Henry VIII

Britain's Most Famous Monarch (arguably...)

(I didn’t realise how big this piece was going to be so it’s too big for email. Please read on the app or website. Vulkan)

I’m going to start by saying that I know a lot of people hate the fact that we here in the UK have a Royal family, that are rich for no other reason than the fact of the family were born too. It grinds some peoples gears and they want to abolish it etc. I think that’s a serious mistake. I love our British Monarchy.

It’s not the family per se that I love. It’s the history. It’s a history that goes back 1200 years into the past. That’s older than a hell of a lot of countries that are here today. It’s a history that includes castles, battles, honour, glory, death, art, armour, jewels. I’d hate for that to come to an end (plus the tourism money that comes with it.)

Over the course of that 1200 years there have been 63 monarchs starting with Egbert in 827 to our current king, Charles III. We have had many Kings and Queens, some of whom have had a negligible impact on the UK and some who have had a massive impact. In a previous article I’ve written about Elanor of Aquitaine.

Today I’m going to write about arguably our most famous monarch. Today I’m going to write about Henry VIII.

Henry VIII

Born on 28 June 1491 at the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, Kent, Henry Tudor was the third child and second son of King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Of the young Henry's six (or seven) siblings, only three – his brother Arthur, Prince of Wales, and sisters Margaret and Mary – survived infancy. He was baptised by Richard Foxe, the Bishop of Exeter, at a church of the Observant Franciscans close to the palace. In 1493, at the age of two, Henry was appointed Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. He was subsequently appointed Earl Marshal of England and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at age three and was made a Knight of the Bath soon after. The day after the ceremony, he was created Duke of York and a month or so later made Warden of the Scottish Marches. In May 1495, he was appointed to the Order of the Garter. The reason for giving such appointments to a small child was to enable his father to retain personal control of lucrative positions and not share them with established families. Not much is known about Henry's early life – save for his appointments – because he was not expected to become king, he was, for all intents and purposes, the Spare (and we know today a certain person who hates the fact that he’s the Spare) but it is known that he received a first-rate education from leading tutors. He became fluent in Latin and French and learned at least some Italian.

Catherine of Aragon

In 1502, Arthur died at the age of 15, just 20 weeks after his marriage to Catherine. Arthur's death thrust all his duties upon his younger brother. The 10-year-old Henry became the new Duke of Cornwall, and the new Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester in February 1504. Henry VII gave his second son few responsibilities even after the death of Arthur. Young Henry was strictly supervised and did not appear in public. As a result, he ascended the throne "untrained in the exacting art of kingship".

My opinion of this is Henry VII did not want any sort of assassination attempt on the young prince. Also remember that disease was rife back in those days and he might have been trying to protect his son from the unseen and as of then unknown enemy known as bacteria.

Henry VII renewed his efforts to seal a marital alliance between England and Spain, by offering his son Henry in marriage to the widowed Catherine. Henry VII and Queen Isabella were both keen on the idea, which had arisen very shortly after Arthur's death. On 23 June 1503, a treaty was signed for their marriage, and they were betrothed two days later.

Henry VII died in April 1509, and the 17-year-old Henry succeeded him as King. Soon after his father's burial on 10 May, Henry suddenly declared that he would indeed marry Catherine. The new king maintained that it had been his father's dying wish that he marry Catherine. I do not believe this was true and think Henry was advised to do this to avoid a costly war with the Holy Roman Empire and it’s leader, Emperor Maximilian I who had been attempting to marry his granddaughter Eleanor, Catherine's niece, to Henry. Henry's wedding to Catherine was kept low-key and was held at the friar's church in Greenwich on 11 June 1509.

On 23 June 1509, Henry led the now 23-year-old Catherine from the Tower of London to Westminster Abbey for their coronation, which took place the following day. It was an amazing affair: the King's passage was lined with tapestries and laid with fine cloth. Following the ceremony, there was a grand banquet, filled with the finest foods of the time and goblets filled with wines in Westminster Hall. As Catherine wrote to her father, "our time is spent in continuous festival".

