= Henry_VIII

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= Henry_VIII_ =
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Introduction
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Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22
April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry was a dominant and forceful
monarch. He is known for his six marriages and his efforts to have his
first marriage, to Catherine of Aragon, annulled. His disagreement
with Pope Clement VII about such an annulment led Henry to initiate
the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from papal
authority. He appointed himself Supreme Head of the Church of England
and dissolved convents and monasteries, for which he was
excommunicated by the pope.

Born in Greenwich, Henry brought radical changes to the Constitution
of England, expanding royal power and ushering in the theory of the
divine right of kings in opposition to papal supremacy. He frequently
used charges of treason and heresy to quell dissent, and those accused
were often executed without a formal trial using bills of attainder.
He achieved many of his political aims through his chief ministers,
some of whom were banished or executed when they fell out of his
favour. Thomas Wolsey, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, and Thomas
Cranmer all figured prominently in his administration.

Henry was an extravagant spender, using proceeds from the dissolution
of the monasteries and acts of the Reformation Parliament. He
converted money that was formerly paid to Rome into royal revenue.
Despite the money from these sources, he was often on the verge of
financial ruin due to personal extravagance and costly and largely
unproductive wars, particularly with King Francis I of France, Charles
V, Holy Roman Emperor, King James V of Scotland, and the Scottish
regency under the Earl of Arran and Mary of Guise. He founded the
Royal Navy, oversaw the annexation of Wales to England with the Laws
in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542, and was the first English monarch to rule
as King of Ireland following the Crown of Ireland Act 1542.

Henry's contemporaries considered him an attractive, educated, and
accomplished king. He has been described as "one of the most
charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne" and his reign
described as the "most important" in English history. He was an author
and composer. As he aged, he became severely overweight and his health
suffered, and was frequently characterised in his later life as a
lustful, egotistical, paranoid, and tyrannical monarch. His third
marriage to Jane Seymour did finally produce the son and heir he
longed for and he was succeeded by Edward VI. Nonetheless, his
daughters by his first and second wives, Mary, and then Elizabeth,
later acceded to the throne in turn.

Early years
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Henry was born on 28 June 1491 at the Palace of Placentia in
Greenwich, Kent, the third child and second son of King Henry VII and
Elizabeth of York. Of the young Henry's six (or seven) siblings, only
three - his brother Arthur, Prince of Wales, and sisters Margaret and
Mary - survived infancy. He was baptised by Richard Foxe, the Bishop
of Exeter, at a church of the Observant Franciscans close to the
palace.
In 1493, at the age of two, Henry was appointed Constable of Dover
Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. He was subsequently
appointed Earl Marshal of England and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at
age three and was made a Knight of the Bath soon after. The day after
the ceremony, he was created Duke of York and a month or so later made
Warden of the Scottish Marches.
In May 1495, he was appointed to the Order of the Garter. The reason
for giving such appointments to a small child was to enable his father
to retain personal control of lucrative positions and not share them
with established families.

As a child, Henry was placed under care of the "Lady Mistress" or
royal governess Elizabeth, Lady Darcy and her successor Elizabeth
Denton.
Not much is known about Henry's early life - save for his appointments
- because he was not expected to become king, but it is known that he
received a first-rate education from leading tutors. He became fluent
in Latin and French and learned at least some Italian.

In November 1501, Henry played a considerable part in the ceremonies
surrounding his brother Arthur's marriage to Catherine, the youngest
child of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile.
As duke of York, Henry used the arms of his father as king,
differenced by a 'label of three points ermine'. He was further
honoured on 9 February 1506 by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, who
made him a Knight of the Golden Fleece.

In 1502, Arthur died at the age of 15, just 20 weeks after his
marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Arthur's death thrust all his duties
upon his younger brother. The 10-year-old Henry became the new Duke of
Cornwall, and the new Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester in February
1504. Henry VII gave his second son few responsibilities even after
the death of Arthur. Young Henry was strictly supervised and did not
appear in public. As a result, he ascended the throne "untrained in
the exacting art of kingship".

