Laughton, a skilled actor, was required to present Henry as something approaching a buffoon and he made a memorable job of it. In fact Henry VIII was a true renaissance prince. He was educated in the classics, and spoke and wrote several languages fluently, including the prerequisite Latin. He studied philosophy and religion and often had heated debates with the learned thinkers of the age. He was an athlete and was skilled in the arts of war.

Henry wrote prose and poetry, but his real passion was always music. He composed masses (which are now lost) and ballads. He played several musical instruments and amassed a considerable collection of them over his lifetime.

Henry was obsessed with getting a male heir and, as all know, to this end he had six wives (linear, not parallel). There is a popular belief that they were mostly beheaded. In fact two were beheaded for adultery, a capital crime in a monarch's spouse at that time (the monarch could not afford to look foolish). Of the others, one died in childbirth, two were divorced and one survived him.