The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Their Representation in The Tudors TV Series

Abstract

There may be only a few scholarly works which merely and exclusively focus on all the six women’s lives and fates and there may be even fewer which aim to challenge the stereotypical labels attached to them. Therefore, it should be interesting to approach them as individual subjects, and not simply as The Betrayed Wife, The Temptress, The Good Woman, the Ugly Sister, The Bad Girl and The Mother Figure. Thus, the object of this paper is to illuminate and compare the illustration of the six wives offered by The Tudors to these stereotypes and to the historical facts pertaining to them. I shall argue that the series might mostly utilize the prejudices while sometimes succeeds in enhancing their other characteristics as well.