as propagandist-in-chief of a new moral order. Royal confidence has given way to doubt. Henry is haunted by the memory of the executed Thomas More while Queen Anne Boleyn's insecurities border on paranoia. Her husband's affairs continue and an effort to have her daughter Elizabeth betrothed to a French royal is disappointed when the French King refuses to recognise that the infant Princess is of legitimate birth.

Episode 7 - As Thomas Cromwell's increasingly ruthless 'reforms' spread terror through an ever more vulnerable Catholic Church, Anne Boleyn has nightmares that her position at the King's side is under threat from the continued existence of former Queen Katherine and her daughter Mary. Meanwhile Henry is occupied by sad news and a happy encounter.

Episode 8 - At Henry's command Jane Seymour is made a lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn, to the discomfort and suspicion of the Queen. When Henry is seriously injured in a jousting match all thoughts turn to who might succeed him. There will be far-reaching consequences if Anne's pregnancy does not deliver a healthy son.

Episode 9 - Anne has lost a son and with it her last chance at a lasting marriage with Henry. The King's affections are shifting anyway: the Seymour family are awarded rooms at court and seem likely to replace the Boleyns as royal favourites. Several in the court begin to move against Anne who is accused of adultery. Arrests are made of suspected lovers and of Anne herself. All, including the Queen, are sentenced to death.

Episode 10 - Endings and beginnings. As Anne Boleyn awaits her death, painfully delayed by the executioner's late arrival, Henry visits Jane Seymour and asks for her hand in marriage. Declaring his marriage to Anne null and void means that their daughter Elizabeth becomes illegitimate and is no longer in line to the throne - clearing the way for a legitimate heir to come from his marriage with Jane. Henry begins this momentous event with a magnificent breakfast at which is served a dish reserved for the English King alone: an exquisite roasted swan.

Season 3
Episode 1 -In episode 301, the third season premiere, Henry VIII weds a third time, to shy, demure noblewoman Jane Seymour - a union that he and his advisors pray will result in a male heir; once-loyal subjects rebel against Henry's crusade against Catholicism.

Episode 2 -In episode 302, the rebellion now known as the "Pilgrimage of Grace" begins in earnest, with Henry dispatching Brandon to deal with the uprising; bedridden due to the recurrence of his jousting injury, Henry takes a new mistress: Lady Ursula Misseldon.

Episode 3 -In episode 303, Henry reconciles with his estranged daughters Mary and Elizabeth in time for the Christmas holidays, but betrays and brutally suppresses the rebellion against him after making conciliatory promises to the uprising's leaders.

Episode 4 -In episode 304, the leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace uprising are put to death, but Brandon is disturbed by the cruelty and mercilessness of the suppression; Henry celebrates the birth of a son but his joy is short-lived as Queen Jane dies within days.

Episode 5 -In episode 305, Henry remains in seclusion while mourning the queen's death, an opportunity that enemies of the crown seize to murder several friends of the court; Cromwell is disturbed when Henry doesn't resist his new church's similarities to Catholicism.

Episode 6 -In episode 306, matchmaking begins in earnest as Cromwell schemes to secure the Reformation by marrying Henry to a Protestant wife - but the king's marital reputation precedes him; the condition of Henry's wounded leg turns life-threatening.

Episode 7 -In episode 307, war looms with France and Spain aligning against England with backing from Rome, so Henry agrees to a politically fortuitous marriage with Anne of Cleves (Joss Stone), a plain and unsophisticated German aristocrat he has never met.

Episode 8 -In episode 308, Henry moves swiftly to annul his loveless marriage to Anne of Cleves, and beds a new mistress, 17-year-old Katherine Howard; Princess Mary falls in love with Duke Philip of Bavaria; Cromwell's fall from favor is sudden and dramatic.

Season 4
Episode 1
A long hot summer, thirty years into the reign of King Henry VIII, and well into middle age, Henry takes his fifth wife, Katherine Howard. The Queen's "low background" combined with her youth and beauty, arouses a lusty familiarity in certain members of King Henry's court most notably his handsome young servant Thomas Culpepper.

Episode 2
Thomas Culpepper - Henry VIII's newest servant - continues to make eyes at his King's young bride, Katherine Howard. Her servant suggests seduction. While the King shows his age by going to bed early during the Christmas celebration the young but not so innocent members of his court party on.

