Henry VIII 1491-1547
King of England

Henry was born in Greenwich, the second son of Henry VII. His accession to the throne in 1509 was hailed by such men as John Colet, Desiderius Erasmus and Thomas More. Shortly after, he married Catherine of Aragon, his brother Prince Arthur's widow, a step of tremendous consequence. As a member of the Holy League formed by the pope and Spain against King Louis XII of France, in 1512 he invaded France, and next year won the so-called Battle of Spurs, and captured Terouenne and Tournay. During his absence an English army won a greater triumph over the Scots at Flodden (1513). It was in this French war that Cardinal Wolsey became prominent. By 1514 he was, after the king, the first man in the country.

The chief aim of Henry's and Wolsey's foreign policy was to maintain a balance of power between France and Spain; at first they supported Spain, but when Francis I of France was brought to the verge of ruin by his defeat and capture at Pavia, they formed an alliance with France.

In 1521 the Duke of Buckingham was executed on a trumped-up charge of treason. The same year Henry published a defence of the Sacraments in reply to Martin Luther, and received from Pope Leo X the title borne by all Henry's successors, 'Defender of the Faith'. In order to finance their expensive foreign policy, Henry and Wolsey resorted to heavy taxation, and to the suppression of all monasteries having less than seven inmates, devoting the revenues to educational purposes.

The turning-point in Henry's reign is marked by his determination to end his marriage with Catherine of Aragon. All her children, except Mary Tudor (later Mary I), had died in infancy, and Henry professed to see in this the judgement of Heaven on an unnatural alliance. Henry had set his affections on Anne Boleyn, the niece of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. The pope, supported by the emperor, declined to support Henry. This proved the ruin of Wolsey, who now found himself without a friend at home or abroad. In 1529 he was stripped of his goods and honours, and dismissed in disgrace; next year he was summoned to London on a charge of high treason, but died on the way. He was succeeded as Chancellor by Sir Thomas More.

Henry remained determined on the divorce, and by humbling the clergy he thought he could bring the pope to terms. In 1531 the clergy were declared guilty of treason and only pardoned after payment of a large fine. The following year, the dues paid to the pope were cancelled. Thomas More asked to be relieved of the Great Seal. Meanwhile Henry was privately married to Anne Boleyn (1533), and in 1534 it was enacted that the king's marriage with Catherine was invalid, that the succession to the Crown should lie with the issue of Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn, and that the king was the sole supreme head of the Church of England. To this last act Bishop John Fisher and Sir Thomas More refused to swear, and both were executed the following year.

The suppression of the monasteries continued, with the support of the new Chancellor Thomas Cromwell. An act was passed for the suppression of all monasteries with a revenue under �200 a year. This unpopular step, and other measures, caused a formidable insurrection in the northern counties, known as the 'Pilgrimage of Grace'. The revolt was crushed, and Henry next (1536) suppressed all the remaining monasteries. The bulk of the revenues passed to the Crown and to those who had made themselves useful to the king. In 1536 Queen Catherine died, and the same year Anne Boleyn herself was executed for infidelity.

The day after her execution Henry was betrothed to Jane Seymour, who later bore him a son (the future Edward VI), but died in childbirth. Anne of Cleves was chosen as the king's fourth wife, in the hope of attaching the Protestant interest of Germany. Anne's personal appearance proved so little to Henry's taste that he consented to the marriage only on the condition that a divorce should follow speedily. Cromwell had made himself as generally detested as Wolsey. It was mainly through his action that Anne had been brought forward, and his enemies used Henry's indignation to bring about his ruin. He was accused of high treason by the Duke of Norfolk, and was executed on a bill of attainder, without trial (1540). Henry married Catherine Howard, another niece of the Catholic Duke of Norfolk. Before two years had passed Catherine suffered the same fate as Anne Boleyn, on the same charge, and in July 1543 Henry married his sixth wife, Catherine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer, who survived him.

During all these years Henry's interest in the struggle between Francis I and Emperor Charles V had been kept alive by the intrigues of France in Scotland. Eventually Henry and Francis concluded a peace (1546), by which Scotland also benefited. The execution of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, son of the Duke of Norfolk, on a charge of high treason, completes the long list of the judicial murders of Henry's reign. Norfolk himself was saved from the same fate only by the death of Henry himself. Henry was succeeded by his son Edward VI.

Bibliography: David Loaders, The Politics of Marriage: Henry VIII and his Queens (1994); Jasper Ridley, Henry VIII (1985); Marie Louise Bruce, The Making of Henry VIII (1977); J J Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (1968).