New Exhibition sheds light on Henry VIII’s wives, starting with the King himself

An exhibition about six women opens with a portrait of a man, reminding us of the overbearing thread linking the women — King Henry VIII and his wives.

The wives, critical to the story of the King and the reformation in England, are often relegated to bit parts in the narrative, but without them, England’s fortunes would have been very different. There might not have been a break with Rome, Spanish Armarda, or union with Scotland.

To try to rebalance the scales a bit, the National Portrait Gallery is examining the Queens to give them a bit more prominence than is usually accorded to them. Each Queen gets a room to herself, with a handful of other rooms telling related stories. Meanwhile, that brooding portrait of the King glares down the corridor at his ex-wives.

While images of the King are many, it turns out that of the Queens rather fewer exist, and even then, researchers aren’t entirely sure if the portrait is of the person it claims to be. That renders the exhibition more of a detective story and mystery, preserving some ambiguity about what you are looking at. It lets you play a little with the imagination.

With so few confirmed portraits, the exhibition has wisely collected a wider range of objects to tell the stories, ranging from books to letters to drawings. These do more than most to show off the person behind the crown and put some flesh onto the myths.

There is also a room devoted to how the Queens were portrayed in modern media, from the costumes designed for the 1970 BBC drama The Six Wives of Henry VIII through to SIX, the modern musical that takes a rather different approach to telling their story.

A curious gripe about the show is that, in a way, it’s too thin about each Queen, thanks to the dearth of material to use, but it felt a bit overwhelming as an exhibition with almost too much to want to look at in detail.

Blame Henry for that. If only he had stuck to two or three wives.

The exhibition Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens is at the National Portrait Gallery until September 2024.

Tickets can be bought from here.

Adult:  £23.50 | Concessions: £18.90 | Senior: £10.50 | Child 12-18: £10.50 | Art Pass: £10.50

Related, Hever Castle in Kent has refurbished the Anne Boleyn rooms for this summer.