Episode 3
Buoyed by the happiness that a young wife brings an aging man, Henry is noticeably more tolerant and forgiving than he once was. Such goodwill is well appreciated by the peasants of the North who gratefully accept Henry's forgiveness for the Pilgrimage of Grace revolt, during a Royal visit. But the King's benevolence may yet be tested by his new Queen: Katherine Howard has submitted to seduction by the young and handsome Thomas Culpepper.

Episode 4
Rejuvenated by his tour of the north of England, Henry feels a new man and longs after his new Queen; unaware that her affections are diverted elsewhere. Katherine's past begins to catch up as an old liaison comes looking for a job threatening to reveal all about their sexual history. Someone beats him to it when an anonymous letter is sent to the King containing accusations of adultery. Although unconvinced of the rumor, Henry confines Katherine to her apartments pending a thorough investigation.

Episode 5
Lord Hertford's investigation into allegations of the Queen's infidelities moves with speed. Deeply upset by revelations of his beloved young wife's sexual past, Henry weeps. But once adultery is uncovered, his response is swift and decisive.

Episode 6
Unmarried once more Henry reflects on his dynasty and orders a new Act of Parliament which restores the succession rights of his two daughters, the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth. His roving eye undaunted by age or experience, he notices the attractive soon-to-be widow Catherine Parr. After the disastrous mismatch of his last marriage a mature woman is just what he needs.

Episode 7
Henry marries Catherine Parr - his sixth and final wife. A loving step-mother and compassionate companion, Catherine is liked and respected by all at court save the Catholic Bishop Gardiner who suspects her to be a heretic. Henry prepares to invade France.

Episode 8
The siege of Boulogne is a long, expensive and difficult military campaign that is finally won by Henry's troops at great financial and human cost. Rejuvenated, Henry rejects the idea of marching on to further conquests, preferring to return to England in triumph.

Episode 9
Henry VIII's health is on the slide: the recent siege of Boulogne has taken its toll on his aging body and his ulcerous leg is constantly in pain. Bishop Gardiner and the Catholic Church are once again in the ascendant at court but, tired of conflict, Henry demonstrates little enthusiasm for the ambitious Bishop's accusation that Catherine Parr is a heretic.

Episode 10
Henry's thoughts turn to his own mortality with the news that his long-time friend and sometimes foe King Francis, and his unshakable soldier Charles Brandon, are each dying. As he faces death, Henry encounters the ghosts of his former wives who each get a chance to confront him. Hans Holbein paints a last, iconic portrait of the Tudor King.

Series 1

Written by Michael Hirst
Directed by Steve Shill, Ciaran Donnelly, Brian Kirk, Alison Maclean,Charles MacDougal
Produced by Gary Howsam, James Flynn
Executive Produced by Steve Shill, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Michael Hirst
Original Music by Trevor Morris
Cinematography by Ousama Rawi
Film Editing by Wendy Hallam martin, Lisa Grootenboer

Series 2

Written by Michael Hirst
Directed by Ciaran Donnelly, Jon Amiel, Colm McCarthy, Jeremy Podeswa, Dearbhla Walsh
Executive Produced by Sheila Hockin
Original Music by Trevor Morris
Cinematography by Ousama Rawi
Film Editing by Lisa Grootenboer, Wendy Hallam Martin
Costume Design by Joan Bergin

Series 3

Directed by Ciaran Donnelly
Written by Michael Hirst
Executive Produced by Sheila Hockin
Original Music by Trevor Morris
Cinematography by Ousama Rawi
Film Editing by Lisa Grootenboer

Series 4

Directed by Ciaran Donnelly, Jeremy Podeswa, Dearbhla Walsh
Written by Michael Hirst
Produced by James Flynn, Gary Howsam
Executive Produced by Sheila Hockin, Michael Hirst
Original Music by Trevor Morris
Cinematography by Ousama Rawi, Des Whelan
Film Editing by Lisa Grootenboer

Emmy Awards ®
2007 -Outstanding Costumes for a Series - Joan Bergin, Ger Scully, Jessica O'Leary
2007 -Outstanding Original Main Title theme Music - Trevor Morris