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Henry VIII

Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disagreement with Pope Clement VII about such an annulment led Henry to initiate the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from papal authority. He appointed himself Supreme Head of the Church of England and dissolved convents and monasteries, for which he was excommunicated by the pope. Henry is also known as "the father of the Royal Navy" as he invested heavily in the navy and increased its size from a few to more than 50 ships, and established the Navy Board.[1]

Henry VIII
King of England
Lord/King of Ireland
Reign22 April 1509 – 28 January 1547
Coronation24 June 1509
PredecessorHenry VII
SuccessorEdward VI
Born28 June 1491
Palace of Placentia, Greenwich, England
Died28 January 1547 (aged 55)
Palace of Whitehall, Westminster, England
Burial16 February 1547
Spouses
(m. 1509; ann. 1533)
(m. 1533; ann. 1536)
(m. 1536; d. 1537)
(m. 1540; ann. 1540)
(m. 1540; d. 1542)
(m. 1543)
Issue
Among others
HouseTudor
FatherHenry VII of England
MotherElizabeth of York
Religion
Signature

Domestically, Henry is known for his radical changes to the English Constitution, ushering in the theory of the divine right of kings in opposition to papal supremacy. He also greatly expanded royal power during his reign. He frequently used charges of treason and heresy to quell dissent, and those accused were often executed without a formal trial by means of bills of attainder. He achieved many of his political aims through the work of his chief ministers, some of whom were banished or executed when they fell out of his favour. Thomas Wolsey, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, Richard Rich and Thomas Cranmer all figured prominently in his administration.

Henry was an extravagant spender, using the proceeds from the dissolution of the monasteries and acts of the Reformation Parliament. He also converted the money that was formerly paid to Rome into royal revenue. Despite the money from these sources, he was continually on the verge of financial ruin due to his personal extravagance, as well as his numerous costly and largely unsuccessful wars, particularly with King Francis I of France, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, King James V of Scotland and the Scottish regency under the Earl of Arran and Mary of Guise. At home, he oversaw the annexure of Wales to England with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 and was the first English monarch to rule as King of Ireland following the Crown of Ireland Act 1542.

Henry's contemporaries considered him to be an attractive, educated and accomplished king. He has been described as "one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne" and his reign has been described as the "most important" in English history.[2][3] He was an author and composer. As he aged, he became severely overweight and his health suffered. He is frequently characterised in his later life as a lustful, egotistical, paranoid and tyrannical monarch.[4] He was succeeded by his son Edward VI.

Early years

 
 
Henry VIII's parents, King Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth

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.[5] Of the young Henry's six (or seven) siblings, only three – his brother Arthur, Prince of Wales, and sisters Margaret and Mary – survived infancy.[6] He was baptised by Richard Foxe, the Bishop of Exeter, at a church of the Observant Franciscans close to the palace.[7] 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.[7] Not much is known about Henry's early life – save for his appointments – because he was not expected to become king,[7] 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.[8][9]

In November 1501, Henry played a considerable part in the ceremonies surrounding his brother Arthur's marriage to Catherine, the youngest child of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile.[10] As Duke of York, Henry used the arms of his father as king, differenced by a label of three points ermine. He was further honoured on 9 February 1506 by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, who made him a Knight of the Golden Fleece.[11]

In 1502, Arthur died at the age of 15, possibly of sweating sickness,[12] just 20 weeks after his marriage to Catherine.[13] 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.[14] 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".[15]

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.[13] Both Henry VII and Catherine's mother Queen Isabella were keen on the idea, which had arisen very shortly after Arthur's death.[16] On 23 June 1503, a treaty was signed for their marriage, and they were betrothed two days later.[17] A papal dispensation was only needed for the "impediment of public honesty" if the marriage had not been consummated as Catherine and her duenna claimed, but Henry VII and the Spanish ambassador set out instead to obtain a dispensation for "affinity", which took account of the possibility of consummation.[17] Cohabitation was not possible because Henry was too young.[16] Isabella's death in 1504, and the ensuing problems of succession in Castile, complicated matters. Catherine's father Ferdinand preferred her to stay in England, but Henry VII's relations with Ferdinand had deteriorated.[18] Catherine was therefore left in limbo for some time, culminating in Prince Henry's rejection of the marriage as soon he was able, at the age of 14. Ferdinand's solution was to make his daughter ambassador, allowing her to stay in England indefinitely. Devout, she began to believe that it was God's will that she marry the prince despite his opposition.[19]

Early reign

 
Portrait by Meynnart Wewyck, 1509

Henry VII died on 21 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, leaving unresolved several issues concerning the papal dispensation and a missing part of the marriage portion.[17][20] The new king maintained that it had been his father's dying wish that he marry Catherine.[19] Whether or not this was true, it was certainly convenient. Emperor Maximilian I had been attempting to marry his granddaughter Eleanor, Catherine's niece, to Henry; she had now been jilted.[21] Henry's wedding to Catherine was kept low-key and was held at the friar's church in Greenwich on 11 June 1509.[20] Henry claimed descent from Constantine the Great and King Arthur and saw himself as their successor.[22]

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.[23] It was a grand affair: the king's passage was lined with tapestries and laid with fine cloth.[23] Following the ceremony, there was a grand banquet in Westminster Hall.[24] As Catherine wrote to her father, "our time is spent in continuous festival".[20]

Two days after his coronation, Henry arrested his father's two most unpopular ministers, Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley. They were charged with high treason and were executed in 1510. Politically motivated executions would remain one of Henry's primary tactics for dealing with those who stood in his way.[5] Henry also returned some of the money supposedly extorted by the two ministers.[25] By contrast, Henry's view of the House of York – potential rival claimants for the throne – was more moderate than his father's had been. Several who had been imprisoned by his father, including Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset, were pardoned.[26] Others went unreconciled; Edmund de la Pole was eventually beheaded in 1513, an execution prompted by his brother Richard siding against the king.[27]

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.[28] 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,[29] including a two-day joust known as the Westminster Tournament. However, the child died seven weeks later.[28] 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.[30]

Although Henry's marriage to Catherine has since been described as "unusually good",[31] it is known that Henry 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, either Elizabeth or Anne Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon.[32] The most significant mistress for about three years, starting in 1516, was Elizabeth Blount.[30] Blount is one of only two completely undisputed mistresses, considered by some to be few for a virile young king.[33][34] Exactly how many Henry had is disputed: David Loades believes Henry had mistresses "only to a very limited extent",[34] whilst Alison Weir believes there were numerous other affairs.[35] Catherine is not known to have protested. In 1518 she fell pregnant again with another girl, who was also stillborn.[30]

Blount gave birth in June 1519 to Henry's illegitimate son, Henry FitzRoy.[30] 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.[36] In 1533, FitzRoy married Mary Howard, but died childless three years later.[37] At the time of his death in June 1536, Parliament was considering the Second Succession Act, which could have allowed him to become king.[38]

France and the Habsburgs

 
The meeting of Francis I and Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520

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. Certainly, war with the combined might of the two powers would have been exceedingly difficult.[39] 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,[39] 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.[40] The attack, however, following a formal declaration of war in April 1512, was not led by Henry personally[41] and was a considerable failure; Ferdinand used it simply to further his own ends, and it strained the Anglo-Spanish alliance. Nevertheless, the French were pushed out of Italy soon after, and the alliance survived, with both parties keen to win further victories over the French.[41][42] Henry then pulled off a diplomatic coup by convincing Emperor Maximilian to join the Holy League.[43] Remarkably, Henry had also secured the promised title of "Most Christian King of France" from Julius and possibly coronation by the Pope himself in Paris, if only Louis could be defeated.[44]

 
Henry with Emperor Charles V (right) and Pope Leo X (centre), c. 1520

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.[45] Henry had led the army personally, complete with a large entourage.[46] His absence from the country, however, had prompted his brother-in-law James IV of Scotland to invade England at the behest of Louis.[47] Nevertheless, the English army, overseen by Queen Catherine, decisively defeated the Scots at the Battle of Flodden on 9 September 1513.[48] Among the dead was the Scottish king, thus ending Scotland's brief involvement in the war.[48] 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.[49] 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' wife, having previously been pledged to the younger Charles, and peace was secured for eight years, a remarkably long time.[50]

Charles V, the nephew of Henry's wife Catherine, inherited a large empire in Europe, becoming king of Spain in 1516 and Holy Roman Emperor in 1519. When Louis XII of France died in 1515, he was succeeded by his cousin Francis I.[51] These accessions left three relatively young rulers and an opportunity for a clean slate. The careful diplomacy of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey had resulted in the Treaty of London in 1518, aimed at uniting the kingdoms of western Europe in the wake of a new Ottoman threat, and it seemed that peace might be secured.[52] Henry met the new French 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.[52] Henry had more in common with Charles, whom he met once before and once after Francis. Charles brought his realm into war with France in 1521; Henry offered to mediate, but little was achieved and by the end of the year Henry had aligned England with Charles. He still clung to his previous aim of restoring English lands in France but also sought to secure an alliance with Burgundy, then a territorial possession of Charles, and the continued support of the Emperor.[53] A small English attack in the north of France made up little ground. Charles defeated and captured Francis at Pavia and could dictate peace, but he believed he owed Henry nothing. Sensing this, Henry decided to take England out of the war before his ally, signing the Treaty of the More on 30 August 1525.[54]

Marriages

Annulment from Catherine

 
Catherine of Aragon, Henry's first queen, c. 1520.
 
Portrait of Henry VIII by Joos van Cleve, c. 1531

During his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry conducted an affair with Mary Boleyn, Catherine's lady-in-waiting. There has been speculation that Mary's two children, Henry Carey and Catherine Carey, were fathered by Henry, but this has never been proved, and the king never acknowledged them as he did in the case of Henry FitzRoy.[58] In 1525, as Henry grew more impatient with Catherine's inability to produce the male heir he desired,[59][60] he became enamoured of Mary Boleyn's sister, Anne Boleyn, then a charismatic young woman of 25 in the queen's entourage.[61] Anne, however, resisted his attempts to seduce her, and refused to become his mistress as her sister had.[62][nb 1] It was in this context that Henry considered his three options for finding a dynastic successor and hence resolving what came to be described at court as the king's "great matter". These options were legitimising Henry FitzRoy, which would need the involvement of the Pope and would be open to challenge; marrying off Mary, his daughter with Catherine, as soon as possible and hoping for a grandson to inherit directly, but Mary was considered unlikely to conceive before Henry's death, or somehow rejecting Catherine and marrying someone else of child-bearing age. Probably seeing the possibility of marrying Anne, the third was ultimately the most attractive possibility to the 34-year-old Henry,[64] and it soon became the king's absorbing desire to annul his marriage to the now 40-year-old Catherine.[65]

Henry's precise motivations and intentions over the coming years are not widely agreed on.[66] Henry himself, at least in the early part of his reign, was a devout and well-informed Catholic to the extent that his 1521 publication Assertio Septem Sacramentorum ("Defence of the Seven Sacraments") earned him the title of Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith) from Pope Leo X.[67] The work represented a staunch defence of papal supremacy, albeit one couched in somewhat contingent terms.[67] It is not clear exactly when Henry changed his mind on the issue as he grew more intent on a second marriage. Certainly, by 1527, he had convinced himself that Catherine had produced no male heir because their union was "blighted in the eyes of God".[68] Indeed, in marrying Catherine, his brother's wife, he had acted contrary to Leviticus 20:21, a justification Thomas Cranmer used to declare the marriage null.[69][nb 2] Martin Luther, on the other hand, had initially argued against the annulment, stating that Henry VIII could take a second wife in accordance with his teaching that the Bible allowed for polygamy but not divorce.[69] Henry now believed the Pope had lacked the authority to grant a dispensation from this impediment. It was this argument Henry took to Pope Clement VII in 1527 in the hope of having his marriage to Catherine annulled, forgoing at least one less openly defiant line of attack.[66] In going public, all hope of tempting Catherine to retire to a nunnery or otherwise stay quiet was lost.[70] Henry sent his secretary, William Knight, to appeal directly to the Holy See by way of a deceptively worded draft papal bull. Knight was unsuccessful; the Pope could not be misled so easily.[71]

Other missions concentrated on arranging an ecclesiastical court to meet in England, with a representative from Clement VII. Although Clement agreed to the creation of such a court, he never had any intention of empowering his legate, Lorenzo Campeggio, to decide in Henry's favour.[71] This bias was perhaps the result of pressure from Emperor Charles V, Catherine's nephew, but it is not clear how far this influenced either Campeggio or the Pope. After less than two months of hearing evidence, Clement called the case back to Rome in July 1529, from which it was clear that it would never re-emerge.[71] With the chance for an annulment lost, Cardinal Wolsey bore the blame. He was charged with praemunire in October 1529,[72] and his fall from grace was "sudden and total".[71] Briefly reconciled with Henry (and officially pardoned) in the first half of 1530, he was charged once more in November 1530, this time for treason, but died while awaiting trial.[71][73] After a short period in which Henry took government upon his own shoulders,[74] Sir Thomas More took on the role of Lord Chancellor and chief minister. Intelligent and able, but also a devout Catholic and opponent of the annulment,[75] More initially cooperated with the king's new policy, denouncing Wolsey in Parliament.[76]

A year later, Catherine was banished from court, and her rooms were given to Anne Boleyn. Anne was an unusually educated and intellectual woman for her time and was keenly absorbed and engaged with the ideas of the Protestant Reformers, but the extent to which she herself was a committed Protestant is much debated.[63] When Archbishop of Canterbury William Warham died, Anne's influence and the need to find a trustworthy supporter of the annulment had Thomas Cranmer appointed to the vacant position.[75] This was approved by the Pope, unaware of the king's nascent plans for the Church.[77]

Henry was married to Catherine for 24 years. Their divorce has been described as a "deeply wounding and isolating" experience for Henry.[3]

Marriage to Anne Boleyn

 
Portrait of Anne Boleyn, Henry's second queen; a copy of a lost original painted around 1534.

In the winter of 1532, Henry met with Francis I at Calais and enlisted the support of the French king for his new marriage.[78] Immediately upon returning to Dover in England, Henry, now 41, and Anne went through a secret wedding service.[79] She soon became pregnant, and there was a second wedding service in London on 25 January 1533. On 23 May 1533, Cranmer, sitting in judgment at a special court convened at Dunstable Priory to rule on the validity of the king's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, declared the marriage of Henry and Catherine null and void. Five days later, on 28 May 1533, Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Anne to be valid.[80] Catherine was formally stripped of her title as queen, becoming instead "princess dowager" as the widow of Arthur. In her place, Anne was crowned queen consort on 1 June 1533.[81] The queen gave birth to a daughter slightly prematurely on 7 September 1533. The child was christened Elizabeth, in honour of Henry's mother, Elizabeth of York.[82]

Following the marriage, there was a period of consolidation, taking the form of a series of statutes of the Reformation Parliament aimed at finding solutions to any remaining issues, whilst protecting the new reforms from challenge, convincing the public of their legitimacy, and exposing and dealing with opponents.[83] Although the canon law was dealt with at length by Cranmer and others, these acts were advanced by Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Audley and the Duke of Norfolk and indeed by Henry himself.[84] With this process complete, in May 1532 More resigned as Lord Chancellor, leaving Cromwell as Henry's chief minister.[85] With the Act of Succession 1533, Catherine's daughter, Mary, was declared illegitimate; Henry's marriage to Anne was declared legitimate; and Anne's issue declared to be next in the line of succession.[86] With the Acts of Supremacy in 1534, Parliament also recognised the king's status as head of the church in England and, together with the Act in Restraint of Appeals in 1532, abolished the right of appeal to Rome.[87] It was only then that Pope Clement VII took the step of excommunicating the king and Cranmer, although the excommunication was not made official until some time later.[nb 3]

The king and queen were not pleased with married life. The royal couple enjoyed periods of calm and affection, but Anne refused to play the submissive role expected of her. The vivacity and opinionated intellect that had made her so attractive as an illicit lover made her too independent for the largely ceremonial role of a royal wife and it made her many enemies. For his part, Henry disliked Anne's constant irritability and violent temper. After a false pregnancy or miscarriage in 1534, he saw her failure to give him a son as a betrayal. As early as Christmas 1534, Henry was discussing with Cranmer and Cromwell the chances of leaving Anne without having to return to Catherine.[94] Henry is traditionally believed to have had an affair with Madge Shelton in 1535, although historian Antonia Fraser argues that Henry in fact had an affair with her sister Mary Shelton.[33]

Opposition to Henry's religious policies was at first quickly suppressed in England. A number of dissenting monks, including the first Carthusian Martyrs, were executed and many more pilloried. The most prominent resisters included John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, both of whom refused to take the oath to the king.[95] Neither Henry nor Cromwell sought at that stage to have the men executed; rather, they hoped that the two might change their minds and save themselves. Fisher openly rejected Henry as the Supreme Head of the Church, but More was careful to avoid openly breaking the Treasons Act of 1534, which (unlike later acts) did not forbid mere silence. Both men were subsequently convicted of high treason, however – More on the evidence of a single conversation with Richard Rich, the Solicitor General, and both were executed in the summer of 1535.[95]

These suppressions, as well as the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries Act of 1536, in turn contributed to more general resistance to Henry's reforms, most notably in the Pilgrimage of Grace, a large uprising in northern England in October 1536.[96] Some 20,000 to 40,000 rebels were led by Robert Aske, together with parts of the northern nobility.[97] Henry VIII promised the rebels he would pardon them and thanked them for raising the issues. Aske told the rebels they had been successful and they could disperse and go home.[98] Henry saw the rebels as traitors and did not feel obliged to keep his promises to them, so when further violence occurred after Henry's offer of a pardon he was quick to break his promise of clemency.[99] The leaders, including Aske, were arrested and executed for treason. In total, about 200 rebels were executed, and the disturbances ended.[100]

Execution of Anne Boleyn

 
Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1537

On 8 January 1536, news reached the king and queen that Catherine of Aragon had died. The following day, Henry dressed all in yellow, with a white feather in his bonnet.[101] Queen Anne was pregnant again, and she was aware of the consequences if she failed to give birth to a son. Later that month, the king was thrown from his horse in a tournament and was badly injured; it seemed for a time that his life was in danger. When news of this accident reached the queen, she was sent into shock and miscarried a male child at about 15 weeks' gestation, on the day of Catherine's funeral, 29 January 1536.[102] For most observers, this personal loss was the beginning of the end of this royal marriage.[103]

Although the Boleyn family still held important positions on the Privy Council, Anne had many enemies, including the Duke of Suffolk. Even her own uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, had come to resent her attitude to her power. The Boleyns preferred France over the Emperor as a potential ally, but the king's favour had swung towards the latter (partly because of Cromwell), damaging the family's influence.[104] Also opposed to Anne were supporters of reconciliation with Princess Mary (among them the former supporters of Catherine), who had reached maturity. A second annulment was now a real possibility, although it is commonly believed that it was Cromwell's anti-Boleyn influence that led opponents to look for a way of having her executed.[105][106]

Anne's downfall came shortly after she had recovered from her final miscarriage. Whether it was primarily the result of allegations of conspiracy, adultery, or witchcraft remains a matter of debate among historians.[63] Early signs of a fall from grace included the king's new mistress, the 28-year-old Jane Seymour, being moved into new quarters,[107] and Anne's brother, George Boleyn, being refused the Order of the Garter, which was instead given to Nicholas Carew.[108] Between 30 April and 2 May, five men, including George Boleyn, were arrested on charges of treasonable adultery and accused of having sexual relationships with the queen. Anne was also arrested, accused of treasonous adultery and incest. Although the evidence against them was unconvincing, the accused were found guilty and condemned to death. The accused men were executed on 17 May 1536.[109] Henry and Anne's marriage was annulled by Archbishop Cranmer at Lambeth on the same day.[110] Cranmer appears to have had difficulty finding grounds for an annulment and probably based it on the prior liaison between Henry and Anne's sister Mary, which in canon law meant that Henry's marriage to Anne was, like his first marriage, within a forbidden degree of affinity and therefore void.[111] At 8 am on 19 May 1536, Anne was executed on Tower Green.[112]

Marriage to Jane Seymour; domestic and foreign affairs

 
 
Jane Seymour (left) became Henry's third wife, pictured at right with Henry and the young Prince Edward, c. 1545, by an unknown artist. At the time that this was painted, Henry was married to his sixth wife, Catherine Parr.

