Henry VIII.

Great lunchtime history share.

Great history share, I'm feeling a little whimsical today so: https://youtu.be/w4gyG2UU9J4

Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that on June 24, 1509, Henry VIII was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey.

Hampton Court Secrets of Henry VIIIs Palace
Hampton Court is the ultimate royal pleasure palace, embodying an indulgent and grandiose lifestyle built by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and furthered by King Henry VIII. Its many rooms chart Henry VIII's decline from fit young warrior to bloated womanizer, and they tell the vivid stories of the ladies who became his queens. Later, King William III and Queen Mary II commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to rebuild Hampton Court, demolishing half of the red brick Tudor palace and replacing it with an exquisite Baroque castle, making Hampton Court one of the most unique palaces in the world. Secrets of Henry VIII's Palace digs beneath the brick and stone to unveil an abundance of art and lore that bring Hampton Court to life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgQ_JGFbufM

Images:
1. Portrait of Henry VIII of England (r. 1509-1547 CE) by Joos van Cleve, 1530-35 CE. The scroll reads, in Latin, 'Go out into the world, and preach the gospel to every creature’ from the New Testament, Mark 16:15.
2. oil painting dating to c. 1545 CE illustrating the 'Field of the Cloth of Gold', a magnificent pageant held near Calais in June 1520 CE as a show of friendship between Henry VIII of England (r. 1509-1547 CE) and Francis I of France (r. 1515-1547 CE).
3. The Six Wives of Henry VII and the 4 children of Henry VVIII
4. portrait of Henry VIII of England (r. 1509-1547 CE) by Hans Holbein, 1540 CE.


Biographies
1. luminarium.org/renlit/tudorbio.htm
2. ancient.eu/Henry_VIII_of_England

1. Background from {[http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/tudorbio.htm]}
"KING HENRY VIII of England and Ireland, the third child and second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, was born on the 28th of June 1491 and, like all the Tudor monarchs except Henry VII, at Greenwich Palace. His two brothers, Prince Arthur and Edmund, Duke of Somerset, and two of his sisters predeceased their father; Henry VIII was the only son, and Margaret Tudor, afterwards Queen of Scotland, and Mary Tudor, afterwards Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk, were the only daughters who survived. Henry VIII is said, on authority which has not been traced farther back than Paolo Sarpi, to have been destined for the church; but the story is probably a mere surmise from his theological accomplishments, and from his earliest years high secular posts such as the viceroyalty of Ireland were conferred upon the child. He was the first English monarch to be educated under the influence of the Renaissance, and his tutors included the poet Skelton; he became an accomplished scholar, linguist, musician and athlete, and when by the death of his brother Arthur in 1502 and of his father on the 22nd of April 1509 Henry VIII succeeded to the throne, his accession was hailed with universal acclamation.

He had been betrothed to his brother's widow Catherine of Aragon, and in spite of the protest which he had been made to register against the marriage, and of the doubts expressed by Pope Julius II and Archbishop Warham as to its validity, it was completed in the first few months of his reign. This step was largely due to the pressure brought to bear by Catherine's father Ferdinand upon Henry VIII's council; he regarded England as a tool in his hands and Catherine as his resident ambassador. The young king himself at first took little interest in politics, and for two years affairs were managed by the pacific Richard Foxe and Warham. Then Cardinal Wolsey became supreme, while Henry was immersed in the pursuit of sport and other amusements.

He took, however, the keenest interest from the first in learning and in the navy, and his inborn pride easily led him to support Wolsey's and Ferdinand's war-like designs on France. He followed an English army across the Channel in 1513, and personally took part in the successful sieges of Therouanne and Tournay and the battle of Guinegate which led to the peace of 1514. Ferdinand, however, deserted the English alliance, and amid the consequent irritation against everything Spanish, there was talk of a divorce between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon (1514), whose issue had hitherto been attended with fatal misfortune. But the renewed antagonism between England and France which followed the accession of Francis I (1515) led to a rapprochement with Ferdinand; the birth of the lady Mary (1516) held out hopes of the male issue which Henry so much desired; and the question of a divorce was postponed.

