Henry VIII (1491–1547)
Introduction
The end of the Wars of the Roses, the victory of Henry Tudor at Bosworth field and his marriage with Princess Elizabeth, heiress of the House of York (1485) were the events that symbolized the end of the Middle Ages in Britain. The year of 1485 is traditionally considered the watershed and the beginning of the Tudor Age.
In historical development the rule of the Tudors (1485–1603) with their absolute power in the long run contributed to the strengthening of its role in international affairs.
The 16th century was the age of a growing absolutism of monarchy and centralization of the state; these phenomena facilitated the development and foundation of new capitalist relations in production.
The English type of absolute monarchy was shaped by Henry VII, who was opposed to the power of old barons. He ordered that the old castles should be destroyed (pulled down) and the feudal baronial armies should be disbanded. He was very rich with the confiscated wealth of his defeated rivals. He was strong enough to prevent any revival of armed strenghth of any group of nobles, and he enjoyed support of merchants and small landowners who had all suffered from the civil war.
These two groups, linked by a common interest in the wool trade not yet powerful enough to claim the political power were to fight for in the 17th century. They were strong enough to be useful allies of the Tudor kings and queens. Their support enabled the Tudors to become despotic rulers, while at first playing a progressive historic role.
But their reign was abundant in various controversial arbitrary developments.
The financial policy of Henry VII filled the Treasury and strengthened the throne and the church position, improved the contacts with Rome. The King skillfully steered through the complexities of European politics. His eldest son was married to the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon, and his daughter Margaret to King James IV of Scotland.
Henry, the second son of Henry VII, was born in Greenwich, in 1491. Henry, who had become king in 1485, was determined that the Tudor family should rule England and Wales for a long time. To do this he needed to protect himself from those who had the power to overthrow him. His first step was to marry Elizabeth of York, a member of Richard Ill's family.
Henry VII was also worried that England might be invaded by Spain, the most powerful country in Europe. In 1488 Henry signed a treaty with King Ferdinand of Spain. By this treaty Henry VII agreed that his eldest son, Arthur, should marry King Ferdinand's daughter, Katherine of Aragon.
On 14 November 1501, Arthur, who was just fifteen, married Catherine at St Paul's Cathedral in London. Five months later Arthur died of tuberculosis. Henry VII was keen that England and Spain should remain united and arranged for his other surviving son Henry, to marry Catherine. At that time, Christians believed it was wrong for a man to marry his brother's wife. Henry VII therefore had to gain special permission from the Pope before the marriage could go ahead.
King of England.
In 1509 Henry VII died. His son Henry now became king of England. Henry was only seventeen but the English people appeared to be happy that they had a new king. For years Henry VII had been imposing heavy taxes on the English people. One of the first things Henry VIII did when he became king was to order the execution of the two men his father had employed to organise this taxation.
Henry was very fond of hunting, gambling and dancing and only spent about an hour a day on government business. He relied heavily on Thomas Wolsey, an Ipswich butcher's son, who became Lord Chancellor in 1515, and other government ministers to run the country. Henry VIII found this useful because if any of the policies were unpopular, he could blame his ministers. In some cases, he even arranged for these ministers to be executed although they were only carrying out Henry's orders.
Wolsey became one of the most powerful ministers in British history (symbolised by his building of Hampton Court Palace – on a greater scale than anything the king possessed). Wolsey exercised his powers vigorously in his own Court of Chancery and in the increased use of the Council's judicial authority in the Court of the Star Chamber.
Wolsey was also appointed Cardinal in 1515 and given papal legate powers which enabled him to by-pass the Archbishop of Canterbury and 'govern' the Church in England.
Henry's interest in foreign policy was focused on Western Europe, which was a shifting pattern of alliances centred round the kings of Spain and France, and the Holy Roman Emperor. (Henry was related by marriage to all three – his wife Catherine was Ferdinand of Aragon's daughter, his sister Mary married Louis XII of France in 1514, and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was Catherine's nephew.)
