His co-star is Helena Bonham Carter who played Henry VIII's second wife, Anne Boleyn; her character dominates the first episode and her dramatic death brings the first part of the story to its conclusion.

Elsewhere at Hever Castle in Kent the Boleyn Family celebrate the engagement of their daughter Anne to Henry Percy the future Earl of Northumberland.

The head of the family the Duke of Norfolk assures her father, Thomas Boleyn, that he has the king's ear on the match and that he will give them permission to marry.

But once the roving eye of the king falls upon Anne, he quickly finds a reason for the marriage to be cancelled and wastes no time in persuading her for himself, even riding from his secluded coastal castle to Kent during an outbreak of illness.

Resolved that Anne will not become his mistress, but his wife, the King instructs his chancellor Cardinal Wolsey to find a way for his marriage to his devoted wife to be annulled, prompting two opportunistic Protestants reformers, Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer, to provide a way for the king to marry Anne Boleyn and bring untold wealth to his pocket but only if he breaks with the Catholic Church.

Instead of the longed for son and heir, Anne delivers a daughter, Elizabeth, and Henry's ardor cools towards her, even more so when he meets the sister of two of his courtiers, Jane Seymour.

Seeing the decline of Protestant influence, the Duke of Norfolk devises a way to snatch the reins of power and arranges for his teenage niece Catherine Howard to enchant the increasingly obese and terrifying King and to eventually marry him.

It soon transpires that the young Queen has a promiscuous history and is having an affair with a man in the king's service which the Protestant reformers seize as their opportunity to rid themselves of the Catholic faction.

With the demise of Catholic peers the reformers take the opportunity to consolidate their power, enhanced by the wedding of the king to Catherine Parr who attempts to unite the royal family.

[1] Granada Television's controller of drama Andy Harries could secure only £750,000 for each hour of Henry VIII from ITV, so had to attract co-production funding from other companies.

CBS executives wanted to replace Helena Bonham Carter with Sarah Michelle Gellar and dub all of the actors' voices with American accents.