Soon after marrying Henry, Catherine conceived. She gave birth to a stillborn girl on 31 January 1510. About four months later, Catherine again became pregnant. On 1 January 1511, New Year's Day, a son, Henry was born. After the grief of losing their first child, the couple were pleased to have a boy and festivities were held, including a two-day joust known as the Westminster Tournament. However, the child died seven weeks later. Catherine had two stillborn sons in 1513 and 1515, but gave birth in February 1516 to a girl, Mary. Relations between Henry and Catherine had been strained, but they eased slightly after Mary's birth.

It was these early deaths of his babies that made Henry obsess over having a male heir to carry on his bloodline. He was especially keen to have a son and a spare since he himself had been the spare himself.

Although Henry's marriage to Catherine has since been described as "unusually good", it is known that Henry, as most Kings of the time did, took mistresses. It was revealed in 1510 that Henry had been conducting an affair with one of the sisters of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham. The most significant mistress for about three years, starting in 1516, was Elizabeth Blount.

Blount gave birth in June 1519 to Henry's illegitimate son, Henry FitzRoy. The young boy was made Duke of Richmond in June 1525 in what some thought was one step on the path to his eventual legitimisation.

In 1510, France, with a fragile alliance with the Holy Roman Empire in the League of Cambrai, was winning a war against Venice. Henry renewed his father's friendship with Louis XII of France, an issue that divided his council.

Shortly thereafter, however, Henry also signed a pact with Ferdinand II of Aragon. After Pope Julius II created the anti-French Holy League in October 1511, Henry followed Ferdinand's lead and brought England into the new League. An initial joint Anglo-Spanish attack was planned for the spring to recover Aquitaine for England, the start of making Henry's dreams of ruling France a reality.

On 30 June 1513, Henry invaded France, and his troops defeated a French army at the Battle of the Spurs – a relatively minor result, but one which was seized on by the English for propaganda purposes. Soon after, the English took Thérouanne and handed it over to Maximillian; Tournai, a more significant settlement, followed. Henry had led the army personally, complete with a large entourage.

These campaigns had given Henry a taste of the military success he so desired. However, despite initial indications, he decided not to pursue a 1514 campaign. He had been supporting Ferdinand and Maximilian financially during the campaign but had received little in return; England's coffers were now empty and the thought of raising taxes didn’t please many people. With the replacement of Julius by Pope Leo X, who was inclined to negotiate for peace with France, Henry signed his own treaty with Louis: his sister Mary would become Louis's wife, having previously been pledged to the younger Charles, and peace was secured for eight years, a remarkably long time in that period of Human history.

Henry met King Francis on 7 June 1520 at the Field of the Cloth of Gold near Calais for a fortnight of lavish entertainment. Both hoped for friendly relations in place of the wars of the previous decade. The strong air of competition laid to rest any hopes of a renewal of the Treaty of London, however, and conflict was inevitable.

We’ll now move on to what Henry is really famous for. His six wives.

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English historian and House of Tudor expert David Starkey describes Henry VIII as a husband:

What is extraordinary is that in the beginning of Henry's marriages, he was usually a very good husband. He was very tender to them, research shows that he addressed some of his wives as "sweetheart." He was a good lover, he was very generous: the wives were given huge settlements of land and jewels. He was immensely considerate when they were pregnant. However, if his current wife did not please him or did anything to fire his short temper, there would be consequences. Two of Henry's wives were beheaded by his command.

Catherine of Aragon (16th December 1485 - 7th January 1536)

Catherine of Aragon was Henry's first wife. In modern sources, her name is most commonly spelled Catherine, although she spelled and signed her name with a "K," which was an accepted spelling in England at the time and is still used today.

Catherine was originally married to Arthur, Henry's older brother. She was a year older than Arthur and six years older than Henry. After Arthur died of sweating sickness in 1502, a papal dispensation by Henry VII was obtained to enable her to marry Henry, though the marriage did not occur until he came to the throne in 1509, when Henry was 17 years old and Catherine was 23.

