Six Lives: Henry VIII's Queens

Talking History with Patrick Geoghegan

In this episode of Talking History: the women who married Henry VIII have come to be encapsulated in a six-word rhyme - divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. But what were their real lives and legacies? A new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, called Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII's Queens, charts and reveals the extraordinary stories of Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr.

Joining Patrick to discuss this is Dr Charlotte Bolland, curator of the exhibition, and the Gallery’s Senior Curator of Research and 16th Century Collections, managing the display of the collection in the Tudor galleries; Dr Nikki Clark, who wrote the essay in the catalogue about Ladies in Waiting, and is the author of The Waiting Game: The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens and Gender, Family, and Politics: The Howard Women, 1485–1558; and Dr Nicola Tallis, who wrote the essay about the Queens’ Jewels in the catalogue, and has published All the Queen’s Jewels, 1445–1548: Power, Majesty and Display.