Mary is attracted to Anne’s cousin Philip of Bavaria but he is a Protestant and so marriage is impossible. Henry tires of Anne and Bryan procures 17-year old Katherine Howard to ‘amuse’ him. He gives her jewels and Nonsuch Palace. She gives him her cherry. Henry seeks to prove the marriage to Anne is void but Cromwell will not support him. A group of conspirators jealous of Cromwell – including Gardner and Brandon – have him arrested for treason on the grounds that he permitted heretic preachings. He is beheaded in a grotesque execution by a drunken headsman who botches the killing, appalling even his foes.Simultaneously Anne is told that her marriage is illegal but she is to be known as “the king’s sister” and will be given property and an annuity. Henry Tudor is now free to marry Katherine.
With a French fleet in the Channel, England needs an alliance with the Protestant League, hence Cromwell’s endorsement of a wedding to German Anne of Cleves though the king is disappointed that she is less beautiful than her portrait, which fact reflects badly on Cromwell, who urged Holbein to lie in his painting. Brandon and Edward Seymour are amused at Cromwell’s discomfort. Mary, a Catholic, is less than cordial to her new stepmother, though Elizabeth favours her. The king’s putrid leg wound means that Anne finds him equally repulsive in bed whilst Bryan’s obsessive pursuit of Pole once more ends in predictable and comedic failure.
A paranoid king has Pole’s relations executed for treason as he looks for a new wife. Front runners are Christine,Duchess of Milan, who sensibly rejects Henry, having heard how vile he is, and Anne, Duchess of Cleves, who is Cromwell’s favourite as she is a staunch Protestant. Oily Bishop Gardner splits on Protestant ‘heretic’ John Lambert, who is killed for his beliefs and who is a friend of Cromwell, whom the bishop tries, unsuccessfully, to incriminate.Based on Holborn’s portraits of Anne and her sister, the king opts for Anne as his bride.
Devastated by Jane’s death, Henry locks himself away, drawing fantasy palaces, with caustic court jester Will Sommers as his sole companion. Edward is brought up in maximum security at Hampton Court, whilst Henry’s daughters move to the country. Pole continues to escape Bryan’s assassination attempts and takes sanctuary with Cardinal Von Waldberg but in England courtiers are being murdered and Brandon, still afflicted by the massacre of the Pilgrimage of Grace, blames Cromwell. Emerging from seclusion the king presents his “six articles” for the basis of a new,revised church. To Cromwell’s dismay they resemble a thinly-veiled return to Roman Catholicism. Henry has a last tumble with Lady Ursula, who leaves the court to be wed.
Aske is hanged in chains. Henry learns that Pole is attacking him in writing from the safety of the French court and sends Bryan to arrest him but he has already fled. A reluctant Brandon is forced by the king to kill many innocents in Yorkshire as an example to scare would-be rebels. He is sickened at what he has been made to do and haunted by his victims. Jane is also sickened when she learns how Cromwell – and her husband – have benefited financially from the closure of the abbeys. Suitors are put forward for Mary, a Portuguese alliance being favoured. Jane gives birth to a son but dies shortly afterwards.
Henry spends Christmas with Mary, now declared legitimate again, and her ex-nanny, the mother of Reginald Pole. Jane and Mary also reconcile him with daughter Elizabeth. Another guest is Robert Aske, whom the king promises a Northern parliament, based in York. Aske’s followers do not believe him and resume the Pilgrimage but they are crushed and the leaders hanged, Aske being imprisoned. Brandon is guilt-ridden and feels Henry has betrayed them, giving Cromwell the chance to lord it over him. Henry however rejoices in Jane’s recently declared pregnancy.
Even being told that Henry has taken a mistress, Jane is confident his love is hers alone, finally being with child. Cromwell enjoys, and immensely profits from, falsely claiming that Charles failed to repress the rebellion with ‘only’ 74 executions. The duke’s son, Brandon, understands he has no choice but break his word and ends many more lives. Bryan takes Jane’s junior son, Thomas, along on his mission to demand cardinal Pole’s extradition from France or seize him otherwise. Henry gets his son, Edward, at a horribly high price.
In 1536, Henry VIII, now age 45 (but still looking 30), marries Jane Seymour. She is known to have Catholic sympathies and, with Imperial ambassador Chapuys, helps reconcile Mary with her father, though Mary must sign a paper to declare that she is illegitimate. Jane’s brother Thomas and one-eyed Francis Bryan are given posts at court. Meanwhile, Cromwell and his henchman, Rich, order the destruction of monasteries in Yorkshire, giving their treasures to the king. Protesters led by lawyer Robert Aske embark upon the Pilgrimage of Grace, a peaceful rebellion against Cromwell’s actions and other social grievances, gathering strength as they march south. Henry sends Brandon with an army to meet them.
Jane Seymour’s brother, Edward, is appointed a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber. Anne believes she can still marry off Elizabeth to France and repel the Seymours, but Cromwell is only following Royal orders to get rid of the Boleyns and switch to the imperial side, as her father Thomas senses. They believe to have triumphed when Henry refuses Chapuys’s discrete alliance offer, but Cromwell tortures musician Mark Smeaton into a false confession of adultery with Anne. Brereton confesses to ensure the Queen’s death, Sir Henry Norris and her own brother George Boleyn are equally found guilty and precede her beheading, only Thomas Wyatt is -wrongly- acquitted.