Henry VII renewed his efforts to seal a marital alliance between
England and Spain, by offering his son Henry in marriage to the
widowed Catherine. Henry VII and Queen Isabella were both keen on the
idea, which had arisen very shortly after Arthur's death. On 23 June
1503, a treaty was signed for their marriage, and they were betrothed
two days later. A papal dispensation was only needed for the
"impediment of public honesty" if the marriage had not been
consummated as Catherine and her duenna claimed, but Henry VII and the
Spanish ambassador set out instead to obtain a dispensation for
"affinity", which took account of the possibility of consummation.
Cohabitation was not possible because Henry was too young. Isabella's
death in 1504, and the ensuing problems of succession in Castile,
complicated matters. Ferdinand II preferred Catherine to stay in
England, but Henry VII's relations with Ferdinand had deteriorated.
Catherine was therefore left in limbo for some time, culminating in
Prince Henry's rejection of the marriage as soon he was able, at the
age of 14. Ferdinand's solution was to make his daughter ambassador,
allowing her to stay in England indefinitely. Devout, she began to
believe that it was God's will that she marry the Prince despite his
opposition.

Early reign
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Henry VII died in April 1509, and the 17-year-old Henry succeeded him
as king. Soon after his father's burial on 10 May, Henry suddenly
declared that he would indeed marry Catherine, leaving unresolved
several issues concerning the papal dispensation and a missing part of
the marriage portion. The new king maintained that it had been his
father's dying wish that he marry Catherine. Whether or not this was
true, it was convenient. Emperor Maximilian I had been attempting to
marry his granddaughter Eleanor, Catherine's niece, to Henry; she had
now been jilted. Henry's wedding to Catherine was modest and was held
at the friars' church in Greenwich on 11 June 1509. Henry claimed
descent from Constantine the Great and King Arthur and saw himself as
their successor.

On 23 June 1509, Henry led the now 23-year-old Catherine from the
Tower of London to Westminster Abbey for their coronation, which took
place the following day. It was a grand affair: the King's passage was
lined with tapestries and laid with fine cloth. Following the
ceremony, there was a grand banquet in Westminster Hall. As Catherine
wrote to her father, "our time is spent in continuous festival".

Two days after his coronation, Henry arrested his father's two most
unpopular ministers, Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley. They were
charged with high treason and were executed in 1510. Politically
motivated executions would remain one of Henry's primary tactics for
dealing with those who stood in his way. Henry returned some of the
money supposedly extorted by the two ministers. By contrast, Henry's
view of the House of York - potential rival claimants for the throne -
was more moderate than his father's had been. Several who had been
imprisoned by his father, including Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of
Dorset, were pardoned. Others went unreconciled; Edmund de la Pole,
3rd Duke of Suffolk, was eventually beheaded in 1513, an execution
prompted by his brother Richard siding against the King.

Soon after marrying Henry, Catherine conceived. She gave birth to a
stillborn girl on 31 January 1510. About four months later, Catherine
again became pregnant. On 1 January 1511, New Year's Day, a son Henry
was born. After the grief of losing their first child, the couple were
pleased to have a boy and festivities were held, including a two-day
joust known as the Westminster Tournament. However, the child died
seven weeks later. Catherine had two stillborn sons in 1513 and 1515,
but gave birth in February 1516 to a girl, Mary. Relations between
Henry and Catherine had been strained, but they eased slightly after
Mary's birth.

Although Henry's marriage to Catherine has since been described as
"unusually good", it is known that Henry took mistresses. It was
revealed in 1510 that Henry had been conducting an affair with one of
the sisters of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, either
Elizabeth or Anne Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon. The most
significant mistress for about three years, starting in 1516, was
Elizabeth Blount. Blount is one of only two completely undisputed
mistresses, considered by some to be few for a virile young king.
Exactly how many Henry had is disputed: David Loades believes Henry
had mistresses "only to a very limited extent", whilst Alison Weir
believes there were numerous other affairs. Catherine is not known to
have protested. In 1518, she fell pregnant again with another girl,
who was also stillborn.

Blount gave birth in June 1519 to Henry's illegitimate son, Henry
FitzRoy. The young boy was made Duke of Richmond in June 1525 in what
some thought was one step on the path to his eventual legitimisation.
FitzRoy married Mary Howard in 1533, but died childless three years
later. At the time of his death in July 1536, Parliament was
considering the Second Succession Act, which could have allowed him to
become king.

