Henry VIII, king of England (1509–47) presided over
the beginnings of the English Renaissance and the English Reformation. His six wives were, successively, Catherine of Aragon (the mother of the
future queen Mary I), Anne Boleyn (the mother of the future
queen Elizabeth I), Jane Seymour (the mother of Henry’s
successor, Edward VI), Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard,
and Catherine Parr.
Everyone recognises his portrait: a fat,
larger-than-life individual, wearing clothes set with jewels and sporting a
neat red beard. This is Henry in later life: in his youth he was handsome and
athletic, the most eligible prince in Europe.
Henry was also a complex man: intelligent, boisterous, flamboyant,
extravagant. Athletic, musical, a poet. Ruthless, arrogant, passionate. Henry’s
driving desire for a male heir was to lead him to divorce two wives and have
two wives beheaded: it led to religious revolution and the creation of the
Church of England, the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the
Reformation.
The decisions that Henry VIII made during his reign were
to shape modern Britain. Read here.
