Henry VIII (1491–1547)

Tudor dynasty king of England from 1509 until his death, best known for his defiance of the Catholic pope in the matter of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon and his establishment of the Church of England. Born in a royal palace in Greenwich, he was the son of King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York and became heir apparent on the death of his elder brother Arthur in 1502.

Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon, was arranged by his father in order to make a useful alliance with the kingdom of Spain, recently united by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile. The younger Henry, although opposed to the marriage, went through with it after the death of his father and just before his own coronation as the king of England.

A patron of the arts, and himself a competent musician and poet, Henry invited scholars, musicians, and humanists to his court. He ambitiously sought a place for England in the political affairs and wars of the European continent, and to this end joined the Holy League with Spain and Venice against France in 1512. He contested control of Italy with Francis I, who became king of France in 1515; after Francis was captured at the Battle of Pavia in 1525, Henry joined the League of Cognac with Pope Clement VII to prevent Emperor Charles V from dominating the Italian peninsula.

Early in his reign Henry was a staunch Catholic, and through his writings against the teachings of Protestant reformer Martin Luther earned the honorary title of Defender of the Faith. But when it became apparent that Catherine of Aragon would not provide him with a male heir, Henry petitioned Clement for a dissolution of his marriage, which Clement adamantly refused to grant. On the suggestion of his adviser Thomas Cromwell, Henry declared an end to the supremacy of the pope and the establishment of an English church with himself as its leader. His break with the church was sealed by his secret marriage to Anne Boleyn in 1533.

When the pope excommunicated the king for this act, the English parliament passed measures to ban appeals from English religious courts to the pope, to force the English clergy to elect bishops that Henry nominated and, by the Act of Supremacy, to recognize Henry as the supreme head of the Church of England. English citizens had to acknowledge this Act by swearing an oath; punishment for defiance was imprisonment or execution; a measure that was taken against Henry's own Lord Chancellor and trusted adviser Sir Thomas More. Uprisings against the new church were put down without mercy; Catholic shrines were destroyed, and the property of the church was seized by the crown and redistributed to loyal ministers, nobles, and courtiers.

Anne Boleyn, mother of the future Elizabeth I, was unable to produce a male heir; for this Henry blithely arranged charges of witchcraft, incest, and adultery against her, for which she was executed. Henry's third wife, Jane Seymour, gave birth to Prince Edward in 1537 but died shortly afterward. A marriage to a German princess, Anne of Cleves, ended swiftly in divorce, after which Henry married Catherine Howard. This fifth wife was executed in 1542; Henry's sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, survived him.

Henry's reign saw an important transformation in England to Protestantism, an event that would have violent repercussions in the kingdom for the next century. He annexed Wales, defeated the rebellious Scots at the Battle of Solway Moss, and captured the port of Boulogne from the French, who regained the city through the payment of a ransom. The more prominent role of England in the affairs of Europe would be affirmed by political and military victories achieved by Henry's daughter Elizabeth in the last half of the sixteenth century.

See Also: Boleyn, Anne; Cromwell, Thomas; Elizabeth I; More, Sir Thomas; Tudor dynasty