Ferdinand died in that year (1516) and the emperor Maximilian in 1519. Their grandson Charles V succeeded them both in all their realms and dignities in spite of Henry VIII's hardly serious candidature for the empire; and a lifelong rivalry broke out between him and Francis I. Wolsey used this antagonism to make England arbiter between them; and both monarchs sought England's favour in 1520, Francis at the Field of Cloth of Gold and Charles V more quietly in Kent. At the conference of Calais in 1521 English influence reached its zenith; but the alliance with Charles destroyed the balance on which that influence depended. Francis was overweighted, and his defeat at Pavia in 1525 made the emperor supreme. Feeble efforts to challenge his power in Italy provoked the sack of Rome in 1527; and the peace of Cambrai in 1529 was made without any reference to Wolsey or England's interests.

Meanwhile Henry VIII had been developing a serious interest in politics, and he could brook no superior in whatever sphere he wished to shine. He began to adopt a more critical attitude towards Wolsey's policy, foreign and domestic; and to give ear to the murmurs against the cardinal and his ecclesiastical rule. Parliament had been kept at arm's length since 1515 lest it should attack the church; but Wolsey's expensive foreign policy rendered recourse to parliamentary subsidies indispensable. When it met in 1523 it refused Wolsey's demands, and forced loans were the result which increased the cardinal's unpopularity. Nor did success abroad now blunt the edge of domestic discontent. His fate, however, was sealed by his failure to obtain a divorce for Henry VIII from the papal court.

The king's hopes of male issue had been disappointed, and by 1526 it was fairly certain that Henry VIII could have no male heir to the throne while Catherine remained his wife. There was Mary, but no queen regnant had yet ruled in England; Margaret Beaufort had been passed over in favour of her son in 1485, and there was a popular impression that women were excluded from the throne. No candidate living could have secured the succession without a recurrence of civil war. Moreover the unexampled fatality which had attended Henry's issue revived the theological scruples which had always existed about the marriage; and the breach with Charles V in 1527 provoked a renewal of the design of 1514. All these considerations were magnified by Henry VIII's passion for Anne Boleyn, though she certainly was not the sole or the main cause of the divorce. That the succession was the main point is proved by the fact that Henry's efforts were all directed to securing a wife and not a mistress. Wolsey persuaded him that the necessary divorce could be obtained from Rome, as it had been in the case of Louis XII of France and Margaret of Scotland. For a time Clement VII was inclined to concede the demand, and Cardinal Campeggio in 1528 was given ample powers. But the prospect of French success in Italy which had encouraged the pope proved delusive, and in 1529 he had to submit to the yoke of Charles V. This involved a rejection of Henry's suit, not because Charles cared anything for his aunt, but because a divorce would mean disinheriting Charles's cousin Mary, and perhaps the eventual succession of the son of a French princess to the English throne.

Wolsey fell when Campeggio was recalled, and his fall involved the triumph of the anti-ecclesiastical party in England. Laymen who had resented their exclusion from power were now promoted to offices such as those of lord chancellor and lord privy seal which they had rarely held before; and parliament was encouraged to propound lay grievances against the church. On the support of the laity Henry VIII relied to abolish papal jurisdiction and reduce clerical privilege and property in England; and by a close alliance with Francis I he insured himself against the enmity of Charles V. But it was only gradually that the breach was completed with Rome. Henry had defended the papacy against Luther in 1521 and had received in return the title " defender of the faith." He never liked Protestantism, and he was prepared for peace with Rome on his own terms. Those terms were impossible of acceptance by a pope in Clement VII's position; but before Clement had made up his mind to reject them, Henry had discovered that the papacy was hardly worth conciliating. His eyes were opened to the extent of his own power as the exponent of national antipathy to papal jurisdiction and ecclesiastical privilege; and his appetite for power grew. With Cromwell's help he secured parliamentary support, and its usefulness led him to extend parliamentary representation to Wales and Calais, to defend the privileges of Parliament, and to yield rather than forfeit its confidence. He had little difficulty in securing the Acts of Annates, Appeals and Supremacy which completed the separation from Rome, or the dissolution of the monasteries which, by transferring enormous wealth from the church to the crown, really, in Cecil's opinion, ensured the reformation.

The abolition of the papal jurisdiction removed all obstacles to the divorce from Catherine and to the legalization of Henry VIII's marriage with Anne Boleyn (1533). But the recognition of the royal supremacy could only be enforced at the cost of the heads of Sir Thomas More, Bishop Fisher and a number of monks and others among whom the Carthusians signalized themselves by their devotion (1535-1536). Anne Boleyn fared no better than the Catholic martyrs; she failed to produce a male heir to the throne, and her conduct afforded a jury of peers, over which her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, presided, sufficient excuse for condemning her to death on a charge of adultery (1536). Henry VIII then married Jane Seymour, who was obnoxious to no one, gave birth to Edward VI, and then died (1537). The dissolution of the monasteries had meanwhile evoked a popular protest in the north, and it was only by skilful and unscrupulous diplomacy that Henry VIII was enabled to suppress so easily the Pilgrimage of Grace. Foreign intervention was avoided through the renewal of war between Francis and Charles; and the insurgents were hampered by having no rival candidate for the throne and no means of securing the execution of their programme.

