Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, empowered?

Henry VIII’s final wife Catherine Parr has been given the upper hand over her domineering husband in a dramatic rewriting of history.

A new film starring Jude Law as the capricious king and Alicia Vikander as his sixth and surviving spouse has premiered in Cannes, where details of the plot have been revealed.

Screenings of the film, titled Fireband, have made clear that its script diverges from strict historical fact to make Parr a more fierce character, who ensures that she is not victimised by her tyrannical husband.

She ultimately becomes violent in her efforts to escape prosecution for heresy, a dramatic revision not supported by the records of the Tudor period.

Speaking in an interview with the trade magazine Variety, Vikander revealed that she did not feel the weight of responsibility to maintain historical accuracy.