In 1509, at the age of 17, Henry VIII took the throne after his father, Henry VII. He had not been born to be king: his elder brother Arthur was the heir, but Arthur fell ill and died at 15. The young Henry was tall and handsome, loved riding and jousting, and could compose music and play it too, so people had high hopes of their new king. He kept up his father's policy of strong central government. But he is best remembered for two things: splitting from the Church of Rome and having six wives.
Henry VIII's six wives. British people remember what happened to them with a rhyme: divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived.
Catherine of Aragon: a princess from Spain. Of all the children she had with Henry, only one lived: their daughter Mary. Once Catherine could no longer have children, Henry wanted a divorce.
Anne Boleyn: born in England. Her child with Henry was a daughter, Elizabeth. Many people in the country disliked her. She was charged with having affairs with other men and was put to death in the Tower of London.
Jane Seymour: at last gave Henry the son he longed for, Edward. Sadly, she died soon after giving birth.
Anne of Cleves: a princess from Germany. Henry married her to make a political alliance, and the marriage was quickly ended. Henry had chosen her after seeing a portrait of her by his court painter, Holbein, but he was disappointed when they actually met, and the marriage lasted only about six months. Anne wisely agreed to end it, and in return she got rich lands, a good income and the title of "the King's beloved sister". She outlived all the others and was the last of the six queens to die.
Catherine Howard: a cousin of Anne Boleyn. Like Anne, she was charged with having affairs, and she too was executed.
Catherine Parr: a widow whom Henry married near the end of his life. She lived longer than Henry and married again, but she died not long afterwards.
Henry VIII, painted by the workshop of Hans Holbein the Younger, around the 1540s. The wide-legged stance and huge shoulders were meant to make the king look powerful.
Workshop of Hans Holbein the Younger, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
A new church so he could get divorced
Henry and his first wife Catherine had no son who survived, and he wanted to divorce her and marry someone else. But England was a Catholic country, and a divorce needed the permission of the Pope. The Pope said no.
So Henry cut England off from the Church of Rome and created the Church of England, where the king took the Pope's place. Now he appointed the bishops and set the rules for how people worshipped.
Oddly enough, only a dozen or so years before the break, Henry had written a book defending the Catholic faith, and the Pope had rewarded him with the title Defender of the Faith. After the quarrel the Pope took the title away, but in 1544 the English Parliament gave it back to him, and British monarchs have kept it ever since: the letters F D next to the monarch's name on British coins stand for it.
Henry also closed down the monasteries across the country and took their land and wealth for the Crown. This is known as the dissolution of the monasteries. He soon spent the money on palaces and wars. One of his favourite palaces was Hampton Court Palace, near London, which he took over from his chief minister, Thomas Wolsey. He also built up the navy. His flagship, the Mary Rose, sank before his eyes in 1545 during a battle with the French; it was raised from the seabed in 1982 and is now on show in Portsmouth.
In his later years Henry had a bad fall while jousting, and the wound in his leg never healed. He grew fatter and fatter and more and more bad-tempered. He died in 1547, and the crown passed to his only son, Edward VI, who was just 9 years old.
Quiz
Which TWO wives of Henry VIII were executed?
Anne Boleyn and her cousin Catherine Howard were executed. Jane Seymour died after giving birth to Edward, and Catherine Parr outlived Henry. In the rhyme, the two "beheaded"s are wives number 2 and number 5.
Quiz
Why did Henry VIII establish the Church of England?
The reason was a personal one: the Pope would not let him divorce Catherine of Aragon. The Armada came in the time of his daughter, Elizabeth I. Parliament refusing money and the union of England and Scotland both belong to the later Stuart period.
Quiz
Which wife of Henry VIII was a Spanish princess?
Catherine of Aragon was a Spanish princess and Henry's first queen; her daughter later became Mary I. The easiest one to pick by mistake is Anne of Cleves: she was a foreign princess too, but from Germany. Anne Boleyn was English, and Catherine Parr was an English widow.
Quiz
Which of Henry VIII's wives gave birth to his son, Edward?
Jane Seymour gave Henry the son he had longed for, Edward, but she died soon after the birth. Anne Boleyn's child was a daughter, Elizabeth, and only Catherine of Aragon's daughter Mary survived. Catherine Howard had no children with Henry and was later executed.
Quiz
Is the statement below TRUE or FALSE?
In the new Church of England, the Pope kept the power to appoint bishops.
False. The whole point of the Church of England was to take power away from the Pope: now the king appointed the bishops and decided how people should worship.