Nevertheless their rising warned Henry VIII against further doctrinal change. He had authorized the English Bible and some approach towards Protestant doctrine in the Ten Articles. He also considered the possibility of a political and theological alliance with the Lutheran princes of Germany. But in 1538 he definitely rejected their theological terms, while in 1539-1540 they rejected his political proposals. By the statute of Six Articles (1539) he took his stand on Catholic doctrine; and when the Lutherans had rejected his alliance, and Cromwell's nominee, Anne of Cleves, had proved both distasteful on personal grounds and unnecessary because Charles and Francis were not really projecting a Catholic crusade against England, Anne was divorced and Cromwell beheaded.

The new queen Catherine Howard represented the triumph of the reactionary party under Gardiner and Norfolk; but there was no idea of returning to the papal obedience, and even Catholic orthodoxy as represented by the Six Articles was only enforced by spasmodic outbursts of persecution and vain attempts to get rid of Cranmer. The secular importance of Henry's activity has been somewhat obscured by his achievements in the sphere of ecclesiastical politics; but no small part of his energies was devoted to the task of expanding the royal authority at the expense of temporal competitors. Feudalism was not yet dead, and in the north and west there were medieval franchises in which the royal writ and common law hardly ran at all. Wales and its marches were brought into legal union with the rest of England by the statutes of Wales (1534-1536); and after the Pilgrimage of Grace the Council of the North was set up to bring into subjection the extensive jurisdictions of the northern earls. Neither they nor the lesser chiefs who flourished on the lack of common law and order could be reduced by ordinary methods, and the Councils of Wales and of the North were given summary powers derived from the Roman civil law similiar to those exercised by the Star Chamber at Westminster and the court of Castle Chamber at Dublin.

Ireland had been left by Wolsey to wallow in its own disorder; but disorder was anathema to Henry's mind, and in 1535 Sir William Skeffington was sent to apply English methods and artillery to the government of Ireland. Sir Anthony St Leger continued his policy from 1540; Henry VIII, instead of being merely lord of Ireland dependent on the pope, was made by an Irish act of parliament king, and supreme head of the Irish church. Conciliation was also tried with some success; plantation schemes were rejected in favour of an attempt to Anglicize the Irish; their chieftains were created earls and endowed with monastic lands; and so peaceful was Ireland in 1542 that the lord-deputy could send Irish kernes and gallowglasses to fight against the Scots.

Henry VIII, however, seems to have believed as much in the coercion of Scotland as in the conciliation of Ireland. Margaret Tudor's marriage had not reconciled the realms; and as soon as James V became a possible pawn in the hands of Charles V, Henry VIII bethought himself of his old claims to suzerainty over Scotland. At first he was willing to subordinate them to an attempt to win over Scotland to his anti-papal policy, and he made various efforts to bring about an interview with his nephew. But James V was held aloof by Beaton and two French marriages; and France was alarmed by Henry's growing friendliness with Charles V, who was mollified by his cousin Mary's restoration to her place in the succession to the throne. In 1542 James madly sent a Scottish army to ruin at Solway Moss; his death a few weeks later left the Scottish throne to his infant daughter Mary Stuart, and Henry set to work to secure her hand for his son Edward and the recognition of his own suzerainty. A treaty was signed with the Scottish estates; but it was torn up a few months later under the influence of Beaton and the queen-dowager Mary of Guise, and Hertford was sent in 1544 to punish this breach of promise by sacking Edinburgh.

Perhaps to prevent French intervention in Scotland, Henry VIII joined Charles V in invading France, and captured Boulogne (Sept. 1544). But Charles left his ally in the lurch and concluded the peace of Crepy that same month; and in 1545 Henry had to face alone a French invasion of the Isle of Wight. This attack proved abortive, and peace between England and France was made in 1546. Charles V's desertion inclined Henry to listen to the proposals of the threatened Lutheran princes, and the last two years of his reign were marked by a renewed tendency to advance in a Protestant direction. Catherine Howard had been brought to the block (1542) on charges in which there was probably a good deal of truth, and her successor, Catherine Parr, was a patroness of the new learning. An act of 1545 dissolved chantries, colleges and other religious foundations; and in the autumn of 1546 the Spanish ambassador was anticipating further anti-ecclesiastical measures. Gardiner had almost been sent to the Tower, and Norfolk and Surrey were condemned to death, while Cranmer asserted that it was Henry VIII's intention to convert the mass into a communion service. An opportunist to the last, he would readily have sacrificed any theological convictions he may have had in the interests of national uniformity. He died on the 28th of January 1547, and was buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor.

