Six Tudor Queens: The Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir

The lives of Henry VIII's wives make for dramatic stories. In her forthcoming series of novels, Alison Weir will offer new insights into the real lives of these six queens, based on extensive research and new theories.

In her talk, Alison Weir will evoke the world of a court dominated by the will of an egomaniacal, suggestible king, and the power politics and ruthlessness that were the reality behind its magnificant facade, and relate how Henry's six queens lived a hair's breadth away from disaster - and how it frequently overtook them.

Theirs are grim and tragic stories, set in a lost world of splendour and brutality: a world in which love, or the game of it, dominated, but dynastic pressures overrode any romantic considerations. In this world, one dominated by religious change, there are few saints.