King Henry VIII was the youngest son of two who succeeded his brother, Prince Arthur, the Prince of Wales, who died at a premature age at fifteen, shortly after his marriage to his wife, Catherine of Aragon, the Princess of Spain. Henry VIII had a great fear of leaving England without an heir so his desperate hunt for a wife who could give him a wife resulted in him having six wives.

His six wives (in order) as are follows:

Catherine of Aragon. Princess Catherine of Aragon was the youngest child of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. She had powerful connections to power in Spain, seeing as her nephew was Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. After twenty-four years of marriage, Henry VIII had their marriage annulled set off a chain of events that led to England's break with the Roman Catholic Church. When Henry was the head of the Church of England, he made his first marriage invalid on the legal ground that a man could not sleep with his brother's widow.

Anne Boleyn. Anne Boleyn was part of one of the most powerful and most influential families at the time - the Boleyns and Howards. Anne was the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn and Lady Elizabeth Howard. As a child, Anne was sent to the Netherlands and then to France for her education. She returned to England in late 1521. Upon her appearance in court, Henry VIII became enamoured of Anne and began to pursue her - Anned parried his advances and told him that she would not become his mistress, but his wife. And it was because of this that Henry VIII annulled his marriage to Catherine of Aragon in order to marry Anne. When Pope Clement VII did not approve of this annulment, the rift between King Henry VIII and the Roman Catholic Church began. It was along and hard struggle to make Anne queen, but on the first of June in 1533, Anne was crowned the Queen of England. Later that year, she gave birth to a girl that would later become Queen Elizabeth I of England. And like Catherine of Aragon, she failed to produce a living male heir, which proved her downfall - she was beheaded in 1536 on the unconvincing charges of adultery (with the other gentlemen that visited her rooms), incest (with her brother, George Boleyn), and high treason. The men also accused of having sex with the queen, among them her own brother, were also beheaded.

Jane Seymour. Jane Seymour was the third queen and wife of King Henry VIII. He married her shortly after the death of Anne Boleyn. There were no conflicts between the king and his new queen, and Jane Seymour managed to produce a male heir, who would later become King Edward VI, who later died prematurely from tuberculosis, but there were some complications in the birth and she died on childbed due to postnatal complications.

Anne of Cleves. Anne of Cleves was the fourth wife of Henry VIII. She was the second daughter of John III, ruler of the Duchy of Cleves, and his wife, Maria, the Duchess of Julich-Berg. Her father died in 1538 and her brother William became the Duke of Julich-Cleve-Berg. It was an alliance with the King of England, King Henry VIII, and Germany that caused their marriage - it was also urged onto him by King Henry's chancelor, Thomas Cromwell. Anne also had a younger sister, Amelia, whom the king was also considering to be his fourth wife. He hired and sent a painter to the girls' home and instructed the painter to paint the girls as accurate as possible and not to flatter them, becase he wanted to see what they looked like. Anne had almost no education in her childhood, though she was able to write and read, but only in German. This caused some problems because Henry valued educated and sophistication in women. Henry was anxious to meet his wife on the day she arrived and met her on the water's edge when she arrived by boat. But the wedding night was not as planned - Henry came out announcing, "I like her not" because Anne was larger-boned than any of the queens before her that were the wives of Henry VIII. He tried to get Thomas Cromwell to annul the marriage using a legal way, but Cromwell explained that there was no way to do so without offending the Germans. Their marriage ended on the ninth of July, 1540. Henry was nicer to Anne than he had been to any of his other wives - he gave her a small settlement of her own, including many properties that included Hever Castle, the estate that belonged to his former in-laws. Henry and Anne later became great friends and he made her a "Princess of England" and called her "the King's beloved sister". Anne was there when the two daughters of Henry rode side-by-side into London with Mary as Queen and was even at Mary's coronation. She outlived Henry VIII's last wife, Catherine Parr, by nine years. Anne never returned to Germany - instead, she spent the rest of her life in England.

