Desperate for an heir, England's King Henry VIII shuns his wife Queen Katherine and casts his eye on the alluring Anne Boleyn, while Cardinal Wolsey's loyalty to the Catholic Church and the Pope strains his relationship to the king.

Henry quickly embraces Lutheran ideas, breaks with the Church, and marries Anne Boleyn, but Brandon sows seeds of doubt about his new queen's fidelity in the king's mind; a loyalty oath pits Henry against his mentor Thomas More.

Henry's marriage to Jane Seymour is happy, fruitful and tragically short; the king brutally suppresses a rebellion against his religious reforms; England, Spain and the Pope ally against England, forcing Henry to marry a Protestant.

Henry's marriage to randy, unfaithful teenager Catherine Howard ends in her swift execution, but he finds domestic tranquility at last with the steady Catherine Parr; a war with France and Brandon's death signal Henry's waning days.