The atrocity of many of Henry VIII's acts, the novelty and success of his religious policy, the apparent despotism of his methods, or all combined, have made it difficult to estimate calmly the importance of Henry VIII's work or the conditions which made it possible. Henry's egotism was profound, and personal motives underlay his public action. While political and ecclesiastical conditions made the breach with Rome possible — and in the view of most Englishmen desirable — Henry was led to adopt the policy by private considerations. He worked for the good of the state because he thought his interests were bound up with those of the nation; and it was the real coincidence of this private and public point of view that made it possible for so selfish a man to achieve so much for his country. The royal supremacy over the church and the means by which it was enforced were harsh and violent expedients; but it was of the highest importance that England should be saved from religious civil war, and it could only be saved by a despotic government. It was necessary for the future development of England that its governmental system should be centralized and unified, that the authority of the monarchy should be more firmly extended over Wales and the western and northern borders, and that the still existing feudal franchises should be crushed; and these objects were worth the price paid in the methods of the Star Chamber and of the Councils of the North and of Wales.

Henry VIII's work on the navy requires no apology; without it Elizabeth's victory over the Spanish Armada, the liberation of the Netherlands and the development of English colonies would have been impossible; and "of all others the year 1545 best marks the birth of the English naval power" (Corbett, Drake, i. 59). His judgment was more at fault when he conquered Boulogne and sought by violence to bring Scotland into union with England. But at least Henry appreciated the necessity of union within the British Isles; and his work in Ireland relaid the foundations of English rule. No less important was his development of the parliamentary system. Representation was extended to Wales, Cheshire, Berwick and Calais; and parliamentary authority was enhanced, largely that it might deal with the church, until men began to complain of this new parliamentary infallibility. The privileges of the two Houses were encouraged and expanded, and parliament was led to exercise ever wider powers. This policy was not due to any belief on Henry's part in parliamentary government, but to opportunism, to the circumstance that parliament was willing to do most of the things which Henry desired, while competing authorities, the church and the old nobility, were not. Nevertheless, to the encouragement given by Henry VIII, parliament owed not a little of its future growth, and to the aid rendered by parliament Henry VIII owed his success.

He has been described as a "despot under the forms of law"; and it is apparently true that he committed no illegal act. His despotism consists not in any attempt to rule unconstitutionally, but in the extraordinary degree to which he was able to use constitutional means in the furtherance of his own personal ends. His industry, his remarkable political insight, his lack of scruple, and his combined strength of will and subtlety of intellect enabled him to utilize all the forces which tended at that time towards strong government throughout western Europe. In Michelet's words, "le nouveau Messie est le roi"; and the monarchy alone seemed capable of guiding the state through the social and political anarchy which threatened all nations in their transition from medieval to modern organization. The king was the emblem, the focus and the bond of national unity; and to preserve it men were ready to put up with vagaries which to other ages seem intolerable. Henry VIII could thus behead ministers and divorce wives with comparative impunity, because the individual appeared to be of little importance compared with the state. This impunity provoked a licence which is responsible for the unlovely features of Henry VIII's reign and character. The elevation and the isolation of his position fostered a detachment from ordinary virtues and compassion, and he was a remorseless incarnation of Machiavelli's Prince. He had an elastic conscience which was always at the beck and call of his desire, and he cared little for principle. But he had a passion for efficiency, and for the greatness of England and himself. His mind, in spite of its clinging to the outward forms of the old faith, was intensely secular; and he was as devoid of a moral sense as he was of a genuine religious temperament. His greatness consists in his practical aptitude, in his political perception, and in the self-restraint which enabled him to confine within limits tolerable to his people an insatiable appetite for power.

