KING HENRY VIII (1491-1547)
Born at the Palace of Placentia in 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. In 1493, Henry was appointed Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. In 1494, he was created Duke of York. He was subsequently appointed Earl Marshal of England and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Henry was given a first-rate education from leading tutors, becoming fluent in Latin, French, and Spanish. It was initially anticipated that Henry would have a career in the Church, as it was expected that the throne would pass to Prince Arthur, Henry’s older brother.
In 1502, however, Arthur suddenly died, and Henry was thrust into all the duties of his late brother, becoming Prince of Wales and, of course, heir to the throne.
He was a handsome young man, and was both sporty and musical :
“His Majesty is the handsomest potentate I ever set eyes on; above the usual height, with an extremely fine calf to his leg, his complexion very fair and bright, auburn hair combed straight and short, in the French fashion, and a round face so very beautiful that it would become a pretty woman, his throat being rather long and thick…. He will enter his twenty-fifth year the month after next. He speaks French, English and Latin, and a little Italian, plays well on the lute and harpsichord, sings from book at sight, draws the bow with greater strength than any man in England and jousts marvelously…. a most accomplished Prince. the Venetian diplomat Pasqualigo in a dispatch, 1515″
Catherine of Aragon
Henry’s father renewed his efforts to seal an alliance between England and Spain via marriage (and he did not want to return Catherine’s dowry); thus, in place of the dead Arthur, Henry was offered up to Spain for marriage to Prince Arthur’s widow, Catherine of Aragon. Thus fourteen months after her young husband’s death, Catherine found herself betrothed to his brother, the new Prince of Wales. Only 17 years old, Henry married his brother’s widow, Catherine 11 June 1509, and on 24 June 1509, the two were crowned, at Westminster Abbey.
In 1525, King Henry’s increasing impatience with what he perceived to be Catherine’s inability to produce the desired heir was given a new spur when he became attracted to a charismatic young courtier in the Queen’s entourage, Anne Boleyn. Henry ordered Cardinal Wolsey to begin formal proceedings with Rome to annul his marriage. The king’s secretary, William Knight, went to Rome to petition Pope Clement VII for the annulment, but the Pope was highly reluctant to grant the king’s request due to pressure from Catherine’s nephew, Emperor Charles V, and an unwillingness to overturn the previous Pope’s decision. Wolsey’s efforts to lobby for the annulment were unsuccessful, and lead to Wolsey being dismissed by the King.
One of Cardinal Wolsey’s homes was the magnificent Hampton Court Palace which he was forced to give to The King in 1525. The palace was appropriated by Wolsey’s master, Henry VIII, in about 1525, although the Cardinal continued to live there until 1529. Henry added the Great Hall — which was the last medieval Great Hall built for the English monarchy — and the Royal Tennis Court, which was built and is still in use for the game of real tennis, not the present-day version of the game. This court is now the oldest Real Tennis Court in the world that is still in use.
Wolsey’s fall was sudden and complete. He travelled to Yorkshire for the first time in his career, and at Cawood in North Yorkshire, he was accused of treason and ordered to London by the Earl of Northumberland. In great distress, he set out for the capital with his personal chaplain Edmund Bonner. Wolsey fell ill and died on the way, at Leicester on November 29 around the age of 55. “If I had served my God”, the cardinal said remorsefully, “as diligently as I did my king, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs.”
Anne Boleyn
At the same time as Wolsey’s dismissal, Henry discovered and promoted other men of a different temper. Foremost among these were two gifted young clerics, Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer. It was Cranmer who first suggested in 1529 that Henry should consult the “theology faculties of the continental universities” for an opinion about the validity of his marriage. The project, abetted by apparent bribes and favours, achieved the hoped-for success, with favourable opinions offered to the English Parliament in 1530. Cranmer’s support of the King’s efforts to put aside Catherine of Aragon were rewarded with a position as ambassador to the imperial court, and shortly thereafter, he was appointed to replace William Warham as Archbishop of Canterbury upon the latter’s death. Cromwell, meanwhile, earned a position as chief adviser to the king with his even more daring proposal that Henry consider abolishing papal supremacy and declare himself head of the Church in England. Both Cromwell and Cranmer were protégés of Boleyn, who shared her growing sympathies with Protestant doctrines taking shape on the continent. Threats of withheld papal tithes having failed to move Clement VII to action, Henry finally took matters into his own hands: he secretly married Boleyn in January 1533, and shortly thereafter, had his allies in Parliament pass a statute forbidding further appeals to Rome. Archbishop Cranmer quickly moved to declare Henry’s marriage to Catherine invalid and his new one to Anne Boleyn valid. Boleyn was crowned Queen of England on June 1, and gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth (later Elizabeth I of England), three months later.