The day after Anne's execution the 45-year-old Henry became engaged to Seymour, who had been one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting. They were married ten days later[113] at the Palace of Whitehall, Whitehall, London, in the queen's closet, by Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester.[114] On 12 October 1537, Jane gave birth to a son, Prince Edward, the future Edward VI.[115] The birth was difficult, and Queen Jane died on 24 October 1537 from an infection and was buried in Windsor.[116] The euphoria that had accompanied Edward's birth became sorrow, but it was only over time that Henry came to long for his wife. At the time, Henry recovered quickly from the shock.[117] Measures were immediately put in place to find another wife for Henry, which, at the insistence of Cromwell and the Privy Council, were focused on the European continent.[118]

With Charles V distracted by the internal politics of his many kingdoms and also external threats, and Henry and Francis on relatively good terms, domestic and not foreign policy issues had been Henry's priority in the first half of the 1530s. In 1536, for example, Henry granted his assent to the Laws in Wales Act 1535, which legally annexed Wales, uniting England and Wales into a single nation. This was followed by the Second Succession Act (the Act of Succession 1536), which declared Henry's children by Jane to be next in the line of succession and declared both Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate, thus excluding them from the throne. The king was also granted the power to further determine the line of succession in his will, should he have no further issue.[119]

In 1538, as part of the negotiation of a secret treaty by Cromwell with Charles V, a series of dynastic marriages were proposed: Mary would marry a son of the King of Portugal, Elizabeth marry one of the sons of the King of Hungary and the infant Edward marry one of the Emperor's daughters. The widowed King, it was suggested, might marry the Dowager Duchess of Milan.[120] However, when Charles and Francis made peace in January 1539, Henry became increasingly paranoid, perhaps as a result of receiving a constant list of threats to the kingdom (real or imaginary, minor or serious) supplied by Cromwell in his role as spymaster.[121] Enriched by the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry used some of his financial reserves to build a series of coastal defences and set some aside for use in the event of a Franco-German invasion.[122]

Marriage to Anne of Cleves

Having considered the matter, Cromwell suggested Anne, the 25-year-old sister of the Duke of Cleves, who was seen as an important ally in case of a Roman Catholic attack on England, for the duke fell between Lutheranism and Catholicism.[123] Hans Holbein the Younger was dispatched to Cleves to paint a portrait of Anne for the king.[124] Despite speculation that Holbein painted her in an overly flattering light, it is more likely that the portrait was accurate; Holbein remained in favour at court.[125] After seeing Holbein's portrait, and urged on by the complimentary description of Anne given by his courtiers, the 49-year-old king agreed to wed Anne.[126] The marriage took place in January 1540.

However, it was not long before Henry wished to annul the marriage so he could marry another.[127][128] Anne did not argue, and confirmed that the marriage had never been consummated.[129] Anne's previous betrothal to the Duke of Lorraine's son Francis provided further grounds for the annulment.[130] The marriage was subsequently dissolved in July 1540, and Anne received the title of "The King's Sister", two houses, and a generous allowance.[129] It was soon clear that Henry had fallen for the 17-year-old Catherine Howard, the Duke of Norfolk's niece. This worried Cromwell, for Norfolk was his political opponent.[131]

Shortly after, the religious reformers (and protégés of Cromwell) Robert Barnes, William Jerome and Thomas Garret were burned as heretics.[129] Cromwell, meanwhile, fell out of favour although it is unclear exactly why, for there is little evidence of differences in domestic or foreign policy. Despite his role, he was never formally accused of being responsible for Henry's failed marriage.[132] Cromwell was now surrounded by enemies at court, with Norfolk also able to draw on his niece Catherine's position.[131] 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.[133][134] He was subsequently attainted and beheaded.[132]

Marriage to Catherine Howard

 
Portrait of a woman believed to be Catherine Howard, Henry's fifth wife, by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1540

On 28 July 1540 (the same day Cromwell was executed), Henry married the young Catherine Howard, a first cousin and lady-in-waiting of Anne Boleyn.[135] He was delighted with his new queen and awarded her the lands of Cromwell and a vast array of jewellery.[136] Soon after the marriage, however, Queen Catherine had an affair with the courtier Thomas Culpeper. She also employed Francis Dereham, who had previously been informally engaged to her and had an affair with her prior to her marriage, as her secretary. The Privy Council was informed of her affair with Dereham whilst Henry was away; Thomas Cranmer was dispatched to investigate, and he brought evidence of Queen Catherine's previous affair with Dereham to the king's notice.[137] Though Henry originally refused to believe the allegations, Dereham confessed. It took another meeting of the council, however, before Henry believed the accusations against Dereham and went into a rage, blaming the council before consoling himself in hunting.[138] 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 Catherine's relationship with Culpeper. Culpeper and Dereham were both executed, and Catherine too was beheaded on 13 February 1542.[139]

Marriage to Catherine Parr

 
Catherine Parr, Henry's sixth and last wife

Henry married his last wife, the wealthy widow Catherine Parr, in July 1543.[140] A reformer at heart, she argued with Henry over religion. Henry remained committed to an idiosyncratic mixture of Catholicism and Protestantism; the reactionary mood that had gained ground after Cromwell's fall had neither eliminated his Protestant streak nor been overcome by it.[141] Parr helped reconcile Henry with his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth.[142] In 1543, the Third Succession Act put them back in the line of succession after Edward. The same act allowed Henry to determine further succession to the throne in his will.[143]

Shrines destroyed and monasteries dissolved

In 1538, the chief minister Thomas Cromwell pursued an extensive campaign against what the government termed "idolatry" practised under the old religion, culminating in September with the dismantling of the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. As a consequence, the king was excommunicated by Pope Paul III on 17 December of the same year.[92] In 1540, Henry sanctioned the complete destruction of shrines to saints. In 1542, England's remaining monasteries were all dissolved, and their property transferred to the Crown. Abbots and priors lost their seats in the House of Lords; only archbishops and bishops remained. Consequently, the Lords Spiritual – as members of the clergy with seats in the House of Lords were known – were for the first time outnumbered by the Lords Temporal.

Second invasion of France and the "Rough Wooing" of Scotland

 
Henry in 1540, by Hans Holbein the Younger

The 1539 alliance between Francis and 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.[144] In preparation for it, Henry moved to eliminate the potential threat of Scotland under the youthful James V. The Scots were defeated at Battle of Solway Moss on 24 November 1542,[145] and James died on 15 December. Henry now hoped to unite the crowns of England and Scotland by marrying his son Edward to James' 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.[146][147][148]

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.[149][146] However, Henry had refused Charles' request to march against Paris. Charles' own campaign fizzled, and he made peace with France that same day.[147] Henry was left alone against France, unable to make peace. Francis attempted to invade England in the summer of 1545 but reached only the Isle of Wight before being repulsed in the Battle of the Solent. 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.[147]

Physical decline and death

 
Coffins of King Henry VIII (centre, damaged), Queen Jane (right), King Charles I with a child of Queen Anne (left), vault under the choir, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, marked by a stone slab in the floor. 1888 sketch by Alfred Young Nutt, Surveyor to the Dean and Canons

Late in life, Henry became 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 suffered from gout. His obesity and other medical problems can be traced to the jousting accident in 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.[150][151]

The theory that Henry suffered from syphilis has been dismissed by most historians.[152][153] Historian Susan Maclean Kybett ascribes his demise to scurvy, which is caused by insufficient vitamin C most often due to a lack of fresh fruit and vegetables in one's diet.[154] Alternatively, his wives' pattern of pregnancies and his mental deterioration have led some to suggest that he may have been Kell positive and suffered from McLeod syndrome.[151][155] According to another study, Henry's history and body morphology may have been the result of traumatic brain injury after his 1536 jousting accident, which in turn led to a neuroendocrine cause of his obesity. This analysis identifies growth hormone deficiency (GHD) as the reason for his increased adiposity but also significant behavioural changes noted in his later years, including his multiple marriages.[156]

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).[157] Henry was interred in a vault at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, next to Jane Seymour.[158] Over 100 years later, King Charles I (ruled 1625–1649) was buried in the same vault.[159]

Wives, mistresses, and children

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

What is extraordinary is that Henry was usually a very good husband. And he liked women – that's why he married so many of them! He was very tender to them, we know that he addressed them as "sweetheart." He was a good lover, he was very generous: the wives were given huge settlements of land and jewels – they were loaded with jewels. He was immensely considerate when they were pregnant. But, once he had fallen out of love... he just cut them off. He just withdrew. He abandoned them. They didn't even know he'd left them.[3]

Known children of Henry VIII of England
Name Birth Death Notes
By Catherine of Aragon (married Palace of Placentia 11 June 1509; annulled 23 May 1533)
Unnamed daughter 31 January 1510 stillborn
Henry, Duke of Cornwall 1 January 1511 22 February 1511 died aged almost two months
Unnamed son 17 September 1513 died shortly after birth
Unnamed son November 1514[160] died shortly after birth
Queen Mary I 18 February 1516 17 November 1558 married Philip II of Spain in 1554; no issue
Unnamed daughter 10 November 1518 stillborn in the 8th month of pregnancy[161] or lived at least one week
By Elizabeth Blount (mistress; bore the only illegitimate child Henry VIII acknowledged as his son)
Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset 15 June 1519 23 July 1536 illegitimate; acknowledged by Henry VIII in 1525; no issue
By Anne Boleyn (married Westminster Abbey 25 January 1533; annulled 17 May 1536) beheaded on 19 May 1536
Queen Elizabeth I 7 September 1533 24 March 1603 never married; no issue
Unnamed son Christmas, 1534[162] miscarriage or false pregnancy[nb 4]
Unnamed son 1535 Miscarried son[nb 5]
Unnamed son 29 January 1536 miscarriage of a child, believed male,[nb 6] in the fourth month of pregnancy[163]
By Jane Seymour (married Palace of Whitehall 30 May 1536) died 24 October 1537
King Edward VI 12 October 1537 6 July 1553 died unmarried, age 15; no issue
By Anne of Cleves (married Palace of Placentia 6 January 1540; annulled 9 July 1540)
no issue
By Catherine Howard (married Oatlands Palace 28 July 1540; annulled 23 November 1541) beheaded on 13 February 1542
no issue
By Catherine Parr (married Hampton Court Palace 12 July 1543; Henry VIII died 28 January 1547)
no issue

Succession

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, were Edward to die 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.[164]

This provision ultimately failed when James VI of Scotland became King of England in 1603.

Edward VI himself would disregard the will and name Jane Grey his successor.

Public image

 
Musical score of "Pastime with Good Company", c. 1513, composed by Henry

Henry cultivated the image of a Renaissance man, and his court was a centre of scholarly and artistic innovation and glamorous excess, epitomised by the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He scouted the country for choirboys, taking some directly from Wolsey's choir, and introduced Renaissance music into court. Musicians included Benedict de Opitiis, Richard Sampson, Ambrose Lupo, and Venetian organist Dionisio Memo,[165] and Henry himself kept a considerable collection of instruments. He was skilled on the lute and played the organ, and was a talented player of the virginals.[165] He could also sightread music and sing well.[165] He was an accomplished musician, author, and poet; his best-known piece of music is "Pastime with Good Company" ("The Kynges Ballade"), and he is reputed to have written "Greensleeves" but probably did not.[166]

Henry was an avid gambler and dice player, and excelled at sports, especially jousting, hunting, and real tennis. He was also known for his strong defence of conventional Christian piety.[6] He was involved in the construction and improvement of several significant buildings, including Nonsuch Palace, King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and Westminster Abbey in London. Many of the existing buildings which he improved were properties confiscated from Wolsey, such as Christ Church, Oxford, Hampton Court Palace, the Palace of Whitehall, and Trinity College, Cambridge.

Henry was an intellectual, the first English king with a modern humanist education. He read and wrote English, French, and Latin, and owned a large library. He annotated many books and published one of his own, and he had numerous pamphlets and lectures prepared to support the reformation of the church. Richard Sampson's Oratio (1534), for example, was an argument for absolute obedience to the monarchy and claimed that the English church had always been independent of Rome.[167] At the popular level, theatre and minstrel troupes funded by the crown travelled around the land to promote the new religious practices; the pope and Catholic priests and monks were mocked as foreign devils, while Henry was hailed as the glorious king of England and as a brave and heroic defender of the true faith.[168] Henry worked hard to present an image of unchallengeable authority and irresistible power.[169]

 
Catherine of Aragon watching Henry jousting in her honour after giving birth to a son

Henry was a large, well-built athlete, over 6 feet [1.8 m] tall, strong, and broad in proportion. His athletic activities were more than pastimes; they were political devices that served multiple goals, enhancing his image, impressing foreign emissaries and rulers, and conveying his ability to suppress any rebellion. He arranged a jousting tournament at Greenwich in 1517 where he wore gilded armour and gilded horse trappings, and outfits of velvet, satin, and cloth of gold with pearls and jewels. It suitably impressed foreign ambassadors, one of whom wrote home that "the wealth and civilisation of the world are here, and those who call the English barbarians appear to me to render themselves such".[170] Henry finally retired from jousting in 1536 after a heavy fall from his horse left him unconscious for two hours, but he continued to sponsor two lavish tournaments a year. He then started gaining weight and lost the trim, athletic figure that had made him so handsome, and his courtiers began dressing in heavily padded clothes to emulate and flatter him. His health rapidly declined near the end of his reign.[171][172][173]

Government

The power of Tudor monarchs, including Henry, was 'whole' and 'entire', ruling, as they claimed, by the grace of God alone.[174] The crown could also rely on the exclusive use of those functions that constituted the royal prerogative. These included acts of diplomacy (including royal marriages), declarations of war, management of the coinage, the issue of royal pardons and the power to summon and dissolve parliament as and when required.[175] Nevertheless, as evident during Henry's break with Rome, the monarch stayed within established limits, whether legal or financial, that forced him to work closely with both the nobility and parliament (representing the gentry).[175]

 
Cardinal Thomas Wolsey

In practice, Tudor monarchs used patronage to maintain a royal court that included formal institutions such as the Privy Council as well as more informal advisers and confidants.[176] Both the rise and fall of court nobles could be swift: Henry did undoubtedly execute at will, burning or beheading two of his wives, 20 peers, four leading public servants, six close attendants and friends, one cardinal (John Fisher) and numerous abbots.[169] Among those who were in favour at any given point in Henry's reign, one could usually be identified as a chief minister,[176] though one of the enduring debates in the historiography of the period has been the extent to which those chief ministers controlled Henry rather than vice versa.[177] In particular, historian G. R. Elton has argued that one such minister, Thomas Cromwell, led a "Tudor revolution in government" independently of the king, whom Elton presented as an opportunistic, essentially lazy participant in the nitty-gritty of politics. Where Henry did intervene personally in the running of the country, Elton argued, he mostly did so to its detriment.[178] The prominence and influence of faction in Henry's court is similarly discussed in the context of at least five episodes of Henry's reign, including the downfall of Anne Boleyn.[179]

From 1514 to 1529, Thomas Wolsey (1473–1530), a cardinal of the established Church, oversaw domestic and foreign policy for the king from his position as Lord Chancellor.[180] Wolsey centralised the national government and extended the jurisdiction of the conciliar courts, particularly the Star Chamber. The Star Chamber's overall structure remained unchanged, but Wolsey used it to provide much-needed reform of the criminal law. The power of the court itself did not outlive Wolsey, however, since no serious administrative reform was undertaken and its role eventually devolved to the localities.[181] Wolsey helped fill the gap left by Henry's declining participation in government (particularly in comparison to his father) but did so mostly by imposing himself in the king's place.[182] His use of these courts to pursue personal grievances, and particularly to treat delinquents as mere examples of a whole class worthy of punishment, angered the rich, who were annoyed as well by his enormous wealth and ostentatious living.[183] Following Wolsey's downfall, Henry took full control of his government, although at court numerous complex factions continued to try to ruin and destroy each other.[184]

 
Thomas Cromwell in 1532 or 1533

Thomas Cromwell (c. 1485–1540) also came to define Henry's government. Returning to England from the continent in 1514 or 1515, Cromwell soon entered Wolsey's service. He turned to law, also picking up a good knowledge of the Bible, and was admitted to Gray's Inn in 1524. He became Wolsey's "man of all work".[185] Driven in part by his religious beliefs, Cromwell attempted to reform the body politic of the English government through discussion and consent, and through the vehicle of continuity, not outward change.[186] Many saw him as the man they wanted to bring about their shared aims, including Thomas Audley. By 1531, Cromwell and his associates were already responsible for the drafting of much legislation.[186] Cromwell's first office was that of the master of the king's jewels in 1532, from which he began to invigorate the government finances.[187] By that point, Cromwell's power as an efficient administrator, in a Council full of politicians, exceeded what Wolsey had achieved.[188]

Cromwell did much work through his many offices to remove the tasks of government from the Royal Household (and ideologically from the personal body of the king) and into a public state.[188] But he did so in a haphazard fashion that left several remnants, not least because he needed to retain Henry's support, his own power, and the possibility of actually achieving the plan he set out.[189] Cromwell made the various income streams Henry VII put in place more formal and assigned largely autonomous bodies for their administration.[190] The role of the King's Council was transferred to a reformed Privy Council, much smaller and more efficient than its predecessor.[191] A difference emerged between the king's financial health and the country's, although Cromwell's fall undermined much of his bureaucracy, which required him to keep order among the many new bodies and prevent profligate spending that strained relations as well as finances.[192] Cromwell's reforms ground to a halt in 1539, the initiative lost, and he failed to secure the passage of an enabling act, the Proclamation by the Crown Act 1539.[193] He was executed on 28 July 1540.[194]

Finances

 
Gold crown of Henry VIII, minted c. 1544–1547. The reverse depicts the quartered arms of England and France.

Henry inherited a vast fortune and a prosperous economy from his father, who had been frugal. This fortune is estimated at £1,250,000 (the equivalent of £375 million today).[195] By comparison, Henry VIII's reign was a near disaster financially. He augmented the royal treasury by seizing church lands, but his heavy spending and long periods of mismanagement damaged the economy.[196]

Henry spent much of his wealth on maintaining his court and household, including many of the building works he undertook on royal palaces. He hung 2,000 tapestries in his palaces; by comparison, James V of Scotland hung just 200.[197] Henry took pride in showing off his collection of weapons, which included exotic archery equipment, 2,250 pieces of land ordnance and 6,500 handguns.[198] Tudor monarchs had to fund all government expenses out of their own income. This income came from the Crown lands that Henry owned as well as from customs duties like tonnage and poundage, granted by parliament to the king for life. During Henry's reign the revenues of the Crown remained constant (around £100,000),[199] but were eroded by inflation and rising prices brought about by war. Indeed, war and Henry's dynastic ambitions in Europe exhausted the surplus he had inherited from his father by the mid-1520s.