Over the years Catherine had many still-borns and miscarriages, eventually giving birth to a daughter, Mary, in 1516.

It is said that Henry truly loved Catherine of Aragon, as he professed it many times. However, Henry became concerned he did not have a son to continue the Tudor dynasty.

As I said above, Henry took many mistresses’ including Elizabeth Blount, who gave birth to his son, Henry FitzRoy. He also had an affair with Mary Boleyn (We’ll come to her sister shortly) – the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, English Ambassador to France.

By the late 1520s, it was clear Catherine (now in her mid-40s) would not bear any more children, and Henry, increasingly desperate for a legitimate son, planned to marry Anne Boleyn who he desired above all else and had been writing love letters to her and sending her gifts.

Henry, at the time a Roman Catholic, sought the Pope's approval for an annulment on the grounds that Catherine had first been his brother's wife. He used a passage from the Old Testament (Leviticus Chapter 20 Verse 21): "If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an impurity; he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless."

The Pope said no and this would set off events that are still felt today. Despite the Pope's refusal to annul the marriage, Henry separated from Catherine in 1531; Catherine was 45, Henry was 40. He ordered Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, to convene a court. On 23 May 1533,^[11] Cranmer ruled the marriage to Catherine null and void. On 28 May 1533, he pronounced the King legally married to Anne (with whom Henry had already secretly exchanged wedding vows). This led to the Reformation and England breaking from the Roman Catholic Church, the establishment of a Church of England separated from the jurisdiction of that Church.

Shortly after marrying Anne Boleyn, Henry sent Catherine away. She did not see Henry, or their daughter Mary, again before her death in isolation at age 50.

Anne Boleyn (1507 - 19th May 1536)

Anne Boleyn was Henry's second wife and the mother of Elizabeth I, arguably our greatest Queen. Henry's marriage to Anne and her later execution made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval at the start of the English Reformation. She was the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn and Elizabeth Howard.

She was dark-haired with beautiful features and lively manners; she was educated in Europe by Margaret of Austria. She then moved to France, and lived there for some years, largely as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Claude.

Anne resisted the king's attempts of letters to seduce her and refused to become his mistress as her sister Mary Boleyn had been. It soon became the one absorbing object of the King's desires to secure an annulment from his wife Catherine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne.

As I wrote above, it became clear that Pope Clement VII was unlikely to give the King an annulment, so Henry began to break the power of the Catholic Church in England for the current obsession he had with Anne Boleyn. This sparked what became the English Reformation.

On 14 November 1532, Henry and Anne hosted a secret wedding service. Henry was 41, and Anne was in her late 20s. She soon became pregnant and there was a second, official wedding service in London on 25 January 1533. On 23 May 1533, Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Catherine null and void. Five days after this, Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Anne to be good and valid. Soon after, the Pope gave sentence of ex-communication against the King and the Archbishop for disobeying his official edicts.

Anne was crowned Queen consort of England on 1 June 1533, and she gave birth to Henry's second daughter Elizabeth (arguably our greatest Queen) on 7 September. By 1536, she had suffered several miscarriages, and had failed to give birth to a son. This caused Henry to worry once more about his legacy as he had with Catherine. He started looking for another mistress. Whilst this was ongoing, Thomas Cromwell, Anne’s former ally plotted her downfall.

Despite unconvincing evidence, she was found guilty of engaging in sexual relations with her brother, George Boleyn, and other men, and Anne was beheaded on 19 May 1536 for adultery, incest, and high treason after Henry had his marriage to her annulled just two days before. Thus ended the life of wife number two.

Jane Seymour (1508 - 24th October 1537)

Jane Seymour was Henry's third wife. She initially served Catherine of Aragon as maid-of-honour from 1532 and was then one of Anne Boleyn's ladies-in-waiting.

