Religious strife between Catholics and Protestants continues to swell in Europe. To try to balance the Catholic threat of France and Spain, Thomas Cromwell persuades King Henry into a political marriage with the sister of the Protestant German Duke of Cleves.

The powerful Duke of Norfolk, the leading Catholic aristocrat in England, dangles his teenaged niece Catherine Howard before the aging but still amorous King Henry, who foolishly marries her.

Corpulent and old, Henry makes a final trip to the altar, with the puritan Lady Latimer, Catherine Parr. The new queen brings Henry’s estranged daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, back into the family fold, but irritates the king by debating religion with him and his advisors.

This second episode of the series overlaps with the first, and thus begins when Queen Anne and King Henry are already estranged. After several pregnancies, Anne has provided her husband with only one surviving child, Princess Elizabeth. Extremely unpopular with both the public and the aristocracy, Anne has few friends to protect her when Henry's eye lights upon the virginal Jane Seymour.

Catalina of Aragon, a Spanish princess, is set to wed Arthur Tudor, eldest son on King Henry VII. Shortly after they wed, Arthur is taken by illness. Catalina then catches the eye of Arthur's brother, Henry. When Henry VII dies, he tells his son Henry that he must marry Catalina. Henry becomes the King of England and marries Catalina. Being loved by her new subjects, Catalina changes her name to the English version, Catherine. After many years, she is still loved by her subjects, but it's a different story with her husband.

Anxious to rid himself of the shrewish Anne Boleyn, and desperate for a son, Henry is charmed by the naive and pious Jane, the daughter of a wealthy country aristocrat.