Catherine Howard. She was also called Katherine Howard or Katheryn Howard. She was the fifth wife of Henry VIII, and he often referred to her as "the rose without a thorn". She was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard, a younger son of the second Duke of Norfolk. Catherine married Henry VIII on the twenty-eight of July, 1540, almost immediately after the annulment of his marriage to Anne of Cleves. The way she lived her life and the knowledge about her past were known to be unchaste and shortly afterwards, she was beheaded about two years after her marriage on grounds of treason, meaning adultery committed while married to the king.

Catherine Parr. Catherine Parr, or Katherine or Katharine Parre, was the last of the six wives of Henry VIII. She was the Queen of England in the years 1543-1547, and then was known as the Dowager Queen of England. She was the most married English queen, with four previous husbands. Katherine Parr was the eldest child of Sir Thomas Parr, a descendant of King Edward III, and Maud Green, daughter of Sir Thomas Green of Green's Norton, Northamptonshire. She was in the household of Henry VIII and also of Princess Mary, the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, when she caught the eye of the king. She had a relationship with Thomas Seymour, the brother of the late Queen Jane Seymour, but then the king offered marriage to her and she accepted. She was one of the queens that were said to have "lived" King Henry VIII, the other being Anne of Cleves, who lived nine years after the death of Catherin Parr.

Surprisingly, Henry VIII did not have six wives. He only had two.

Henry's fourth marriage to Anne of Cleves was annulled. The marriage never took place.

Why? There were two reasons; Anne and Henry never consummated the marriage which means to have intercourse. Anne was also already betrothed to Francis, Duke of Lorraine when she married Henry. The formal act of betrothal was illegal at the time.

The Pope declared Henry's second marriage to Anne Boleyn illegal, because the King was still married to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

When Henry was the head of the Church of England, he made his first marriage invalid on the legal ground that a man could not sleep with his brother's widow.

Henry annulled his marriage to Anne Boleyn just before he had her executed for adultery. Crazy when you think about it.

He did the same to Catherine Howard, his fifth wife. According to evidence, Catherine was unfaithful to him before and during their marriage. Henry passed an act making it treasonable for a queen to commit adultery. So, the marriage was annulled.

Annulments: Four.

Legal marriages: Two.

Total: Six.

Sources:

The Book of General Ignorance - Book - John Lloyd and John Mitchinson - Faber and Faber - 2006.

Henry VIII had 6 wives in his lifetime. It is said one can use a rhyming verse to best remember he had 6 wives. The verse is "King Henry the Eighth, to six wives he was wedded. One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded." His wives names were Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr. Technically he was only married to two of the 6 because 4 of his marriages were annulled. He was also distantly related to each one of his wives through a common ancestor whom was King Edward I of England.

Community Answer 1

After Henry VIII died, his son, Edward VI ruled until his death 9 years later.

Strangely, Edward changed his will so that his cousin, Jane Grey, would become queen though she was the 4th in line (because if not Mary, a staunch Roman Catholic married to the King of Spain, would succeed and reverse all Henry's breakaway reforms). She ruled for 9 days until Edward's sister, Mary, came and beheaded her for treason.

Mary ruled until her death also (doing exactly what Edward feared and with great bloodshed).

Then Elizabeth I ruled for a rich 45 years. She also beheaded her cousin, but then named the cousin's son her successor. He was James I.

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Community Answer 2

Henry VIII was succeeded by his son Edward who reigned briefly as Edward VI under a regent. A sickly boy who died before his majority, he was nothing like his famous father. Learned and sensitive, he most likely would have ruled effectively during this turbulent period in English history. Devout of faith, an Anglican, Edward was also keen to unite his kingdom and end the bloody "wars of faith" between Catholics and the newly created Church of England. Henry VIII's break from Roman Catholicism. As history would have it, Edward died within a decade of his ascension to be succeeded by his half-sister, the Catholic, Mary Tudor. Further widening the religious factions .

He was the son of Jane Seymour (who died shortly after childbirth). He was 9 years old when he took up the throne.

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Community Answer 3

Edward, Henry's only legitimate son succeeded Henry 8. Edward's mother was Jane Seymour, wife #3

Then:

Mary, Henry's older daughter. Mary's mother was Katherine of Aragon, wife #1

Then:

Elizabeth, Henry's younger daughter. Elizabeth's mother was Anne Boleyn, wife #2

His son Edward, who became Edward VI.

