File 4 - Royal Documents: Henry VIII

Henry VIII was King of England from 1509 until his death in 1547. He was the second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, and grandson of Lady Margaret Beaufort. Born Henry Tudor in June 1491, he was raised with his sisters and received a first-class education under the supervision of his grandmother, who helped to ensure that Henry was tutored by some of the finest scholars of the day. After the death of his older brother, Arthur, in 1502, he became the new heir to the throne and was crowned King of England following the death of his father on 23rd June 1509, shortly before Henry’s eighteenth birthday. By this time, he had married his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, his brother’s widow. The couple had only daughter who survived infancy, Mary, born in 1516.

Henry is often noted for having had six successive wives during the course of his life. His second marriage to Anne Boleyn in 1533 followed the annulment of his marriage to Catherine and, in the face of papal opposition, a break with the Church of Rome that led in turn to the English Reformation and the appointment of Henry as Supreme Head of the Church of England. His marriage to Anne, and subsequent marriages to Jane Seymour (m.1536), Anne of Cleves (m.1540), Catherine Howard (m.1540), and Catherine Parr (m.1543), resulted in two further children: a daughter, Elizabeth, born to Anne Boleyn in 1533, and a son, Edward, born to Jane Seymour in 1537.

Henry’s reign saw important changes not only to the formation of the church, but to the legal union of England and Wales, with the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535 and 1542, and to England’s relationship with Ireland, following the Crown of Ireland Act of 1542. Henry also introduced significant measures to expand and develop the Royal Navy and engaged in an active, albeit expensive and often unsuccessful, foreign policy of wars against King Francis I of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. While as a young man he was highly-respected for his learning, athleticism and handsome appearance, the latter years of Henry’s life were characterised by periods of ill health and increased paranoia. He died in 1547 and was interred in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.