DEPARTMENT OF CHINESE-ENGLISH

HENRY VIII.
REIGN AND REFORMATION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH.
WIVES

Supervisor:

Student:

BRASOV
2015
SENTENCE OUTLINE:
INTRODUCTION:
Early years

The King
Reformation of the Church

CONTENT:
Marriage, controversy
The six wives
Decay

CONCLUSION
Death of the King
Legacy
Successors

ABSTRACT:
The present paper analyses and develops the matter concerning the life and reign of Henry VIII, one of the most
famous kings in English history. He was the second Tudor monarch and was renowned for his six marriages. His
quarrel with the papacy in Rome established the Church of England and began the Reformation.
KEY WORDS: Head of the Church, Tudor, Coronation, Lord Chancellor, reign, heir

Who does not tremble when he considers how to deal with his wife For not only is he bound to love her but
so to live with her that he may return her to God pure and without stain when God who gave shall demand
His own again. -Henry VIII of England
THE YOUNG KING OF ENGLAND
Henry was born on June 28th , 1491, at Greenwich Place, being the second son of Elizabeth of York and Henry VII,
the first English ruler from the House of Tudor. While his elder brother Arthur was being prepared to take over the
throne, Henry was steered towards a church career, with a broad education in theology, music, languages, poetry and
sports.
In 1502, Prince Arthur married Catherine (Catalina, by her birth name) of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand II of
Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. After less than four months of marriage, Arthur dies at the age of 15, leaving
his 10-year-old-brother, Henry, the next in line for the throne. The patriarch , Henry VII, wanted to consolidate his
familys alliance with Spain, therefore he offered his young son Henry to Arthurs widow. The two families

requested that Pope Julius II official granted dispensation to Arthur and Catherines marriage. The Pope conceded,
but the official marriage of Henry and Catherine was postponed until the death of Henry VII in 1509. Then, at the
age of 17, Henry married Catherine and the two were crowned at Westminster Abbey. It was a grand affair: the
Kings passage was lined with tapestries and covered with fine cloth. Following the ceremony,, there was a
magnificent banquet in Westminster Hall. As Catherine wrote to her father, our time is spent in continuous festival.
(Loades, 2009:24)
As a young man and monarch, second in the Tudor Dynasty, Henry VIII exuded a charismatic athleticism and
diverse appetite for art, music and culture. He was witty and highly educated, taught by private tutors for his entire
upbringing. A lover of gambling and jousting, he hosted numerous tournaments and banquets. His father always
envisioned Arthur as King and Henry as a high-ranking church official. As fate would have it, Henry instead
inherited an entire peaceful nation after his father ended the Wars of Roses. Henry was good-natured but his Court
soon learnt how to bow to his every wish. Two days after his Coronation, he arrested two of his fathers ministers,
Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, and promptly executed them for high treason. He began his reign seeking
advisers on most matters and would end it with absolute control.
In the first years of his reign, Henry VIII effectively relied on Thomas Wolsey to rule for him, and by 1515 Henry
had elevated himself to the highest role in Government: Lord Chancellor. In 1521, Pope Leo X conferred the title
of Defender of the Faith on Henry for his book Assertio Septem Sacramentorum, which confirmed the supremacy
of the Pope in the face of the reforming ideals of the German theologian, Martin Luther.
A MALE HEIR
On February 18th 1516, after two miscarried births, Catherine bore Henry his first child to survive infancy, Princess
Mary. However, Henry grew frustrated by the lack of a male offspring and began keeping two mistresses at his
beckon. His philandering means were tamed by the standards of his contemporaries, but they nevertheless resulted
in his first divorce, after almost 20 years of unusually good (Elton, 1977:103) marriage with Catherine. One of his
mistresses, Mary Boleyn, introduced him to her sister, Anne Boleyn, whom the King started to fall in love with.
Again, Henry was acutely aware of the importance of securing a male heir during his reign. He was worried that he
had only one surviving child, Mary, to show for his marriage to Catherine, who was now in her 40s and unable to
conceive anymore. Thus. The King asked Cardinal Wolsey to appeal to Pope Clement VII for an annulment and it
soon became clear that he wanted to marry Anne Boleyn. Yet, unwilling to anger Catherine of Aragons nephew-the
most powerful ruler in Europe- the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, the Pope refused. Thomas Wolseys ascendancy
was cut short by this failure.
In 1533, Henry VIII ended all contact between England and Rome and married the now-pregnant Anne Boleyn in a
secret ceremony. The King was excommunicated by the Pope. The English Reformation had begun.
HEAD OF THE CHURCH. REFORMATION