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Community Answer 4

1. His son Edward

2. His daughter Mary

3. his daughter Elizabeth

4. His niece Frances Brandon and her children

His son Edward VI who was only 9 years old. So in reality the country was ruled by a Council of Regents.

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Community Answer 5

His son Edward, whose mother was Henry's 3rd Queen, Jane Seymour

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Community Answer 6

Edward I "Long Shanks" was the successor to the throne after Henry III, reigning from 1272 - 1307.

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Community Answer 7

Henry's only surviving son, Edward, inherited the Crown, becoming Edward VI.

Martin Luther and others split with the Catholic Church over issues of morals and doctrine, when they believed the Church had become irretrievably corrupt and had introduced teachings at variance with the Bible. The split between King Henry VIII and the Catholic Church was fundamentally different.

King Henry VIII was a staunch Catholic and had no criticism of the Catholic Church, either in terms of morals or doctrine. In fact, it was his defence of the Catholic Church against the claims of Martin Luther, that earnt him the papal attribute of 'Defender of the Faith'.

However, Henry believed he needed a son to ensure the succession to the crown, as there was no strong precedent for female successors. He knew that the Church's rules on annulment were somewhat elastic and so petitioned Pope Clement VII for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. His grounds would be that her prior marriage with his brother had been consummated and therefore her marriage with Henry was technically incestuous. Clement desperately wanted to please Henry but vacillated for too long. When Pope Clement had unsuccessfully engaged the armies of Emperor Charles in battle, he was no longer a free agent and realised that as Catherine was the aunt of the emperor he could do no other than to refuse the annulment. Henry, in turn, broke ties with the pope and ordered the English bishops to annul his marriage. His only criticism of the Catholic Church was that papal rulings that had applied to others should have also been available to him.

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The main difference between Henry VIII's split from the Catholic Church and the other protestant heretics on the mainland of Europe was that Henry made himself head of his new Church. He was "fond" of Catholicism and wished to keep the trappings, I would suppose for two main reasons. As long as he was keeping the bishops and priests, the vestments, the "Mass" (howbeit in English and devoid of all its sacrificial aspects) he would not have as many problems with the common man who didn't know what was being said in Latin anyway. The new Church certainly looked the same, and they were called the same things, and they vested similarity. Henry had problems with his new Churchmen that he had installed for the very reason that they were all protestant to the core and did not like the fact that they still had some Catholic "trappings" even if they were totally eviscerated of any meaning that had previously held. Nevertheless many true Catholics who realized that their faith had been removed from them were martyred trying to stay with the faith. You do not hear about as many people killed in Germany, for instance, as Henry and his children murdered to enforce their new religion.

Some of his famous quotes include:

"Off with her head!"

"There is no head however fine that I cannot make fly"

"Mary is the pearl of my world"

"To wish myself in my sweetheart's arms, whose pretty ducks I trust shortly to kiss"

"You have sent me a Flanders mare"

"I like her not!"

"If a man shall take his brother's wife it is an unclean thing... they shall be childless- Leviticus"

Catholic Answer

England became a part of the reformation more through politics than theological debate. King Henry VIII (1509-47) needed an heir to the throne and with his wife was unable to produce one. The Pope would not grant a divorce and so Henry convinced Parliament to declare him head of the Church in England. Henry's daughter, Mary Tudor, was a staunch Catholic and persecuted the Protestants. When Henry's other daughter, Elizabeth, inherited the throne, she tolerated the Protestants just enough so as not to irritate the Pope. When the English fleet defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588, the Anglican Church permanently replaced the Catholic one in England.

(Below is an excerpt from the biography of Henry VIII)

In 1534 Henry VIII was declared head of the English Church. People had to swear an oath that in future they would obey Henry as head of the church. More refused and he was convicted of high treason. Still refusing to recant, he was executed at the Tower of London on 6 July 1535.

The Pope and the Catholic church in Rome were horrified when they heard the news that Henry had destroyed St. Thomas Becket's Shrine. On 17 December 1538, the Pope announced to the Christian world that Henry VIII had been excommunicated from the Catholic church.

The only Church that Henry started and his daughter, Elizabeth codified, would be the Anglican Church. The Methodist, Puritans, Quakers, and others broke away from them. To the best of my knowledge, Henry VIII only started one church - The church of England.

