Henry VIII was born in 1491. He was King of England from 1509 to 1547 and is famous for separating the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church, and for his six wives. When he was young, as in this picture, he was very strong and good-looking. He was an excellent sportsman, and was also a good musician and poet. However, in his old age he was very fat and always in pain. The Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, were born between 1816 and 1820 in a small village in the north of England. They were all writers, but only Charlotte, with her novel Jane Eyre, was famous in her lifetime. Their brother Branwell, the painter of this portrait, was originally in the picture between Emily and Charlotte. He wasn't happy with his self-portrait and now the painting shows only the three sisters. Helena Bonham Carter, the actress, was born in London in 1966. Her mother is half Spanish and her father, who died in 2004, was the grandson of Herbert Asquith, the British Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916. Her first big role was as Lucy Honeychurch in A Room with a View, and her other roles include The Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter films, and Queen Elizabeth in The King's Speech. She has two children with her partner Tim Burton, a film director.

c Read the texts again and answer the questions.
1 How long was Henry VIII King of England? 2 What was he good at when he was a young man? 3 Were the Brontë sisters famous when they were alive? 4 Why isn't their brother in the picture? 5 Who was Helena Bonham Carter's great-grandfather? 6 What was her first famous film?

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