The young Henry VIII was everything a Renaissance prince was supposed to be — handsome, athletic, educated, musical, and genuinely popular. He was nothing like the bloated tyrant who would execute two wives, break with Rome, dissolve the monasteries, and terrorize England’s political class. Something changed this man profoundly, and this episode investigates what it was.

This episode traces Henry’s transformation from golden boy to despot, examining the obsession with a male heir that drove the break with the Catholic Church, the head injuries that may have altered his personality, and the cycle of marriage and execution that defined his reign.

• The young Henry VIII — scholar, athlete, and Europe’s most eligible monarch
• The obsession with a male heir and the six marriages that reshaped English religion
• The break with Rome and the dissolution of the monasteries
• The jousting accident theory and the physical decline that may explain his cruelty