Costume Designer John Bloomfield worked for nearly a year on the mini-series. He spent three months doing basic research at the National Portrait Gallery, Windsor Castle, and various libraries, going through books and papers, and studying paintings and drawings, especially those by Hans Holbein. Apart from the sheer number of costumes involved (three hundred, including twenty-five for Henry), the real challenge was to re-create the richness of court dress. This was accomplished by using screen printing methods with paints and resins on cheap heavy materials. Embossed fabric patterns were achieved by drawing on the basic material with fiber pens, then painting over it.
Keith Michell was one hundred eighty-eight centimeters (six feet one inch) tall, the same height as the real Henry VIII.
The series' success led the BBC to cinematically "recycle" the subject matter: Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972) would be headlined by Keith Michell encoring as Henry VIII, with Bernard Hepton also reprising his Thomas Cranmer TV role. In addition "Henry VIII and His Six Wives" cast the role of Thomas Cromwell with Donald Pleasence, father of Catherine Howard (1970) headliner Angela Pleasence.
This mini-series was adapted into Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972), in which Angela Pleasence's father Donald Pleasence played Henry VIII's Chief Minister Thomas Cromwell.