Henry VII had not involved Parliament in his affairs very much, but Henry VIII had to turn to Parliament during his reign for money, in particular for grants of subsidies to fund his wars. The dissolution of the monasteries provided a means to replenish the treasury, and as a result, the Crown took possession of monastic lands worth £120,000 (£36 million) a year.[200] The Crown had profited by a small amount in 1526 when Wolsey put England onto a gold, rather than silver, standard, and had debased the currency slightly. Cromwell debased the currency more significantly, starting in Ireland in 1540. The English pound halved in value against the Flemish pound between 1540 and 1551 as a result. The nominal profit made was significant, helping to bring income and expenditure together, but it had a catastrophic effect on the country's economy. In part, it helped to bring about a period of very high inflation from 1544 onwards.[201]

Reformation

 
King Henry VIII sitting with his feet upon Pope Clement VI, 1641

Henry is generally credited with initiating the English Reformation – the process of transforming England from a Catholic country to a Protestant one – though his progress at the elite and mass levels is disputed,[202] and the precise narrative not widely agreed upon.[66] Certainly, in 1527, Henry, until then an observant and well-informed Catholic, appealed to the Pope for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine.[66] No annulment was immediately forthcoming, since the papacy was now under the control of Charles V, Catherine' s nephew.[203] The traditional narrative gives this refusal as the trigger for Henry's rejection of papal supremacy, which he had previously defended. Yet as E. L. Woodward put it, Henry's determination to annul his marriage with Catherine was the occasion rather than the cause of the English Reformation so that "neither too much nor too little" should be made of the annulment.[204] Historian A. F. Pollard has argued that even if Henry had not needed an annulment, he might have come to reject papal control over the governance of England purely for political reasons. Indeed, Henry needed a son to secure the Tudor Dynasty and avert the risk of civil war over disputed succession.[205]

In any case, between 1532 and 1537, Henry instituted a number of statutes that dealt with the relationship between king and pope and hence the structure of the nascent Church of England.[206] These included the Statute in Restraint of Appeals (passed 1533), which extended the charge of praemunire against all who introduced papal bulls into England, potentially exposing them to the death penalty if found guilty.[207] Other acts included the Supplication against the Ordinaries and the Submission of the Clergy, which recognised Royal Supremacy over the church. The Ecclesiastical Appointments Act 1534 required the clergy to elect bishops nominated by the Sovereign. The Act of Supremacy in 1534 declared that the king was "the only Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England" and the Treasons Act 1534 made it high treason, punishable by death, to refuse the Oath of Supremacy acknowledging the king as such. Similarly, following the passage of the Act of Succession 1533, all adults in the kingdom were required to acknowledge the Act's provisions (declaring Henry's marriage to Anne legitimate and his marriage to Catherine illegitimate) by oath;[208] those who refused were subject to imprisonment for life, and any publisher or printer of any literature alleging that the marriage to Anne was invalid subject to the death penalty.[209] Finally, the Peter's Pence Act was passed, and it reiterated that England had "no superior under God, but only your Grace" and that Henry's "imperial crown" had been diminished by "the unreasonable and uncharitable usurpations and exactions" of the Pope.[210] The king had much support from the Church under Cranmer.[211]

 
A 16th-century depiction of the Parliament of King Henry VIII

To Cromwell's annoyance, Henry insisted on parliamentary time to discuss questions of faith, which he achieved through the Duke of Norfolk. This led to the passing of the Act of Six Articles, whereby six major questions were all answered by asserting the religious orthodoxy, thus restraining the reform movement in England.[128] It was followed by the beginnings of a reformed liturgy and of the Book of Common Prayer, which would take until 1549 to complete.[212] But this victory for religious conservatives did not convert into much change in personnel, and Cranmer remained in his position.[213] Overall, the rest of Henry's reign saw a subtle movement away from religious orthodoxy, helped in part by the deaths of prominent figures from before the break with Rome, especially the executions of Thomas More and John Fisher in 1535 for refusing to renounce papal authority. Henry established a new political theology of obedience to the crown that continued for the next decade. It reflected Martin Luther's new interpretation of the fourth commandment ("Honour thy father and mother"), brought to England by William Tyndale. The founding of royal authority on the Ten Commandments was another important shift: reformers within the Church used the Commandments' emphasis on faith and the word of God, while conservatives emphasised the need for dedication to God and doing good. The reformers' efforts lay behind the publication of the Great Bible in 1539 in English.[214] Protestant Reformers still faced persecution, particularly over objections to Henry's annulment. Many fled abroad, including the influential Tyndale,[215] who was eventually executed and his body burned at Henry's behest.

When taxes once payable to Rome were transferred to the Crown, Cromwell saw the need to assess the taxable value of the Church's extensive holdings as they stood in 1535. The result was an extensive compendium, the Valor Ecclesiasticus.[216] In September 1535, Cromwell commissioned a more general visitation of religious institutions, to be undertaken by four appointee visitors. The visitation focussed almost exclusively on the country's religious houses, with largely negative conclusions.[217] In addition to reporting back to Cromwell, the visitors made the lives of the monks more difficult by enforcing strict behavioural standards. The result was to encourage self-dissolution.[218] In any case, the evidence Cromwell gathered led swiftly to the beginning of the state-enforced dissolution of the monasteries, with all religious houses worth less than £200 vested by statute in the crown in January 1536.[219] After a short pause, surviving religious houses were transferred one by one to the Crown and new owners, and the dissolution confirmed by a further statute in 1539. By January 1540 no such houses remained; 800 had been dissolved. The process had been efficient, with minimal resistance, and brought the crown some £90,000 a year.[220] The extent to which the dissolution of all houses was planned from the start is debated by historians; there is some evidence that major houses were originally intended only to be reformed.[221] Cromwell's actions transferred a fifth of England's landed wealth to new hands. The programme was designed primarily to create a landed gentry beholden to the crown, which would use the lands much more efficiently.[222] Although little opposition to the supremacy could be found in England's religious houses, they had links to the international church and were an obstacle to further religious reform.[223]

Response to the reforms was mixed. The religious houses had been the only support of the impoverished,[224] and the reforms alienated much of the populace outside London, helping to provoke the great northern rising of 1536–37, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace.[225] Elsewhere the changes were accepted and welcomed, and those who clung to Catholic rites kept quiet or moved in secrecy. They reemerged during the reign of Henry's daughter Mary (1553–58).

Military

 
Henry's Italian-made suit of armour, c. 1544. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Apart from permanent garrisons at Berwick, Calais, and Carlisle, England's standing army numbered only a few hundred men. This was increased only slightly by Henry.[226] Henry's invasion force of 1513, some 30,000 men, was composed of billmen and longbowmen, at a time when the other European nations were moving to hand guns and pikemen. But the difference in capability was at this stage not significant, and Henry's forces had new armour and weaponry. They were also supported by battlefield artillery and the war wagon,[227] relatively new innovations, and several large and expensive siege guns.[228] The invasion force of 1544 was similarly well-equipped and organised, although command on the battlefield was laid with the dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk, which in the latter case produced disastrous results at Montreuil.[146]

Henry's break with Rome incurred the threat of a large-scale French or Spanish invasion.[91] To guard against this, in 1538 he began to build a chain of expensive, state-of-the-art defences along Britain's southern and eastern coasts, from Kent to Cornwall, largely built of material gained from the demolition of the monasteries.[229] These were known as Henry VIII's Device Forts. He also strengthened existing coastal defence fortresses such as Dover Castle and, at Dover, Moat Bulwark and Archcliffe Fort, which he visited for a few months to supervise.[91] Wolsey had many years before conducted the censuses required for an overhaul of the system of militia, but no reform resulted.[230] In 1538–39, Cromwell overhauled the shire musters, but his work mainly served to demonstrate how inadequate they were in organisation.[91] The building works, including that at Berwick, along with the reform of the militias and musters, were eventually finished under Queen Mary.[231]

 
Depiction of Henry embarking at Dover, c. 1520

Henry is traditionally cited as one of the founders of the Royal Navy.[232] Technologically, Henry invested in large cannon for his warships, an idea that had taken hold in other countries, to replace the smaller serpentines in use.[232] He also flirted with designing ships personally. His contribution to larger vessels, if any, is unknown, but it is believed that he influenced the design of rowbarges and similar galleys.[233] Henry was also responsible for the creation of a permanent navy, with the supporting anchorages and dockyards.[232] Tactically, Henry's reign saw the Navy move away from boarding tactics to employ gunnery instead.[234] The Tudor navy was enlarged up to 50 ships (the Mary Rose among them), and Henry was responsible for the establishment of the "council for marine causes" to oversee the maintenance and operation of the Navy, becoming the basis for the later Admiralty.[235]

Ireland

 
The division of Ireland in 1450

At the beginning of Henry's reign, Ireland was effectively divided into three zones: the Pale, where English rule was unchallenged; Leinster and Munster, the so-called "obedient land" of Anglo-Irish peers; and the Gaelic Connaught and Ulster, with merely nominal English rule.[236] Until 1513, Henry continued the policy of his father, to allow Irish lords to rule in the king's name and accept steep divisions between the communities.[237] However, upon the death of the 8th Earl of Kildare, governor of Ireland, fractious Irish politics combined with a more ambitious Henry to cause trouble. When Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormond died, Henry recognised one successor for Ormond's English, Welsh and Scottish lands, whilst in Ireland another took control. Kildare's successor, the 9th Earl, was replaced as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland by the Earl of Surrey in 1520.[238] Surrey's ambitious aims were costly but ineffective; English rule became trapped between winning the Irish lords over with diplomacy, as favoured by Henry and Wolsey, and a sweeping military occupation as proposed by Surrey.[239] Surrey was recalled in 1521, with Piers Butler – one of the claimants to the Earldom of Ormond – appointed in his place. Butler proved unable to control opposition, including that of Kildare. Kildare was appointed chief governor in 1524, resuming his dispute with Butler, which had before been in a lull. Meanwhile, the Earl of Desmond, an Anglo-Irish peer, had turned his support to Richard de la Pole as pretender to the English throne; when in 1528 Kildare failed to take suitable actions against him, Kildare was once again removed from his post.[240]

The Desmond situation was resolved on his death in 1529, which was followed by a period of uncertainty. This was effectively ended with the appointment of Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond and the king's son, as lord lieutenant. Richmond had never before visited Ireland, his appointment a break with past policy.[241][242] For a time it looked as if peace might be restored with the return of Kildare to Ireland to manage the tribes, but the effect was limited and the Irish parliament soon rendered ineffective.[243] Ireland began to receive the attention of Cromwell, who had supporters of Ormond and Desmond promoted. Kildare, on the other hand, was summoned to London; after some hesitation, he departed for London in 1534, where he would face charges of treason.[243] His son, Thomas, Lord Offaly was more forthright, denouncing the king and leading a "Catholic crusade" against the king, who was by this time mired in marital problems. Offaly had the Archbishop of Dublin murdered and besieged Dublin. Offaly led a mixture of Pale gentry and Irish tribes, although he failed to secure the support of Lord Darcy, a sympathiser, or Charles V. What was effectively a civil war was ended with the intervention of 2,000 English troops – a large army by Irish standards – and the execution of Offaly (his father was already dead) and his uncles.[244][245]

Although the Offaly revolt was followed by a determination to rule Ireland more closely, Henry was wary of drawn-out conflict with the tribes, and a royal commission recommended that the only relationship with the tribes was to be promises of peace, their land protected from English expansion. The man to lead this effort was Sir Antony St Leger, as Lord Deputy of Ireland, who would remain into the post past Henry's death.[246] Until the break with Rome, it was widely believed that Ireland was a Papal possession granted as a mere fiefdom to the English king, so in 1541 Henry asserted England's claim to the Kingdom of Ireland free from the Papal overlordship. This change did, however, also allow a policy of peaceful reconciliation and expansion: the Lords of Ireland would grant their lands to the king, before being returned as fiefdoms. The incentive to comply with Henry's request was an accompanying barony, and thus a right to sit in the Irish House of Lords, which was to run in parallel with England's.[247] The Irish law of the tribes did not suit such an arrangement, because the chieftain did not have the required rights; this made progress tortuous, and the plan was abandoned in 1543, not to be replaced.[248]

Historiography

The complexities and sheer scale of Henry's legacy ensured that, in the words of Betteridge and Freeman, "throughout the centuries, Henry has been praised and reviled, but he has never been ignored".[177] Historian John D. Mackie sums up Henry's personality and its impact on his achievements and popularity:

The respect, nay even the popularity, which he had from his people was not unmerited.... He kept the development of England in line with some of the most vigorous, though not the noblest forces of the day. His high courage – highest when things went ill – his commanding intellect, his appreciation of fact, and his instinct for rule carried his country through a perilous time of change, and his very arrogance saved his people from the wars which afflicted other lands. Dimly remembering the wars of the Roses, vaguely informed as to the slaughters and sufferings in Europe, the people of England knew that in Henry they had a great king.[249]

A particular focus of modern historiography has been the extent to which the events of Henry's life (including his marriages, foreign policy and religious changes) were the result of his own initiative and, if they were, whether they were the result of opportunism or of a principled undertaking by Henry.[177] The traditional interpretation of those events was provided by historian A. F. Pollard, who in 1902 presented his own, largely positive, view of the king, lauding him, "as the king and statesman who, whatever his personal failings, led England down the road to parliamentary democracy and empire".[177] Pollard's interpretation remained the dominant interpretation of Henry's life until the publication of the doctoral thesis of G. R. Elton in 1953.

Elton's book on The Tudor Revolution in Government maintained Pollard's positive interpretation of the Henrician period as a whole, but reinterpreted Henry himself as a follower rather than a leader. For Elton, it was Cromwell and not Henry who undertook the changes in government – Henry was shrewd but lacked the vision to follow a complex plan through.[177] Henry was little more, in other words, than an "ego-centric monstrosity" whose reign "owed its successes and virtues to better and greater men about him; most of its horrors and failures sprang more directly from [the king]".[250]

Although the central tenets of Elton's thesis have since been questioned, it has consistently provided the starting point for much later work, including that of J. J. Scarisbrick, his student. Scarisbrick largely kept Elton's regard for Cromwell's abilities but returned agency to Henry, who Scarisbrick considered to have ultimately directed and shaped policy.[177] For Scarisbrick, Henry was a formidable, captivating man who "wore regality with a splendid conviction".[251] The effect of endowing Henry with this ability, however, was largely negative in Scarisbrick's eyes: to Scarisbrick, the Henrician period was one of upheaval and destruction and those in charge worthy of blame more than praise.[177] Even among more recent biographers, including David Loades, David Starkey, and John Guy, there has ultimately been little consensus on the extent to which Henry was responsible for the changes he oversaw or the assessment of those he did bring about.[177]

This lack of clarity about Henry's control over events has contributed to the variation in the qualities ascribed to him: religious conservative or dangerous radical; lover of beauty or brutal destroyer of priceless artefacts; friend and patron or betrayer of those around him; chivalry incarnate or ruthless chauvinist.[177] One traditional approach, favoured by Starkey and others, is to divide Henry's reign into two halves, the first Henry being dominated by positive qualities (politically inclusive, pious, athletic but also intellectual) who presided over a period of stability and calm, and the latter a "hulking tyrant" who presided over a period of dramatic, sometimes whimsical, change.[176][252] Other writers have tried to merge Henry's disparate personality into a single whole; Lacey Baldwin Smith, for example, considered him an egotistical borderline neurotic given to great fits of temper and deep and dangerous suspicions, with a mechanical and conventional, but deeply held piety, and having at best a mediocre intellect.[253]

Style and arms

 
 
Henry's armorial during his early reign (left) and later reign (right)

Many changes were made to the royal style during his reign. Henry originally used the style "Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of God, King of England, France and Lord of Ireland". In 1521, pursuant to a grant from Pope Leo X rewarding Henry for his Defence of the Seven Sacraments, the royal style became "Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of God, King of England and France, Defender of the Faith and Lord of Ireland". Following Henry's excommunication, Pope Paul III rescinded the grant of the title "Defender of the Faith", but an Act of Parliament (35 Hen 8 c 3) declared that it remained valid; and it continues in royal usage to the present day, as evidenced by the letters FID DEF or F.D. on all British coinage. Henry's motto was "Coeur Loyal" ("true heart"), and he had this embroidered on his clothes in the form of a heart symbol and with the word "loyal". His emblem was the Tudor rose and the Beaufort portcullis. As king, Henry's arms were the same as those used by his predecessors since Henry IV: Quarterly, Azure three fleurs-de-lys Or (for France) and Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England).

In 1535, Henry added the "supremacy phrase" to the royal style, which became "Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of God, King of England and France, Defender of the Faith, Lord of Ireland and of the Church of England in Earth Supreme Head". In 1536, the phrase "of the Church of England" changed to "of the Church of England and also of Ireland". In 1541, Henry had the Irish Parliament change the title "Lord of Ireland" to "King of Ireland" with the Crown of Ireland Act 1542, after being advised that many Irish people regarded the Pope as the true head of their country, with the Lord acting as a mere representative. The reason the Irish regarded the Pope as their overlord was that Ireland had originally been given to King Henry II of England by Pope Adrian IV in the 12th century as a feudal territory under papal overlordship. The meeting of the Irish Parliament that proclaimed Henry VIII as King of Ireland was the first meeting attended by the Gaelic Irish chieftains as well as the Anglo-Irish aristocrats. The style "Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of God, King of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith and of the Church of England and also of Ireland in Earth Supreme Head" remained in use until the end of Henry's reign.

