Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII's Queens

This series reminds us that these highly mythologized historical figures were actually people, and provides a nice counterpoint to the towering royal portrait of Henry himself, an archetypal image of patriarchal power.–Jo Lawson-Tancred “Artnet”It’s a spectacular six-century display, from the portraits – fluid, vivid, as present as a gasp of breath – with which Hans Holbein defined this age of knights and bishops, to the glittery punk-meets-Tudor spandex and vinyl sequinned costumes for Six.–Jackie Wullschläger “Financial Times”

Charlotte Bolland is Senior Curator, Research, and 16th Century Collections at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Among other publications, she authored The Tudors: Passion, Power and Politics (National Portrait Gallery, 2022) and Tudor and Jacobean Portraits (National Portrait Gallery, 2018), and co-authored with Tarnya Cooper The Encounter: Drawings from Leonardo to Rembrandt (National Portrait Gallery, 2017).

Suzannah Lipscomb is Professor Emerita of History at the University of Roehampton and Senior Member at St Cross College, Oxford. She has written and edited seven books and is an established television presenter. She hosts the History Hit podcast, ‘Not Just the Tudors’. Her next book, The Six: A New History of Henry VIII’s Queens will be published in Autumn 2025.

Other contributors include Nicola Clark, Brett Dolman, Alden Gregory, Benjamin Hebbert, Nicola Tallis, and Valerie Schutte.