Wives of Henry VIII Totally Explained

Everything about Wives Of Henry Viii totally explained

The six wives (queens consort) of Henry VIII of England were, in order: Catherine of Aragon (annulled), Anne Boleyn (annulled then beheaded), Jane Seymour (died, childbirth fever), Anne of Cleves (annulled), Catherine Howard (beheaded), and Katherine Parr. It is often noted that Katherine Parr "survived him"; in fact Anne of Cleves also survived the king and was the last of his queens to die. Of the six queens, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour each gave Henry one child who survived infancy — two daughters and one son, all three of whom would eventually accede to the throne. They were King Edward VI, Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I.
   Theoretically however, Henry VIII only had two wives, as opposed to six in practice. Henry considered his marriage to Catherine of Aragon to be invalid when he appealed to the pope in Rome for a annulment after twenty years of marriage. Catherine failed to produce a son, instead suffering several miscarriages and still-births before having a healthy baby girl. It soon became the one absorbing object of the king's desires to secure a divorce from his wife, Catherine of Aragon, so he could marry Anne Boleyn. When it became clear that Pope Clement VII was unlikely to give the king an annulment, the breaking of the power of the Roman Catholic Church in England began.
   Henry's second marriage to Anne Boleyn was also annulled because it was conducted in private, whilst he was still married to Catherine of Aragon. Anne gave Henry a daughter as well but, after being accused of incest, adultery and high treason she was executed by sword.
   Jane Seymour, Henry's wife after Anne was executed, was a legally-binding marriage and Jane succeeded in producing a male heir (Edward) to the throne. She died of puerperal fever just days after giving birth to their son, but is often considered Henry's most favored wife and often appears painted posthumously in his family portraits.
   Following her death, Henry planned to marry Anne of Cleves. Her portrait was deceiving, making her look more beautiful than she really was. Her pre-contracted marriage acted as the reason for annulment but he kept her in court as a lady-in-waiting and "sister to the king".
   Catherine Howard, wife number 5, was found to be guilty of adultery and she was swiftly executed, and the marriage annulled.
   Henry's last wife, Catherine Parr, was his second legally-binding marriage, although she outlived him. After Henry's death, Catherine went on to marry Jane Seymour's brother, Thomas Seymour, whom she reputedly had always loved.

Wives

1. Catherine of Aragon (December 16, 1485 – January 7, 1536; Spanish: Catalina de Aragón) was Henry's first wife. After the death of Arthur, her first husband and Henry's brother, a papal dispensation was obtained to enable her to marry Henry, though the marriage didn't take place until after he came to the throne in 1509. Catherine bore him a daughter, in 1516 Mary I, but no sons who survived past infancy.
   Henry, then a devout Roman Catholic, sought the Pope's approval for an annulment on the grounds that the marriage was invalid because Catherine had first been his brother's wife. Henry had begun an affair with Anne Boleyn, who is said to have refused to become his mistress (Henry had already consummated an affair with and then dismissed Anne's sister (Mary Boleyn), and Anne wanted to avoid the same treatment). Despite the pope's refusal, Henry separated from Catherine in 1533. In the face of the Pope's continuing refusal to annul his marriage to Catherine, Henry ordered the highest church official in England, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury to convene a court to rule on the status of his marriage to Catherine. On May 23, 1533, Cranmer ruled the marriage to Catherine null and void. On May 28, 1533 he pronounced the King legally married to Anne Boleyn (with whom Henry had already secretly exchanged wedding vows, probably in late January 1533). This led to the break from the Roman Catholic Church and the later establishment of the Church of England. 2. Anne Boleyn (1501/1507–19 May 1536) was the second wife of Henry VIII of England and the mother of Elizabeth I of England. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key player in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the English Reformation. The daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Boleyn (born Lady Elizabeth Howard), Anne was of more noble birth than either Jane Seymour or Catherine Parr, two of Henry VIII later wives. She was educated in Europe, largely as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Claude of France. She returned to England in 1522.
   In 1525, Henry VIII became enamoured with Anne and began his pursuit of her. Anne resisted the king's attempts to seduce her and she refused to become his mistress, as her sister, Mary Boleyn, had done. It soon became the one absorbing object of the king's desires to secure a divorce from his wife, Catherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne. When it became clear that Pope Clement VII was unlikely to give the king an annulment, the breaking of the power of the Roman Catholic Church in England began.
   Anne Boleyn had Thomas Wolsey dismissed from public office and later had the Boleyn family's chaplain, Thomas Cranmer, appointed archbishop of Canterbury. In 1533, Henry and Anne went through a secret wedding service. She soon became pregnant and there was a second wedding service, which took place in London on 25 January 1533. On 23 May 1533, Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Catherine null and void. Five days later, Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Anne to be good and valid. Soon after, the pope launched sentences of excommunication against the king and the archbishop. As a result of Anne's marriage to the king, the Church of England was forced to break with Rome and was brought under the king's control.
   Anne was crowned Queen Consort of England on 1 June 1533. Later that year, on 7 September, Anne gave birth to a baby girl who would one day reign as Queen Elizabeth I of England. When Anne failed to quickly produce a male heir, the king grew tired of her and a plot was hatched by Thomas Cromwell to do away with her.
   Although the evidence against her was unconvincing, Anne was beheaded on charges of adultery, incest, and high treason in 1536. Following the coronation of her daughter Elizabeth as queen, Anne was venerated as a martyr and heroine of the English Reformation, particularly through the works of John Foxe. Over the centuries, Anne has inspired or been mentioned in numerous artistic and cultural works. Due to this fact, she's remained in the popular memory and Anne has been called "the most influential and important queen consort England has ever had."
   3. Jane Seymour (c. mid-1508–October 24, 1537) was Henry's third wife. He first became attracted to her while she was one of Anne Boleyn's ladies-in-waiting, and it's popularly believed she's the reason he disposed of Anne. After their marriage in 1536, she gave him his only male heir, later Edward VI, but died shortly after birth of puerperal fever. 4. Anne of Cleves (September 22, 1515 – July 16, 1557) was Henry's fourth wife, for only six months in 1540, from January 6 to July 9. She has become known as "The Flanders Mare" because the king is said to have disliked her appearance. Her pre-contract of marriage with Francis, Duke of Lorraine, was cited as grounds for an annulment. Anne agreed to this, claiming that the marriage hadn't been consummated, and she was given a generous settlement, including Hever Castle, former home of Henry's former in-laws, the Boleyns. She was given the name "The King's Sister", and became a friend to him and his children. She outlived both the king and his last two wives. 5. Catherine Howard (1520/1525? – February 13, 1542) was Henry's fifth wife 1540–1542, sometimes known as "the rose without a thorn". Henry was informed of her alleged adultery on November 1, 1541. After being deprived of the title of Queen, she was beheaded at the Tower of London. The night before, Catherine spent hours practicing how to lay her head upon the block, and her last words were for mercy for her family and prayers for her soul. She was buried next to her cousin Anne Boleyn. Her ghost is said to have haunted Henry for years later, and was even heard screaming by others. 6. Catherine Parr (about 1512 – September 7, 1548), also spelled Katharine, was the sixth and last wife of Henry VIII 1543–1547. She has a special place in history as the most married queen of England, having had four husbands in all. She had been widowed three times in rapid succession. After Henry's death, she married Thomas Seymour, uncle of Edward VI. She had one child by him, Mary, and died in childbirth. Mary's date of death is unknown.

