The Six Wives of Henry VIII is one of the most irresistible stories in England's history. It's the story of a handsome, dashing young man who becomes a cruel, bloated, greedy monster.

And it's also the story of the six extraordinary women who married him: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr. Or to put it another way: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.

I decided that the best way to tell it was through the eyes of the six wives themselves. (The original working title, to give you a sense of the flavour, was The Brides of Death.) So we kick off with Catherine of Aragon: a little girl growing up in southern Spain, then a nervous teenager sailing across the sea to marry her English prince. And we're introduced to Tudor England through her eyes: the sights and smells, the filth and chaos, but also the high drama of Henry's court.

Of course there's another aspect to this story: the Reformation, when England broke with the Roman Catholic Church. So we meet the first Protestant reformers, like Martin Luther and William Tyndall, as well as the cardinals and princes who tried to stop them. Heads roll, books are burned, heretics are executed and everybody generally has a very exciting time.