France and the Habsburgs
======================================================================
In 1510, France, with a fragile alliance with the Holy Roman Empire in
the League of Cambrai, was winning a war against Venice. Henry renewed
his father's friendship with Louis XII of France, an issue that
divided his council. Certainly, war with the combined might of the two
powers would have been exceedingly difficult. Shortly thereafter,
however, Henry also signed a pact with Ferdinand II of Aragon. After
Pope Julius II created the anti-French Holy League in October 1511,
Henry followed Ferdinand's lead and brought England into the new
League. An initial joint Anglo-Spanish attack was planned for the
spring to recover Aquitaine for England, the start of making Henry's
dreams of ruling France a reality. The attack, however, following a
formal declaration of war in April 1512, was not led by Henry
personally and was a considerable failure; Ferdinand used it simply to
further his own ends, and it strained the Anglo-Spanish alliance.
Nevertheless, the French were pushed out of Italy soon after, and the
alliance survived, with both parties keen to win further victories
over the French. Henry then pulled off a diplomatic coup by convincing
Emperor Maximilian to join the Holy League. Remarkably, Henry had
secured the promised title of "Most Christian King of France" from
Julius and possibly coronation by the Pope himself in Paris, if only
Louis could be defeated.

On 30 June 1513, Henry invaded France, and his troops defeated a
French army at the Battle of the Spurs - a relatively minor result,
but one which was seized on by the English for propaganda purposes.
Soon after, the English took Thérouanne (handing it over to
Maximilian) and Tournai, a more significant settlement, which it kept
for five years before handing it back to the French. Henry had led the
army personally, complete with a large entourage. His absence from the
country, however, had prompted his brother-in-law James IV of Scotland
to invade England at the behest of Louis. Nevertheless, the English
army, overseen by Queen Catherine, decisively defeated the Scots at
the Battle of Flodden on 9 September 1513. Among the dead was the
Scottish king, thus ending Scotland's brief involvement in the war.
These campaigns had given Henry a taste of the military success he so
desired. However, despite initial indications, he decided not to
pursue a 1514 campaign. He had been supporting Ferdinand and
Maximilian financially during the campaign but had received little in
return; England's coffers were now empty. With the replacement of
Julius by Pope Leo X, who was inclined to negotiate for peace with
France, Henry signed his own treaty with Louis: his sister Mary would
become Louis's wife, having previously been pledged to the younger
Charles, and peace was secured for eight years, a remarkably long
time.

Charles V, the nephew of Henry's wife Catherine, inherited a large
empire in Europe, becoming king of Spain in 1516 and Holy Roman
Emperor in 1519. When Louis XII of France died in 1515, he was
succeeded by his cousin Francis I. These accessions left three
relatively young rulers and an opportunity for a clean slate. The
careful diplomacy of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey had resulted in the Treaty
of London (1518), aimed at uniting the kingdoms of western Europe in
the wake of a new Ottoman threat, and it seemed that peace might be
secured. Henry met King Francis on 7 June 1520 at the Field of the
Cloth of Gold near Calais for a fortnight of lavish entertainment.
Both hoped for friendly relations in place of the wars of the previous
decade. The strong air of competition laid to rest any hopes of a
renewal of the Treaty of London, however, and conflict was inevitable.
Henry had more in common with Charles, whom he met once before and
once after Francis. Charles brought his realms into war with France in
1521; Henry offered to mediate, but little was achieved and by the end
of the year Henry had aligned England with Charles. He still clung to
his previous aim of restoring English lands in France but sought to
secure an alliance with the Netherlands, then a territorial possession
of Charles, and the continued support of the Emperor. A small English
attack in the north of France made up little ground. Charles defeated
and captured Francis at Pavia and could dictate peace, but he believed
he owed Henry nothing. Sensing this, Henry decided to take England out
of the war before his ally, signing the Treaty of the More on 30
August 1525.

Annulment from Catherine
==========================
During his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry conducted an affair
with Mary Boleyn, Catherine's lady-in-waiting. There has been
speculation that Mary's two children, Henry Carey and Catherine Carey,
were fathered by Henry but this has never been proven. King Henry
never acknowledged them as he did in the case of Henry FitzRoy. In
1525, as Henry grew more impatient with Catherine's inability to
produce the male heir he desired, he became enamoured with Mary
Boleyn's sister, Anne Boleyn, then a charismatic young woman of 25 in
the Queen's entourage. Anne, however, resisted his attempts to seduce
her, and refused to become his mistress as her sister had. It was in
this context that Henry considered his three options for finding a
dynastic successor and hence resolving what came to be described at
court as the King's "great matter". These options were legitimising
Henry FitzRoy, which would need the involvement of the Pope and would
be open to challenge; marrying off Mary, his daughter with Catherine,
as soon as possible and hoping for a grandson to inherit directly, but
Mary was considered unlikely to conceive before Henry's death, or
somehow rejecting Catherine and marrying someone else of child-bearing
age. Probably seeing the possibility of marrying Anne, the third was
ultimately the most attractive possibility to the 34-year-old Henry,
and it soon became the King's absorbing desire to annul his marriage
to the now 40-year-old Catherine.

