William Compton (The Tudors)

The following is a list of character from the Showtime television series The Tudors.

The main cast are listed in credits order.

Henry is presented as a spoiled and indulged ruler who after his marriage to Anne will not allow anyone to contradict him, having tasted an intoxicating sample of absolute power. So when he fails in his attempts to have a son with her, he is quick to lay the blame at Anne's door and then by chance meets Jane Seymour, a sweet, shy girl, and falls in love with her. Convinced that his future lies with Jane, Henry takes the chance to be rid of Anne when his longtime friend Charles Brandon tells him rumors suggest that she has been unfaithful. Anne is quickly brought to trial, found guilty and executed.

Although Henry's personal life improves with his marriage to Jane Seymour, who helps reunite him with his daughters, his position is threatened when Catholics in the north start to rebel against him. He crushes the rebellion and brutally punishes all those involved. Finally Henry's wish comes true when Jane gives him the one thing that his last two wives could not: a son. But his joy is short-lived when Jane falls sick and dies from childbed fever a few days later, leaving Henry in a deep state of depression.

He remains a widower for three years until Cromwell pushes him into a fourth marriage with the German Anne of Cleves. With promises of her beauty, he agrees to wed her but is disgusted by her when he finally meets her. Unable to escape the betrothal, he marries Anne but starts divorce proceedings soon after. He then notices the extremely young and seductive Katherine Howard and decides to marry her because she makes him feel young again. The marriage to Katherine Howard did not last. She was executed once her hidden past relations with Francis Dereham and her adulterous affair with Thomas Culpeper came to light. Henry later marries his sixth and final wife Catherine Parr, a wealthy widow closer to Henry's age. She was a loving wife and stepmother to all three of Henry's children and was made Queen Regent during Henry's absence at Boulogne. Bishop Gardiner and others suspected Catherine Parr of heresy and nearly had her arrested for it, but she was able to convince Henry of her devotion to him.

In 1536, Henry suffered a grievous leg wound in a joust that never healed properly and gave him pain the rest of his life. It also prevented him from being as active as he had been, and he became morbidly obese in the last years of his life. His increasing pain and approaching infirmity makes it doubtful the King can participate in the invasion of France in alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor. However, he rouses himself and leads the successful siege of Boulogne in 1544. In the fall of that year, he returns to England, where his health declines until his death in January, 1547.

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