Mary I (DOB 18/2/1516 Mother: Catherine of Aragon marriage was annulled)

Elizabeth I (DOB 7/9/1533 Mother: Anne Boleyn. Later executed for adultery, incest and witchcraft and Elizabeth declared illegitimate)

Edward VI (DOB 12/10/1537 Mother: Jane Symore who died in child birth)

Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Somerset (DOB 15/6/1519 Mother Elizabeth Blount).

It is also suggested that he may have had another son by Mary Boleyn Sir Henry Carey, Baron Hunson however there is no contemporary evidence to support this theory.

Henry VIII had four living children with four different women:

• Henry Fitzroy, a result of an affair with Bessie Blount
• Mary (known during her reign as queen as Bloody Mary), with his first wife, Queen Katherine of Aragon
• Elizabeth (who would later become Queen Elizabeth I and rule England for over forty years), with his second wife, Anne Boleyn
• Edward (who died not long after ascending to the throne as a young boy), with his third wife, Jane Seymour

Mary, ( daughter of Catherine of Aragon, 1st wife of Henry)

Elizabeth ( daughter of Anne Boleyn, Henry's 2nd wife)

Edward Vl (Son of Jane Seymour, Henry's 3rd wife)

Those which survived childhood were Edward VI (1547-53)Mary I (1553-58)and Elizabeth I (1558-1603)He also had a child with a mistress called Henry Fiztroy

Henry VIII had three legitimate children; Mary (later Queen Mary I), Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth I) and Edward (later King Edward VI).

King Henry the VIII had Four childrenMary, who became Queen Mary I. Her mother was Catherine of Aragon.Henry FitzRoy, illigitimate Son of his Mistress "Bessie" Blounce. Henry FitzRoy was made the Duke of Richmond In June 1525 In what was a path to legitimatizing him.Elizabeth, who became Queen Elizabeth I Her mother was Anne Boleyn,Edward, who became King Edward VI. His mother was Jane Seymour.

He had three kids MaryI,(Catherine of Aragon's daughter) ElizabethI, (Anne Boleyn'sdaughter) and EdwardVI (Jane Seymour's son)

Henry also had an acknowledged illegitimate son:

Henry Fitzroy (1519 - 1536) Duke of Richmond (by Henry's mistress Elizabeth Blount)

There may have been other illegitimate children, possibly by Mary Boleyn, (and in particular her son, Henry Carey) another of Henry's mistresses and sister of Anne Boleyn; but they have not been confirmed or acknowledged, probably because of the timing of the relationship between Henry and Mary Boleyn.

The children, and their respective mothers, of Henry VIII (1491 - 1547) are:

Mary I (1516 - 1558) by Catherine of Aragon - first wife (1485 - 1536)

Elizabeth I (1533 - 1603) by Anne Boleyn - second wife (c1501-07 - 1536)

Edward VI (1537 - 1553) by Jane Seymour - third wife (c1504-09 - 1537)

Catherine of Aragon did give birth to six children, but apart from Mary, they were stillborn or died within a few weeks. Anne Boleyn had at least two miscarriages.

Anne of Cleves (1515 - 1557)

Catherine Howard (c1520 - 1542)

Katherine Parr (c1512 - 1548)

did not bear Henry any children.

Henry also had an acknowledged illegitimate son:

Henry Fitzroy (1519 - 1536) Duke of Richmond (by Henry's mistress Elizabeth Blount)

There may have been other illegitimate children, possibly by Mary Boleyn, (and in particular her son, Henry Carey) another of Henry's mistresses and sister of Anne Boleyn; but they have not been confirmed or acknowledged, probably because of the timing of Henry's relationship with Mary Boleyn.
two
King Henry VIII had three children, Mary 1th, Elizabeth 1th and Edward 6th.
Well as most of us know King Henry the 8TH had 3 children Edward who died young,Mary and Elizabeth.

But know we have our doubt about this and we think we know that king Henry infact had a affair with Mary Boleyn and they had 2 children one was a boy and one was a girl.

These were both illegitimate children as there parents werent married.

Mary Boleyn was Anne Boleyn's sister.
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