by Jeanne Williams

Created on: October 10, 2008

The Other Boleyn Girl, Elizabeth, The Virgin Queen, Six Wives, Innocent Traitor, The Tudors-A new batch of biographies, novels, films and television programs about the exploits of the Tudor dynasty seems to emerge every few years. Why do we care so much about this group of men and women who ruled England five hundred years ago? Why isn't there, for example, the same level of interest in the Plantagenet or Stuart dynasties?

Certainly the argument can be raised that the Tudors featured some of the more intriguing characters in British history. There's Henry VIII, the golden prince who devolved into a corpulent, wife-murdering monster. There's Anne Boleyn, the woman who rejected the chance to be the king's mistress and became his queen instead, only to be executed when she failed to give birth to a son.

And then there's Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Largely neglected by her father after Anne's death, Elizabeth endured any number of plots and scandals during the first twenty-five years of her life to become queen. Unlike her half-sister Mary, Elizabeth chose to rule her kingdom alone. Even when she was sexually attracted to menher tumultuous relationship with her childhood friend Robert Dudley, for exampleElizabeth remained adamant that England would have "but one mistress and no master." Elizabeth is, in many ways, the most enigmatic of British rulers. We know what she did but not always why she did it. Did she refuse to marry in order to maintain her singular hold on the crown, or had she been permanently traumatized by the continual parade of ill-fated stepmothers in her youth? When and how did she learn about her mother's death? Did she bear any responsibility, morally or legally, for the death of Dudley's first wife Amy? These are just a few of the questions Tudor aficionados enjoy pondering.

As intriguing as they are, however, Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and their daughter are only part of the story. There's Henry VIII's father, Henry VII, the first Tudor kind. He may not have possessed his son and granddaughter's charisma, but he effectively ended the War of the Roses and ruled England for more than twenty years. There's Edward VI, Henry VIII's longed-for son-a serious child, obsessed with his Protestant faith, whose brief reign was distinguished both by religious reform and the brutal jockeying for power of his guardians. Edward's will left the kingdom to his young cousin, Lady Jane Grey, who ruled for nine days and was beheaded during

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