The original materials for Henry VIII's biography are practically all incorporated in the monumental Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry (21 vols.), edited by Brewer and Gairdner and completed after fifty years' labour in 1910. A few further details may be gleaned from such contemporary sources as Hall's Chronicle, Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, W. Thomas's The Pilgrim and others; and some additions have been made to the documentary sources contained in the Letters and Papers by recent works, such as Ehses' Romische Dokumente, and Merriman's Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell. Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Life and Reign of Henry (1649), while good for its time, is based upon a very partial knowledge of the sources and somewhat antiquated principles of historical scholarship. Froude's famous portraiture of Henry VIII is coloured by the ideas of hero-worship and history which the author imbibed from Carlyle, and the rival portraits in Lingard, R. W. Dixon's Church History and Gasquet's Henry and the Monasteries by strong religious feeling. A more discriminating estimate is attempted by H. A. L. Fisher in Messrs Longmans' Political History of England, vol. v. (1906).

Of the numerous paintings of Henry VIII none is by Holbein, who, however, executed the striking chalk-drawing of Henry's head, now at Munich, and the famous but decaying cartoon at Devonshire House. The well-known threequarter length at Windsor, usually attributed to Holbein, is by an inferior artist. The best collection of Henry VIII's portraits was exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1909, and the catalogue of that exhibition contains the best description of them; several are reproduced in Pollard's Henry (Goupil) (1902), the letterpress of which was published by Longmans in a cheaper edition (1905). Henry VIII composed numerous state papers still extant; his only book was his Assertio septem sacramentorum contra M. Lutherum (1521), a copy of which, signed by Henry himself, is at Windsor. Several anthems composed by him are extant; and one at least, O Lord, the Maker of all Things, is still occasionally rendered in English cathedrals.
(A. F. Pollard)"

2. Background from {[https://www.ancient.eu/Henry_VIII_of_England/]}
Henry VIII of England by Mark Cartwright published on 09 April 2020

Henry VIII of England ruled as king from 1509 to 1547 CE. The second Tudor king after his father Henry VII of England (r. 1485-1509 CE), Henry had inherited a kingdom which enjoyed both unity and sound finances. Famous for his six wives as he searched for a male heir, the king was charismatic and domineering. In order to escape his first marriage, Henry set himself against the Pope and so began the Reformation of the Church in England whereby it broke away from Rome and the English monarch became its supreme head. A larger-than-life figure, Henry centralised government, further absorbed Wales into his kingdom, saw to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, formed the Royal Navy and built magnificent palaces such as St. James’ in London. When Henry died, though, in 1547 CE, he was succeeded by his juvenile son Edward VI of England (r. 1547-1553 CE) and he left him an impoverished kingdom split over religious issues.

Henry Tudor
Henry Tudor had defeated and killed Richard III of England (r. 1483-1485 CE) at the Battle of Bosworth in August 1485 CE in the last major action of England’s dynastic dispute known as the Wars of the Roses (1455-1487 CE). The House of Lancaster had finally defeated the House of York but Henry, crowned Henry VII of England in October 1485 CE, was intent on creating a brand new ruling house: the Tudors. Henry married Elizabeth of York (b. 1466 CE), daughter of Edward IV of England (r. 1461-70 & 1471-83 CE), on 18 January 1486 CE and he even combined the livery badges of York and Lancaster to create a new royal symbol: the Tudor Rose. England was about to enter the post-medieval era with a new look and a new type of monarchy.

Early Life
Henry VII had seen off a few final challenges to his rule and set about filling the state coffers as much as he could, strengthening the crown and weakening the nobility in the process. The king’s eldest son was Arthur (b. 1486 CE) and he had married the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon, daughter of King Ferdinand II, in 1501 CE. Unfortunately, Arthur died the next year aged just 15. The king’s next eldest son, Henry, born on 28 June 1491 CE at Greenwich Palace, became the heir to the throne and in 1503 CE he was made the Prince of Wales. Henry VII was keen to maintain friendly relations with Spain and so Prince Henry, after special permission was gained from the Pope, was betrothed to Catherine of Aragon. When Henry VII died of illness on 21 April 1509 CE, Prince Henry became king. As arranged, he married Catherine on 11 June and was crowned Henry VIII in Westminster Abbey on 24 June 1509 CE.