She was of lower birth than most of Henry's wives, only being able to read and write a little, but was much better at needlework and household management, which were considered much more necessary for women at the time.

In January 1536, the King took an interest in the demure and fair-haired Jane, the complete opposite of Queen Anne. When Anne was arrested for treason in May 1536, Jane was quickly moved into royal apartments.

Jane married Henry on 30 May 1536, at the Palace of Whitehall, Whitehall, London, eleven days after Anne Boleyn's execution. Jane was 28 and Henry was 44. As Queen, Jane was known for her peaceful and gentle nature.. She managed to repair the fraught relationship between Henry and his daughter Mary who restored her tot he line of succession.

Almost a year and a half after marriage, Jane gave birth to the male heir that Henry had desired all these years, Edward. Unfortunately God giveth and God took away in Henry’s eyes as Jane died twelve days later from postpartum complications. Jane was the only wife to receive a royal burial. When Henry died, he chose to be buried next to her in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. Many people have offered to pay for a better burial place for Henry and Jane as their tomb is occupied by Charles I.

Anne of Cleaves (22nd September 1515 - 16th July 1557)

Anne of Cleves was a German princess, Henry's fourth wife and queen consort of England, although not crowned, for just six months in 1540, from 6 January to 9 July.

In 1539, Henry VIII's chief minister Thomas Cromwell formed an alliance between England and Cleves, and Henry began considering Anne as his fourth wife. Anne of Cleves' portrait was painted by Hans Holbein the Younger and sent to King Henry to evaluate. Her brother William did not allow Holbein to paint whilst looking directly at the face of Anne and her sister Amalia's, so they had to wear veils whilst being painted. Henry liked Anne's portrait and wanted her sent to him. When she arrived, Henry was not impressed. Henry complained that she did not look like her portrait.

Her pre-contract of marriage with Francis I of Lorraine was cited as grounds for annulment six months later. Anne did not resist the annulment, claiming the marriage had not been consummated, and was rewarded with a generous settlement including Hever Castle (such a beautiful place), the former home of the Boleyns.

She was given the title of "The King's Beloved Sister" and was a lifelong friend to him and his children; Anne of Cleves was approximately the same age as Henry VIII's eldest surviving daughter Mary. She outlived the King and all his other wives, dying at Chelsea Old Manor on 16 July 1557. She is buried in Westminster Abbey. Another fallout of Henry’s failed marriage to Anne was the falling of grace of Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell was now surrounded by enemies at court, with Norfolk also able to draw on his niece Catherine's position. Cromwell was charged with treason, selling export licences, granting passports, and drawing up commissions without permission, and may also have been blamed for the failure of the foreign policy that accompanied the attempted marriage to Anne. He was subsequently attained and beheaded.

Henry came to regret Cromwell's killing and later accused his ministers of bringing about Cromwell's downfall by "pretexts" and "false accusations"; over important issues and policies, he had always been liable to be "bounced" into a hasty decision by the intrigues of the factions within his court. On 3 March 1541, the French ambassador, Charles de Marillac, reported in a letter that the King was now said to be lamenting that,

“under pretext of some slight offences which he had committed, they had brought several accusations against him, on the strength of which he had put to death the most faithful servant he ever had.^”

Catherine Howard (1523 - 13th February 1542)

Catherine Howard, was Henry's fifth wife, between 1540 and 1542. She was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper, cousin to Anne Boleyn (that should have been a warning sign) and second cousin to Jane Seymour. She was raised in the household of her step-grandmother Agnes Howard, Duchess of Norfolk. Her uncle the Duke of Norfolk was a prominent politician at Henry's court; and he secured her a place in the household of Henry's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, in 1540, where Catherine caught the King's interest.

She married him on 28 July 1540 at Oatlands Palace in Surrey, just 19 days after the annulment of his marriage to Anne. He was 49, and she was still in her early twenties, so she would be around 20-21 years old. This makes me wonder how much she would have been forced to do it for political reasons.