Genealogical table

Henry VIII's relatives (selective chart)[254]
Richard, Duke of York
Edmund Tudor, Earl of RichmondMargaret BeaufortEdward IVGeorge Plantagenet, Duke of ClarenceRichard IIIElizabeth of York, Duchess of SuffolkMargaret of York
Henry VIIElizabeth of YorkEdward VRichard, Duke of YorkCatherine of YorkWilliam Courtenay, 1st Earl of DevonEdward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of WarwickMargaret Pole, Countess of SalisburyRichard PoleJohn de la Pole, Earl of LincolnEdmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of SuffolkRichard de la Pole
Arthur, Prince of WalesCatherine of AragonHenry VIIIother wivesMargaret TudorJames IV of ScotlandMary Tudor, Queen of FranceCharles Brandon, 1st Duke of SuffolkHenry Courtenay, 1st Marquess of ExeterHenry Pole, 1st Baron MontaguReginald PoleGeoffrey Pole
Mary IElizabeth IEdward VIJames V of ScotlandFrances BrandonHenry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk
Mary, Queen of ScotsJane GreyCatherine GreyMary Grey
James VI and I

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ For arguments in favour of the contrasting view – i.e. that Henry himself initiated the period of abstinence, potentially after a brief affair – see Bernard, G. W. (2010). Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300162455..[63]
  2. ^ "And if a man shall take his brother's wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother's nakedness; they shall be childless."
  3. ^ On 11 July 1533 Pope Clement VII 'pronounced sentence against the king, declaring him excommunicated unless he put away the woman he had taken to wife, and took back his Queen during the whole of October next.'[88] Clement died on 25 September 1534. On 30 August 1535 the new pope, Paul III, drew up a bull of excommunication which began 'Eius qui immobilis'.[89][90] G. R. Elton puts the date the bull was made official as November 1538.[91] On 17 December 1538 Pope Paul III issued a further bull which began 'Cum redemptor noster', renewing the execution of the bull of 30 August 1535, which had been suspended in hope of his amendment.[92][93] Both bulls are printed by Bishop Burnet, History of the Reformation of the Church of England, 1865 edition, Volume 4, pp. 318ff and in Bullarum, diplomatum et privilegiorum sanctorum Romanorum pontificum Taurinensis (1857) Volume VI, p. 195
  4. ^ Eustace Chapuys wrote to Charles V on 28 January reporting that Anne was pregnant. A letter from George Taylor to Lady Lisle dated the 27 April 1534 says that "The queen hath a goodly belly, praying our Lord to send us a prince". In July, Anne's brother, Lord Rochford, was sent on a diplomatic mission to France to ask for the postponement of a meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I because of Anne's condition: "being so far gone with child she could not cross the sea with the king". Chapuys backs this up in a letter dated 27 July, where he refers to Anne's pregnancy. We do not know what happened with this pregnancy as there is no evidence of the outcome. Dewhurst writes of how the pregnancy could have resulted in a miscarriage or stillbirth, but there is no evidence to support this, he therefore wonders if it was a case of pseudocyesis, a false pregnancy, caused by the stress that Anne was under – the pressure to provide a son. Chapuys wrote on 27 September 1534 "Since the king began to doubt whether his lady was enceinte or not, he has renewed and increased the love he formerly had for a beautiful damsel of the court". Muriel St Clair Byrne, editor of the Lisle Letters, believes that this was a false pregnancy too.
  5. ^ The only evidence for a miscarriage in 1535 is a sentence from a letter from Sir William Kingston to Lord Lisle on 24 June 1535 when Kingston says "Her Grace has as fair a belly as I have ever seen". However, Dewhurst thinks that there is an error in the dating of this letter as the editor of the Lisle Letters states that this letter is actually from 1533 or 1534 because it also refers to Sir Christopher Garneys, a man who died in October 1534.
  6. ^ Chapuys reported to Charles V on 10 February 1536 that Anne Boleyn had miscarried on the day of Catherine of Aragon's funeral: "On the day of the interment [of Catherine of Aragon] the concubine [Anne] had an abortion which seemed to be a male child which she had not borne 3 1/2 months".

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Bibliography

Further reading

Biographical

  • Ashley, Mike (2002). British Kings & Queens. Running Press. ISBN 0786711043.
  • Bowle, John (1964). Henry VIII: A Study of Power in Action. Little, Brown and Company. ASIN B000OJX9RI.
  • Erickson, Carolly (1984). Mistress Anne: The Exceptional Life of Anne Boleyn. Summit Books. ASIN B002RTJWA6.
  • Cressy, David (1982). "Spectacle and Power: Apollo and Solomon at the Court of Henry VIII". History Today. 32 (Oct): 16–22. ISSN 0018-2753.
  • Gardner, James (1903). "Henry VIII". Cambridge Modern History. Vol. 2.
  • Graves, Michael (2003). Henry VIII. Pearson Longman. ISBN 978-0582381100.
  • Ives, E. W (2004). "Henry VIII (1491–1547)". The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/12955. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  • Pollard, Albert Frederick (1911). "Henry VIII. of England" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). pp. 287–290.
  • Rex, Richard (1993). Henry VIII and the English Reformation. Macmillan International Higher Education. ISBN 978-1349225866.
  • Ridley, Jasper (1985). Henry VIII. ISBN 978-0670806997.
  • Starkey, David (2002). The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics. Random House. ISBN 978-0099445104.
  • Starkey, David; Doran, Susan (2009). Henry VIII: Man and Monarch. British Library Publishing Division. ISBN 978-0712350259.
  • Tytler, Patrick Fraser (1837). Life of King Henry the Eighth. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd. Retrieved 17 August 2008.
  • Wilkinson, Josephine (2009). Mary Boleyn: The True Story of Henry VIII's Favourite Mistress (2nd ed.). Amberley Publishing. ISBN 978-0300071580.
  • Weir, Alison (1996). The Children of Henry VIII. ISBN 978-0345391186.
  • Wooding, Lucy (2015). Henry VIII (2nd ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-1138831414.

Scholarly studies

  • Bernard, G. W. (1986). War, Taxation, and Rebellion in Early Tudor England: Henry VIII, Wolsey, and the Amicable Grant of 1525.
  • Bernard, G. W. (1998). "The Making of Religious Policy, 1533–1546: Henry VIII and the Search for the Middle Way". Historical Journal. 41 (2): 321–349. doi:10.1017/S0018246X98007778. ISSN 0018-246X. JSTOR 2640109. S2CID 159952187.
  • Bush, M. L. (2007). "The Tudor Polity and the Pilgrimage of Grace". Historical Research. 80 (207): 47–72. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2281.2006.00351.x. ISSN 0950-3471.
  • Doran, Susan (2009). The Tudor Chronicles: 1485–1603. Sterling Publishing. pp. 78–203. ISBN 978-1435109391.0
  • Elton, G. R. (1962) [1953]. The Tudor Revolution in Government: Administrative Changes in the Reign of Henry VIII (Revised ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521092357.
  • Guy, John (2013), The Children of Henry VIII, Oxford University Press
  • Head, David M. (1982). "Henry VIII's Scottish Policy: a Reassessment". Scottish Historical Review. 61 (1): 1–24. ISSN 0036-9241.
  • Hoak, Dale (2005). "Politics, Religion and the English Reformation, 1533–1547: Some Problems and Issues". History Compass (3). ISSN 1478-0542.
  • Lindsey, Karen (1995). Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. ISBN 0201608952.
  • MacCulloch, Diarmaid, ed. (1995). The Reign of Henry VIII: Politics, Policy, and Piety.
  • Mackie, J. D. (1952). The Earlier Tudors, 1485–1558.
  • Moorhouse, Geoffrey (2003). The Pilgrimage of Grace: the Rebellion That Shook Henry VIII's Throne. Phoenix. ISBN 978-1842126660.
  • Moorhouse, Geoffrey (2007). Great Harry's Navy: How Henry VIII Gave England Seapower.
  • Moorhouse, Geoffrey (2009). The Last Divine Office: Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
  • Murphy, Neil (2016), "Violence, Colonization and Henry VIII's Conquest of France, 1544–1546", Past and Present, vol. 233, no. 1, pp. 13–51
  • Slavin, Arthur J, ed. (1968). Henry VIII and the English Reformation.
  • Smith, H. Maynard (1948). Henry VIII and the Reformation.
  • William Stubbs (1886). "The Reign of Henry VIII.: (June 7, 1881.)". Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects: 241–265. Wikidata Q107248000.
  • William Stubbs (1886). "Parliament under Henry VIII.: (June 9, 1881.)". Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects: 266–291. Wikidata Q107248047.
  • Thurley, Simon (1991). "Palaces for a Nouveau Riche King". History Today. 41 (6).
  • Wagner, John A. (2003). Bosworth Field to Bloody Mary: An Encyclopedia of the Early Tudors. ISBN 1573565407.
  • Walker, Greg (2005). Writing under Tyranny: English Literature and the Henrician Reformation.
  • Wernham, Richard Bruce (1966), Before the Armada: The Growth of English Foreign Policy, 1485–1588. History of foreign policy

Historiography

  • Coleman, Christoper; Starkey, David, eds. (1986). Revolution Reassessed: Revision in the History of Tudor Government and Administration.
  • Fox, Alistair; Guy, John, eds. (1986). Reassessing the Henrician Age: Humanism, Politics and Reform 1500–1550.
  • Head, David M. (1997). "'If a Lion Knew His Own Strength': the Image of Henry VIII and His Historians". International Social Science Review. 72 (3–4): 94–109. ISSN 0278-2308.
  • Marshall, Peter (2009). "(Re)defining the English Reformation" (PDF). Journal of British Studies. 48 (3): 564–85. doi:10.1086/600128.
  • O'Day, Rosemary (2015), The debate on the English Reformation (2nd ed.)
  • O'Day, Rosemary, ed. (2010), The Routledge Companion to the Tudor Age
  • Rankin, Mark; Highley, Christopher; King, John N., eds. (2009), Henry VIII and his afterlives: literature, politics, and art, Cambridge University Press

Primary sources

  • Letters and papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII, (36 volumes, 1862–1908)
  • Douglas, David Charles; Williams, C. H., eds. (1996), English Historical Documents, 1485–1558, OCLC 247046009
  • Luther, Martin (1918) [1 September 1525]. "1521-1530". In Smith, Preserved; Jacobs, Charles M. (eds.). Luther's Correspondence and Other Contemporary Letters. Vol. 2. Lutheran Publication Society.
  • Nicolas, Nicholas Harris, ed. (1827), The Privy Purse Expences of Henry VIII, 1529–1532, London: Pickering

External links

Henry VIII
Born: 28 June 1491 Died: 28 January 1547
Regnal titles
Preceded by Lord of Ireland
1509–1542
Crown of Ireland Act 1542
King of England
1509–1547
Succeeded by
Vacant
Title last held by
Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair
King of Ireland
1542–1547
Political offices
Preceded by Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports
1493–1509
Succeeded by
Preceded by Earl Marshal
1494–1509
Succeeded by
Peerage of England
Vacant
Title last held by
Arthur
Prince of Wales
1503–1509
Vacant
Title next held by
Edward
Preceded by Duke of Cornwall
1502–1509
Vacant
Title next held by
Henry