Contrary to the later and more famous portraits of Henry VIII, in his youth the king cut an athletic figure and, 1.9 metres (6 ft 3 in) tall with red hair and beard, an imposing one. Not for nothing was he a champion of the medieval tournaments his father had loved to organise. The prince was also a fine archer, horseman and tennis player, and when he was at rest he composed poetry and music and brushed up on his impressive knowledge of theology. In short, Henry was an intelligent and charismatic character who charmed all he met. The historian John Miller gives the following summary of Henry’s powerful but changing character:
[Henry was] strong-willed, shrewd, capable of being moved to fits of generosity and enthusiasm, but also to savage anger. As a young man he was determined to enjoy being King and to outshine his contemporaries. As he passed his prime he became suspicious, capricious, devious and sometimes cruel.
(96)

The Six Wives of Henry VIII
Henry, perpetually in search of a male heir, went through an incredible six wives. These, and the children they bore, were:
• Catherine of Aragon (m. June 1509 CE) - Mary (b. Feb. 1516 CE)
• Anne Boleyn (m. Jan. 1533 CE) - Elizabeth (b. Sep. 1533 CE)
• Jane Seymour (m. May 1536 CE) - Edward (b. Oct. 1537 CE)
• Anne of Cleves (m. Jan. 1540 CE)
• Catherine Howard (m. July 1540 CE)
• Catherine Parr (m. July 1543 CE)
The king’s first marriage to Catherine of Aragon produced six children but all except one died in infancy. The sole survivor was Mary, born on 18 February 1516 CE. Henry had an illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond (b. 1519 CE), with a mistress, one Elizabeth Blount but that was not much use to a king who craved a recognised heir. The king began looking for a new wife and he found his ideal candidate in Anne Boleyn, younger sister of one of the king’s former conquests. Anne insisted on marrying the king before any thoughts could be entertained of raising a family. Henry’s problem, then, was how to relieve himself of Catherine, an issue known as the king’s ‘great matter’.

The solution seemed to be a letter to the Pope suggesting that the lack of a male heir was God’s punishment for Henry marrying the wife of his late brother, a point supported by the Old Testament (the ‘Prohibition of Leviticus’, Leviticus ch. 20 v. 21). Consequently, the king wished for the Pope to annul the marriage. Unfortunately for Henry, Pope Clement VII (r. 1523-1534 CE) was keen to keep good favour with the most powerful ruler in Europe at the time, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V of Spain (r. 1519-1556 CE), who was, significantly, the nephew of Catherine. Further, it was unlikely that Catherine and Arthur, being so young at the time, had ever slept together and so the ‘Prohibition of Leviticus’ did not in this case apply. The Pope at least sent Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio to England to investigate the matter and preside over a special court in June 1529 CE. Here both Catherine, determined to stay queen, and Henry, determined to get himself a new queen, presented their respective cases.
Despite Campeggio’s efforts, nothing was resolved. Henry’s next tactic was to permanently separate Catherine from her daughter Mary and shift her about the country to various dilapidated residences. Meanwhile, Henry and Anne Boleyn lived together (but did not sleep together). Sometime in December 1532 CE, Anne, perhaps seeing a baby as the best way to rid herself of her rival Catherine, did sleep with the king and became pregnant. There would be serious repercussions regarding the Church but eventually, Henry had his marriage annulled the next year (see below). Catherine died of cancer in January 1536 CE.
With Anne Boleyn, often known as ‘Anne of a thousand days’ for her brief reign as queen of the king’s heart, Henry had a second daughter, Elizabeth, born on 7 September 1533 CE. However, when the king discovered that Anne had had an affair and his eye had been caught by his next wife, he ordered her execution. The charge, and others ranging from incest to witchcraft, were trumped up because Anne had not produced a healthy male sibling to accompany Elizabeth and the king had tired of their turbulent relationship. Anne was found guilty and executed at the Tower of London in May 1536 CE. A few weeks later Henry married his third wife, Jane Seymour, a lady-in-waiting at court, and she finally gave the king a son, Edward, born on 12 October 1537 CE. The long-awaited arrival of a male heir sparked off gun salutes, bell-ringing and banquets across England. Tragically, Jane died shortly after and Henry genuinely mourned her passing; of all his wives it is significant that this was the one he wished to be buried alongside.
Anne of Cleves (daughter of the Duke of the German Duchy of that name) was wife number four but she displeased the king - he had been misled by an overly flattering portrait of her before they had met in person. Henry married her anyway but, rudely calling her the ‘Flanders mare’, changed his mind a few months later and they divorced by mutual consent on 9 July 1540 CE. Anne was relieved to escape with her life but Henry gave her a generous allowance, enough to live the high life until her death in 1557 CE.
Wife number five was Catherine Howard, then only a teenager and another lady-in-waiting at court that had caught the king’s eye. Catherine suffered the same fate as Anne Boleyn when she, too, was accused of having an extramarital affair with a member of the court, one Thomas Culpeper, and an incriminating love letter was produced at her hearing before Parliament. Catherine was executed in the Tower of London in February 1542 CE.
The sixth and final wife was Catherine Parr, already a two-time widow. Catherine, then in her thirties, was a more mature lady than her immediate predecessors, and perhaps because of this, the marriage was a success and the family home a happy one. Catherine outlived Henry but died from complications of childbirth in September 1548 CE.