In 1534, after Wolseys downfall, Thomas Cromwell became Henrys chief minster and earned the Kings
confidence by helping him to break with Rome and be established as supreme Head of the Church of England.
Over four years, Cromwell ordered the disbandment of 800 monasteries and their lands and treasures taken for the
Crown. The cultural and social impact was significant, as much of the land was sold to the gentry and churches and
monasteries were destroyed. Henrys personal religious beliefs remained Catholic, despite the increasing number of
people at court and in the nation who had adopted Protestantism.
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: the Statute in Restraint of Appeal, Supplication
against the Ordinaries, the Submission of the Clergy. The Act of Supremacy in 1534 stated that the King was the
only Supreme Head in Earth of the Church of England. These macro reforms trickled down to minute details of
worship. Henry ordered clergy to preach against superstitious images, relics, miracles and pilgrimages and to
remove almost all candles from religious settings. His 1545 catechism, called the Kings Primer, removed the saints.
Fully separated now from the Pope, the Curch of England passed under the rule of England only. Response to the
reforms was mixed. The religious houses had been the sole support of the impoverished, and the reforms estranged
most of the population outside London, provoking the great northern rising of 1536-1537, known as the Pilgrimage
of Grace, during which almost 30,000 people rebelled against the Kings changes. It was the only major threat to
Henrys authority as Monarch. The rebellions Leader, Robert Aske and 200 others were executed. Elsewhere the
changes were accepted and welcomed, and those who clung to Catholic rites kept quiet or moved in secrecy.
Oppositions to Henrys religious policies were quickly suppressed in England. The most proeminent resisters, John
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and sir Thomas More, Henrys former Lord Chancellor, refused to take the oath to the
King and they were beheaded at Tower Hill.
TENSION INSIDE THE COURT
In September 1533, Anne gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth (the future Quuen Elizabeth i).Inside the court, she
suffered greatly from her inability to conceive a living male heir. 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 opiniated intellect that had made her so appealing, made her too independent for
the largely ceremonial role of a royal wife and it made her many enemies. After she miscarried twice, Henry became
interested in Jame Seymour, one of Annes ladies-in-waiting. Discontented with his unfruitful marriage, the King
contrived an elaborate story that Anne had committed adultery, had incestuous relations and was plotting to murder
him. On May 15th 1536, he put her on trial but Anne calmly denied all accusations. Four days later their marriage
was annulled and declared invalid. Anne Boleyn was take to the Tower Green and given a private beheading. Within
24 hours of Annes execution, Jane Seymour and Henry VIII formally wed.
BIRTH OF A PRINCE

