King (150947), born in Greenwich, EC Greater London, UK, the second son of Henry VII. Soon after his accession he married Catherine of Aragón, his brother Arthur's widow. As a member of the Holy League, he invaded France (1512), winning the Battle of Spurs (1513); and while abroad, the Scots were defeated at Flodden. In 1521 he published a book on the Sacraments refuting Luther, receiving from the pope the title Defender of the Faith. From 1527 he determined to divorce Catherine, whose children, except for Mary, had died in infancy. He tried to put pressure on the pope by humbling the clergy, and in defiance of the Roman Catholic Church was privately married to Anne Boleyn (1533). In 1534 it was enacted that his marriage to Catherine was invalid, and that the king was the Supreme Head of the English Church. The policy of Dissolution of the Monasteries then began. In 1536 Catherine died, and Anne Boleyn was executed on the grounds of infidelity. Henry then married Jane Seymour, who died leaving a son, afterwards Edward VI. In 1540 Anne of Cleves became his fourth wife, in the hope of attaching the Protestant interest of Germany; but dislike of her appearance caused him to divorce her speedily. He then married Catherine Howard (1540), who two years later was executed on grounds of infidelity (1542). In 1543 his last marriage was to Catherine Parr, who survived him. His later years saw ineffectual and expensive wars with France and Scotland, but a powerful English navy was created.
| Henry VIII | ||
|---|---|---|
| Reign | 22 April 1509 - 28 January 1547 | |
| Coronation | 24 June 1509 | |
| Born | 28 June 1491 | |
| Palace of Placentia | ||
| Died | 28 January 1547 | |
| Palace of Whitehall | ||
| Buried | St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle | |
| Predecessor | Henry VII | |
| Successor | Edward VI | |
| Consort |
Catherine of Aragon Anne Boleyn Jane Seymour Anne of Cleves Catherine Howard Catherine Parr |
|
| Issue |
Mary I Elizabeth I Edward VI |
|
| Royal House | Tudor | |
| Father | Henry VII | |
| Mother | Elizabeth of York | |
Henry VIII (28 June 1491–28 January 1547) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 22 April 1509 until his death. Henry VIII is famous for having been married six times to have a son, "divorcing" two by execution, and ultimately breaking with Rome.
Several significant pieces of legislation were enacted during Henry VIII's reign. They included the several Acts which severed the English Church from the Roman Catholic Church and established Henry as the supreme head of the Church in England;
Henry VIII is known to have been an avid gambler and dice player. Henry VIII was also involved in the original construction and improvement of several significant buildings, including Nonsuch Palace, King's College Chapel in Cambridge and Westminster Abbey in London - the existing buildings improved were often properties confiscated from Wolsey (such as Christ Church, Oxford, Hampton Court Palace, palace of Whitehall) and Trinity College, Cambridge. width: 240px;" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0">
| English Royalty |
|---|
| House of Tudor |
| Henry VIII |
| Children include |
| Henry, Duke of Cornwall |
| Mary I |
| Elizabeth I |
| Edward VI |
Born at the Palace of Placentia at Greenwich, Henry VIII was the third child of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Only three of Henry VIII's six siblings: Arthur (the Prince of Wales), Margaret and Mary, survived infancy.
Henry VII wanted a marital alliance between England and Spain through a marriage between Henry, Prince of Wales, and Catherine. By 1505, however, Henry VII lost interest in an alliance with Spain, and the young Prince of Wales was forced to declare that his betrothal had been arranged without his assent.
Early reign
Henry VIII ascended the throne in 1509 upon his father's death, and wed Catherine of Aragon - six years his senior - about nine weeks after his accession on June 11, 1509 at Greenwich. She gave birth to a son, Henry, on 1 January 1511, but he only lived until February 22.
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Monarchical Styles of King Henry VIII of England |
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| Reference style: | His Majesty (first English king to use Majesty) |
| Spoken style: | Your Majesty |
| Alternative style: | Sir |
Upon his accession, Henry was faced with the problematic issues posed by Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, two ministers of Henry VII's reign who imposed heavy arbitrary taxes on the nobility. Henry's constant willingness for war would prove to be another way in which he undertook to distance himself from Henry VII's reign;
For two years after Henry's accession, Richard Fox, the Bishop of Winchester and Lord Privy Seal, and William Warham controlled matters of state. In 1511, Henry joined the Holy League, a body of European rulers opposed to the French King Louis XII. The League also included such European rulers as Pope Julius II, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and Ferdinand II, with whom Henry also signed the Treaty of Westminster. However, upon the accession of the French King Francis I in 1515, England and France grew antagonistic, and Henry became reconciled with Ferdinand. In 1516 Queen Catherine gave birth to a girl, Mary, encouraging Henry in the belief that he could still have a male heir despite his wife's previous failed pregnancies (one stillbirth, one miscarriage, and two short-lived infants). In 1519, when Maximilian also died, Wolsey, who was by that time a Cardinal, secretly proposed Henry as a candidate for the post of Holy Roman Emperor, though supporting the French King Francis in public. The subsequent rivalry between Francis and Charles allowed Henry to act as a mediator between them. Charles' reliance on Henry subsided, as did England's power in Europe, and Henry was refused help to acquire the Fleur-de-Lys, despite Charles' guarantees.
