Cultural depictions of Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII of England and his reign have been depicted in art, film, literature, music, opera, plays, and television

Art

• Lucas de Heere: The Family of Henry VIII
• Hans Eworth: Henry VIII (c. 1545)
• Hans Holbein the Younger: Portrait of Henry VIII, The Dynasty Portrait, and Henry VIII and the Barber-Surgeons (1540)
• Lucas Horenbout: Untitled Miniature of King Henry (c. 1526)
• Daniel Maclise: Henry Meeting Anne at Hampton Court
• Guido Mazzoni: Untitled Bust of Prince Henry (c. 1498)
• Joos van Cleve: Henry VIII (c. 1535)
• Willard Wigan: The Six Wives of Henry VIII

Film

• Aladdin and the Adventure of All Time: Jim Cummings and Stuart Pankin
• Anna Boleyn: Emil Jannings
• Anne of the Thousand Days: Richard Burton
• Book Revue: Mel Blanc
• Cardinal Wolsey (1912): Tefft Johnson
• Carry On Henry: Sid James
• Crossed Swords: Charlton Heston
• God's Outlaw: Keith Barron
• Henry the Ache (1934, Short): Bert Lahr
• Henry VIII (1911): Arthur Bourchier
• Henry VIII and His Six Wives: Keith Michell
• Inside Llewyn Davis: Llewyn performs a song about Henry and Jane Seymour for Grossman
• Intolerable Cruelty: Miles references Henry
• A Man for All Seasons: Robert Shaw (for which Shaw was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor)
• Monarch (2000): T.P. McKenna
• The Other Boleyn Girl: Eric Bana
• Pearls of the Crown: Lyn Harding
• The Prince and the Pauper (1920): Albert Schreiber
• The Prince and the Pauper (1937): Montagu Love
• The Private Life of Henry VIII: Charles Laughton (for which Laughton won the Academy Award for Best Actor)
• The Sword and the Rose: James Robertson Justice
• Tudor Rose (aka Nine Days A Queen): Frank Cellier
• U.F.O.: Rusty Goffe
• When Knighthood Was in Flower: Lyn Harding
• Young Bess: Charles Laughton

Literature

• Suzannah Dunn: The Confessions of Katherine Howard, The Queen of Subtleties, and The Sixth Wife
• Carolly Erickson: The First Elizabeth, Mistress Anne, and The Last Wife of Henry VIII
• Antonia Fraser: The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1993)
• Margaret George: The Autobiography of Henry VIII
• Philippa Gregory: The Other Boleyn Girl
• Diane Haeger: The Secret Bride, The Queen's Mistake, The Queen's Rival, I, Jane
• Cynthia Harrod-Eagles: The Morland Dynasty, and "The Dark Rose"
• Virginia Henley: A Woman of Passion
• Eleanor Hibbert: Shadow of the Pomegranate, Katharine the Virgin Widow, King's Secret Matter, The Lady in the Tower: The Wives of Henry VIII, Murder Most Royal, Mary, Queen of France, St. Thomas's Eve, and The Sixth Wife
• Ivery Kirk, Luna Teague: One Does Not Simply Walk into Tudor
• Charles Major: When Knighthood Was in Flower
• Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror and the Light
• Maureen Peters: Henry VIII and His Six Wives (a novelization of the 1972 film)
• C. J. Sansom: Dissolution, Dark Fire and Sovereign
• David Starkey: Non-Fiction - Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII, The Reign of Henry VIII: The Personalities and Politics, Monarchy: From the Middle Ages to Modernity, Henry: Virtuous Prince, Henry: Model of a Tyrant, Henry VIII: A European Court in England
• Shelly Talcott: Fall of the House of Queens: Book One of the Shattered Rose Series[1]
• Mark Twain: The Prince and the Pauper
• Alison Weir: Non-Fiction - Henry VIII: The King and His Court, Elizabeth the Queen/The Life of Elizabeth I, Children of England: The Heirs of King Henry VIII, and The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and Fiction - The Lady Elizabeth, Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen, Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession, Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen, and Anna of Kleve: Queen of Secrets

Music

• Bert Lee: "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm" co-written with R. P. Weston; recorded by Stanley Holloway, The Kingston Trio, The Barron Knights, and Rudy Vallee
• David Munrow: Henry VIII and His Six Wives (soundtrack album)
• Rick Wakeman: The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and The Six Wives of Henry VIII Live at Hampton Court Palace
• R. P. Weston: "I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am"; recorded by Harry Champion, Joe Brown, and Herman's Hermits