On 12th of October 1537, Jane gave birth to Henrys long-hoped-for son, Prince Edward, the future Edward VI. It
was a difficult birth after which Jane died on 24th October 1537 from an infection and Henry ordered that she be
granted a queens funeral.
Three years later, Henry was ready to marry again, mainly to ensure the succession of his crown. Having considered
the matter, Cromwell suggested Anne, the sister of Duke of Cleves , who was seen as an important ally in case of a
Roman Catholic attack on England, for the duke was stuck between Lutheranism and Catholicism. The German
artist Hans Holbein the Younger, who served as the Kings official painter, was sent out to create a portrait of her.
Henry disapproved of Anne in the flesh and divorced her within six months. She received the title of the Kings
Sister and was given Hever Castle as ample residence. Henry blamed Cromwell for this mismatch and soon
afterwards had him executed for treason.
After a few while, in 1540, the aging King married the young Catherine Howard, a first cousin to Anne Boleyn. He
was absolutely enchanted by his new queen, and gave her the lands of Cromwell and a vast array of jewellery. Henry
was now dealing with tremendous weight gain and a bad leg. However, the happiness and love atmosphere would
not last for long, as Queen Catherine was having an affair with Francis Dereham, the Kings courtier, and afterwards
with Thomas Culpeper, another courtier. After an investigation into her behavior conducted by Thomas Cranmer,
she was deemed guilty of adultery and treason . She was executed in 1542, 13th of February.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Independent and well-educated, Catherine Parr was Henrys sixth and last wife. She was the daughter of Maud
Green, a lady-in-waiting to Henrys first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Parr was a twice-made widow. The two were
married in July 1543. She acted like a nurse, was more harmonious and she would go on to outlive him. The most
well-documented incident of Catherine Parrs life was her effort to ban books, a truly horrific act under her
husbands reign that practically got her arrested. When Henry came to admonish her for her brash actions, she
submitted to him, saying she was merely looking to create an environment where he could teach her the the proper
way to behave. Henry made a concession and accepted her statement, whether it was true or not, saving her from a
brutal end.
The final years of his reign witnessed Henry VIIIs physical decline and an increasing desire to appear almighty. As
a middle aged man, the King became obese and covered with pus-filled boils and he probably suffered from gout. It
was a jousting accident that opened a violent wound in his leg that ulcerated and left him unable to play sports
anymore. His obesity required that he be carried with mechanical inventions. His habit of binge-eating highly fatty
meats could have been a symptom of stress. Some scientists affirm that he suffered from untreated type II diabetes.
(Sohn, Emily, 2011, King Henry VIIIs Madness Explained).
Henrys obesity and poor health condition fastened his death at the age of 55, which occurred on January 28th ,
1547 in the Palace of Whitehall, England. He was interred in St. Georges Chapel in Windsor Castle alongside his

deceased third wife, Jane Seymour. The Kings only surviving son, Edward, took over the throne, becoming Edward
VI. His daughters, Princesses Mary and Elizabeth would inherit the throne provided Edward went childless.
Up to this point, I have given a minute description of Henry VIIIs life and reign leaving aside the tedious details,
however, in the following pages I will write briefly about the Kings each wife and some interesting facts about him.

CATHERINE OF ARAGON
The first of Henry VIIIs wives, Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536) was the daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and
Queen Isabella I of Castile, therefore a Spanish princess who was married to Henry for 18 years before he began
conducting divorce procedures in his desperation to re-marry and have a male heir. Catherine had been pregnant six
times but only one daughter, Mary, the later Queen Bloody Mary I, had survived. The two had a harmonious longlasting marriage until Henry irremediably fell in love with Anne Boleyn. Before dying in 1536, Catherine left him a
note saying Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things. Farewell. (Turner, Sharon The
History of England from the Earliest Period to the Death of Elizabeth).

ANNE BOLEYN
The second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn (1501-1536) was married to the King for the short period of three
years. Instead of the sought after the male heir, she was pregnant with another little princess, the later Elizabeth I.
Anne was supported by religious reformers but was also hated by many at Court. After a miscarriage, her fate was
sealed and she got arrested and later, executed at the Tower of London, for adultery and incest. She was an
intelligent, vivacious Queen, qualities that dragged her into the hateful minds of the courtiers.

JANE SEYMOUR
The sister of Edward Seymour, first duke of Somerset, Jane Seymour was the third wife of Henry VIII and the only
one who eventually provided him the so-desperately-wanted son and male heir. She toiled and gave birth to Prince
Edward (future Edward VI) at Hampton Court Palace in 1537, but died in pain soon afterwards. Henry had his son
but mourned:Providence has mingled my joy with the bitterness of the death of her who brought me this happiness.

ANNE OF CLEVES (ANNE DE CLEVES)

Anne of Cleves(1515-1557) was the fourth of the Henrys six wives and much younger than the King when they
married. He saw her for the first time in a painting by Hans Holbein but in the flesh, Henry found Anne unattractive
and began pursuing one of her maids of honour, Catherine Howard. Their marriage was annulled after six months,
yet the two remained in good terms and Anne continued living in England. It was the Henrys command that she be
treated as the Kings sister.

