Henry Viii

When put his second wife, Anne Boleyn, to death, he clearly was not considering the deleterious effect it would have on the Showtime series "The Tudors." Although such self-centered shortsightedness is the historic right of princes, it's a bit of a drag for the show's fans.

Gilt A Novel Katherine Longshore Penguin: 416 pp., $17.99, ages 12 and up King Henry the Eighth, to six wives he was wedded. One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded. If there's anyone in history who personifies the treacheries of marriage, it's King Henry VIII of England, who is best known for the beheadings he inflicted during a reign of nearly 38 years. What led to such a barbaric punishment for the sexual indiscretions of his betrothed is the central theme of "Gilt," which tells the fictionalized history of wife No. 5: Catherine Howard, "the forgotten daughter of the forgotten third son of the man who had once been Duke of Norfolk," writes novelist Katherine Longshore.

King Henry VIII, renowned for his appetite for women and power, was killed by his craving for meat, a historian has concluded. Susan Maclean Kybett, writing in the September issue of History Today, contends that Henry died in 1547 of scurvy, a disease caused by a lack of fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin C. The king, Kybett said, displayed a number of symptoms of scurvy: swollen, ulcerated legs, bad breath, frequent colds, constipation, lethargy, forgetfulness, bloating and wild mood swings.

Bring Up the Bodies A Novel Hilary Mantel Henry Holt: 432 pp., $28 Hilary Mantel's novel about the Tudor political puppet-master supremo Thomas Cromwell, "Wolf Hall," winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize for fiction, was so richly packed with character and action that it was bound to burst its banks. Originally intended to take Cromwell through the four years that it took him to fall from the pinnacle of power (where we left him at the end of "Wolf Hall") to his own appointment with the executioner's ax, "Bring Up the Bodies" forms the middle volume of what is to be a trilogy.

Re "The Marching Order" (Jan. 15): In the sidebar, Henry VIII's sixth wife, Catherine Parr, is listed as a firstborn over a paragraph that reads, "She was the only firstborn and the only one to outlive him. The wives who lost their heads tended to be laterborns and outspoken." Catherine Parr was not the only one of Henry's wives to survive him. Anne of Cleves (wife No. 4, divorced after six months) not only survived Henry, she also outlived Catherine Parr and Henry's son, Edward VI. The two wives who lost their heads did not do so because of their outspokenness.

Even now, marrying royals is a calculated risk, but at least the odds of surviving the experience have improved considerably during the last four centuries. These days, if matters go badly, you'll lose the perks but keep your head. Although four of the six wives of Henry VIII managed to keep theirs in place, only Anna of Cleves and Catherine Parr seemed to have enjoyed life after Henry.

A professor at the College of William and Mary has identified one of the most important documents ever found on the history of the Tudor monarchy--the complete account of a vast hoard of money disbursed by Henry VIII from a secret treasury at Westminster Palace.

A raging fire today gutted a wing of Hampton Court Palace, a sprawling country residence of kings and queens dating from the reign of Henry VIII, killing one person and damaging some art treasures. Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by her heir, Prince Charles, and her sister, Princess Margaret, visited the palace after the fire was under control to inspect the damage. A body believed to be that of Lady Daphne Gale, 86, widow of Gen.

Because of--or perhaps in spite of--"A Christmas Carol," the popular image of an Old English Christmas is tied to Victorian London. Joseph Huszti and his students in the music department at UC Irvine offer a re-creation of an older and merrier celebration from the court of Henry VIII in "Christmas Eve 1542," their annual madrigal dinner at the campus Fine Arts Village Theater.

"The Tudors," which comes bearing down Sunday on Showtime, gives us the court of Henry VIII filtered through the spirit and aesthetics of 21st century premium cable television. Even were one unaware that it was exactly the pitch originally made to screenwriter Michael Hirst (of the Cate Blanchett big-screen "Elizabeth"), the conceptual connection to "The Sopranos" is easy to work out. "Rome" and "Deadwood" will also forgivably spring to mind.

If you've been eagerly awaiting the new season of "Game of Thrones," which starts Sunday on HBO, Thomas Penn's "Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England" (Simon & Schuster: 448 pp., $30) offered an ideal way to bide your time (if you weren't already busy rereading parts of George R.R. Martin's saga). Compared with the maneuvering of Starks, Lannisters and other houses in Martin's epic, Penn's book presents readers with the world of realpolitik as it was played out in the earliest years of the Tudor dynasty.