Government
Unlike many of his medieval predecessors who relied on feudal ties of loyalty, Henry created a court where even lower nobles could get on if they gained the king’s favour. The king carefully selected a group of wise men to rule his kingdom for him and chief amongst these was Thomas Wolsey (l. c. 1473-1530 CE). Wolsey was the son of a butcher but he would eventually rise to become Cardinal Archbishop of York. One of his successors as sole minister to the king was an equally ambitious individual, Thomas Cromwell (l. c. 1485-1540 CE), son of a blacksmith. Both Wolsey and Cromwell would eventually displease the king - the former for his lack of success in resolving the ‘great matter’ and the latter for the Anne of Cleves debacle. Both men would be tried for treason. They would be replaced from 1540 CE by the Privy Council, which regained some of its former function and so high government once again involved a cabinet of ministers rather than a single all-powerful one who could monopolise the king. Henry VIII also made good use of Parliament and that institution went from strength to strength as his reign went on.
In 1536 CE Wales was further integrated into the state apparatus of England and divided into 13 counties in 1543 CE. English was made the official language, and Welsh was banned in official circles. Ireland proved a little more difficult, but the king’s ambition to create a centralised kingdom is indicated by his adoption of the title ‘King of Ireland’ in 1541 CE where previous English kings had only called themselves ‘Lord of Ireland’. Finally, the remote north of England was kept in tighter check by the establishment of the Council of the North after 1536 CE.

The Church of England
Henry was a keen scholar of theology and he had no intention of leaving such an important institution as the Church to its own devices. The king wrote a treatise which attacked Lutheranism and was rewarded by the Pope honouring him in 1521 CE with the title 'Defender of the Faith' (fidei defensor - the F.D. still appears on U.K. coins today). Relations turned sour, though, when Henry wanted his marriage to his first wife Catherine of Aragon annulled and the king blamed both the Pope and Wolsey for the lack of progress in the matter. Wolsey was eventually accused of treason but he died on his way to trial in 1530 CE. When Thomas Cromwell took over the case, Henry’s will was pushed to its logical conclusion: England would run its own Church free from the obligations of Rome. Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury formally annulled Henry’s first marriage in May 1533 CE (although Henry and Anne Boleyn had married in secret a few months earlier). This annulment and Parliament’s passing of the Act of Succession (30 April 1534 CE) meant that Catherine’s daughter Mary was declared illegitimate. Anne Boleyn was crowned queen in June and her daughter Elizabeth, born in September 1533 CE, was thus recognised as the king’s official heir. Henry was excommunicated by the Pope for his actions but by now the whole affair had taken on a significance far beyond royal marriages.
In order to replace the Pope as head of the Catholic Church in England, Henry made himself head of the Church of England. This was achieved by the Act of Supremacy of 28 November 1534 CE and meant that Henry, and all subsequent English monarchs, only had one higher authority: God himself. The next scene in this momentous drama came in 1536 CE when Henry presented Parliament with a bill to abolish all monasteries in his kingdom, the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The bill was passed and the estates of the monasteries were redistributed to the Crown and Henry’s supporters. The abbots of Glastonbury, Colchester, Reading, and Woburn were all hanged and the last monastery to close was Waltham Abbey in Essex in March 1540 CE.
A good many subjects were keen to see reform in the Church and so continue the Protestant Reformation movement that was sweeping across Europe. Many regarded the Church as too rich and too full of priests abusing their position. Certainly not everyone, however, was in agreement with Henry’s break from the Pope. Consequently, there were both executions and uprisings. Chief obstacle at court was Sir Thomas More (1478-1535 CE), Henry’s former chancellor who disagreed with the divorce with Catherine and Henry’s presumption to put himself above the Pope. More was executed for his beliefs in July 1535 CE.
The most notable episode of unrest was in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire where Catholics gathered in protest in the so-called Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 CE. The king would brook no opposition, though, and 178 of the protestors, including their leader Robert Aske, were executed in June 1537 CE. Another move towards independence was the king’s approval for a translation of the Bible in English in 1539 CE. It is important to remember though, that Henry was not dead set on reforming the doctrine of the Church; his commitment to traditional Catholic practices such as mass, confession and clerical celibacy, is evidenced in the 1539 CE Act of Six Articles.