CATHERINE HOWARD
Catherine (1522-1542) was an alluring, lively teenager when she became the unfortunate fifth of the Henrys six
wives. Hardly had they wedded after three weeks from the Kings second divorce than rumours about the Queens
infidelity and love affairs started to wander. Eventually, the news reached furious Henrys ears and she was
arrested at Hampton Court Palace and later on beheaded at the Tower of London in February 1542, when she was
only 21.

CATHERINE PARR

(KATHERYN PARR)

Parr (1512-1548) was the last wife of Henry VIII. She was intelligent, bright and devout and could not refuse
Henrys marriage proposal in spite of being in love with Thomas Seymour. The two married in July 1543 when he
was 53, and she was 31. After the King passed away in 1547, Catherines marital status became available and she
married Seymour. Sadly, she died 15 months later after having given birth to their daughter.

SURPRISING FACTS ABOUT HENRY VIII

1.King Henry had great legs

The beauty standards for men in the 1500s were defined by their legs and Henry VIII was widely renowned thave
had fine calves. He almost touched 1,85 m in height, he was athletic, strong and good-looking. Leaving aside his
typical portrayal as an obese tyrant, he was extremely attractive and charming in his youth.
2.Henry was a great composer of music
In his musical collection, he owned 78 flutes, 78 recorders, 5 bagpipe sets and a harp. There was a folk song which
was attributed to King Henry at some point, named Greensleeves , considered to be a love ballad written for Anne
Boleyn. He also wrote Helas Madame and Pastimes with Good Company.
3. King Henry had the largest collection of tapestries in the 16th Century
As a major patron of arts and luxurious things, Henry VIII amassed a huge selection of colourful cloth tapestries.
His extensive tapestry inventory is nowadays largely dispersed or destroyed. King Henry identified himself with
historic, religious and mythological figures in the tapestries, putting England in dialogue and competition with the
leading courts of Early Modern Europe.
4.Henry ate around 5,000 calories per day later in his life
With the time passing, the King aged and became obese and inactive from eating excessively and not doing any
physical activity. Henry VIII would serve around 13 courses of food everyday and his diet consisted mainly of
highly fat meats sush as pork, lamb, chicken, beef and a variety of birds including peacocks and swans.
With origins in the Tudor Dynasty, he drank a lot of ale (sort of beer in medieval England), sometimes 70 pints per
week, along with great amounts of red wine sweetened with sugar.
5. King Henry had a Catholic nun executed for making prophecies about him
Her name was Elizabeth Barton, called The Nun of Kent and The Holy Maid of London and she experienced
prophecies and visions throughout her life. In 1532, she forcasted the King that he would die shortly after he had
married Anne Boleyn and that she had seen the place in Hell where he would go. He did live for another 15 years
after her prediction but they surely werent easy. Elizabeth Barton was arrested in 1533, and obliged to confess the
falseness of her prophecies, afterwards she was executed for treason and hanged at Tyburn. Her head was put on a
spike on London Bridge, the only woman in history accorded such dishonour.
CONCLUSION
To summarize, apart from being famous for his six marriages and over-indulgence, King Henry VIII also presided
over a Renaissance court where new ideas, new art and new architecture flourished. He made England a real player
on the European stage once again, remodelled Government, had the baldness to confront The Roman Catholic

Church and effectively do the things his way creating a whole new vision on religious beliefs and he also
encouraged modern notions of personality politics and self-publicity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ashley, Mike (2002), British Kings &Queens.,London: Running Press
Bernard, G.W.(2005), The Kings Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church, Yale University
Press
Elton, G. R.(1977), Reform and Reformation: England, 1509-1558, Harvard University Press
Hackett, Francis (1929), Henry VIII, New York: Horace Liveright
Loades, David (2009), Henry VIII: Court, Church and Conflict, The National Archives
Scarisbrick, J.J. (1968), Henry VIII, University of California Press
Weir, Allison (1991), The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Grove Press
Weir, Allison (2002), Henry VIII: The King and His Court, Random House Digital Inc.
The facts presented above were not found in any scientifical books but on the Internet, on realclear.com with the
mere purpose of putting a frowning look on your face, and a smile as well.