The King's Great Matter
Henry VIII's accession was the first peaceful one England had witnessed in many years; Henry had previously been happy with mistresses, including Mary Boleyn and Elizabeth Blount, with whom he had had an illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy. Although it was almost certainly Henry's desire for a male heir that made him determined to divorce Catherine, he was very infatuated with Anne, despite her child-bearing inexperience and famously plain looks.
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The Six Wives of King Henry VIII |
|---|
| Catherine of Aragon |
| Anne Boleyn |
| Jane Seymour |
| Anne of Cleves |
| Catherine Howard |
| Catherine Parr |
Henry's long and arduous attempt to end his marriage to Queen Catherine became known as "The King's Great Matter". Cardinal Wolsey and William Warham quietly began an inquiry into the validity of her marriage to Henry. Queen Catherine, however, testified her marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales had never been consummated, thus there was no impediment to her subsequent marriage to Henry.
Without informing Cardinal Wolsey, Henry directly appealed to the Holy See. such a dispensation was necessary because Henry had previously had intercourse with Anne Boleyn's sister Mary. Clement VII did not agree to annul the marriage, but he did grant the desired dispensation, probably presuming that the dispensation would be of no effect as long as Henry remained married to Catherine. the Papal Bull authorising Henry's marriage to Catherine was to be declared void if the grounds alleged therein were false. During the spring of 1529, Henry's legal team assembled the libelus (the summary of Henry's royal arguments, including Lev.
Angered with Cardinal Wolsey for the delay, Henry stripped him of his wealth and power. On 25 January 1533, Cranmer participated in the wedding of Henry and Anne Boleyn. In May, Cranmer pronounced Henry's marriage to Catherine void, and shortly thereafter declared the marriage to Anne valid.
Religious upheaval
The Pope responded to these events by excommunicating Henry in July 1533.(Historians disagree on the exact date of the excommunication.
Rejecting the decisions of the Pope, Parliament validated the marriage between Henry and Anne with the Act of Succession 1534. The publisher or printer of any literature alleging that Henry's marriage to Anne was invalid was automatically guilty of high treason, and could be punished by death.
Opposition to Henry's religious policies was quickly suppressed. In 1536, an Act of Parliament allowed Henry to seize the possessions of the lesser monasteries (those with annual incomes of £200 or less).
In 1536, Queen Anne began to lose Henry's favour. Henry VIII, meanwhile, had begun to turn his attentions to another lady of his court, Jane Seymour. Perhaps encouraged by Thomas Cromwell, Henry had Anne arrested on charges of using witchcraft to trap Henry into marrying her, of having adulterous relationships with five other men, of incest with her brother George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, of injuring the King and of conspiring to kill him, which amounted to treason;
Birth of a Prince
Only days after Anne's execution in 1536, Henry married Jane Seymour. The Act of Succession 1536 declared Henry's children by Queen Jane to be next in the line of succession, and declared both the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth illegitimate, thus excluding them. After Jane's death, the entire court mourned with Henry for some time.
Major Acts
At about the same time as his marriage to Jane Seymour, Henry granted his assent to the Laws in Wales Act 1535, which legally annexed Wales, uniting England and Wales into one nation.
Henry continued with his persecution of his religious opponents.
Henry's innovative court: expansion of knowledge and creativity in the arts and sciences
Henry was the quintessential Renaissance Man and his court was a mecca for scholarly and artistic innovation.
Later years
Henry's only surviving son, the Prince Edward, Duke of Cornwall, is believed by many historians not to have been a particularly healthy child. After regarding Holbein's flattering portrayal, and urged by the complimentary description of Anne given by his courtiers, Henry agreed to wed Anne. On Anne's arrival in England, Henry is said to have found her utterly unattractive, privately calling her a "Flanders Mare".
Soon thereafter, however, Henry desired to end the marriage, not only because of his personal feelings but also because of political considerations. Queen Anne was intelligent enough not to impede Henry's quest for an annulment.
