Wives of Henry VIII

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 Wives
2 Mistresses
3 Miscellanea
4 See also

The six wives (queens consort) of Henry VIII of England were, in order: Catherine of Aragon (annulled), Anne Boleyn (beheaded), Jane Seymour (died, childbirth fever), Anne of Cleves (annulled), Catherine Howard (beheaded), and Catherine Parr (survived him). 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, and all three of them would eventually succeed in the throne as Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.

Henry also had many short-term mistresses, most of whom are unknown.

[edit] Wives

Catherine of Aragon

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, Henry took her as his wife. Catherine bore him a girl, 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. The true reason was that she could not produce a male and he wished to marry Anne Boleyn. Despite receiving the pope's disapproval of an annulment, Henry separated from Catherine in 1531. 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.

Anne Boleyn

2. Anne Boleyn, Marchioness of Pembroke (1501–May 19, 1536) was Henry's second wife and the mother of Elizabeth I of England. Born into the English aristocracy, Anne was educated in France from 1514 until 1521. Returning to England in 1522, she was one of Catherine's ladies-in-waiting. She caught the eye of Henry VIII who proposed marriage to her in 1527. An intellectual who believed in the Divine Right of Kings and certain aspects of the new Protestant religion, Anne played a major role in the English Reformation. She was crowned queen consort in 1533, but after the birth of Princess Elizabeth that same year she failed to successfully carry another pregnancy to term. She was accused and convicted of adultery, incest, witchcraft and treason in order that the King could marry someone else and produce a legitimate male heir; she was beheaded. Before her death, she joked that, "I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck." Some people believed that she was a witch, and was covering up the evil mark with a necklace she wore every day—there were also rumors that she had six fingers on one hand.

Jane Seymour

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 is popularly believed she is the reason he disposed of Anne. She gave him his only male heir, later Edward VI, but died shortly after his birth of puerperal fever, or childbirth fever.

Anne of Cleves

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 was also known as "The Mare of Flanders". She agreed to have an annulment, claiming the marriage had not 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.

Catherine Howard

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 practising 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.

Catherine Parr

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. After Henry's death, she married Thomas Seymour, uncle of Edward VI. She had one child by him, Mary, and died in childbirth. Mary could not have survived long, as there are no records of her after her second birthday.

[edit] Mistresses

Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne Boleyn and Mistress of Henry VIII

Lady Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne Boleyn
Elizabeth Blount, mothered Henry's firstborn son, Henry Fitzroy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset, whom Henry acknowledged.

Henry had many other short-term mistresses, most of whom are unknown. He kept many of them in his private mansion called Jordan House and when his male courtiers said, "The King has gone to the Jordan", it meant that he was discreetly visiting one of his mistresses. Aside from Mary Boleyn and Elizabeth Blount, the only other two who are known by name are Lady Herbert (whom he may briefly have slept with sometime around 1510) and Margaret Shelton (1535). Margaret was the daughter of Anne Shelton, Anne Boleyn's aunt. She was called Madge and brought in when Anne was losing favor; however, the king forgot her after he saw Jane Seymour, seven years younger than Anne.

[edit] 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.

Accordingly, their executions could be said to have been for reasons "divorced from divorce"; particularly in the case of Catherine Howard, who (perhaps understandably) sought extramarital comforts. Anne Boleyn remains a sympathetic figure; mostly for her bad luck (she did not provide a male heir), and her early stature as a vocal female who dared to express herself forcefully in political matters.