henry, viii, other, uses, disambiguation, june, 1491, january, 1547, king, england, from, april, 1509, until, death, 1547, henry, best, known, marriages, efforts, have, first, marriage, catherine, aragon, annulled, disagreement, with, pope, clement, about, suc. For other uses see Henry VIII disambiguation Henry VIII 28 June 1491 28 January 1547 was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547 Henry is best known for his six marriages and for his efforts to have his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled His disagreement with Pope Clement VII about such an annulment led Henry to initiate the English Reformation separating the Church of England from papal authority He appointed himself Supreme Head of the Church of England and dissolved convents and monasteries for which he was excommunicated by the pope Henry is also known as the father of the Royal Navy as he invested heavily in the navy and increased its size from a few to more than 50 ships and established the Navy Board 1 Henry VIIIPortrait of Henry VIII after Hans Holbein the Younger c 1537 1562King of EnglandLord King of Ireland more Reign22 April 1509 28 January 1547Coronation24 June 1509PredecessorHenry VIISuccessorEdward VIBorn28 June 1491Palace of Placentia Greenwich EnglandDied28 January 1547 aged 55 Palace of Whitehall Westminster EnglandBurial16 February 1547St George s Chapel Windsor Castle BerkshireSpousesCatherine of Aragon m 1509 ann 1533 wbr Anne Boleyn m 1533 ann 1536 wbr Jane Seymour m 1536 d 1537 wbr Anne of Cleves m 1540 ann 1540 wbr Catherine Howard m 1540 d 1542 wbr Catherine Parr m 1543 wbr IssueAmong othersHenry Duke of Cornwall Mary I Henry FitzRoy Duke of Richmond and Somerset ill Elizabeth I Edward VIHouseTudorFatherHenry VII of EnglandMotherElizabeth of YorkReligionRoman Catholicism 1491 1534 Church of England 1534 1547 SignatureDomestically Henry is known for his radical changes to the English Constitution ushering in the theory of the divine right of kings in opposition to papal supremacy He also greatly expanded royal power during his reign He frequently used charges of treason and heresy to quell dissent and those accused were often executed without a formal trial by means of bills of attainder He achieved many of his political aims through the work of his chief ministers some of whom were banished or executed when they fell out of his favour Thomas Wolsey Thomas More Thomas Cromwell Richard Rich and Thomas Cranmer all figured prominently in his administration Henry was an extravagant spender using the proceeds from the dissolution of the monasteries and acts of the Reformation Parliament He also converted the money that was formerly paid to Rome into royal revenue Despite the money from these sources he was continually on the verge of financial ruin due to his personal extravagance as well as his numerous costly and largely unsuccessful wars particularly with King Francis I of France Holy Roman Emperor Charles V King James V of Scotland and the Scottish regency under the Earl of Arran and Mary of Guise At home he oversaw the annexure of Wales to England with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 and was the first English monarch to rule as King of Ireland following the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 Henry s contemporaries considered him to be an attractive educated and accomplished king He has been described as one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne and his reign has been described as the most important in English history 2 3 He was an author and composer As he aged he became severely overweight and his health suffered He is frequently characterised in his later life as a lustful egotistical paranoid and tyrannical monarch 4 He was succeeded by his son Edward VI Contents 1 Early years 2 Early reign 3 France and the Habsburgs 4 Marriages 4 1 Annulment from Catherine 4 2 Marriage to Anne Boleyn 4 2 1 Execution of Anne Boleyn 4 3 Marriage to Jane Seymour domestic and foreign affairs 4 4 Marriage to Anne of Cleves 4 5 Marriage to Catherine Howard 4 6 Marriage to Catherine Parr 5 Shrines destroyed and monasteries dissolved 6 Second invasion of France and the Rough Wooing of Scotland 7 Physical decline and death 8 Wives mistresses and children 9 Succession 10 Public image 11 Government 11 1 Finances 11 2 Reformation 11 3 Military 11 4 Ireland 12 Historiography 13 Style and arms 14 Genealogical table 15 See also 16 Footnotes 17 References 17 1 Bibliography 18 Further reading 18 1 Biographical 18 2 Scholarly studies 18 3 Historiography 18 4 Primary sources 19 External linksEarly years Henry VIII s parents King Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth 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 5 Of the young Henry s six or seven siblings only three his brother Arthur Prince of Wales and sisters Margaret and Mary survived infancy 6 He was baptised by Richard Foxe the Bishop of Exeter at a church of the Observant Franciscans close to the palace 7 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 7 Not much is known about Henry s early life save for his appointments because he was not expected to become king 7 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 8 9 In November 1501 Henry played a considerable part in the ceremonies surrounding his brother Arthur s marriage to Catherine the youngest child of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile 10 As Duke of York Henry used the arms of his father as king differenced by a label of three points ermine He was further honoured on 9 February 1506 by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I who made him a Knight of the Golden Fleece 11 In 1502 Arthur died at the age of 15 possibly of sweating sickness 12 just 20 weeks after his marriage to Catherine 13 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 14 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 15 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 13 Both Henry VII and Catherine s mother Queen Isabella were keen on the idea which had arisen very shortly after Arthur s death 16 On 23 June 1503 a treaty was signed for their marriage and they were betrothed two days later 17 A papal dispensation was only needed for the impediment of public honesty if the marriage had not been consummated as Catherine and her duenna claimed but Henry VII and the Spanish ambassador set out instead to obtain a dispensation for affinity which took account of the possibility of consummation 17 Cohabitation was not possible because Henry was too young 16 Isabella s death in 1504 and the ensuing problems of succession in Castile complicated matters Catherine s father Ferdinand preferred her to stay in England but Henry VII s relations with Ferdinand had deteriorated 18 Catherine was therefore left in limbo for some time culminating in Prince Henry s rejection of the marriage as soon he was able at the age of 14 Ferdinand s solution was to make his daughter ambassador allowing her to stay in England indefinitely Devout she began to believe that it was God s will that she marry the prince despite his opposition 19 Early reign Portrait by Meynnart Wewyck 1509 Henry VII died on 21 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 leaving unresolved several issues concerning the papal dispensation and a missing part of the marriage portion 17 20 The new king maintained that it had been his father s dying wish that he marry Catherine 19 Whether or not this was true it was certainly convenient Emperor Maximilian I had been attempting to marry his granddaughter Eleanor Catherine s niece to Henry she had now been jilted 21 Henry s wedding to Catherine was kept low key and was held at the friar s church in Greenwich on 11 June 1509 20 Henry claimed descent from Constantine the Great and King Arthur and saw himself as their successor 22 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 23 It was a grand affair the king s passage was lined with tapestries and laid with fine cloth 23 Following the ceremony there was a grand banquet in Westminster Hall 24 As Catherine wrote to her father our time is spent in continuous festival 20 Two days after his coronation Henry arrested his father s two most unpopular ministers Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley They were charged with high treason and were executed in 1510 Politically motivated executions would remain one of Henry s primary tactics for dealing with those who stood in his way 5 Henry also returned some of the money supposedly extorted by the two ministers 25 By contrast Henry s view of the House of York potential rival claimants for the throne was more moderate than his father s had been Several who had been imprisoned by his father including Thomas Grey 2nd Marquess of Dorset were pardoned 26 Others went unreconciled Edmund de la Pole was eventually beheaded in 1513 an execution prompted by his brother Richard siding against the king 27 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 28 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 29 including a two day joust known as the Westminster Tournament However the child died seven weeks later 28 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 30 Although Henry s marriage to Catherine has since been described as unusually good 31 it is known that Henry 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 either Elizabeth or Anne Hastings Countess of Huntingdon 32 The most significant mistress for about three years starting in 1516 was Elizabeth Blount 30 Blount is one of only two completely undisputed mistresses considered by some to be few for a virile young king 33 34 Exactly how many Henry had is disputed David Loades believes Henry had mistresses only to a very limited extent 34 whilst Alison Weir believes there were numerous other affairs 35 Catherine is not known to have protested In 1518 she fell pregnant again with another girl who was also stillborn 30 Blount gave birth in June 1519 to Henry s illegitimate son Henry FitzRoy 30 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 36 In 1533 FitzRoy married Mary Howard but died childless three years later 37 At the time of his death in June 1536 Parliament was considering the Second Succession Act which could have allowed him to become king 38 France and the Habsburgs The meeting of Francis I and Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520 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 Certainly war with the combined might of the two powers would have been exceedingly difficult 39 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 39 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 40 The attack however following a formal declaration of war in April 1512 was not led by Henry personally 41 and was a considerable failure Ferdinand used it simply to further his own ends and it strained the Anglo Spanish alliance Nevertheless the French were pushed out of Italy soon after and the alliance survived with both parties keen to win further victories over the French 41 42 Henry then pulled off a diplomatic coup by convincing Emperor Maximilian to join the Holy League 43 Remarkably Henry had also secured the promised title of Most Christian King of France from Julius and possibly coronation by the Pope himself in Paris if only Louis could be defeated 44 Henry with Emperor Charles V right and Pope Leo X centre c 1520 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 Therouanne and handed it over to Maximillian Tournai a more significant settlement followed 45 Henry had led the army personally complete with a large entourage 46 His absence from the country however had prompted his brother in law James IV of Scotland to invade England at the behest of Louis 47 Nevertheless the English army overseen by Queen Catherine decisively defeated the Scots at the Battle of Flodden on 9 September 1513 48 Among the dead was the Scottish king thus ending Scotland s brief involvement in the war 48 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 49 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 wife having previously been pledged to the younger Charles and peace was secured for eight years a remarkably long time 50 Charles V the nephew of Henry s wife Catherine inherited a large empire in Europe becoming king of Spain in 1516 and Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 When Louis XII of France died in 1515 he was succeeded by his cousin Francis I 51 These accessions left three relatively young rulers and an opportunity for a clean slate The careful diplomacy of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey had resulted in the Treaty of London in 1518 aimed at uniting the kingdoms of western Europe in the wake of a new Ottoman threat and it seemed that peace might be secured 52 Henry met the new French 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 52 Henry had more in common with Charles whom he met once before and once after Francis Charles brought his realm into war with France in 1521 Henry offered to mediate but little was achieved and by the end of the year Henry had aligned England with Charles He still clung to his previous aim of restoring English lands in France but also sought to secure an alliance with Burgundy then a territorial possession of Charles and the continued support of the Emperor 53 A small English attack in the north of France made up little ground Charles defeated and captured Francis at Pavia and could dictate peace but he believed he owed Henry nothing Sensing this Henry decided to take England out of the war before his ally signing the Treaty of the More on 30 August 1525 54 MarriagesMain article Wives of Henry VIII vte Family tree of the Wives of Henry VIIIKing Henry VIII and all six of his wives were related through a common ancestor King Edward I of England 55 as follows 1239 1307 Edward IKing of England1275 MargaretDuchess of Brabantc 1282 1316 ElizabethCountess of Hereford1284 1327 Edward IIKing of England1300 1355 John IIIDuke of Brabant1312 1360 WilliamEarl of Northampton1312 1377 Edward IIIKing of England1323 1380 MargaretCountess of Flandersc 1350 1385 ElizabethCountess of Arundel1338 1368 Lionel of AntwerpDuke of Clarence1340 1399 John of GauntDuke of Lancaster1350 1405 Margaret IIICountess of Flanders 56 1366 1425 ElizabethDuchess of Norfolk1355 1382 PhilippaCountess of Ulster1373 1418 CatherineQueen of Castilec 1371 1410 John BeaufortEarl of Somersetc 1379 1440 Joan BeaufortCountess of Westmorland1371 1419 JohnDuke of Burgundy1388 Margaret de Mowbray1371 1417 Lady Elizabeth Mortimer1400 1460 RichardEarl of Salisbury1393 1466 MarieDuchess of Clevesc 1425 1485 JohnDuke of Norfolkc 1395 1436 Lady ElizabethBaroness de Clifford1405 1454 John IIKing of Castile1404 1444 John BeaufortDuke of Somersetc 1430 AliceBaroness FitzHugh of Ravensworth1419 1481 John IDuke of Cleves1443 1524 ThomasDuke of NorfolkMary Clifford1441 43 1509 Lady Margaret Beaufort1458 1521 John IIDuke of Clevesc 1448 1499 1501 Henry Wentworth1451 1504 Isabella IQueen of Castile1457 1509 Henry VIIKing of Englandc 1455 1465 bef 1507 ElizabethLady Parr of Kendal1490 1538 1539 John IIIDuke of Cleves 57 c 1478 1539 Lord Edmund Howardc 1480 1536 ElizabethCountess of Wiltshirec 1478 1550 Margery Wentworth1485 1536 Catherine of Aragon1491 1547 Henry VIIIKing of Englandc 1483 1517 Sir Thomas Parr1515 1557 Anne of Clevesc 1524 1542 Catherine Howardc 1507 1536 Anne Boleync 1508 1537 Jane Seymour1512 1548 Catherine Parr1533 1603 Elizabeth IQueen of England1537 1553 Edward VIKing of England1516 1558 Mary IQueen of EnglandAnnulment from Catherine Catherine of Aragon Henry s first queen c 1520 Portrait of Henry VIII by Joos van Cleve c 1531 During his marriage to Catherine of Aragon Henry conducted an affair with Mary Boleyn Catherine s lady in waiting There has been speculation that Mary s two children Henry Carey and Catherine Carey were fathered by Henry but this has never been proved and the king never acknowledged them as he did in the case of Henry FitzRoy 58 In 1525 as Henry grew more impatient with Catherine s inability to produce the male heir he desired 59 60 he became enamoured of Mary Boleyn s sister Anne Boleyn then a charismatic young woman of 25 in the queen s entourage 61 Anne however resisted his attempts to seduce her and refused to become his mistress as her sister had 62 nb 1 It was in this context that Henry considered his three options for finding a dynastic successor and hence resolving what came to be described at court as the king s great matter These options were legitimising Henry FitzRoy which would need the involvement of the Pope and would be open to challenge marrying off Mary his daughter with Catherine as soon as possible and hoping for a grandson to inherit directly but Mary was considered unlikely to conceive before Henry s death or somehow rejecting Catherine and marrying someone else of child bearing age Probably seeing the possibility of marrying Anne the third was ultimately the most attractive possibility to the 34 year old Henry 64 and it soon became the king s absorbing desire to annul his marriage to the now 40 year old Catherine 65 Henry s precise motivations and intentions over the coming years are not widely agreed on 66 Henry himself at least in the early part of his reign was a devout and well informed Catholic to the extent that his 1521 publication Assertio Septem Sacramentorum Defence of the Seven Sacraments earned him the title of Fidei Defensor Defender of the Faith from Pope Leo X 67 The work represented a staunch defence of papal supremacy albeit one couched in somewhat contingent terms 67 It is not clear exactly when Henry changed his mind on the issue as he grew more intent on a second marriage Certainly by 1527 he had convinced himself that Catherine had produced no male heir because their union was blighted in the eyes of God 68 Indeed in marrying Catherine his brother s wife he had acted contrary to Leviticus 20 21 a justification Thomas Cranmer used to declare the marriage null 69 nb 2 Martin Luther on the other hand had initially argued against the annulment stating that Henry VIII could take a second wife in accordance with his teaching that the Bible allowed for polygamy but not divorce 69 Henry now believed the Pope had lacked the authority to grant a dispensation from this impediment It was this argument Henry took to Pope Clement VII in 1527 in the hope of having his marriage to Catherine annulled forgoing at least one less openly defiant line of attack 66 In going public all hope of tempting Catherine to retire to a nunnery or otherwise stay quiet was lost 70 Henry sent his secretary William Knight to appeal directly to the Holy See by way of a deceptively worded draft papal bull Knight was unsuccessful the Pope could not be misled so easily 71 Other missions concentrated on arranging an ecclesiastical court to meet in England with a representative from Clement VII Although Clement agreed to the creation of such a court he never had any intention of empowering his legate Lorenzo Campeggio to decide in Henry s favour 71 This bias was perhaps the result of pressure from Emperor Charles V Catherine s nephew but it is not clear how far this influenced either Campeggio or the Pope After less than two months of hearing evidence Clement called the case back to Rome in July 1529 from which it was clear that it would never re emerge 71 With the chance for an annulment lost Cardinal Wolsey bore the blame He was charged with praemunire in October 1529 72 and his fall from grace was sudden and total 71 Briefly reconciled with Henry and officially pardoned in the first half of 1530 he was charged once more in November 1530 this time for treason but died while awaiting trial 71 73 After a short period in which Henry took government upon his own shoulders 74 Sir Thomas More took on the role of Lord Chancellor and chief minister Intelligent and able but also a devout Catholic and opponent of the annulment 75 More initially cooperated with the king s new policy denouncing Wolsey in Parliament 76 A year later Catherine was banished from court and her rooms were given to Anne Boleyn Anne was an unusually educated and intellectual woman for her time and was keenly absorbed and engaged with the ideas of the Protestant Reformers but the extent to which she herself was a committed Protestant is much debated 63 When Archbishop of Canterbury William Warham died Anne s influence and the need to find a trustworthy supporter of the annulment had Thomas Cranmer appointed to the vacant position 75 This was approved by the Pope unaware of the king s nascent plans for the Church 77 Henry was married to Catherine for 24 years Their divorce has been described as a deeply wounding and isolating experience for Henry 3 Marriage to Anne Boleyn See also Henry VIII Reformation Portrait of Anne Boleyn Henry s second queen a copy of a lost original painted around 1534 In the winter of 1532 Henry met with Francis I at Calais and enlisted the support of the French king for his new marriage 78 Immediately upon returning to Dover in England Henry now 41 and Anne went through a secret wedding service 79 She soon became pregnant and there was a second wedding service in London on 25 January 1533 On 23 May 1533 Cranmer sitting in judgment at a special court convened at Dunstable Priory to rule on the validity of the king s marriage to Catherine of Aragon declared the marriage of Henry and Catherine null and void Five days later on 28 May 1533 Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Anne to be valid 80 Catherine was formally stripped of her title as queen becoming instead princess dowager as the widow of Arthur In her place Anne was crowned queen consort on 1 June 1533 81 The queen gave birth to a daughter slightly prematurely on 7 September 1533 The child was christened Elizabeth in honour of Henry s mother Elizabeth of York 82 Following the marriage there was a period of consolidation taking the form of a series of statutes of the Reformation Parliament aimed at finding solutions to any remaining issues whilst protecting the new reforms from challenge convincing the public of their legitimacy and exposing and dealing with opponents 83 Although the canon law was dealt with at length by Cranmer and others these acts were advanced by Thomas Cromwell Thomas Audley and the Duke of Norfolk and indeed by Henry himself 84 With this process complete in May 1532 More resigned as Lord Chancellor leaving Cromwell as Henry s chief minister 85 With the Act of Succession 1533 Catherine s daughter Mary was declared illegitimate Henry s marriage to Anne was declared legitimate and Anne s issue declared to be next in the line of succession 86 With the Acts of Supremacy in 1534 Parliament also recognised the king s status as head of the church in England and together with the Act in Restraint of Appeals in 1532 abolished the right of appeal to Rome 87 It was only then that Pope Clement VII took the step of excommunicating the king and Cranmer although the excommunication was not made official until some time later nb 3 The king and queen were not pleased with married life The royal couple enjoyed periods of calm and affection but Anne refused to play the submissive role expected of her The vivacity and opinionated intellect that had made her so attractive as an illicit lover made her too independent for the largely ceremonial role of a royal wife and it made her many enemies For his part Henry disliked Anne s constant irritability and violent temper After a false pregnancy or miscarriage in 1534 he saw her failure to give him a son as a betrayal As early as Christmas 1534 Henry was discussing with Cranmer and Cromwell the chances of leaving Anne without having to return to Catherine 94 Henry is traditionally believed to have had an affair with Madge Shelton in 1535 although historian Antonia Fraser argues that Henry in fact had an affair with her sister Mary Shelton 33 Opposition to Henry s religious policies was at first quickly suppressed in England A number of dissenting monks including the first Carthusian Martyrs were executed and many more pilloried The most prominent resisters included John Fisher Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More both of whom refused to take the oath to the king 95 Neither Henry nor Cromwell sought at that stage to have the men executed rather they hoped that the two might change their minds and save themselves Fisher openly rejected Henry as the Supreme Head of the Church but More was careful to avoid openly breaking the Treasons Act of 1534 which unlike later acts did not forbid mere silence Both men were subsequently convicted of high treason however More on the evidence of a single conversation with Richard Rich the Solicitor General and both were executed in the summer of 1535 95 These suppressions as well as the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries Act of 1536 in turn contributed to more general resistance to Henry s reforms most notably in