An example of these shifts was Henry's unsuccessful Anglo-Spanish campaigns against France, ending in peace with France in 1520, when he spent huge sums on displays and tournaments at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
Henry also invested in the navy, and increased its size from 5 to 53 ships (including the Mary Rose, the remains of which lie in the Portsmouth Naval Museum).
When Henry met Anne Boleyn in 1522, he felt in love. And then he wanted to divorce with Catherine and married on Anne.
In May 1529, Wolsey failed to gain the Pope's agreement to resolve Henry's case in England. All the efforts of Henry and his advisers came to nothing; Wolsey was dismissed and arrested, but died before he could be brought to trial.
More, fully devoted to Henry and to the cause of royal prerogative, initially cooperated with the king's new policy, denouncing Wolsey in Parliament and proclaiming the opinion of the theologians at Oxford and Cambridge that the marriage of Henry to Catherine had been unlawful. But as Henry began to deny the authority of the Pope, More's qualms grew.
Since the attempts to obtain the divorce through pressure on the papacy had failed, Wolsey's eventual successor Thomas Cromwell (Henry's chief adviser from 1532 onwards) turned to Parliament, using its powers and anti-clerical attitude (encouraged by Wolsey's excesses) to decide the issue.
The result was a series of Acts cutting back papal power and influence in England and bringing about the English Reformation.
In 1532, an Act against Annates – although suspended during 'the king's pleasure' – was a clear warning to the Pope that ecclesiastical revenues were under threat.
In 1532, Thomas Cranmer was promoted to Archbishop of Canterbury and, following the Pope's confirmation of his appointment, in May 1533 Cranmer declared Henry's marriage invalid; Anne Boleyn was crowned queen a week later.
The Pope responded with excommunication, and Parliamentary legislation enacting Henry's decision to break with the Roman Catholic Church soon followed. An Act in Restraint of Appeals forbade appeals to Rome, stating that England was an empire, governed by one supreme head and king who possessed 'whole and entire' authority within the realm, and that no judgements or excommunications from Rome were valid.
An Act of Submission of the Clergy and an Act of Succession followed, together with an Act of Supremacy (1534) which recognized that the king was 'the only supreme head of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia.
The breach between the king and the Pope forced clergy, office-holders and others to choose their allegiance – the most famous being Sir Thomas More, who was executed for treason in 1535. Generally Thomas More replaced Wolsey as Lord Chancellor and soon also failed to obtain a divorce for Henry. He would eventually lose his life for refusing to recognize the legality of the English Divorce. Also in 1535 Bishop Fisher was executed for the same reason.
The other effect of the English Protestant Reformation was the Dissolution of Monasteries, under which monastic lands and possessions were broken up and sold off. In the 1520s, Wolsey had closed down some of the small monastic communities to pay for his new foundations (he had colleges built at Oxford and Ipswich).
In 1535–36, another 200 smaller monasteries were dissolved by statute, followed by the remaining greater houses in 1538–40; as a result, Crown revenues doubled for a few years.
So one needs to be careful when she or he looks at the English Reformation. Henry's actions were not solely based on the king's desire for a divorce but also by a desire to establish national autonomy and sovereignty within England. To not recognize the Reformation especially in England as a political struggle to establish royal authority and national independence does an intellectual disservice to the political and religious realities of the 16th Century.
The second half of Henry's reign was dominated by two issues very important for the later history of England and the monarchy: the succession and the Protestant Reformation, which led to the formation of the Church of England.
Henry’s wives
Catherine of Aragon
The youngest child of the 'Catholic Kings' of Spain, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, Catharine was born on 16 December 1485, the same year that Henry VII established the Tudor dynasty. At the age of three, she was betrothed to his infant son, Prince Arthur. In 1501, shortly before her sixteenth birthday, Catharine sailed to England. But her marriage to Arthur lasted less than six months and was supposedly never consummated. Catharine was then betrothed to Arthur's younger brother, Prince Henry. When he became king in 1509, at the age of eighteen, he promptly married Catharine and they lived together happily for about 24 years. Catherine was five years older and much more sedate. She was interested in politics and Henry often turned to her for advice. In 1513 she ruled as regent while Henry was campaigning in France.
