Okay this is just my humble opinion, but I started watching “The Tudors” mini series. Despite the handsome Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry the VIII, the back room political machinations of Sam Neill as Cardinal Wolsey and all the lusty costumed sex scenes, I fell asleep mid way through the second episode. I just wasn’t buying it. I did not get the sense from Henry’s character of how stubborn, reckless and ultimately dangerous a man he would become. He could have been any spoiled frat boy, merely annoying or inconvenient in his behavior, not someone whose indiscretions would effect the entire world.
For my money the PBS series “The Six Wives of Henry the VIII” is a better reflection of the life and loves of the Tudor king. Phillipa Gregory’s “The Boleyn Inheritance” is an absolutely hair raising portrait of life with Henry the VIII and how for his queens it required a combination of political savvy and luck to keep their heads.