The Pope reacted by moving to excommunicate Henry in July 1533. Rejecting the decisions of the Pope, Parliament validated the marriage between Henry and Anne with the Act of Succession 1533. Catherine’s daughter, the Lady Mary, was declared illegitimate, and Anne’s issue were declared next in the line of succession. Included in this declaration was, most notably, a clause repudiating “any foreign authority, prince or potentate”. All adults in the Kingdom were required to acknowledge the Act’s provisions by oath and those who refused to do so were subject to imprisonment for life. 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.
Though she was instrumental in helping to bring about these radical religious changes, the King’s relationship with his Queen quickly soured. After the Princess Elizabeth’s birth, Queen Anne had at least two pregnancies that ended in either miscarriage or stillbirth, resurrecting old frustrations that Henry had experienced with Catherine. Determined to father a male heir, Henry had Anne arrested on charges of using witchcraft to trap him into marrying her, and adultery. The charges were most likely fabricated. The court trying the case was presided over by Anne’s own uncle, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. In May 1536, the Court condemned Anne and her brother to death, either by burning at the stake or by decapitation, whichever the King pleased. The other four men Queen Anne had allegedly been involved with were to be hanged, drawn and quartered; however, their sentences were ultimately commuted to decapitation. Anne and her brother George were also beheaded soon thereafter. At her final Mass, the Queen publicly swore to her innocence in the presence of a priest and various witnesses. She was also charged with the attempted poisoning of Henry FitzRoy, the illegitimate son of King Henry VIII.
George Boleyn and the other accused men were executed on May 17th. Lord and Lady Kingston, the keepers of the Tower, reported that Anne seemed very happy, and ready to be done with life. She was reported to have said, when Lord Kingston brought her the news that the King had commuted her sentence from burning to beheading, and had employed a swordsman from Calais for the execution, rather than having a Queen beheaded with the common axe: “He shall not have much trouble, for I have a little neck. I shall be known as La Reine sans tête ['The Headless Queen']!”
They came for Anne on the morning of May 19th to take her to the Tower Green, where she was to be afforded the dignity of a private execution. The Constable of the Tower wrote this of her:
This morning she sent for me, that I might be with her at such time as she received the good Lord (i.e. took Communion), to the intent I should hear her speak as touching her innocency alway to be clear. And in the writing of this she sent for me, and at my coming she said, “Mr. Kingston, I hear I shall not die afore noon, and I am very sorry therefore, for I thought to be dead by this time and past my pain “. I told her it should be no pain, it was so little. And then she said, “I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck”, and then put her hands about it, laughing heartily. I have seen many men and also women executed, and that they have been in great sorrow, and to my knowledge this lady has much joy in death. Sir, her almoner is continually with her, and had been since two o’clock after midnight.
She wore a “red petticoat under a loose, dark grey gown of damask trimmed in fur”. Her dark hair was bound up and she wore her customary French headdress. She made a short speech:
Good Christian people, I am come hither to die, for according to the law, and by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that, whereof I am accused and condemned to die, but I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never: and to me he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord. And if any person will meddle of my cause, I require them to judge the best. And thus I take my leave of the world and of you all, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me. O Lord have mercy on me, to God I commend my soul.