Although Catherine was pregnant many times, only one of her children, Princess Mary, survived. Henry was a doting father and didn't seem to blame Catherine for her failure to bear healthy sons. Henry is only known to have had two mistresses during his marriage to Catherine, which made him a reasonably faithful husband by the standards of the time. Catherine knew of his affairs but kept silent.
Cast aside, Catharine fought against great odds to deny Henry an annulment. But the king would not be denied and when the Catholic Church would not grant the annulment, he declared himself head of a new English church. Catharine was banished from court and died on 7 January 1536, broken-hearted but still defiant.
The Tudor dynasty had been established by conquest in 1485 and Henry was only its second monarch. England had not so far had a ruling queen, and the dynasty was not secure enough to run the risk of handing the Crown on to a woman, risking disputed succession or domination of a foreign power through marriage.
Henry had anyway fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, the sister of one of his many mistresses, and tried to persuade the Pope to grant him an annulment of his marriage on the grounds that it had never been legal.
Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn is one of the most famous queens in English history, though she ruled for just three years. The daughter of an ambitious knight and niece of the duke of Norfolk, Anne spent her adolescence in France. When she returned to England, her wit and style were her greatest charms. She had a circle of admirers and became secretly engaged to Henry Percy. She also entered the service of Catharine of Aragon. But she soon caught the eye of Henry VIII. He ordered Percy from court and tried to make Anne his mistress. She refused. Her sister, Mary, had been the king's mistress and gained little from it but scandal. Her hopes with Percy dashed, Anne demanded that the king marry her. She waited nearly seven years for Henry to obtain an annulment. It finally took an irrevocable breach with the Holy See before they wed in 1533.
But Henry's second marriage had raised hopes for a male heir. Anne Boleyn, however, produced another daughter, Princess Elizabeth, and failed to produce a male child In May Anne was arrested and charged with having affairs with five men, including her own brother George. The charges were false, but Anne and all of the men were convicted and sentenced to death. On May 19, 1536, Anne Boleyn was beheaded.
Jane Seymour
Henry VIII had six wives but only one gave him a son. In 1537 Anne’s replacement, Jane, finally bore him a son, who was later to become Edward VI. Jane died in childbed. Jane Seymour fulfilled her most important duty as queen, but she was never crowned and died just twelve days after the long and arduous birth. She was Henry's third wife and seems never to have made much of an impression upon anyone except the king. Her meek and circumspect manner was in distinct contrast to Henry's second wife, the sharp-tongued Anne Boleyn. Jane had served as lady-in-waiting to Anne and she supplanted her in much the same way Anne had replaced Catharine of Aragon in Henry's affections. We will never know if Jane sought the king's favor or was a frightened pawn of her family and the king's desire. But we do know that she bravely sought pardons for those involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace revolt in 1536. The triumphant birth of her son Edward allowed her two ambitious brothers into the king's inner circle; however, both would be executed during Edward's reign.
Although Cromwell had proved an effective minister in bringing about the royal divorce and the English Reformation, his position was insecure. The Pilgrimage of Grace, an insurrection in 1536, called for Cromwell's dismissal (the rebels were put down).
Anne of Cleves
Anne of Cleves was the fourth wife of King Henry VIII; it was a very brief marriage, to the astonishment of all observers but the relief of both spouses. Henry infamously referred to his bride as a 'Flanders mare' and told courtiers and ambassadors that he could not perform his husbandly duties because of Anne's appearance. Anne's reaction to Henry's physical charms was not recorded, but she agreed to an annulment very quickly and remained in England for the rest of her life. Henry was grateful for her cooperation and granted her a generous income and several homes, including Hever Castle. Anne enjoyed an independent lifestyle denied most women, often visiting Henry's court as an honored guest. Her fondness for English ale and gambling were her only vices. Along with her successor as Henry's wife, Catherine Howard, Anne remains a mysterious figure about whom too little is known. Had she and Henry remained married and had children, the course of English history might have changed dramatically. But the mysteries of physical attraction denied Anne her place on the throne, ended the brilliant career of Thomas Cromwell: he was subjected to a bill of attainder and executed for treason and heresy on Tower Hill on 28 July 1540. The king later expressed regret at having lost his great minister. Thrust the king into the arms of his ill-fated fifth queen, Catherine Howard.