Katherine Parr Complete Works and Correspondence Edited by Janel Mueller University of Chicago Press: 648 pp., $65 One of the difficulties of studying Tudor and medieval women is the silence they have left. Medieval people did not write nearly as much as historians would wish, and medieval women hardly wrote at all. This is why a scholarly edition of Katherine Parr's "Complete Works and Correspondence," edited by Janel Mueller, is such a joy. Here we have one of Henry VIII's queens — the one who survived him — in her own words, making laws as regent of England, writing confessional prayers or short childish notes as a little girl: Uncle, when you do on this look, I pray you remember who wrote this in your book.

Henry VIII, infamous husband to six wives, had a gargantuan appetite. Stuffed swans, blackbirds baked in a pie or the more usual roasted haunch of venison all appeared on the royal table. Now the recently restored Tudor kitchens in one of Henry’s favorite palaces, Hampton Court, southwest of London , is offering free online cooking lessons , recipes and historical tidbits about a 500-year-old cuisine.  Three of Henry’s favorite dishes are featured: ryschewys close and fryez (sweet and spicy Christmas dumplings)

You should talk about "Carlos. " Directed by Olivier Assayas, the 51/2-hour film (Don't worry, it'll air as a three-part miniseries) about the terrorist Carlos the Jackal will air on the Sundance Channel. The film stars Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez ("The Bourne Ultimatum") as Carlos, who was linked to a series of bombings, attacks and kidnappings in the 1970s and '80s. And, hey, it's slightly more thought-provoking than watching "The Real Housewives of Atlanta. " (Monday)

Anne Boleyn Fatal Attractions G.W. Bernard Yale University Press: 238 pp., $30 This is a disturbing book for the reader of Tudor history, as it carefully analyzes and then demolishes many of the statements that we are accustomed to taking as facts about the life of Anne Boleyn. Indeed, any student of any history will feel the earth shake slightly as G.W. Bernard boldly states the open secret: that most of the written record is hopelessly biased, based on gossip and speculation, that witnesses lie and that historians seek their own version of events.

Remember Sir Thomas More in HBO's "The Tudors"? The good guy who had his head chopped off by Henry VIII for challenging the king's will? This scholar wrote a philosophical tale about an island called Utopia, far from England, where a fair and equitable society lived without poverty, the tyranny of a standing army and rebarbative lawyers. At times of optimistic faith in social progress, Americans have turned to the Utopian writings of More and others. Henry Thoreau, the Quakers and the Shakers were enlightened thinkers who built houses and towns as models of a perfected world.

BY NOW, it's hard not to think of Henry VIII as the smoldering monarch. As played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers in Showtime's "The Tudors," young Henry may as well be a rock star. This king's got chiseled cheekbones, a protruding pout, piercing blue eyes and a vigorous sex life -- Henry and second wife Anne Boleyn claw lustfully at each other's backs in bed until blood is drawn. The extra libido worked.

The lights dimmed and the sound of a somber, muffled drum roll filled the great hall. All eyes turned toward the balcony, where a spotlight focused on a court crier who announced: "The king is dead. Long live the king!" This bit of royal good news-bad news echoed throughout the cavernous room as members of the court, dressed in their flamboyant finery, repeated the crier's announcement: "The king is dead. Long live the king!"

These days, Thomas Cromwell is probably best known through James Frain's portrayal of him in the popular Showtime series "The Tudors": a brooding, black-clad figure in a popped collar who engineers Henry VIII's marriages and dissolves the monasteries before his career ends in one of the series' most horrifically unforgettable scenes. This shrewd political fixer is the protagonist -- though in a completely different guise -- in Hilary Mantel's ambitious new novel, "Wolf Hall," which was awarded the 2009 Man Booker Prize for fiction earlier this week.

The prestigious Man Booker Prize was awarded Tuesday to Hilary Mantel for "Wolf Hall," her historical fiction of Henry VIII's court. It is scheduled to be released in the United States next week. Mantel was considered the odds-on favorite going into Tuesday's ceremony in London and beat out shortlisted authors A.S. Byatt, J.M. Coetzee, Adam Foulds, Simon Mawer and Sarah Waters. She will receive $83,500. In Mantel's telling, historical tropes get a freshening-up. Cromwell is more bureaucrat than revolutionary, Sir Thomas More is not the heroic man of faith as we've come to know and Henry VIII is not the virile sex fiend of Showtime's "The Tudors."