Field armour of Henry VIII when his waist was 51 inches.

At 49 years old Henry was obese, with a waist measurement of 54 inches (140 cm), and had to be moved about with the help of mechanical devices. He was covered with painful, pus-filled boils and possibly had gout. His obesity and other medical problems can be traced to the jousting accident on 24 January 1536 in which he suffered a leg wound.

On 1 November 1541, Henry was informed of her alleged adultery with Thomas Culpeper, her distant cousin; Henry Mannox, who had given her private music lessons while she lived with her step-grandmother; and Francis Dereham, the Duchess's secretary, with whom had she apparently had a sexual relationship. Catherine was stripped of her title as Queen in November 1541 and was beheaded in February 1542 on the grounds of treason for committing adultery.

Catherine Parr (August 1512 - 5th September 1548)

Catherine Parr also spelled Kateryn, was the sixth and last wife of Henry VIII. She was the daughter of Sir Thomas Parr of Kendal and his wife, Maud Green.

Catherine showed herself to be the restorer of Henry's court as a family home for his children. She was determined to present the royal household as a close-knit one to demonstrate strength through unity. Perhaps Catherine's most significant achievement was her role in getting the Third Succession Act passed, confirming both Mary and Elizabeth's place in the line of succession for the throne despite the fact that they had both been made illegitimate by annulment of their respective parents' marriages.

At the time of the passage of the act, Catherine Parr was 31, Mary was 27, Elizabeth was 10, and Henry was 52. Such was Henry's trust in Catherine that he chose her to rule as regent while he was attending to the war in France, and in the event of the loss of his life, she was to serve as regent until nine-year-old Edward came of age. However, when Henry died in 1547, Edward Seymour (brother of Jane Seymour), 1st Duke of Somerset effectively took up the position, being appointed Protector by the Regency Council.

Catherine also has a special place in history, as she was the most married queen of England, having had four husbands in all; Henry was her third. She had been widowed twice before marrying Henry. After Henry's death, she married Thomas Seymour, uncle of Prince Edward, to whom she had formed an attachment before her marriage with Henry. She had one child by Seymour, Mary Seymour, but died shortly after childbirth, at age 35 or 36. Seymour was executed for treason in 1549. She is buried at Sudeley Castle in the town of Winchcombe.

Henry VIII in 1940 by Hans Holbein the Younger

The 1539 alliance between Francis, King of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles had soured, eventually degenerating into renewed war. With Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn dead, relations between Charles and Henry improved considerably, and Henry concluded a secret alliance with the Emperor and decided to enter the Italian War in favour of his new ally.

An invasion of France was planned for 1543. In preparation for it, Henry moved to eliminate the potential threat of Scotland under his young nephew, James V. The Scots were defeated at Battle of Solway Moss on 24 November 1542, and James died on 15 December.

Henry now hoped to unite the crowns of England and Scotland by marrying his son Edward to James's successor, Mary. The Scottish regent Lord Arran agreed to the marriage in the Treaty of Greenwich on 1 July 1543, but it was rejected by the Parliament of Scotland on 11 December. The result was eight years of war between England and Scotland, a campaign later dubbed "the Rough Wooing". Despite several peace treaties, unrest continued in Scotland until Henry's death.

Despite the early success with Scotland, Henry hesitated to invade France, annoying Charles. Henry finally went to France in June 1544 with a two-pronged attack. One force under Norfolk ineffectively besieged Montreuil. The other, under Suffolk, laid siege to Boulogne. Henry later took personal command, and Boulogne fell on 18 September 1544.

However, Henry had refused Charles's request to march against Paris. Charles's own campaign fizzled, and he made peace with France that same day. Henry was left alone against France, unable to make peace. Francis attempted to invade England in the summer of 1545 but his forces reached only the Isle of Wight before being repulsed in the Battle of the Solent. This battle is most famous for the sinking of the Mary Rose.