Mistresses

� See Henry's mistresses

Aside from Mary Boleyn and Elizabeth Blount, the only other two who are known by name are Anne Stafford, Countess of Huntingdon (around 1510) and Mary Shelton (1535). Mary was the daughter of Anne Shelton (courtier), Anne Boleyn's aunt.

Miscellanea

A mnemonic for the fates of Henry's wives is "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived". An alternate version is "King Henry the Eighth, to six wives he was wedded: One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded." Some may dub these as misleading doggerel, and that Henry was never technically divorced from any of his wives, rather that his marriages to them were annulled. Likewise four marriages — not two — "ended" in annulments, one could argue according to the technicalities of annulment, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, and Catherine Howard were never his wives at all.

Marriage lengths

Diagram of Henry's VIII reign relative to his marriages. ImageSize = width:800px height:auto barincrement:11px PlotArea = left:0 bottom:50px top:0 right:0
   DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:1500 till:1560 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal AlignBars = justify
   Colors = #legends id:King value:purple id:Queen value:red
    #interface id:grid1 value:gray(0.7) # major grid id:grid2 value:gray(0.95) # minor grid
    id:reign value:gray(0.4)
   ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:10 start:1500 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:1 start:1500
   Define $lshift = shift:(8,-4) #legend text shift Define $jwidth = width:0.1 #width of the vertical joint Define $w1 = color:w1 Define $w2 = color:w2 Define $w3 = color:w3 Define $dx = -80 Define $dx2 = -100 Define $dx3 = -120 Define $dx4 = -140 Define $dx5 = -160 Define $dx6 = -180
   BarData= bar:space1 bar:HenryVIII bar:CatherineofAragon bar:AnneBoleyn bar:JaneSeymour bar:AnneofCleves bar:CatherineHoward bar:CatherineParr bar:space2
   PlotData= align:left fontsize:S width:9
    color:King bar:HenryVIII from:1509 till:1547 shift:(0,5) text:Henry VIII color:Queen bar:CatherineofAragon from:1509 till:1533 shift:(45,-5) text:Catherine of Aragon bar:AnneBoleyn from:1533 till:1536 shift:(25,-4) text:Anne Boleyn bar:JaneSeymour from:1536 till:1537 shift:(20,-4) text:Jane Seymour bar:AnneofCleves from:1540 till:1540 shift:(15,-4) text:Anne of Cleves bar:CatherineHoward from:1540 till:1542 shift:(25,-4) text:Catherine Howard bar:CatherineParr from:1543 till:1547 shift:(35,-4) text:Catherine Parr LineData= #a long hack to create a cool grey-bar ScaleMinor #since a line max width is only 10, two lines are used for each grey-bar layer:back color:grid2 width:6 at:1502 at:1504 at:1506 at:1508 at:1512 at:1514 at:1516 at:1518 at:1522 at:1524 at:1526 at:1528 at:1532 at:1534 at:1536 at:1538 at:1542 at:1544 at:1546 at:1548 at:1552 at:1554 at:1556 at:1558
    layer:back color:grid1 width:0.1 at:1510 at:1520 at:1530 at:1540 at:1550 at:1560 Further Information

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