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I'm Jace Lay Cobb, and you're listening to Masterpiece Studio.

If you walk through the Great Hall of Hampton Court Palace, the site of King Henry the 8th's court, a canny observer might notice the intertwined initials H and A for Henry

and the bewitching Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife. The interlacing of those initials H and A, for Henry and the bewitching Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife.

The interlacing of those initials speaks to the love and devotion between the two, and acts as a

bittersweet reminder that grand buildings and palaces all too often survive far longer than romance.

Centries later, historians and viewers alike are still captivated by the story of Henry

the 8th and his six wives, one overflowing with romance, betrayal, heresy, and executions,

proving quite emphatically that truth is often far stranger than fiction.

Henry's legacy has endured these past several centuries,

helped by copious books, television shows, films, plays, and works of art that depict

the voracious and murderous king as he stops at nothing to ensure himself a male heir.

Or perhaps it's that Herman's Hermit song, I'm Henry the Eighth I am, that has cemented his place in pop culture.

Or the prevalence of that morbid nursery rhyme about his six wives.

Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, Beheaded, survived.

...