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King Henry VIII Facts

King Henry VIII Facts
Henry VIII was the King of England and Ireland from April 22, 1509 until his death on January 28, 1547. Although not considered to be among the "best" or most able of England's kings, Henry ruled during a period when Europe was going through many political, religious, and cultural changes: his rule coincided with the Reformation and the Renaissance. In terms of culture, Henry was viewed as a patron of the arts and a reformer when he came to power, inviting many of England's and Europe's top philosophers to spend time at his court. Among those who spent time with Henry were Thomas Moore, whom he had executed in 1535, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. Henry modernized the English navy and was a leading figure in England's break from the Roman Catholic Church. England's religious schism, though, was largely because Henry wanted to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, who failed to give him a male heir. After having that marriage annulled, Henry would marry five more times, with some of those marriages ending tragically: he had his second wife, Anne Boleyn, executed in 1835; his third wife Jane Seymour died as a result of giving birth to the king's male heir, Edward VI; he had his marriage to his third wife, Anne Cleves, almost immediately after marrying her; he had his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, executed; and Catherine Parr, his sixth wife, outlived him.
Interesting King Henry VIII Facts:
Henry was born on June 28, 1491 at the Palace of Placentia in Kent, England to Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.
Henry was from the House of Tudor, whose symbol was the red rose. The Tudor's came to power when Henry VIII won the War of the Roses (1455-1487).
Henry, and all subsequent British heads of state, was made the head of the Church of England under the Acts of Supremacy by Parliament in 1534.
Henry VIII officially went to war against the Catholic Church was the Parliament passed the Dissolution of Lesser Monasteries Act of 1535. The act allowed the king to pilfer England's Catholic monasteries.
Anne Boleyn made several important enemies during her rise to the top, foremost of which was one of Henry's top advisors, Thomas Cromwell.
Boleyn was executed for treasonous adultery and incest, although there is little evidence for those charges.
By the early 1540s Henry's anti-Catholic attitudes gave way to anti-Protestant attitudes. Although he never went back to the Catholic Church, he had many Protestant reformers burned at the stake.
When Henry married Catherine Howard he was forty-nine and she was sixteen or seventeen.
Howard was executed for having multiple affairs during her marriage to Henry. The evidence for those affairs is much more solid than in the case of Anne Boleyn.
The famous portrait of the stout Henry VIII was painted by Hans Holbein the Younger in 1540. Holbein was one of the leading artists of the "Northern Renaissance."
After Henry died, Mary, his only child with Catherine of Aragon, would become the ruler of England after Edward died at an early age.


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