Catherine Howard
Catherine Howard was a cousin of Henry VIII's ill-fated second queen, Anne Boleyn; and like Anne, Catherine would die on the scaffold at Tower Green in 1542. Her birthdate is unknown, but her father was the younger brother of the duke of Norfolk. Though personally impoverished, Catherine had a powerful family name and thus secured an appointment as lady-in-waiting to Henry's fourth queen, Anne of Cleves. While at court, she caught the eye of the middle-aged king and became a political pawn of her family and its Catholic allies. Catherine's greatest crime was her silliness. Raised in the far too permissive household of her grandmother, she was a flirtatious and emotional girl who rarely understood the consequences of her actions. She made the mistake of continuing her girlish indiscretions as queen. Henry was besotted with her, calling her his 'Rose without a Thorn' and showering her with gifts and public affection. Catherine was understandably more attracted to men her own age and, after just seventeen months of marriage to the king, she was arrested for adultery. The distraught king at first refused to believe the evidence but it was persuasive. Unlike Anne Boleyn, Catherine had betrayed the king. She was beheaded on 13 February 1542, only nineteen or twenty years old. The drama of her execution lends gravity to a brief life which would otherwise pass unnoticed.
Katherine Parr
Katharine Parr was the sixth and last wife of King Henry VIII, destined to outlive the mercurial ruler. She was already twice-widowed and childless when they wed in 1543; she was also in love with Thomas Seymour, the brother of Henry's third queen Jane. But the king's will was law and Katharine bowed to his demands with grace. She was an admirable wife to Henry and a loving stepmother to his two youngest children, Elizabeth and Edward. She was also the most intellectual of Henry's wives, caught up in the turbulent religious climate of the times. And it was this passionate interest in theology which nearly ended her life, for the king was old and sickly but still capable of destroying those closest to him. Katharine saved herself and earned Henry's respect enough to be appointed Regent of England during his military campaign in Boulogne. Despite assembling an army of 40,000 men, only the town of Boulogne was captured and the French campaign failed. Although more than half the monastic properties had been sold off, forced loans and currency depreciation also had to be used to pay for the war, which contributed to increased inflation.
Henry died in London on 28 January 1547. Upon his death, she married Seymour with indecent haste, the only one of four husbands she had chosen herself. Her greatest achievement was the popularity of her devotional works; they were 16th century bestsellers and capture Catharine's complex and abiding piety.
Results of his rule are:
– Got rid of the Catholic Church in England and made himself head of the new Church;
– Built the first modern navy;
– All in all he had six wives and left three children: Mary by Catherine of Aragon, Elizabeth by Anne Boleyn and Edward by Jane Seymour.
Conclusion
None of Henry’s last wife produced any children. Henry made sure that his sole male heir, Edward, was educated by people who believed in Protestantism rather than Catholicism because he wanted the anti-papal nature of his reformation and his dynasty to become more firmly established.
To some, Henry VIII was a strong and ruthless ruler, forcing through changes to the Church-State relationship which excluded the papacy and brought the clergy under control, thus strengthening the Crown's position and acquiring the monasteries' wealth.
However, Henry's reformation had produced dangerous Protestant-Roman Catholic differences in the kingdom. The monasteries' wealth had been spent on wars and had also built up the economic strength of the aristocracy and other families in the counties, which in turn was to encourage ambitious Tudor court factions.
Significantly, Parliament's involvement in making religious and dynastic changes had been firmly established. For all his concern over establishing his dynasty and the resulting religious upheaval, Henry's six marriages had produced one sickly son and an insecure succession with two princesses (Mary and Elizabeth) who at one stage had been declared illegitimate – none of whom were to have children.