Opera

• Gaetano Donizetti: Anna Bolena
• Camille Saint-Saëns: Henri VIII

Plays

• Maxwell Anderson: Anne of the Thousand Days, originally played by Rex Harrison
• Robert Bolt: A Man for All Seasons (1960), originally played by Richard Leech
• Howard Brenton: Anne Boleyn, originally played by Anthony Howell
• Pedro Calderón de la Barca: La cisma de Inglaterra/The Schism in England
• Mike Poulton: Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies (aka Wolf Hall Parts One & Two), originally played by Nathaniel Parker
• William Shakespeare: The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth

Radio

• A Man for All Seasons (David Scase, BBC Radio 4, 1959)
• A Man for All Seasons (Brian Cox, BBC Radio 4, 2006)[2]
• Crowned Hudds: "Fourth Wedding and Some Funerals" (John Glover, BBC Radio 2, 1995)[3]
• Henry VIII (Matthew Marsh, BBC Radio 3, 2009)[4]
• The Ghostbuster Diaries: "My Three Ladies" (Paul Darrow, BBC Radio 4, 2011)[5]
• The Six Mothers-in-Law of Henry VIII (Jonathan Coy, BBC Radio 4, 2003)[6]

Television

• A Man for All Seasons (Martin Chamberlain)
• Bewitched: "How Not to Lose Your Head to Henry VIII, Parts 1 & 2" (Ronald Long)
• Disneyland: "The Prince and the Pauper" (Paul Rogers)
• DuPont Show of the Month: "The Prince and the Pauper" (Douglas Campbell)
• Henry VIII (John Stride)
• Henry VIII (2000) (Philippe Rouillon)
• Henry VIII (Ray Winstone, Sid Mitchell)
• Henry VIII at Shakespeare's Globe (2012) (Dominic Rowan)
• Henry VIII: Mind of a Tyrant (Laurence Spellman)
• Histeria!: "The Terrible Tudors" (1998)
• Horrible Histories (Ben Willbond/Rowan Atkinson)
• I Dream of Jeannie: "The Girl Who Never Had a Birthday, Part 2" (Jack Fife)
• Inside the Court of Henry VIII (2015) (John Sandeman)
• The Madness of Henry VIII: National Geographic Channel (Dan Astileanu)
• The Nearly Complete and Utter History of Everything (1999) (Brian Blessed)
• Omnibus: "The Trial of Anne Boleyn" (Rex Harrison)
• The Other Boleyn Girl (Jared Harris)
• The Prince and the Pauper (1976) (Ronald Radd)
• The Prince and the Pauper (1996) (Keith Michell)
• The Prince and the Pauper (2000) (Alan Bates)
• Relic Hunter: "The Royal Ring" (Michael Hofland)
• Rose Without A Thorn (1958) (Kevin Brennan)
• The Simpsons: "Margical History Tour" (Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson)
• Six Wives with Lucy Worsley (2016) (Scott Arthur)
• The Six Wives of Henry VIII (Keith Michell)
• The Six Wives of Henry VIII (2001) (Chris Larkin and Andy Rashleigh)
• The Tudors (Jonathan Rhys Meyers)
• Wolf Hall (2015) (Damian Lewis)
• The White Princess (2017) (Woody Norman)
• The Spanish Princess (2019) (Ruairi O'Connor)

See also

• List of William Shakespeare screen adaptations

References

1. https://www.amazon.com/Fall-House-Queens-Book-Shattered/dp/1514807297/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1552677870&sr=1-1
2. https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/7eb635f82fdd4f8a9b72fdec8711a322
3. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00psrfz
4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00js7zb
5. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jyc9
6. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06hcbvs

Further reading

• Kratochvil, Eva. Crafting the Royal Image: Censorship and Portrayals of the Tudor Dynasty under Henry VIII (MA thesis, Concordia University, 2016) online; bibliography pp 65–72.
• Lipscomb, Suzannah. "A King Caught on Camera." History Today (April 2016), Vol. 66 Issue 4, pp 48+
• Monk, Claire, and Amy Sargeant, ed. British Historical Cinema (Routledge, 2015).
• Parrill, Sue, and William B. Robison, The Tudors on Film and Television (McFarland, 2013). ISBN 978-0786458912.
• Rankin, Mark, Christopher Highley, and John N. King, eds. Henry VIII and his afterlives: literature, politics, and art (Cambridge UP, 2009).
• Street, Sarah. "Stepping Westward: the distribution of British feature films in America, and the case of the ‘Private Life of Henry VIII’" in Justine Ashby and Andrew Higson eds. British Cinema: Past and Present (2000).

External links

• https://web.archive.org/web/20161101075449/http://www.tudorsonfilm.com/
• King Henry VIII Character Page