the Pilgrimage of Grace a large uprising in northern England in October 1536 96 Some 20 000 to 40 000 rebels were led by Robert Aske together with parts of the northern nobility 97 Henry VIII promised the rebels he would pardon them and thanked them for raising the issues Aske told the rebels they had been successful and they could disperse and go home 98 Henry saw the rebels as traitors and did not feel obliged to keep his promises to them so when further violence occurred after Henry s offer of a pardon he was quick to break his promise of clemency 99 The leaders including Aske were arrested and executed for treason In total about 200 rebels were executed and the disturbances ended 100 Execution of Anne Boleyn Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger c 1537 On 8 January 1536 news reached the king and queen that Catherine of Aragon had died The following day Henry dressed all in yellow with a white feather in his bonnet 101 Queen Anne was pregnant again and she was aware of the consequences if she failed to give birth to a son Later that month the king was thrown from his horse in a tournament and was badly injured it seemed for a time that his life was in danger When news of this accident reached the queen she was sent into shock and miscarried a male child at about 15 weeks gestation on the day of Catherine s funeral 29 January 1536 102 For most observers this personal loss was the beginning of the end of this royal marriage 103 Although the Boleyn family still held important positions on the Privy Council Anne had many enemies including the Duke of Suffolk Even her own uncle the Duke of Norfolk had come to resent her attitude to her power The Boleyns preferred France over the Emperor as a potential ally but the king s favour had swung towards the latter partly because of Cromwell damaging the family s influence 104 Also opposed to Anne were supporters of reconciliation with Princess Mary among them the former supporters of Catherine who had reached maturity A second annulment was now a real possibility although it is commonly believed that it was Cromwell s anti Boleyn influence that led opponents to look for a way of having her executed 105 106 Anne s downfall came shortly after she had recovered from her final miscarriage Whether it was primarily the result of allegations of conspiracy adultery or witchcraft remains a matter of debate among historians 63 Early signs of a fall from grace included the king s new mistress the 28 year old Jane Seymour being moved into new quarters 107 and Anne s brother George Boleyn being refused the Order of the Garter which was instead given to Nicholas Carew 108 Between 30 April and 2 May five men including George Boleyn were arrested on charges of treasonable adultery and accused of having sexual relationships with the queen Anne was also arrested accused of treasonous adultery and incest Although the evidence against them was unconvincing the accused were found guilty and condemned to death The accused men were executed on 17 May 1536 109 Henry and Anne s marriage was annulled by Archbishop Cranmer at Lambeth on the same day 110 Cranmer appears to have had difficulty finding grounds for an annulment and probably based it on the prior liaison between Henry and Anne s sister Mary which in canon law meant that Henry s marriage to Anne was like his first marriage within a forbidden degree of affinity and therefore void 111 At 8 am on 19 May 1536 Anne was executed on Tower Green 112 Marriage to Jane Seymour domestic and foreign affairs Jane Seymour left became Henry s third wife pictured at right with Henry and the young Prince Edward c 1545 by an unknown artist At the time that this was painted Henry was married to his sixth wife Catherine Parr The day after Anne s execution the 45 year old Henry became engaged to Seymour who had been one of the queen s ladies in waiting They were married ten days later 113 at the Palace of Whitehall Whitehall London in the queen s closet by Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester 114 On 12 October 1537 Jane gave birth to a son Prince Edward the future Edward VI 115 The birth was difficult and Queen Jane died on 24 October 1537 from an infection and was buried in Windsor 116 The euphoria that had accompanied Edward s birth became sorrow but it was only over time that Henry came to long for his wife At the time Henry recovered quickly from the shock 117 Measures were immediately put in place to find another wife for Henry which at the insistence of Cromwell and the Privy Council were focused on the European continent 118 With Charles V distracted by the internal politics of his many kingdoms and also external threats and Henry and Francis on relatively good terms domestic and not foreign policy issues had been Henry s priority in the first half of the 1530s In 1536 for example Henry granted his assent to the Laws in Wales Act 1535 which legally annexed Wales uniting England and Wales into a single nation This was followed by the Second Succession Act the Act of Succession 1536 which declared Henry s children by Jane to be next in the line of succession and declared both Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate thus excluding them from the throne The king was also granted the power to further determine the line of succession in his will should he have no further issue 119 In 1538 as part of the negotiation of a secret treaty by Cromwell with Charles V a series of dynastic marriages were proposed Mary would marry a son of the King of Portugal Elizabeth marry one of the sons of the King of Hungary and the infant Edward marry one of the Emperor s daughters The widowed King it was suggested might marry the Dowager Duchess of Milan 120 However when Charles and Francis made peace in January 1539 Henry became increasingly paranoid perhaps as a result of receiving a constant list of threats to the kingdom real or imaginary minor or serious supplied by Cromwell in his role as spymaster 121 Enriched by the dissolution of the monasteries Henry used some of his financial reserves to build a series of coastal defences and set some aside for use in the event of a Franco German invasion 122 Marriage to Anne of Cleves Portrait of Anne of Cleves by Hans Holbein the Younger 1539 Having considered the matter Cromwell suggested Anne the 25 year old sister of the Duke of Cleves who was seen as an important ally in case of a Roman Catholic attack on England for the duke fell between Lutheranism and Catholicism 123 Hans Holbein the Younger was dispatched to Cleves to paint a portrait of Anne for the king 124 Despite speculation that Holbein painted her in an overly flattering light it is more likely that the portrait was accurate Holbein remained in favour at court 125 After seeing Holbein s portrait and urged on by the complimentary description of Anne given by his courtiers the 49 year old king agreed to wed Anne 126 The marriage took place in January 1540 However it was not long before Henry wished to annul the marriage so he could marry another 127 128 Anne did not argue and confirmed that the marriage had never been consummated 129 Anne s previous betrothal to the Duke of Lorraine s son Francis provided further grounds for the annulment 130 The marriage was subsequently dissolved in July 1540 and Anne received the title of The King s Sister two houses and a generous allowance 129 It was soon clear that Henry had fallen for the 17 year old Catherine Howard the Duke of Norfolk s niece This worried Cromwell for Norfolk was his political opponent 131 Shortly after the religious reformers and proteges of Cromwell Robert Barnes William Jerome and Thomas Garret were burned as heretics 129 Cromwell meanwhile fell out of favour although it is unclear exactly why for there is little evidence of differences in domestic or foreign policy Despite his role he was never formally accused of being responsible for Henry s failed marriage 132 Cromwell was now surrounded by enemies at court with Norfolk also able to draw on his niece Catherine s position 131 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 133 134 He was subsequently attainted and beheaded 132 Marriage to Catherine Howard Portrait of a woman believed to be Catherine Howard Henry s fifth wife by Hans Holbein the Younger 1540 On 28 July 1540 the same day Cromwell was executed Henry married the young Catherine Howard a first cousin and lady in waiting of Anne Boleyn 135 He was delighted with his new queen and awarded her the lands of Cromwell and a vast array of jewellery 136 Soon after the marriage however Queen Catherine had an affair with the courtier Thomas Culpeper She also employed Francis Dereham who had previously been informally engaged to her and had an affair with her prior to her marriage as her secretary The Privy Council was informed of her affair with Dereham whilst Henry was away Thomas Cranmer was dispatched to investigate and he brought evidence of Queen Catherine s previous affair with Dereham to the king s notice 137 Though Henry originally refused to believe the allegations Dereham confessed It took another meeting of the council however before Henry believed the accusations against Dereham and went into a rage blaming the council before consoling himself in hunting 138 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 Catherine s relationship with Culpeper Culpeper and Dereham were both executed and Catherine too was beheaded on 13 February 1542 139 Marriage to Catherine Parr Catherine Parr Henry s sixth and last wife Henry married his last wife the wealthy widow Catherine Parr in July 1543 140 A reformer at heart she argued with Henry over religion Henry remained committed to an idiosyncratic mixture of Catholicism and Protestantism the reactionary mood that had gained ground after Cromwell s fall had neither eliminated his Protestant streak nor been overcome by it 141 Parr helped reconcile Henry with his daughters Mary and Elizabeth 142 In 1543 the Third Succession Act put them back in the line of succession after Edward The same act allowed Henry to determine further succession to the throne in his will 143 Shrines destroyed and monasteries dissolvedMain article Dissolution of the monasteries In 1538 the chief minister Thomas Cromwell pursued an extensive campaign against what the government termed idolatry practised under the old religion culminating in September with the dismantling of the shrine of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral As a consequence the king was excommunicated by Pope Paul III on 17 December of the same year 92 In 1540 Henry sanctioned the complete destruction of shrines to saints In 1542 England s remaining monasteries were all dissolved and their property transferred to the Crown Abbots and priors lost their seats in the House of Lords only archbishops and bishops remained Consequently the Lords Spiritual as members of the clergy with seats in the House of Lords were known were for the first time outnumbered by the Lords Temporal Second invasion of France and the Rough Wooing of ScotlandMain article Rough Wooing Henry in 1540 by Hans Holbein the Younger The 1539 alliance between Francis and 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 144 In preparation for it Henry moved to eliminate the potential threat of Scotland under the youthful James V The Scots were defeated at Battle of Solway Moss on 24 November 1542 145 and James died on 15 December Henry now hoped to unite the crowns of England and Scotland by marrying his son Edward to James 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 146 147 148 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 149 146 However Henry had refused Charles request to march against Paris Charles own campaign fizzled and he made peace with France that same day 147 Henry was left alone against France unable to make peace Francis attempted to invade England in the summer of 1545 but reached only the Isle of Wight before being repulsed in the Battle of the Solent 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 147 Physical decline and death Coffins of King Henry VIII centre damaged Queen Jane right King Charles I with a child of Queen Anne left vault under the choir St George s Chapel Windsor Castle marked by a stone slab in the floor 1888 sketch by Alfred Young Nutt Surveyor to the Dean and Canons Late in life Henry became 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 suffered from gout His obesity and other medical problems can be traced to the jousting accident in 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 150 151 The theory that Henry suffered from syphilis has been dismissed by most historians 152 153 Historian Susan Maclean Kybett ascribes his demise to scurvy which is caused by insufficient vitamin C most often due to a lack of fresh fruit and vegetables in one s diet 154 Alternatively his wives pattern of pregnancies and his mental deterioration have led some to suggest that he may have been Kell positive and suffered from McLeod syndrome 151 155 According to another study Henry s history and body morphology may have been the result of traumatic brain injury after his 1536 jousting accident which in turn led to a neuroendocrine cause of his obesity This analysis identifies growth hormone deficiency GHD as the reason for his increased adiposity but also significant behavioural changes noted in his later years including his multiple marriages 156 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 157 Henry was interred in a vault at St George s Chapel Windsor Castle next to Jane Seymour 158 Over 100 years later King Charles I ruled 1625 1649 was buried in the same vault 159 Wives mistresses and childrenSee also Wives of Henry VIII Children of Henry VIII and Mistresses of Henry VIIIEnglish historian and House of Tudor expert David Starkey describes Henry VIII as a husband What is extraordinary is that Henry was usually a very good husband And he liked women that s why he married so many of them He was very tender to them we know that he addressed them as sweetheart He was a good lover he was very generous the wives were given huge settlements of land and jewels they were loaded with jewels He was immensely considerate when they were pregnant But once he had fallen out of love he just cut them off He just withdrew He abandoned them They didn t even know he d left them 3 Known children of Henry VIII of England Name Birth Death NotesBy Catherine of Aragon married Palace of Placentia 11 June 1509 annulled 23 May 1533 Unnamed daughter 31 January 1510 stillbornHenry Duke of Cornwall 1 January 1511 22 February 1511 died aged almost two monthsUnnamed son 17 September 1513 died shortly after birthUnnamed son November 1514 160 died shortly after birthQueen Mary I 18 February 1516 17 November 1558 married Philip II of Spain in 1554 no issueUnnamed daughter 10 November 1518 stillborn in the 8th month of pregnancy 161 or lived at least one weekBy Elizabeth Blount mistress bore the only illegitimate child Henry VIII acknowledged as his son Henry FitzRoy 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset 15 June 1519 23 July 1536 illegitimate acknowledged by Henry VIII in 1525 no issueBy Anne Boleyn married Westminster Abbey 25 January 1533 annulled 17 May 1536 beheaded on 19 May 1536Queen Elizabeth I 7 September 1533 24 March 1603 never married no issueUnnamed son Christmas 1534 162 miscarriage or false pregnancy nb 4 Unnamed son 1535 Miscarried son nb 5 Unnamed son 29 January 1536 miscarriage of a child believed male nb 6 in the fourth month of pregnancy 163 By Jane Seymour married Palace of Whitehall 30 May 1536 died 24 October 1537King Edward VI 12 October 1537 6 July 1553 died unmarried age 15 no issueBy Anne of Cleves married Palace of Placentia 6 January 1540 annulled 9 July 1540 no issueBy Catherine Howard married Oatlands Palace 28 July 1540 annulled 23 November 1541 beheaded on 13 February 1542no issueBy Catherine Parr married Hampton Court Palace 12 July 1543 Henry VIII died 28 January 1547 no issueSuccessionSee also Third Succession Act 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 were Edward to die 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 164 This provision ultimately failed when James VI of Scotland became King of England in 1603 Edward VI himself would disregard the will and name Jane Grey his successor Public image Musical score of Pastime with Good Company c 1513 composed by Henry Henry cultivated the image of a Renaissance man and his court was a centre of scholarly and artistic innovation and glamorous excess epitomised by the Field of the Cloth of Gold He scouted the country for choirboys taking some directly from Wolsey s choir and introduced Renaissance music into court Musicians included Benedict de Opitiis Richard Sampson Ambrose Lupo and Venetian organist Dionisio Memo 165 and Henry himself kept a considerable collection of instruments He was skilled on the lute and played the organ and was a talented player of the virginals 165 He could also sightread music and sing well 165 He was an accomplished musician author and poet his best known piece of music is Pastime with Good Company The Kynges Ballade and he is reputed to have written Greensleeves but probably did not 166 Henry was an avid gambler and dice player and excelled at sports especially jousting hunting and real tennis He was also known for his strong defence of conventional Christian piety 6 He was involved in the construction and improvement of several significant buildings including Nonsuch Palace King s College Chapel Cambridge and Westminster Abbey in London Many of the existing buildings which he improved were properties confiscated from Wolsey such as Christ Church Oxford Hampton Court Palace the Palace of Whitehall and Trinity College Cambridge Henry was an intellectual the first English king with a modern humanist education He read and wrote English French and Latin and owned a large library He annotated many books and published one of his own and he had numerous pamphlets and lectures prepared to support the reformation of the church Richard Sampson s Oratio 1534 for example was an argument for absolute obedience to the monarchy and claimed that the English church had always been independent of Rome 167 At the popular level theatre and minstrel troupes funded by the crown travelled around the land to promote the new religious practices the pope and Catholic priests and monks were mocked as foreign devils while Henry was hailed as the glorious king of England and as a brave and heroic defender of the true faith 168 Henry worked hard to present an image of unchallengeable authority and irresistible power 169 Catherine of Aragon watching Henry jousting in her honour after giving birth to a son Henry was a large well built athlete over 6 feet 1 8 m tall strong and broad in proportion His athletic activities were more than pastimes they were political devices that served multiple goals enhancing his image impressing foreign emissaries and rulers and conveying his ability to suppress any rebellion He arranged a jousting tournament at Greenwich in 1517 where he wore gilded armour and gilded horse trappings and outfits of velvet satin and cloth of gold with pearls and jewels It suitably impressed foreign ambassadors one of whom wrote home that the wealth and civilisation of the world are here and those who call the English barbarians appear to me to render themselves such 170 Henry finally retired from jousting in 1536 after a heavy fall from his horse left him unconscious for two hours but he continued to sponsor two lavish tournaments a year He then started gaining weight and lost the trim athletic figure that had made him so handsome and his courtiers began dressing in heavily padded clothes to emulate and flatter him His health rapidly declined near the end of his reign 171 172 173 GovernmentThe power of Tudor monarchs including Henry was whole and entire ruling as they claimed by the grace of God alone 174 The crown could also rely on the exclusive use of those functions that constituted the royal prerogative These included acts of diplomacy including royal marriages declarations of war management of the coinage the issue of royal pardons and the power to summon and dissolve parliament as and when required 175 Nevertheless as evident during Henry s break with Rome the monarch stayed within established limits whether legal or financial that forced him to work closely with both the nobility and parliament representing the gentry 175 Cardinal Thomas Wolsey In practice Tudor monarchs used patronage to maintain a royal court that included formal institutions such as the Privy Council as well as more informal advisers and confidants 176 Both the rise and fall of court nobles could be swift Henry did undoubtedly execute at will burning or beheading two of his wives 20 peers four leading public servants six close attendants and friends one cardinal John Fisher and numerous abbots 169 Among those who were in favour at any given point in Henry s reign one could usually be identified as a chief minister 176 though one of the enduring debates in the historiography of the period has been the extent to which those chief ministers controlled Henry rather than vice versa 177 In particular historian G R Elton has argued that one such minister Thomas Cromwell led a Tudor revolution in government independently of the king whom Elton presented as an opportunistic essentially lazy participant in the nitty gritty of politics Where Henry did intervene personally in the running of the country Elton argued he mostly did so to its detriment 178 The prominence and influence of faction in Henry s court is similarly discussed in the context of at least five episodes of Henry s reign including the downfall of Anne Boleyn 179 From 1514 to 1529 Thomas Wolsey 1473 1530 a cardinal of the established Church oversaw domestic and foreign policy for the king from his position as Lord Chancellor 180 Wolsey centralised the national government and extended the jurisdiction of the conciliar courts particularly the Star Chamber The Star Chamber s overall structure remained unchanged but Wolsey used it to provide much needed reform of the criminal law The power of the court itself did not outlive Wolsey however since no serious administrative reform was undertaken and its role eventually devolved to the localities 181 Wolsey helped fill the gap left by Henry s declining participation in government particularly in comparison to his father but did so mostly by imposing himself in the king s place 182 His use of these courts to pursue personal grievances and particularly to treat delinquents as mere examples of a whole class worthy of punishment angered the rich who were annoyed as well by his enormous wealth and ostentatious living 183 Following Wolsey s downfall Henry took full control of his government although at court numerous complex factions continued to try to ruin and destroy each other 184 Thomas Cromwell in 1532 or 1533 Thomas Cromwell c 1485 1540 also came to define Henry s government Returning to England from the continent in 1514 or 1515 Cromwell soon entered Wolsey s service He turned to law also picking up a good knowledge of the Bible and was admitted to Gray s Inn in 1524 He became Wolsey s man of all work 185 Driven in part by his religious beliefs Cromwell attempted to reform the body politic of the English government through discussion and consent and through the vehicle of continuity not outward change 186 Many saw him as the man they wanted to bring about their shared aims including Thomas Audley By 1531 Cromwell and his associates were already responsible for the drafting of much legislation 186 Cromwell s first office was that of the master of the king s jewels in 1532 from which he began to invigorate the government finances 187 By that point Cromwell s power as an efficient administrator in a Council full of politicians exceeded what Wolsey had achieved 188 Cromwell did much work through his many offices to remove the tasks of government from the Royal Household and ideologically from the personal body of the king and into a public state 188 But he did so in a haphazard fashion that left several remnants not least because he needed to retain Henry s support his own power and the possibility of actually achieving the plan he set out 189 Cromwell made the various income streams Henry VII put in place more formal and assigned largely autonomous bodies for their administration 190 The role of the King s Council was transferred to a reformed Privy Council much smaller and more efficient than its predecessor 191 A difference emerged between the king s financial health and the country s although Cromwell s fall undermined much of his bureaucracy which required him to keep order among the many new bodies and prevent profligate spending that strained relations as well as finances 192 Cromwell s reforms ground to a halt in 1539 the initiative lost and he failed to secure the passage