She then knelt upright (in French-style executions, with a sword, there was no block). Her final prayer consisted of her repeating, “To Jesus Christ I commend my soul; Lord Jesus receive my soul.” Her ladies removed the headdress and tied a blindfold over her eyes. The execution was swift, consisting of a single stroke: according to one tale, the swordsman was so taken with Anne that he said, “Where is my sword?” and then beheaded her so she would think that she had just a few moments longer to live and would not know that the sword was coming.
Jane Seymour
One day after Anne’s execution in 1536 Henry became engaged to, and 10 days later married Jane Seymour, one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting to whom the King had been showing favour for some time. 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 from the throne. The King was granted the power to further determine the line of succession in his will. Jane gave birth to a son, Prince Edward the future Edward VI, in 1537; Jane died at Greenwich Palace on 24 October 1537 of puerperal fever. After Jane’s death, the entire court mourned with Henry for an extended period. Henry considered Jane to be his sole “true” wife, being the only one who had given him the male heir he so desperately sought.
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 unified nation. The Act provided for the sole use of English in official proceedings in Wales, inconveniencing the numerous speakers of the Welsh language.
Henry VIII’s heir – Prince Edward VI
Edward VI died at the age of 15 at Greenwich Palace on 6 July 1553, either of pulmonary tuberculosis, arsenic poisoning, or syphilis. His last words were said to have been: “Oh my Lord God, defend this realm from papistry and maintain Thy true religion.” He was buried in Henry VII Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey by Thomas Cranmer with Protestant rites on 9 August 1553, while Mary had Mass said for his soul in the Tower.
Anne of Cleves
Henry desired to marry once again to ensure that a male could succeed him. Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex suggested Anne, the sister of the Protestant Duke of Cleves, who was seen as an important ally in case of a Roman Catholic attack on England. Hans Holbein the Younger was dispatched to Cleves to paint a portrait of Anne for the King. 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.” She was painted totally without any signs of her pockmarked face. Nevertheless, he married her on 6 January 1540.
The marriage was subsequently annulled on the grounds that Anne had previously been contracted to marry another European nobleman. She received the title of “The King’s Sister,” and was granted Hever Castle, the former residence of Anne Boleyn’s family.
Catherine Howard
On 28 July 1540 (the same day Lord Essex was executed) Henry married the young Catherine Howard (also referred to as Katherine), Anne Boleyn’s first cousin. He was absolutely delighted with his new queen. Soon after her marriage, however, Queen Catherine had an affair with the courtier, Thomas Culpeper. She also employed Francis Dereham, who was previously informally engaged to her and had an affair with her prior to her marriage, as her secretary. Thomas Cranmer, who was opposed to the powerful Catholic Howard family, brought evidence of Queen Catherine’s activities to the King’s notice. 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. Dereham, meanwhile, exposed Queen Catherine’s relationship with Thomas Culpeper.
Catherine’s marriage was annulled shortly before her execution. As was the case with Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard could not have technically been guilty of adultery, as the marriage was officially null and void from the beginning. Again, this point was ignored, and Catherine was executed on 13 February 1542. She was only about eighteen years old at the time.
Catherine Parr
Henry married his last wife, the wealthy widow Catherine Parr, in 1543. She argued with Henry over religion; she was a radical, but Henry remained a conservative. This behaviour almost led to her undoing, but she saved herself by a show of submissiveness. She helped reconcile Henry with his first two daughters, the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth. In 1544, an Act of Parliament put them back in the line of succession after Edward, Prince of Wales, though they were still deemed illegitimate. The same Act allowed Henry to determine further succession to the throne in his will.
Later in life, Henry was grossly overweight, with a waist measurement of 54 inches (137 cm), and possibly suffered from gout. Henry’s increased size dates from a jousting accident in 1536. He suffered a thigh wound which not only prevented him from taking exercise but also gradually became ulcerated and may have indirectly led to his death, which occurred on 28 January 1547 at the Palace of Whitehall. He died on what would have been his father’s 90th birthday. Henry VIII was buried in St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, next to his wife Jane Seymour. Almost a hundred years later Charles I would also be buried in his grave. Within a little more than a decade after his death, all three of his legitimate children sat on the English throne, and they had no descendants.
Facts courtesy of Wikipedia.com
