What's on - London

Tower marks Henry VIII anniversary

1540 armour of Henry VIII, the greatest of the Greenwich garnitures and one of the latest surviving, with decoration from designs by artist Hans Holbein the Younger. Photo: Gary Ombler/Royal Armouries.

Tthis year marks the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession to the English throne, and where better to mark that date than in the mighty fortress of the Tower of London?

Henry came to power in 1509 as a brilliant young scholar, athlete and culture vulture - the original Renaissance man. But the monarch who may or may not have written Greensleeves soon had sleeves stained red with blood.

He famously had a very careless way with wives - lopping off the heads of the two linked to Norfolk, banishing the first to an early and rather suspect death, despatching one in childbirth, and ditching a fifth because he found her repulsive (she surely felt much the same about him).

Ushering in the Reformation in his determination for a divorce, in order to ensure a legitimate male heir (the illegitimate ones didn't count), and to lay his greedy hands on so much monastic wealth, he became such a Defender of the Faith that for a time he even banned the vast majority of his subjects from reading the Bible.

He was a peacock - and in the end a winched turkey - on a warhorse, and although a master of dazzling display he was also deadly serious in defending and extending his kingdom by military means.

So a new exhibition of the ruthless ruler's personal arms and armour - aptly entitled Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill - over three floors of the White Tower makes for a great history lesson.

My favourite exhibit is the amazing Horned Helmet, probably the sole surviving item from a suit of armour presented to the young King Hal by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I around 1514. That was believed to be the finest armour ever seen in England, a splendid gift designed to seal an alliance against the French.

It is believed that this extraordinary horned helmet is all that remains of a suit of armour presented to Henry by the Holy Roman Emperor. Photo: Gary Ombler/Royal Armouries.

Made by master workman Konrad Seusenhofer, in the imperial armour workshops in Innsbruck, there is no doubting the brilliance of the craftsmanship. But, what's with those ram's horns and specs?

Small wonder that such a peculiar relic was long believed to have been made for Will Somers, Henry VIII's court jester.

Recent scholarly arguments have raged over the authenticity of the helmet. Could those horns and goggles really have been part of a gift from one monarch to another, or were they added later?

Whatever the truth, the ornate object is brilliantly bizarre and an oddly beautiful work of art.

Another part of that magnificent 1514 gift can be seen in the Burgundian Bard - a gloriously crafted and decorated set of horse armour originally aglitter with silvering and gilding.

The display also includes the earliest of Henry's surviving suits of armour, dating from around 1515. Fitting the young king's body fairly closely, it reveals his athletic physique - whereas the enormous armours from the 1540s would encase a sumo wrestler or three.

The decoration commemorates the marriage of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon - his first queen, whose failure to provide a healthy son led to her dismissal to Kimbolton Castle and her early grave in Peterborough Cathedral.

Henry VIII.

Another remarkable relic is the foot combat armour which Henry was to have worn at the Field of Cloth of Gold - the great tournament between the English and French courts on the border of the rival territories in northern France in 1520.

Mercifully even for such a show-off, an armoured assembly weighing in at 42.7kg (94lb) was never donned because the French changed the rules of the contest. How on earth would the Tudor king have been able to walk, let alone to swagger, in that lot?

The Tonlet armour replacement - also on display in the Tower - tips the scales at “only” 29.3kg (64.5lb).

Pride of place among international loans goes to the Wilton Anime armour, formerly at Wilton House in Wiltshire and now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Made in Italy around 1544 - for a king who died three years later at the age of 55 - it leaves us with a perfect image of an out-sized ogre and a truly monstrous monarch.

Meanwhile, over at Hampton Court, a year-long programme of Henry VIII-linked events and exhibitions launches on Thursday, with a permanent representation of a palace nabbed by the king from disgraced chief courtier Thomas Wolsey.

The butcher's son from Ipswich then died from a very understandable case of dysentery en route to a final appointment with his irate master - an encounter which was likely to leave him parted not only from his house but his head.

Adult entry to the Tower of London costs £17 - and a joint ticket (for the Tower and Hampton Court) £24.80. An annual £38 pass covers all five buildings in the care of Historic Royal Palaces, including the Banqueting House, Kensington Palace and Kew Palace. More information is on the website: www.hrp.org.uk