of an enabling act the Proclamation by the Crown Act 1539 193 He was executed on 28 July 1540 194 Finances Gold crown of Henry VIII minted c 1544 1547 The reverse depicts the quartered arms of England and France Henry inherited a vast fortune and a prosperous economy from his father who had been frugal This fortune is estimated at 1 250 000 the equivalent of 375 million today 195 By comparison Henry VIII s reign was a near disaster financially He augmented the royal treasury by seizing church lands but his heavy spending and long periods of mismanagement damaged the economy 196 Henry spent much of his wealth on maintaining his court and household including many of the building works he undertook on royal palaces He hung 2 000 tapestries in his palaces by comparison James V of Scotland hung just 200 197 Henry took pride in showing off his collection of weapons which included exotic archery equipment 2 250 pieces of land ordnance and 6 500 handguns 198 Tudor monarchs had to fund all government expenses out of their own income This income came from the Crown lands that Henry owned as well as from customs duties like tonnage and poundage granted by parliament to the king for life During Henry s reign the revenues of the Crown remained constant around 100 000 199 but were eroded by inflation and rising prices brought about by war Indeed war and Henry s dynastic ambitions in Europe exhausted the surplus he had inherited from his father by the mid 1520s Henry VII had not involved Parliament in his affairs very much but Henry VIII had to turn to Parliament during his reign for money in particular for grants of subsidies to fund his wars The dissolution of the monasteries provided a means to replenish the treasury and as a result the Crown took possession of monastic lands worth 120 000 36 million a year 200 The Crown had profited by a small amount in 1526 when Wolsey put England onto a gold rather than silver standard and had debased the currency slightly Cromwell debased the currency more significantly starting in Ireland in 1540 The English pound halved in value against the Flemish pound between 1540 and 1551 as a result The nominal profit made was significant helping to bring income and expenditure together but it had a catastrophic effect on the country s economy In part it helped to bring about a period of very high inflation from 1544 onwards 201 Reformation Main article English Reformation King Henry VIII sitting with his feet upon Pope Clement VI 1641 Henry is generally credited with initiating the English Reformation the process of transforming England from a Catholic country to a Protestant one though his progress at the elite and mass levels is disputed 202 and the precise narrative not widely agreed upon 66 Certainly in 1527 Henry until then an observant and well informed Catholic appealed to the Pope for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine 66 No annulment was immediately forthcoming since the papacy was now under the control of Charles V Catherine s nephew 203 The traditional narrative gives this refusal as the trigger for Henry s rejection of papal supremacy which he had previously defended Yet as E L Woodward put it Henry s determination to annul his marriage with Catherine was the occasion rather than the cause of the English Reformation so that neither too much nor too little should be made of the annulment 204 Historian A F Pollard has argued that even if Henry had not needed an annulment he might have come to reject papal control over the governance of England purely for political reasons Indeed Henry needed a son to secure the Tudor Dynasty and avert the risk of civil war over disputed succession 205 In any case between 1532 and 1537 Henry instituted a number of statutes that dealt with the relationship between king and pope and hence the structure of the nascent Church of England 206 These included the Statute in Restraint of Appeals passed 1533 which extended the charge of praemunire against all who introduced papal bulls into England potentially exposing them to the death penalty if found guilty 207 Other acts included the Supplication against the Ordinaries and the Submission of the Clergy which recognised Royal Supremacy over the church The Ecclesiastical Appointments Act 1534 required the clergy to elect bishops nominated by the Sovereign The Act of Supremacy in 1534 declared that the king was the only Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England and the Treasons Act 1534 made it high treason punishable by death to refuse the Oath of Supremacy acknowledging the king as such Similarly following the passage of the Act of Succession 1533 all adults in the kingdom were required to acknowledge the Act s provisions declaring Henry s marriage to Anne legitimate and his marriage to Catherine illegitimate by oath 208 those who refused were subject to imprisonment for life and any publisher or printer of any literature alleging that the marriage to Anne was invalid subject to the death penalty 209 Finally the Peter s Pence Act was passed and it reiterated that England had no superior under God but only your Grace and that Henry s imperial crown had been diminished by the unreasonable and uncharitable usurpations and exactions of the Pope 210 The king had much support from the Church under Cranmer 211 A 16th century depiction of the Parliament of King Henry VIII To Cromwell s annoyance Henry insisted on parliamentary time to discuss questions of faith which he achieved through the Duke of Norfolk This led to the passing of the Act of Six Articles whereby six major questions were all answered by asserting the religious orthodoxy thus restraining the reform movement in England 128 It was followed by the beginnings of a reformed liturgy and of the Book of Common Prayer which would take until 1549 to complete 212 But this victory for religious conservatives did not convert into much change in personnel and Cranmer remained in his position 213 Overall the rest of Henry s reign saw a subtle movement away from religious orthodoxy helped in part by the deaths of prominent figures from before the break with Rome especially the executions of Thomas More and John Fisher in 1535 for refusing to renounce papal authority Henry established a new political theology of obedience to the crown that continued for the next decade It reflected Martin Luther s new interpretation of the fourth commandment Honour thy father and mother brought to England by William Tyndale The founding of royal authority on the Ten Commandments was another important shift reformers within the Church used the Commandments emphasis on faith and the word of God while conservatives emphasised the need for dedication to God and doing good The reformers efforts lay behind the publication of the Great Bible in 1539 in English 214 Protestant Reformers still faced persecution particularly over objections to Henry s annulment Many fled abroad including the influential Tyndale 215 who was eventually executed and his body burned at Henry s behest When taxes once payable to Rome were transferred to the Crown Cromwell saw the need to assess the taxable value of the Church s extensive holdings as they stood in 1535 The result was an extensive compendium the Valor Ecclesiasticus 216 In September 1535 Cromwell commissioned a more general visitation of religious institutions to be undertaken by four appointee visitors The visitation focussed almost exclusively on the country s religious houses with largely negative conclusions 217 In addition to reporting back to Cromwell the visitors made the lives of the monks more difficult by enforcing strict behavioural standards The result was to encourage self dissolution 218 In any case the evidence Cromwell gathered led swiftly to the beginning of the state enforced dissolution of the monasteries with all religious houses worth less than 200 vested by statute in the crown in January 1536 219 After a short pause surviving religious houses were transferred one by one to the Crown and new owners and the dissolution confirmed by a further statute in 1539 By January 1540 no such houses remained 800 had been dissolved The process had been efficient with minimal resistance and brought the crown some 90 000 a year 220 The extent to which the dissolution of all houses was planned from the start is debated by historians there is some evidence that major houses were originally intended only to be reformed 221 Cromwell s actions transferred a fifth of England s landed wealth to new hands The programme was designed primarily to create a landed gentry beholden to the crown which would use the lands much more efficiently 222 Although little opposition to the supremacy could be found in England s religious houses they had links to the international church and were an obstacle to further religious reform 223 Response to the reforms was mixed The religious houses had been the only support of the impoverished 224 and the reforms alienated much of the populace outside London helping to provoke the great northern rising of 1536 37 known as the Pilgrimage of Grace 225 Elsewhere the changes were accepted and welcomed and those who clung to Catholic rites kept quiet or moved in secrecy They reemerged during the reign of Henry s daughter Mary 1553 58 Military Henry s Italian made suit of armour c 1544 Metropolitan Museum of Art New York Apart from permanent garrisons at Berwick Calais and Carlisle England s standing army numbered only a few hundred men This was increased only slightly by Henry 226 Henry s invasion force of 1513 some 30 000 men was composed of billmen and longbowmen at a time when the other European nations were moving to hand guns and pikemen But the difference in capability was at this stage not significant and Henry s forces had new armour and weaponry They were also supported by battlefield artillery and the war wagon 227 relatively new innovations and several large and expensive siege guns 228 The invasion force of 1544 was similarly well equipped and organised although command on the battlefield was laid with the dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk which in the latter case produced disastrous results at Montreuil 146 Henry s break with Rome incurred the threat of a large scale French or Spanish invasion 91 To guard against this in 1538 he began to build a chain of expensive state of the art defences along Britain s southern and eastern coasts from Kent to Cornwall largely built of material gained from the demolition of the monasteries 229 These were known as Henry VIII s Device Forts He also strengthened existing coastal defence fortresses such as Dover Castle and at Dover Moat Bulwark and Archcliffe Fort which he visited for a few months to supervise 91 Wolsey had many years before conducted the censuses required for an overhaul of the system of militia but no reform resulted 230 In 1538 39 Cromwell overhauled the shire musters but his work mainly served to demonstrate how inadequate they were in organisation 91 The building works including that at Berwick along with the reform of the militias and musters were eventually finished under Queen Mary 231 Depiction of Henry embarking at Dover c 1520 Henry is traditionally cited as one of the founders of the Royal Navy 232 Technologically Henry invested in large cannon for his warships an idea that had taken hold in other countries to replace the smaller serpentines in use 232 He also flirted with designing ships personally His contribution to larger vessels if any is unknown but it is believed that he influenced the design of rowbarges and similar galleys 233 Henry was also responsible for the creation of a permanent navy with the supporting anchorages and dockyards 232 Tactically Henry s reign saw the Navy move away from boarding tactics to employ gunnery instead 234 The Tudor navy was enlarged up to 50 ships the Mary Rose among them and Henry was responsible for the establishment of the council for marine causes to oversee the maintenance and operation of the Navy becoming the basis for the later Admiralty 235 Ireland The division of Ireland in 1450 At the beginning of Henry s reign Ireland was effectively divided into three zones the Pale where English rule was unchallenged Leinster and Munster the so called obedient land of Anglo Irish peers and the Gaelic Connaught and Ulster with merely nominal English rule 236 Until 1513 Henry continued the policy of his father to allow Irish lords to rule in the king s name and accept steep divisions between the communities 237 However upon the death of the 8th Earl of Kildare governor of Ireland fractious Irish politics combined with a more ambitious Henry to cause trouble When Thomas Butler 7th Earl of Ormond died Henry recognised one successor for Ormond s English Welsh and Scottish lands whilst in Ireland another took control Kildare s successor the 9th Earl was replaced as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland by the Earl of Surrey in 1520 238 Surrey s ambitious aims were costly but ineffective English rule became trapped between winning the Irish lords over with diplomacy as favoured by Henry and Wolsey and a sweeping military occupation as proposed by Surrey 239 Surrey was recalled in 1521 with Piers Butler one of the claimants to the Earldom of Ormond appointed in his place Butler proved unable to control opposition including that of Kildare Kildare was appointed chief governor in 1524 resuming his dispute with Butler which had before been in a lull Meanwhile the Earl of Desmond an Anglo Irish peer had turned his support to Richard de la Pole as pretender to the English throne when in 1528 Kildare failed to take suitable actions against him Kildare was once again removed from his post 240 The Desmond situation was resolved on his death in 1529 which was followed by a period of uncertainty This was effectively ended with the appointment of Henry FitzRoy Duke of Richmond and the king s son as lord lieutenant Richmond had never before visited Ireland his appointment a break with past policy 241 242 For a time it looked as if peace might be restored with the return of Kildare to Ireland to manage the tribes but the effect was limited and the Irish parliament soon rendered ineffective 243 Ireland began to receive the attention of Cromwell who had supporters of Ormond and Desmond promoted Kildare on the other hand was summoned to London after some hesitation he departed for London in 1534 where he would face charges of treason 243 His son Thomas Lord Offaly was more forthright denouncing the king and leading a Catholic crusade against the king who was by this time mired in marital problems Offaly had the Archbishop of Dublin murdered and besieged Dublin Offaly led a mixture of Pale gentry and Irish tribes although he failed to secure the support of Lord Darcy a sympathiser or Charles V What was effectively a civil war was ended with the intervention of 2 000 English troops a large army by Irish standards and the execution of Offaly his father was already dead and his uncles 244 245 Although the Offaly revolt was followed by a determination to rule Ireland more closely Henry was wary of drawn out conflict with the tribes and a royal commission recommended that the only relationship with the tribes was to be promises of peace their land protected from English expansion The man to lead this effort was Sir Antony St Leger as Lord Deputy of Ireland who would remain into the post past Henry s death 246 Until the break with Rome it was widely believed that Ireland was a Papal possession granted as a mere fiefdom to the English king so in 1541 Henry asserted England s claim to the Kingdom of Ireland free from the Papal overlordship This change did however also allow a policy of peaceful reconciliation and expansion the Lords of Ireland would grant their lands to the king before being returned as fiefdoms The incentive to comply with Henry s request was an accompanying barony and thus a right to sit in the Irish House of Lords which was to run in parallel with England s 247 The Irish law of the tribes did not suit such an arrangement because the chieftain did not have the required rights this made progress tortuous and the plan was abandoned in 1543 not to be replaced 248 HistoriographyThe complexities and sheer scale of Henry s legacy ensured that in the words of Betteridge and Freeman throughout the centuries Henry has been praised and reviled but he has never been ignored 177 Historian John D Mackie sums up Henry s personality and its impact on his achievements and popularity The respect nay even the popularity which he had from his people was not unmerited He kept the development of England in line with some of the most vigorous though not the noblest forces of the day His high courage highest when things went ill his commanding intellect his appreciation of fact and his instinct for rule carried his country through a perilous time of change and his very arrogance saved his people from the wars which afflicted other lands Dimly remembering the wars of the Roses vaguely informed as to the slaughters and sufferings in Europe the people of England knew that in Henry they had a great king 249 A particular focus of modern historiography has been the extent to which the events of Henry s life including his marriages foreign policy and religious changes were the result of his own initiative and if they were whether they were the result of opportunism or of a principled undertaking by Henry 177 The traditional interpretation of those events was provided by historian A F Pollard who in 1902 presented his own largely positive view of the king lauding him as the king and statesman who whatever his personal failings led England down the road to parliamentary democracy and empire 177 Pollard s interpretation remained the dominant interpretation of Henry s life until the publication of the doctoral thesis of G R Elton in 1953 Elton s book on The Tudor Revolution in Government maintained Pollard s positive interpretation of the Henrician period as a whole but reinterpreted Henry himself as a follower rather than a leader For Elton it was Cromwell and not Henry who undertook the changes in government Henry was shrewd but lacked the vision to follow a complex plan through 177 Henry was little more in other words than an ego centric monstrosity whose reign owed its successes and virtues to better and greater men about him most of its horrors and failures sprang more directly from the king 250 Although the central tenets of Elton s thesis have since been questioned it has consistently provided the starting point for much later work including that of J J Scarisbrick his student Scarisbrick largely kept Elton s regard for Cromwell s abilities but returned agency to Henry who Scarisbrick considered to have ultimately directed and shaped policy 177 For Scarisbrick Henry was a formidable captivating man who wore regality with a splendid conviction 251 The effect of endowing Henry with this ability however was largely negative in Scarisbrick s eyes to Scarisbrick the Henrician period was one of upheaval and destruction and those in charge worthy of blame more than praise 177 Even among more recent biographers including David Loades David Starkey and John Guy there has ultimately been little consensus on the extent to which Henry was responsible for the changes he oversaw or the assessment of those he did bring about 177 This lack of clarity about Henry s control over events has contributed to the variation in the qualities ascribed to him religious conservative or dangerous radical lover of beauty or brutal destroyer of priceless artefacts friend and patron or betrayer of those around him chivalry incarnate or ruthless chauvinist 177 One traditional approach favoured by Starkey and others is to divide Henry s reign into two halves the first Henry being dominated by positive qualities politically inclusive pious athletic but also intellectual who presided over a period of stability and calm and the latter a hulking tyrant who presided over a period of dramatic sometimes whimsical change 176 252 Other writers have tried to merge Henry s disparate personality into a single whole Lacey Baldwin Smith for example considered him an egotistical borderline neurotic given to great fits of temper and deep and dangerous suspicions with a mechanical and conventional but deeply held piety and having at best a mediocre intellect 253 Style and arms Henry s armorial during his early reign left and later reign right Many changes were made to the royal style during his reign Henry originally used the style Henry the Eighth by the Grace of God King of England France and Lord of Ireland In 1521 pursuant to a grant from Pope Leo X rewarding Henry for his Defence of the Seven Sacraments the royal style became Henry the Eighth by the Grace of God King of England and France Defender of the Faith and Lord of Ireland Following Henry s excommunication Pope Paul III rescinded the grant of the title Defender of the Faith but an Act of Parliament 35 Hen 8 c 3 declared that it remained valid and it continues in royal usage to the present day as evidenced by the letters FID DEF or F D on all British coinage Henry s motto was Coeur Loyal true heart and he had this embroidered on his clothes in the form of a heart symbol and with the word loyal His emblem was the Tudor rose and the Beaufort portcullis As king Henry s arms were the same as those used by his predecessors since Henry IV Quarterly Azure three fleurs de lys Or for France and Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or for England In 1535 Henry added the supremacy phrase to the royal style which became Henry the Eighth by the Grace of God King of England and France Defender of the Faith Lord of Ireland and of the Church of England in Earth Supreme Head In 1536 the phrase of the Church of England changed to of the Church of England and also of Ireland In 1541 Henry had the Irish Parliament change the title Lord of Ireland to King of Ireland with the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 after being advised that many Irish people regarded the Pope as the true head of their country with the Lord acting as a mere representative The reason the Irish regarded the Pope as their overlord was that Ireland had originally been given to King Henry II of England by Pope Adrian IV in the 12th century as a feudal territory under papal overlordship The meeting of the Irish Parliament that proclaimed Henry VIII as King of Ireland was the first meeting attended by the Gaelic Irish chieftains as well as the Anglo Irish aristocrats The style Henry the Eighth by the Grace of God King of England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith and of the Church of England and also of Ireland in Earth Supreme Head remained in use until the end of Henry s reign Genealogical tableHenry VIII s relatives selective chart 254 Richard Duke of YorkEdmund Tudor Earl of RichmondMargaret BeaufortEdward IVGeorge Plantagenet Duke of ClarenceRichard IIIElizabeth of York Duchess of SuffolkMargaret of YorkHenry VIIElizabeth of YorkEdward VRichard Duke of YorkCatherine of YorkWilliam Courtenay 1st Earl of DevonEdward Plantagenet 17th Earl of WarwickMargaret Pole Countess of SalisburyRichard PoleJohn de la Pole Earl of LincolnEdmund de la Pole 3rd Duke of SuffolkRichard de la PoleArthur Prince of WalesCatherine of AragonHenry VIIIother wivesMargaret TudorJames IV of ScotlandMary Tudor Queen of FranceCharles Brandon 1st Duke of SuffolkHenry Courtenay 1st Marquess of ExeterHenry Pole 1st Baron MontaguReginald PoleGeoffrey PoleMary IElizabeth IEdward VIJames V of ScotlandFrances BrandonHenry Grey 1st Duke of SuffolkMary Queen of ScotsJane GreyCatherine GreyMary GreyJames VI and ISee also Biography portal Monarchy portal England portal Christianity portal Grene growith the holy 0 31 source source A Christmas carol attributed to Henry VIII Problems playing this file See media help Cestui que Cultural depictions of Henry VIII Family tree of English monarchs History of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom Inventory of Henry VIII List of English monarchs Tudor period MouldwarpFootnotes For arguments in favour of the contrasting view i e that Henry himself initiated the period of abstinence potentially after a brief affair see Bernard G W 2010 Anne Boleyn Fatal Attractions Yale University Press ISBN 978 0300162455 63 And if a man shall take his brother s wife it is an unclean thing he hath uncovered his brother s nakedness they shall be childless On 11 July 1533 Pope Clement VII pronounced sentence against the king declaring him excommunicated unless he put away the woman he had taken to wife and took back his Queen during the whole of October next 88 Clement died on 25 September 1534 On 30 August 1535 the new pope Paul III drew up a bull of excommunication which began Eius qui immobilis 89 90 G R Elton puts the date the bull was made official as November 1538 91 On 17 December 1538 Pope Paul III issued a