The Tudors

From servants to monarchs in one generation. You know the names, but do you know the reality?

The Tudors weren't supposed to be kings. They began as a whisper - a secret affair between a widowed Queen and her Welsh servant. But through luck, bloodshed and sheer ruthlessness, their grandson seized the throne of England and refused to let go.

Jude's Slice: The Tudors takes you on a no-nonsense ride through the 118 years that defined Britain. This is the complete story with all the scandal, but none of the waffle.

From the origins in Wales, we go to the muddy battlefield where Henry VII claimed the crown and to the terrifying court of Henry VIII, who burned through friends and wives in a desperate quest for an heir. We look at the brutal religious whiplash of Edward VI and "Bloody Mary", the tragic manipulation of Lady Jane Grey, and unravel the brilliant survival instincts of Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen who kept princes and kings dangling.

It's a fast-paced tale of mad ambition, religious revolution and a family that sowed the seeds of its own destruction.