Foreign Policy & Spending
Every inch the medieval king, Henry VIII seemed to dismiss the realities of post-medieval Europe and embarked on a series of military campaigns like so many of his predecessors had done. Despite Henry’s sister Margaret (b. 1489 CE) having married King James IV of Scotland (r. 1488-1513 CE) in 1503 CE, Henry sent an army north and won a resounding victory at Flodden in 1513 CE where James IV was killed. Another invading army attacked Edinburgh in 1544 CE but was defeated at the Battle of Ancrum Moore in 1545 CE. Scotland became an unsolved problem that Henry’s successors would have to deal with.
Henry, again like many of his predecessors, could not resist a stab at conquering France. However, of his several invasions across the Channel, none were particularly successful, despite a minor naval victory at the Battle of the Spurs (16 August 1513 CE). Henry changed tack and his sister, Mary (b. 1496 CE) was married off to Louis XII of France (1498-1515 CE) in 1514 CE. In 1518 CE, Henry settled for the status quo in Europe and a mutual defence agreement was signed with France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire. To pay for these expensive on-off wars in Scotland and France, Henry was obliged to sell off the lands he had confiscated from the Church to any noble who put in a decent offer. The high costs and the lack of wealth of England compared to far richer France meant Henry had to abandon another series of campaigns in the 1540s CE and he did well to settle for a peace deal in 1546 CE where he at least won control of Boulogne for eight years.
A happier escapade on French soil was the Field of the Cloth of Gold, a spectacular show of pomp and pageantry held just outside Calais in June 1520 CE. The event, which included jousting, hunting and banquets, involved masses of luxury tents (hence its name) and was held as a magnificent if somewhat empty show of friendship between England and France: Henry and Francis I of France (r. 1515-1547 CE).
Another of Henry’s successes, and one with far-reaching consequences for the history of England, was his creation of the Royal Navy. The fleet included the great warships Mary Rose and Henry Grâce à Dieu (aka ‘Great Harry’). The former was Henry’s magnificent flagship ship but it sank in the Solent River in 1545 CE with the loss of 500 lives. The wreck was salvaged in 1982 CE. Eager to make an impression everywhere, the king also built the fine palaces of Whitehall and Saint James’ in London and significantly revamped Hampton Court. The grandest of all was Nonsuch in Surrey, a private pleasure palace for the king that was built to commemorate 30 years of rule. The name derived from the boast that no such finer place existed anywhere and it was indeed an extravagant residence where the king could enjoy his favourite pastimes of hunting and hawking. Nonsuch was not completed until after the king’s death and, after going through various owners, was finally demolished in the 17th century CE.
All of Henry VIII’s 60 houses were lavishly furnished with tapestries, fine art, and gold and silver plate. Thus, by the end of his reign, the king had overspent on war and frivolities, and rampant inflation meant that the pot of gold his father had carefully accumulated had all been squandered. Henry, cruel and vindictive, had few friends left and a kingdom divided over religious matters. Henry VIII, then, whose early reign had promised so much, left little in terms of a lasting legacy except a plethora of portraits, silent testimony to one man’s vanity and delusions of imperial grandeur.
Death & Successor

Henry VIII’s health declined rapidly in his later years. The king suffered a badly ulcerated leg and was so overweight he had to be pushed around on a wheeled contraption. The king died on 28 January 1547 CE at Whitehall Palace in London, he was 55 years old. Henry was buried in Saint George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, next to his late third wife, Jane Seymour. Henry was succeeded by his son Edward VI, crowned in Westminster Abbey on 20 February 1547 CE. Edward was only nine and he would die of tuberculosis in 1553 CE aged 15. He was succeeded by another short-reigning monarch, his half-sister Mary I, who reigned until 1558 CE. Henry VIII’s second daughter then became queen, Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603 CE) and with her in swept the Golden Age of England."

FYI Maj Robert Thornton SFC (Join to see) SGT Steve McFarland MSG Andrew White Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. COL Mikel J. Burroughs SMSgt Lawrence McCarter CWO3 (Join to see) PO1 William "Chip" Nagel LTC (Join to see) SSG Chad Henning PO2 (Join to see)SPC Matthew Lamb CWO3 Dennis M. SFC William Farrell Cynthia Croft Capt Rich BuckleySPC Margaret HigginsSgt Kelli Mays