further bull which began Cum redemptor noster renewing the execution of the bull of 30 August 1535 which had been suspended in hope of his amendment 92 93 Both bulls are printed by Bishop Burnet History of the Reformation of the Church of England 1865 edition Volume 4 pp 318ff and in Bullarum diplomatum et privilegiorum sanctorum Romanorum pontificum Taurinensis 1857 Volume VI p 195 Eustace Chapuys wrote to Charles V on 28 January reporting that Anne was pregnant A letter from George Taylor to Lady Lisle dated the 27 April 1534 says that The queen hath a goodly belly praying our Lord to send us a prince In July Anne s brother Lord Rochford was sent on a diplomatic mission to France to ask for the postponement of a meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I because of Anne s condition being so far gone with child she could not cross the sea with the king Chapuys backs this up in a letter dated 27 July where he refers to Anne s pregnancy We do not know what happened with this pregnancy as there is no evidence of the outcome Dewhurst writes of how the pregnancy could have resulted in a miscarriage or stillbirth but there is no evidence to support this he therefore wonders if it was a case of pseudocyesis a false pregnancy caused by the stress that Anne was under the pressure to provide a son Chapuys wrote on 27 September 1534 Since the king began to doubt whether his lady was enceinte or not he has renewed and increased the love he formerly had for a beautiful damsel of the court Muriel St Clair Byrne editor of the Lisle Letters believes that this was a false pregnancy too The only evidence for a miscarriage in 1535 is a sentence from a letter from Sir William Kingston to Lord Lisle on 24 June 1535 when Kingston says Her Grace has as fair a belly as I have ever seen However Dewhurst thinks that there is an error in the dating of this letter as the editor of the Lisle Letters states that this letter is actually from 1533 or 1534 because it also refers to Sir Christopher Garneys a man who died in October 1534 Chapuys reported to Charles V on 10 February 1536 that Anne Boleyn had miscarried on the day of Catherine of Aragon s funeral On the day of the interment of Catherine of Aragon the concubine Anne had an abortion which seemed to be a male child which she had not borne 3 1 2 months References J J Scarisbrick Henry VIII 1968 pp 500 501 Guy 2000 p 41 a b c Starkey David The Six Wives of Henry VIII About the Series Behind the Scenes Thirteen org PBS Retrieved 17 July 2020 Ives 2006 pp 28 36 Montefiore 2008 p 129 a b Crofton 2006 p 128 a b Crofton 2006 p 129 a b c Scarisbrick 1997 p 3 Churchill 1966 p 24 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 14 15 Scarisbrick 1997 p 4 Gibbs Vicary ed 1912 The Complete Peerage Volume III St Catherine s Press p 443 Under Duke of Cornwall which was his title when he succeeded his brother as Prince of Wales Maloney 2015 p 96harvnb error no target CITEREFMaloney2015 help a b Crofton 2006 p 126 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 4 5 Scarisbrick 1997 p 6 a b Loades 2009 p 22 a b c Scarisbrick 1997 p 8 Loades 2009 pp 22 23 a b Loades 2009 p 23 a b c Loades 2009 p 24 Scarisbrick 1997 p 12 Stewart James Mottram 2008 Empire and Nation in Early English Renaissance Literature Boydell amp Brewer Ltd p 17 ISBN 9781843841821 a b Scarisbrick 1997 pp 18 19 Scarisbrick 1997 p 19 Hall 1904 p 17 Starkey 2008 pp 304 306 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 31 32 a b Loades 2009 p 26 Scarisbrick 1997 p 18 a b c d Loades 2009 pp 48 49 Elton 1977 p 103 Hart 2009 p 27 a b Fraser 1994 p 220 a b Loades 2009 pp 47 48 Weir 1991 pp 122 123 Elton 1977 pp 98 104 Elton 1977 p 255 Elton 1977 pp 255 271 a b Loades 2009 p 27 Loades 2009 pp 27 28 a b Scarisbrick 1997 pp 28 231 Loades 2009 pp 30 32 Loades 2009 p 62 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 33 34 Loades 2009 pp 62 63 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 35 36 Guicciardini 1968 p 280 a b Loades 2009 p 63 Loades 2009 pp 65 66 Loades 2009 pp 66 67 Loades 2009 pp 67 68 a b Loades 2009 pp 68 69 Loades 2009 p 69 Loades 2009 pp 70 71 Fraser Antonia 1993 genealogical tables The Wives of Henry VIII Vintage Books Anselme Histoire genealogique et chronologique de la maison royale de France Vol 2 p 741 Fraser Antonia 1993 Anne of Cleves The Wives of Henry VIII Vintage Books Cruz amp Suzuki 2009 p 132 Smith 1971 p 70 Crofton 2006 p 51 Scarisbrick 1997 p 154 Weir 2002 p 160 a b c Gunn Steven September 2010 Anne Boleyn Fatal Attractions review Reviews in History Retrieved 5 April 2013 Loades 2009 pp 88 89 Brigden 2000 p 114 a b c d Elton 1977 pp 103 107 a b Elton 1977 pp 75 76 Phillips Roderick 1991 Untying the Knot A Short History of Divorce Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0521423700 a b Cole William Graham 2015 Sex in Christianity and Psychoanalysis Routledge ISBN 978 1317359777 Loades 2009 pp 91 92 a b c d e Elton 1977 pp 109 111 Lockyer Roger 2014 Tudor and Stuart Britain 1485 1714 Routledge p 46 ISBN 978 1317868828 Retrieved 13 July 2014 The king had no further use for Wolsey who had failed to procure the annulment of his marriage and he summoned Parliament in order that an act of attainder should be passed against the cardinal The act was not needed however for Wolsey had also been commanded to appear before the common law judges and answer the charge that by publishing his bulls of appointment as papal legate he had infringed the Statute of Praemunire Haigh 1993 pp 92f Elton 1977 p 116 a b Losch Richard R 2002 The Many Faces of Faith A Guide to World Religions and Christian Traditions Wm B Eerdmans Publishing p 106 ISBN 978 0802805218 Elton 1977 p 123 Elton 1977 pp 175 176 Williams 1971 p 123 Starkey 2003 pp 462 464 Williams 1971 p 124 Elton 1977 p 178 Williams 1971 pp 128 131 Bernard 2005 pp 68 71 Bernard 2005 p 68 Williams 1971 p 136 Bernard 2005 p 69 Bernard 2005 pp 69 71 James Gairdner ed 1882 Henry VIII Appendix Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic Henry VIII Volume 6 1533 Institute of Historical Research Retrieved 9 November 2014 Churchill 1966 p 51 James Gairdner ed 1886 Henry VIII August 1535 26 31 Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic Henry VIII Volume 9 August December 1535 Institute of Historical Research Retrieved 9 November 2014 a b c d Elton 1977 p 282 a b Scarisbrick 1997 p 361 James Gairdner ed 1893 Henry VIII December 1538 16 20 Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic Henry VIII Volume 13 Part 2 August December 1538 Institute of Historical Research Retrieved 9 November 2014 Williams 1971 p 138 a b Elton 1977 pp 192 194 Elton 1977 pp 262 263 Elton 1977 p 260 Elton 1977 p 261 Elton 1977 pp 261 262 Elton 1977 p 262 Licence Amy 2017 Dark Days Catherine of Aragon An Intimate Life of Henry VIII s True Wife Amberley Publishing ISBN 978 1445656700 Scarisbrick 1997 p 348 Williams 1971 p 141 Elton 1977 pp 250 251 Wilson Derek 2012 A Brief History of the English Reformation Constable amp Robinson p 92 ISBN 978 1849018258 Retrieved 13 July 2014 Cromwell with his usual single minded and ruthless efficiency organised the interrogation of the accused their trials and their executions Cranmer was absolutely shattered by the revelation of the queen s misdeeds He wrote to the king expressing his difficulty in believing her guilt But he fell into line and pronounced the annulment of Henry s second marriage on the grounds of Anne s pre contract to another Elton 1977 pp 252 253 Williams 1971 p 142 Ives 2005 p 306 Elton 1977 p 253 Weir 1991 p 332 Weir 1991 p 330 Hibbert et al 2010 p 60 Scarisbrick 1997 p 350 Weir 2002 p 344 Scarisbrick 1997 p 353 Scarisbrick 1997 p 355 Elton 1977 p 275 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 355 256 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 350 351 Henry VIII February 1538 11 15 Pages 88 100 Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic Henry VIII Volume 13 Part 1 January July 1538 British History Online HMSO 1892 Retrieved 11 December 2022 Loades 2009 pp 72 73 Loades 2009 pp 74 75 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 368 369 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 369 370 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 373 374 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 373 375 Scarisbrick 1997 p 370 a b Elton 1977 p 289 a b c Scarisbrick 1997 p 373 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 372 373 a b Elton 1977 pp 289 291 a b Scarisbrick 1997 pp 376 377 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 378 379 Elton 1977 p 290 Farquhar 2001 p 75 Scarisbrick 1997 p 430 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 430 431 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 431 432 Scarisbrick 1997 pp 432 433 Scarisbrick 1997 p 456 Elton 1977 p 301 Scarisbrick 1997 p 457 Elton 1977 pp 331 373 Loades 2009 p 75 Loades 2009 pp 75 76 a b c Elton 1977 pp 306 307 a b c Loades 2009 pp 79 80 Murphy Neil 2016 Violence Colonization and Henry VIII s Conquest of France 1544 1546 Past and Present 233 1 13 51 doi 10 1093 pastj gtw018 Loades 2009 pp 76 77 The jousting accident that turned Henry VIII into a tyrant The Independent UK 18 April 2009 Retrieved 25 August 2010 a b Sohn Emily 11 March 2011 King Henry VIII s Madness Explained discovery com Archived from the original on 30 June 2011 Retrieved 25 March 2011 Hays 2010 p 68 Russell Gareth 2016 Young and Damned and Fair p 130 Names in the News Henry VIII Termed Victim of Scurvy Los Angeles Times 30 August 1989 Whitley amp Kramer 2010 p passim Ashrafian 2011 p passim The Archaeological Journal Volume 51 1894 p 160 Loades 2009 p 207 Dean and Canons of Windsor Henry VIII s final resting place PDF Windsor Castle College of St George Archived from the original PDF on 2 May 2013 Retrieved 12 March 2013 According to Sir John Dewhurst in The alleged miscarriages of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn 1984 p 52 the Venetian ambassador wrote to his senate in November that The queen has been delivered of a stillborn male child of eight months to the very great grief of the whole court Holinshed the chronicler reported that in November the queen was delivered of a prince which lived not long after and John Stow wrote in the meantime to Whit the month of November the Q was delivered of a prince which lived not long after Starkey 2003 p 160 Williams 1971 p 138 Starkey 2003 p 553 Elton 1977 pp 332 333 a b c Scarisbrick 1997 pp 15 16 Weir 2002 p 131 Chibi 1997 pp 543 560 Betteridge 2005 pp 91 109 a b Hibbert et al 2010 p 928 Hutchinson 2012 p 202 Gunn 1991 pp 543 560 Williams 2005 pp 41 59 Lipscomb 2009 Guy 1997 p 78 a b Morris 1999 p 2 a b c Morris 1999 pp 19 21 a b c d e f g h i Betteridge amp Freeman 2012 pp 1 19 Elton 1977 p 323 Elton 1977 p 407 Elton 1977 pp 48 49 Elton 1977 pp 60 63 Elton 1977 p 212 Elton 1977 p 64 Wilson Derek 2003 In the Lion s Court Power Ambition and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII Macmillan pp 257 260 ISBN 978 0312302771 Elton 1977 pp 168 170 a b Elton 1977 p 172 Elton 1977 p 174 a b Elton 1977 p 213 Elton 1977 p 214 Elton 1977 pp 214 215 Elton 1977 pp 216 217 Elton 1977 pp 215 216 Elton 1977 pp 284 286 Elton 1977 pp 289 292 Weir 2002 p 13 Elton 1977 pp 215 216 355 356 Thomas 2005 pp 79 80 citing Thurley 1993 pp 222 224 Davies 2005 pp 11 29 Weir 2002 p 64 Weir 2002 p 393 Elton 1977 pp 312 314 Competing Narratives Recent Historiography of the English Reformation under Henry VIII 1997 Archived from the original on 15 June 2013 Retrieved 14 April 2013 Elton 1977 pp 110 112 Woodward Llewellyn 1965 A History Of England London Methuen amp Co Ltd p 73 Pollard 1905 pp 230 238 Bernard 2005 p missing Bernard 2005 p 71 Elton 1977 p 185 Bernard 2005 pp 70 71 Lehmberg 1970 p missing Bernard 2005 p 195 Elton 1977 p 291 Elton 1977 p 297 Rex 1996 pp 863 894 Elton 1977 p 3177 Elton 1977 pp 232 233 Elton 1977 p 233 Elton 1977 pp 233 234 Elton 1977 pp 234 235 Elton 1977 pp 235 236 Elton 1977 pp 236 237 Stober 2007 p 190 Elton 1977 p 238 Meyer 2010 pp 254 256 Meyer 2010 pp 269 272 Elton 1977 p 32 Arnold 2001 p 82 Elton 1977 pp 32 33 Elton 1977 pp 183 281 283 Elton 1977 pp 87 88 Elton 1977 p 391 a b c Loades 2009 p 82 Loades 2009 pp 82 83 Loades 2009 pp 83 84 Loades 2009 pp 84 85 Loades 2009 p 180 Loades 2009 pp 181 182 Loades 2009 pp 183 184 Loades 2009 pp 181 185 Loades 2009 pp 185 186 Loades 2009 pp 186 187 Elton 1977 pp 206 207 a b Loades 2009 p 187 Loades 2009 pp 187 189 Elton 1977 pp 207 208 Loades 2009 p 191 Loades 2009 pp 191 192 Loades 2009 pp 194 195 Mackie John D 1952 The Earlier Tudors 1485 1558 Clarendon Press pp 442 445 ISBN 978 0198217060 Elton 1977 pp 23 332 Scarisbrick 1968 p 17 Starkey 2008 pp 3 4 Smith 1971 pp passim Scarisbrick 2011 pp 527 sfn error no target CITEREFScarisbrick2011 help Bibliography Arnold Thomas 2001 The Renaissance at War London Cassell and Company ISBN 0304352705 Ashrafian Hutan 2011 Henry VIII s Obesity Following Traumatic Brain Injury Endocrine 42 1 218 9 doi 10 1007 s12020 011 9581 z PMID 22169966 S2CID 37447368 Archived from the original on 2 January 2012 Bernard G W 2005 The King s Reformation Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church ISBN 978 0300109085 Betteridge Thomas 2005 The Henrician Reformation and Mid Tudor Culture Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 35 1 91 109 doi 10 1215 10829636 35 1 91 Betteridge Thomas Freeman Thomas S 2012 Henry VIII in History Ashgate Publishing Ltd ISBN 978 1409461135 Brigden Susan 2000 New Worlds Lost Worlds Penguin ISBN 978 0140148268 Chibi Andrew A 1997 Richard Sampson His Oratio and Henry VIII s Royal Supremacy Journal of Church and State 39 3 543 560 doi 10 1093 jcs 39 3 543 ISSN 0021 969X Churchill Winston 1966 The New World History of the English Speaking Peoples Vol 2 Cassell and Company Crofton Ian 2006 The Kings and Queens of England Quercus Books ISBN 978 1847241412 Cruz Anne J Suzuki Mihoko 2009 The Rule of Women in Early Modern Europe University of Illinois Press ISBN 978 0252076169 Davies Jonathan 2005 We Do Fynde in Our Countre Great Lack of Bowes and Arrows Tudor Military Archery and the Inventory of King Henry VIII Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 83 333 11 29 ISSN 0037 9700 Elton Geoffrey R 1977 Reform and Reformation England 1509 1558 Edward Arnold ISBN 0713159529 Farquhar Michael 2001 A Treasure of Royal Scandals Penguin Books ISBN 0739420259 Fraser Antonia 1994 The Wives of Henry VIII Vintage Books ISBN 978 0679730019 Guicciardini Francesco 1968 1561 Alexander Sidney ed The History of Italy Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0691008004 Gunn Steven 1991 Tournaments and Early Tudor Chivalry History Today 41 6 543 560 ISSN 0018 2753 Guy John 1997 The Tudor monarchy Arnold Publishers ISBN 978 0340652190 Guy John 2000 The Tudors a Very Short Introduction Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0191606519 Harrison William Edelen Georges 1995 1557 The Description of England Classic Contemporary Account of Tudor Social Life Dover Publications Inc ISBN 978 0486282756 Hays J N 2010 The Burdens of Disease Epidemics and Human Response in Western History Rutgers University Press ISBN 978 0813546131 Hart Kelly 2009 The Mistresses of Henry VIII 1 ed The History Press ISBN 978 0752448350 Hall Edward 1904 1548 Charles Whibley ed The Triumphant Reign of Henry VIII T C amp E C Jack OCLC 644934802 Haigh Christopher 1993 English Reformations Religion Politics and Society under the Tudors Clarendon Press ISBN 978 0198221623 Hibbert Christopher Weinreb Ben Keay Julia Keay John 2010 The London Encyclopaedia 3 ed ISBN 978 1405049252 Hutchinson Robert 2012 Young Henry The Rise of Henry VIII Macmillan ISBN 978 1250012616 Ives Eric 2005 The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn The Most Happy Oxford Blackwell Publishing ISBN 978 1405134637 Ives Eric 2006 Will the Real Henry VIII Please Stand Up History Today 56 2 28 36 ISSN 0018 2753 Lehmberg Stanford E 1970 The Reformation Parliament 1529 1536 Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0521076555 Lipscomb Suzannah 2009 Who was Henry History Today 59 4 Loades David 2009 Henry VIII Court Church and Conflict The National Archives ISBN 978 1905615421 Meyer G J 2010 The Tudors The Complete Story of England s Most Notorious Dynasty Presidio Press ISBN 978 0385340762 Montefiore Simon Sebag 2008 History s Monsters 101 Villains from Vlad the Impaler to Adolf Hitler Querkus Publishing Plc ISBN 978 1435109377 Morris T A 1999 Tudor Government Routledge ISBN 978 0203981672 Retrieved 20 March 2013 Pollard A F 1905 Henry VIII Longmans Green amp Company Rex Richard 1996 The Crisis of Obedience God s Word and Henry s Reformation The Historical Journal 39 4 863 894 doi 10 1017 S0018246X00024687 JSTOR 2639860 S2CID 159649932 Scarisbrick J J 1968 Henry VIII University of California Press ISBN 978 0520011304 Scarisbrick J J 1997 Henry VIII 2 ed Yale University Press ISBN 0300071582 Smith Lacey Baldwin 1971 Henry VIII the Mask of Royalty ISBN 978 0897330565 Starkey David 2003 Six Wives The Queens of Henry VIII Chatto amp Windus ISBN 978 0701172985 Starkey David 2008 Henry Virtuous Prince HarperCollins ISBN 978 0007287833 Stober Karen 2007 Late Medieval Monasteries and Their Patrons England and Wales c 1300 1540 Boydell Press ISBN 978 1843832843 Thomas Andrea 2005 Princelie Majestie The Court of James V of Scotland 1528 1542 John Donald Publishers Ltd ISBN 978 0859766111 Thurley Simon 1993 The Royal Palaces of Tudor England Yale University Press ISBN 978 0300054200 Weir Alison 1991 The Six Wives of Henry VIII Grove Press ISBN 0802136834 Weir Alison 2002 Henry VIII The King and His Court Random House Digital Inc ISBN 034543708X Whitley Catrina Banks Kramer Kyra 2010 A New Explanation for the Reproductive Woes and Midlife Decline of Henry VIII The Historical Journal 52 4 827 doi 10 1017 S0018246X10000452 ISSN 0018 246X S2CID 159499333 Williams James 2005 Hunting and the Royal Image of Henry VIII Sport in History 25 1 41 59 doi 10 1080 17460260500073082 ISSN 1746 0263 S2CID 161663183 Williams Neville 1971 Henry VIII and his Court Macmillan Publishing Co ISBN 978 0026291002 Further readingBiographical Ashley Mike 2002 British Kings amp Queens Running Press ISBN 0786711043 Bowle John 1964 Henry VIII A Study of Power in Action Little Brown and Company ASIN B000OJX9RI Erickson Carolly 1984 Mistress Anne The Exceptional Life of Anne Boleyn Summit Books ASIN B002RTJWA6 Cressy David 1982 Spectacle and Power Apollo and Solomon at the Court of Henry VIII History Today 32 Oct 16 22 ISSN 0018 2753 Gardner James 1903 Henry VIII Cambridge Modern History Vol 2 Graves Michael 2003 Henry VIII Pearson Longman ISBN 978 0582381100 Ives E W 2004 Henry VIII 1491 1547 The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 12955 Subscription or UK public library membership required Pollard Albert Frederick 1911 Henry VIII of England Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 13 11th ed pp 287 290 Rex Richard 1993 Henry VIII and the English Reformation Macmillan International Higher Education ISBN 978 1349225866 Ridley Jasper 1985 Henry VIII ISBN 978 0670806997 Starkey David 2002 The Reign of Henry VIII Personalities and Politics Random House ISBN 978 0099445104 Starkey David Doran Susan 2009 Henry VIII Man and Monarch British Library Publishing Division ISBN 978 0712350259 Tytler Patrick Fraser 1837 Life of King Henry the Eighth Edinburgh Oliver amp Boyd Retrieved 17 August 2008 Wilkinson Josephine 2009 Mary Boleyn The True Story of Henry VIII s Favourite Mistress 2nd ed Amberley Publishing ISBN 978 0300071580 Weir Alison 1996 The Children of Henry VIII ISBN 978 0345391186 Wooding Lucy 2015 Henry VIII 2nd ed Routledge ISBN 978 1138831414 Scholarly studies Bernard G W 1986 War Taxation and Rebellion in Early Tudor England Henry VIII Wolsey and the Amicable Grant of 1525 Bernard G W 1998 The Making of Religious Policy 1533 1546 Henry VIII and the Search for the Middle Way Historical Journal 41 2 321 349 doi 10 1017 S0018246X98007778 ISSN 0018 246X JSTOR 2640109 S2CID 159952187 Bush M L 2007 The Tudor Polity and the Pilgrimage of Grace Historical Research 80 207 47 72 doi 10 1111 j 1468 2281 2006 00351 x ISSN 0950 3471 Doran Susan 2009 The Tudor Chronicles 1485 1603 Sterling Publishing pp 78 203 ISBN 978 1435109391 0 Elton G R 1962 1953 The Tudor Revolution in Government Administrative Changes in the Reign of Henry VIII Revised ed Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0521092357 Guy John 2013 The Children of Henry VIII Oxford University Press Head David M 1982 Henry VIII s Scottish Policy a Reassessment Scottish Historical Review 61 1 1 24 ISSN 0036 9241 Hoak Dale 2005 Politics Religion and the English Reformation 1533 1547 Some Problems and Issues History Compass 3 ISSN 1478 0542 Lindsey Karen 1995 Divorced Beheaded Survived A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII Reading MA Addison Wesley Publishing Co ISBN 0201608952 MacCulloch Diarmaid ed 1995 The Reign of Henry VIII Politics Policy and Piety Mackie J D 1952 The Earlier Tudors 1485 1558 Moorhouse Geoffrey 2003 The Pilgrimage of Grace the Rebellion That Shook Henry VIII s Throne Phoenix ISBN 978 1842126660 Moorhouse Geoffrey 2007 Great Harry s Navy How Henry VIII Gave England Seapower Moorhouse Geoffrey 2009 The Last Divine Office Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries Murphy Neil 2016 Violence Colonization and Henry VIII s Conquest of France 1544 1546 Past and Present vol 233 no 1 pp 13 51 Slavin Arthur J ed 1968 Henry VIII and the English Reformation Smith H Maynard 1948 Henry VIII and the Reformation William Stubbs 1886 The Reign of Henry VIII June 7 1881 Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects 241 265 Wikidata Q107248000 William Stubbs 1886 Parliament under Henry VIII June 9 1881 Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects 266 291 Wikidata Q107248047 Thurley Simon 1991 Palaces for a Nouveau Riche King History Today 41 6 Wagner John A 2003 Bosworth Field to Bloody Mary An Encyclopedia of the Early Tudors ISBN 1573565407 Walker Greg 2005 Writing under Tyranny English Literature and the Henrician Reformation Wernham Richard Bruce 1966 Before the Armada The Growth of English Foreign Policy 1485 1588 History of foreign policyHistoriography Coleman Christoper Starkey David eds 1986 Revolution Reassessed Revision in the History of Tudor Government and Administration Fox Alistair Guy John eds 1986 Reassessing the Henrician Age Humanism Politics and Reform 1500 1550 Head David M 1997 If a Lion Knew His Own Strength the Image of Henry VIII and His Historians International Social Science Review 72 3 4 94 109 ISSN 0278 2308 Marshall Peter 2009 Re defining the English Reformation PDF Journal of British Studies 48 3 564 85 doi 10 1086 600128 O Day Rosemary 2015 The debate on the English Reformation 2nd ed O Day Rosemary ed 2010 The Routledge Companion to the Tudor Age Rankin Mark Highley Christopher King John N eds 2009 Henry VIII and his afterlives literature politics and art Cambridge University PressPrimary sources Letters and papers foreign and domestic of the reign of Henry VIII 36 volumes 1862 1908 Douglas David Charles Williams C H eds 1996 English Historical Documents 1485 1558 OCLC 247046009 Luther Martin 1918 1 September 1525 1521 1530 In Smith Preserved Jacobs Charles M eds Luther s Correspondence and Other Contemporary Letters Vol 2 Lutheran Publication Society Nicolas Nicholas Harris ed 1827 The Privy Purse Expences of Henry VIII 1529 1532 London PickeringExternal links Wikiquote has quotations related to Henry VIII Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry VIII of England Works related to Author Henry VIII at Wikisource Works related to Persecutions of Protestants by Henry VIII in Foxe s Book of Martyrs at Wikisource Free scores by Henry VIII at the International Music Score Library Project IMSLP Free scores by Henry VIII in the Choral Public Domain Library ChoralWiki Works by Henry VIII at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Henry VIII at Internet Archive Works by Henry VIII at LibriVox public domain audiobooks Portraits of Henry VIIIHenry VIIIHouse of TudorBorn 28 June 1491 Died 28 January 1547Regnal titlesPreceded byHenry VII Lord of Ireland1509 1542 Crown of Ireland Act 1542King of England1509 1547 Succeeded byEdward VIVacantTitle last held byRuaidri Ua Conchobair King of Ireland1542 1547Political officesPreceded bySir William Scott Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports1493 1509 Succeeded bySir Edward PoyningPreceded byThe Marquess of Berkeley Earl Marshal1494 1509 Succeeded byThe Duke of NorfolkPeerage of EnglandVacantTitle last held byArthur Prince of Wales1503 1509 VacantTitle next held byEdwardPreceded byArthur Duke of Cornwall1502 1509 VacantTitle next held byHenry Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Henry VIII amp oldid 1133571256, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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