Henry VIII: Dressed To Kill, Tower of London; Henry VIII: Man and Monarch, British Library, London

It is 500 years since that stalwart of the national curriculum, Henry VIII, became king. Two contrasting exhibitions are among the many events and activities marking the quincentenary of his accession to the throne.

Historic Royal Palace's Henry VIII: Dressed To Kill at the Tower of London is bold and brash, while the British Library's Henry VIII: Man and Monarch is a sober in-depth exploration of the life of the ruler who changed the nation's destiny.

Dressed To Kill is on three floors of the White Tower. Each level portrays a different facet of Henry's life: the handsome young sportsman, the warrior king and finally the royal icon.

It is a joint venture by the Historic Royal Palaces and the Royal Armouries and has been billed by them as "part propaganda, part fashion". There is a brief nod towards the key events of his reign, but the exhibition focuses firmly on image, not history.

It brings together a superlative array of arms and armour from the Royal Armouries and overseas collections. The displays reveal the talents of the top craftsmen of the day who were asked to kit Henry out as "not only a King to be obeyed on earth, but a venerable idol to be worshipped".

Exhibits include the famous 1515 silver and engraved armour made for Henry and his horse, and the state-of-the-art field and tournament armour produced by the royal workshops in Greenwich towards the end of his reign. A case featuring a fearsome-looking combination mace and gun, set with spikes, tells of Henry's keen interest in the latest advances in firearms.

It would be easy to criticise the exhibition's conceptual approach for being brazenly modern and in your face, with its use of dramatic lighting, sound and high-tech audiovisual presentations that examine the structure and performance of armour in the style of a car advertisement.

This exhibition has dared to be different, and while some aspects do not come off - notably the fashion catwalk with its bewildering film backdrop - the objects on display are robust enough to square up to 21st-century spin.

The graphics are clear, with commendably legible object captions, which have a useful logo indicating items that actually belonged to or were used by Henry. Interesting, too, are the body charts recording the increasing size of the armour, as age and infirmity transformed the king's figure from slim to the morbidly obese.

Documentary evidence

Admission to the exhibition comes with the main entrance ticket, so visitors include a high proportion of tourists and school groups. It was good to see teenagers engaging with the displays, even if it took the form of earnest discussions about which helmet would be most effective in a head-butting competition.

The Henry encountered by visitors in the basement of the British Library has a far more complex personality than the Tower's action hero. Through manuscripts, letters and books, Man and Monarch looks at his formative years, and what drove him to act in the way he did throughout his reign.

This exhibition is much more conventional in its design and overall approach, but is intellectually more rewarding. It begins in a low ceilinged gallery that opens out into a double-height space where a framework of tall wooden arches at times looks awkwardly like the wrong side of a stage set.

The restrained colour scheme is sympathetic to the aging vellum, and allows the still-vibrant watercolours and illuminated manuscripts to shine out.

The free audioguide, narrated by guest curator David Starkey, sensibly picks out only 20 or so exhibits. It becomes welcome by the halfway mark, when attention is flagging just as some of the most important documents make their appearance.

Starkey elaborates, for example, on the love letter written by Henry to Anne Boleyn in January 1527, which set in train the subsequent momentous events of his reign, and the revolutionary Act of Supremacy of 1534, symbolising Henry's break with the Roman Catholic church. It is impossible not to stand there in awe of the significance of these manuscripts.

Enduring Henry

Three-dimensional objects provide a welcome rest from the concentration required for the documents and maps. They include chipped stone fragments from St Thomas Becket's shrine at Canterbury, whose destruction Henry personally oversaw, and a cast-iron gun and shielding device from his warship, the Mary Rose.

Original portraits, ranging from grandparents to sundry wives, policy makers and clerics, breathe life into the show, making insightful connections with the documents.

The portraits are well lit in non-reflective glass boxes, enabling visitors to get up close to these willing and unwilling participants in the story. Neat interactive audiovisual screens throughout the exhibition help to clarify annotations made in crabbed 16th-century handwriting.

However, a cumbersome hands-on jousting feature feels out of place, although it does at least give visitors who do not see Dressed To Kill an appreciation of Henry's physical strength.

Man and Monarch closes with Henry's enduring legacy in the form of his daughter, Elizabeth I. She is represented by the famous Armada Portrait and an original manuscript of her "heart and stomach of a king" speech given at Tilbury in 1588. It comes as a refreshing digestif after a heavy but satisfying meal. The divergent nature of the two exhibitions is reflected in their accompanying publications.

The British Library has produced a scholarly and richly illustrated catalogue; Dressed To Kill has opted for what it calls a "magalogue" - a GQ-style magazine combining chatty editorial with fashion spreads.

The latter is an interesting experiment, though it is hard to fathom the target audience and may frustrate those wanting a more conventional record of the show.

It was said during Henry's reign that "for the future, the whole world will talk of him".

His image does continue to loom large in the British consciousness at least, and these exhibitions, in their very different ways, bring much-needed depth to the shallowness of schoolroom history lessons.

Penny Ritchie Calder is a writer and museum consultant