Today we returned to the National Portrait Gallery at Trafalgar Square to visit the temporary exhibition, “Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens” It was a chance to immerse ourselves in the world of the second king in the Tudor dynasty. There’s a good number of us with at least a passing interest in the history of England who know that King Henry VIII married six times, that he founded the Church of England so that he could divorce Katherine of Aragon and that he had his second wife Anne Boleyn beheaded, but who were the other four women? What were their fates? The two of us remember watching the BBC tv mini-series “The Six Wives of Henry VIII” on PBS in 1971 and have been somewhat tuned-in to Tudor history since. Then last summer we had the opportunity to see the West End theatrical production “Six, The Musical” that refreshed our memories and taught us the mneumonic “Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived”. Today we enjoyed the chance to wander through the galleries viewing the superb Hans Holbein the Younger contemporary portraits, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s studio portraits of Madame Tussaud’s wax sculptures of the queens, jewelry and other personal effects relating not only to the six queens but to other historical figures pertinent to their stories, as well as books and costumes that have helped to preserve their memory. It’s an absolutely incredible collection of items on loan from the likes of the British Museum, the British Library, The Victoria and Albert Museum, and His Majesty King Charles III. It’s an incomplete story between the passage of five hundred years and efforts to erase their stories but for us it was an amazing opportunity to expand our personal knowledge base about an intriguing period in history. Then before heading back to Hampstead, we popped across the street to visit the historic St Martin of the Fields Church because we’d been told we needed to check out the crypt. There we found a bustling Cafe in the Crypt where under the brick vaulted ceilings we walked across a floor paved with tombstones to order some coffee and sit and savor the ambience.
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