LOS ANGELES - Showtime's "The Tudors" and star Jonathan Rhys Meyers will return for a third season.

The new season's production is set to begin in June in Ireland. The show, with Rhys Myers portraying an especially fit and handsome King Henry VIII, is midway through its second year.

The next season will air in 2009.

The drama tracks the king's romantic ups and downs with women including Queen Katherine (Maria Doyle Kennedy), Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer) and Jane Seymour (Anita Briem), as well as his clashes with the church.

Robert Greenblatt, the premium channel's president of entertainment, made the announcement of the series' pickup.

"'The Tudors' is now a fixture for us at Showtime and we're on our way to completing the entire saga of all six wives of Henry VIII," he said.