About this show

Passion and ambition collide as a young King Henry VIII navigates treason and desire on his path to greatness. From the beginning of his 40-year hold on power, Henry’s voracious appetites and lack of interest in the affairs of state makes him ripe for exploitation by his scheming Chancellor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, whose papal ambitions dominate his personal agenda. But King Henry’s desire for a male heir, and his wife Catherine of Aragon’s inability to produce one, set his empire on an historic course that threatens his authority, fosters the rise of Anne Boleyn, a mistress determined to be the new queen, and sparks a bloody Protestant Reformation that undermines the primacy of the Catholic Church in Europe. Despite challenges from a powerful Pope in Rome, ambitious and corrupt monarchs across the continent and even his own subjects, Henry will stop at nothing, including exiling and killing those closest to him, to get what he wants.