On 28 July 1540 (the same day Lord Essex was executed) Henry married the young Catherine Howard, Anne Boleyn's first cousin. Though Henry originally refused to believe the allegations, he allowed Cranmer to conduct an investigation, which resulted in Queen Catherine's implication. When questioned, the Queen could have admitted a prior contract to marry Dereham, which would have made her subsequent marriage to Henry invalid, but she instead claimed that Dereham had forced her to enter into an adulterous relationship. The Act recited the evidence against the Queen, and Henry would have been obliged to listen to the entire text before granting the Royal Assent.
Henry married his last wife, the wealthy widow Catherine Parr, in 1543. She helped reconcile Henry with his first two daughters, the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth. The same Act allowed Henry to determine further succession to the throne in his will.
A mnemonic for the fates of Henry's wives is "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived". An alternative version is "King Henry the Eighth, to six wives he was wedded: One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded".
Death and succession
Later in life, Henry was grossly overweight, with a waist measurement of 54 inches (137 cm), and possibly suffered from gout. Henry VIII was buried in St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, next to his wife Jane Seymour.
It is suggested that Henry VIII had another child, Richard Edwardes. Agnes had two other sons with William Edwardes, but Richard was the only one who she said was the son of Henry VIII. The descendants of Richard Edwardes are the only direct descendants of Henry VIII.
Under the Act of Succession 1544, Henry's only surviving son, Edward, inherited the Crown, becoming Edward VI. In the event of a death without children, Edward was to be succeeded (in default of his issue) by Henry VIII's daughter by Catherine of Aragon, the Princess Mary. Finally, if Princess Elizabeth also did not have children, she was to be followed by the descendants of Henry VIII's deceased sister, Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk.
Legacy
Together with Alfred the Great, Henry is traditionally called one of the founders of the Royal Navy.
By his break with Rome, Henry incurred the threat of a large-scale French or Spanish invasion. These were also known as Henry VIII's Device Forts.
In 2002, Henry VIII placed 40th in a BBC-sponsored poll on the 100 Greatest Britons.
In popular culture
Literature
Henry VIII was the subject of William Shakespeare's historical play, Henry VIII: All Is True, written when it was safe to do so (once his daughter Elizabeth I had died). Ironically, in another Renaissance play in which Henry might be expected to appear - the Elizabethan Sir Thomas More - he is always an offstage presence, mentioned but never seen.
Henry VIII was also the subject of a best-selling fictional autobiography written by Margaret George.
Film
There have been many films about Henry and his court, notably The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), starring Charles Laughton, whose performance earned him an Academy Award, and The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1973), starring Keith Michell, based on an earlier TV series (see below). Richard Burton and Geneviève Bujold were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Actress for their roles as Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969). Henry, played by Robert Shaw, also appears as one of the main characters in the multiple-Oscar-winning movie about Thomas More, A Man for All Seasons (1966), based upon Robert Bolt's play of the same name.
Sid James played Henry in the movie Carry On Henry (1970), which portrayed the relationship between the King and two fictitious wives ("Marie of Normandy" and "Bettina", a mistress).
TV – fiction
Henry has also made many television appearances, both in drama and documentary, and in America and the UK. In drama, one notable example is the 1970 BBC series The Six Wives of Henry VIII, starring Keith Michell, made up of six television plays, one per wife, each by a different author. Another is the 2003 ITV feature-length Henry VIII, with Ray Winstone as Henry VIII, critically panned for portraying Henry as an East End gangster, speaking with Winstone's usual Cockney tones, surrounded entirely by a court speaking in Received Pronunciation, such as David Suchet as Wolsey.
An episode of the 1960s American sitcom Bewitched had Samantha Stevens staving off a lustful Henry's intentions to make her his next wife. Henry's life was the subject of the famous but inaccurate Simpsons television episode named "Margical History Tour" in 2004, in which Homer Simpson played the King.
In "Homecoming: A Shot in D'Arc", an episode of Clone High, a dolphin impersonated Henry VIII to play on the basketball team. The writers chose Henry VIII because they viewed him as someone recognisable as a real historical figure yet someone that most North Americans know almost nothing about. are producing a miniseries entitled The Tudors, with Golden Globe-winning actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers playing the part of Henry VIII.
TV – documentary
In documentary, the leading academic on Henry, David Starkey, produced the Channel 4 series Henry VIII and The Six Wives of Henry VIII - the latter gave one episode each to Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, one jointly to Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves, and another jointly to Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr.
In 2006, the National Geographic Channel produced The Madness of Henry the VIII a dramatization of Henry VIII's relationships with each of his six wives.