The Mary Rose

As a side note, taken from Wikipedia: On the morning of 11 October 1982, the final lift of the entire package of cradle, hull and lifting frame began. It was watched by the team, Prince Charles and other spectators in boats around the site. At 9:03 am, the first timbers of the Mary Rose broke the surface. A second set of bags under the hull was inflated with air, to cushion the waterlogged wood. Finally, the whole package was placed on a barge and taken to the shore. Though eventually successful, the operation was close to foundering on two occasions; first when one of the supporting legs of the lifting frame was bent and had to be removed and later when a corner of the frame, with "an unforgettable crunch", slipped more than a metre (3 feet) and came close to crushing part of the hull. It’s amazing to see and I recommend coming down to Portsmouth for a day out to see it if you are ever in the UK.

Now back to Henry VIII. Financially exhausted, France and England signed the Treaty of Camp on 7 June 1546. Henry secured Boulogne for eight years. The city was then to be returned to France for 2 million crowns (£750,000). Henry needed the money; the 1544 campaign had cost £650,000, and England was once again facing bankruptcy which is nothing new.

As mentioned above, by the later stages of his life, Henry was very obese. His obesity and other medical problems can be traced to the jousting accident on 24 January 1536 in which he suffered a leg wound. The accident reopened and aggravated an injury he had sustained years earlier, to the extent that his doctors found it difficult to treat. The chronic wound festered for the remainder of his life and became ulcerated, preventing him from maintaining the level of physical activity he had previously enjoyed. The jousting accident is also believed to have caused Henry's mood swings, which may have had a dramatic effect on his personality and temperament.

Henry's obesity hastened his death at the age of 55, on 28 January 1547 in the Palace of Whitehall, on what would have been his father's 90th birthday. The tomb he had planned (with components taken from the tomb intended for Cardinal Wolsey) was only partly constructed and was never completed (the sarcophagus and its base were later removed and used for Lord Nelson's tomb in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral). Henry was interred in a vault at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, next to Jane Seymour. Over 100 years later, King Charles I (ruled 1625–1649) was buried in the same vault which many people hate. There has been numerous people who have offered to pay to have Charles removed to his own grave but it has always been rebuffed.

Upon Henry's death, he was succeeded by his only surviving son, Edward VI. Since Edward was then only nine years old, he could not rule directly. Instead, Henry's will designated 16 executors to serve on a regency council until Edward reached 18. The executors chose Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, elder brother to Jane Seymour (Edward's mother), to be Lord Protector of the Realm. Under provisions of the will, if Edward died childless, the throne was to pass to Mary, Henry VIII's daughter by Catherine of Aragon, and her heirs.

If Mary's issue failed, the crown was to go to Elizabeth, Henry's daughter by Anne Boleyn, and her heirs. Finally, if Elizabeth's line became extinct, the crown was to be inherited by the descendants of Henry VIII's deceased younger sister, Mary, the Greys. The descendants of Henry's sister Margaret Tudor – the Stuarts, rulers of Scotland – were thereby excluded from the succession. This provision ultimately failed when James VI of Scotland, Margaret's great-grandson, became King of England in 1603. Edward VI himself would disregard the will and name Jane Grey his successor.

Henry’s Armorial during the latter half of his reign

So there you have it. Henry VIII. Arguably our most famous monarch. He had a massive impact on British history with the main thing being the Reformation where, in his desire to marry Anne Boleyn, he took the UK away from the clutches of the Pope. That is a huge article in itself. It would be interesting to read about it from someone who is a church goer.

I have made this article using various websites and books. If you’re ever in the UK then I recommend taking a Tudor Tour as they’re very interesting. The TV show with Johnathan Rhys Myers is also pretty good and, even if it dramatised lots of things, helped renew peoples interest in the Tudor Period. Plus it has Natalie Dormer.

So there you go. I’m done now. This has taken me ages to do due to work and physio etc. I hope you enjoy and learn something. Please like and share and comment if you have any questions or have been to anything to do with the Tudors.

I hope I find you all happy and healthy.

Vulkan