Music
Henry was the inspiration for the title of the popular song "I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am" (1911), recorded by Harry Champion and later by Herman's Hermits; the actual song, however, is about a man named Henry whose wife has been married to seven different individuals, all named Henry.
In 1973, Rick Wakeman released a rock concept album on The Six Wives of Henry VIII, his first solo album after splitting from Yes.
A collective of rappers called Army of the Pharaohs have a song called Henry the 8th.
Style and arms
Henry VIII was the first English monarch to regularly use the style "Majesty", though the alternatives "Highness" and "Grace" were also used from time to time. Henry originally used the style "Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of God, King of England, France and Lord of Ireland". In 1521, pursuant to a grant from Pope Leo X rewarding a book by Henry attacking Martin Luther and defending Catholicism, the royal style became "Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of God, King of England and France, Defender of the Faith and Lord of Ireland".
In 1535, Henry added the "supremacy phrase" to the royal style, which became "Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of God, King of England and France, Defender of the Faith, Lord of Ireland and of the Church of England in Earth Supreme Head".
In 1541, Henry had the Irish Parliament change the title "Lord of Ireland" to "King of Ireland" after being advised that many Irish people regarded the Pope as the true head of their country, with the Lord acting as a mere representative. The reason the Irish regarded the pope as their overlord was because Ireland had originally been given to the English King Henry II by Pope Adrian IV in the twelfth century as a feudal territory under papal overlordship. The meeting of Irish Parliament that proclaimed Henry VIII King of Ireland was the first meeting attended by the Gaelic Irish chieftains as well as the Anglo-Irish aristocrats. The style "Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of God, King of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith and of the Church of England and also of Ireland in Earth Supreme Head" remained in use until the end of Henry's reign.
Henry's motto was Coeur Loyal (true heart) and he had this embroidered on his clothes in the form of a heart symbol and with the word 'loyall'.
Henry VIII's arms were the same as those used by his predecessors since Henry IV: Quarterly, Azure three fleurs-de-lys Or (for France) and Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England).
Issue
| Name | Birth | Death | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| By Catherine of Aragon (married June 11, 1509 annulled May 23, 1533; she died January 6, 1536) | |||
| Miscarried daughter | January 31, 1510 | January 31, 1510 | |
| Henry, Duke of Cornwall | 1 January 1511 | 22 February 1511 | |
| Unnamed son | November 1513 | November 1513 | |
| Henry, Duke of Cornwall | December 1514 | December 1514 | |
| Queen Mary I | 18 February 1516 | 13 September 1558 | married 1554, Philip II of Spain; no issue |
| Unnamed child | November 10, 1518 | November 10, 1518 | |
| By Anne Boleyn (married January 25, 1533 annulled 1536; she was executed May 19, 1536) | |||
| Queen Elizabeth I | 7 September 1533 | 24 March 1603 | never married, no issue |
| "Henry Tudor" | 1534 | 1534 | Historians are uncertain if the child was born and died shortly after birth, or if it was a miscarriage. |
| "Edward Tudor" | 29 January 1536 | 29 January 1536 | |
| By Jane Seymour (married May 20, 1536; she died October 25, 1537) | |||
| King Edward VI | 12 October 1537 | 6 July 1553 | |
| By Anne of Cleves (married January 6, 1540 annulled 1540; she died July 17, 1557) | |||
| no issue | |||
| By Catherine Howard (married July 28, 1540 annulled 1541; she was executed February 13, 1542) | |||
| no issue | |||
| By Catherine Parr (married July 12, 1543; died September 5, 1548) | |||
| no issue | |||
| By Elizabeth Blount | |||
| Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset | 15 June 1519 | 18 June 1536 | illegitimate; no issue |
| By The Lady Mary Boleyn (most historians now reject the legend that the following two children were fathered by Henry VIII) | |||
| Catherine Carey | c. 1524 | 15 January 1568 | reputed illegitimate; had issue |
| Henry Carey, Baron Hunsdon | 4 March 1526 | 23 July 1596 | reputed illegitimate; had issue |
| By Mary Berkeley | |||
| Sir Thomas Stucley | c. 1525 | August 4, 1578 | reputed illegitimate; had issue |
| Sir John Perrot | c. 1527 | September 1592 | reputed illegitimate; had issue |
| By Joan Dyngley | |||
| Etheldreda Malte | c. no known issue | ||
* Note: Of Henry VIII's reputedly illegitimate children, only the Duke of Richmond and Somerset was formally acknowledged by the King. The only surviving piece of clothing worn by Henry VIII is a cap of maintenance, awarded to the Mayor of Waterford, along with a bearing sword, in 1536. Henry VIII's Last Victim: The Life and Times of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.
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