Other missions concentrated on arranging an ecclesiastical court to
meet in England, with a representative from Clement VII. Although
Clement agreed to the creation of such a court, he never had any
intention of empowering his legate, Lorenzo Campeggio, to decide in
Henry's favour. This bias was perhaps the result of pressure from
Emperor Charles V, but it is not clear how far this influenced either
Campeggio or the Pope. After less than two months of hearing evidence,
Clement called the case back to Rome in July 1529, from which it was
clear that it would never re-emerge. With the chance for an annulment
lost, Cardinal Wolsey bore the blame. He was charged with 'praemunire'
in October 1529, and his fall from grace was "sudden and total".
Briefly reconciled with Henry (and officially pardoned) in the first
half of 1530, he was charged once more in November 1530, this time for
treason, but died while awaiting trial. After a short period in which
Henry took government upon his own shoulders, Thomas More took on the
role of Lord Chancellor and chief minister. Intelligent and able, but
a devout Catholic and opponent of the annulment, More initially
cooperated with the King's new policy, denouncing Wolsey in
Parliament.

A year later, Catherine was banished from court, and her rooms were
given to Anne Boleyn. Anne was an unusually educated and intellectual
woman for her time and was keenly absorbed and engaged with the ideas
of the Protestant Reformers, but the extent to which she herself was a
committed Protestant is much debated. When Archbishop of Canterbury
William Warham died, Anne's influence and the need to find a
trustworthy supporter of the annulment had Thomas Cranmer appointed to
the vacant position. This was approved by the Pope, unaware of the
King's nascent plans for the Church.

Marriage to Anne Boleyn
=========================
In the winter of 1532, Henry met with Francis I at Calais and enlisted
Francis's support for his new marriage. Immediately upon returning to
Dover in England, Henry, now 41, and Anne went through a secret
wedding service. She soon became pregnant, and there was a second
wedding service in London on 25 January 1533. On 23 May 1533, Cranmer,
sitting in judgment at a special court convened at Dunstable Priory to
rule on the validity of the King's marriage to Catherine of Aragon,
declared the marriage of Henry and Catherine null and void. Five days
later, on 28 May 1533, Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Anne
to be valid. Catherine was formally stripped of her title as queen,
becoming instead "princess dowager" as the widow of Arthur. In her
place, Anne was crowned queen on 1 June 1533. The Queen gave birth to
a daughter slightly prematurely on 7 September 1533. The child was
christened Elizabeth, in honour of Henry's mother, Elizabeth of York.

Following the marriage, there was a period of consolidation, taking
the form of a series of statutes of the Reformation Parliament aimed
at finding solutions to any remaining issues, whilst protecting the
new reforms from challenge, convincing the public of their legitimacy,
and exposing and dealing with opponents. Although the canon law was
dealt with at length by Cranmer and others, these acts were advanced
by Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Audley and Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of
Norfolk and indeed by Henry himself. With this process complete, in
May 1532 More resigned as Lord Chancellor, leaving Cromwell as Henry's
chief minister. With the Act of Succession 1533, Catherine's daughter,
Mary, was declared illegitimate; Henry's marriage to Anne was declared
legitimate; and Anne's issue declared to be next in the line of
succession. With the Acts of Supremacy in 1534, Parliament recognised
the King's status as head of the church in England and, together with
the Act in Restraint of Appeals in 1532, abolished the right of appeal
to Rome. It was only then that Pope Clement VII took the step of
excommunicating the King and Cranmer, although the excommunication was
not made official until some time later.

The King and Queen were not pleased with married life. They enjoyed
periods of calm and affection, but Anne refused to play the submissive
role expected of her. The vivacity and opinionated intellect that had
made her so attractive as an illicit lover made her too independent
for the largely ceremonial role of a royal wife and it made her many
enemies. For his part, Henry disliked Anne's constant irritability and
violent temper. After a false pregnancy or miscarriage in 1534, he saw
her failure to give him a son as a betrayal. As early as Christmas
1534, Henry was discussing with Cranmer and Cromwell the chances of
leaving Anne without having to return to Catherine. Henry is
traditionally believed to have had an affair with Madge Shelton in
1535, although historian Antonia Fraser argues that Henry in fact had
an affair with her sister Mary Shelton.

Opposition to Henry's religious policies was at first quickly
suppressed in England. Some dissenting monks, including the first
Carthusian Martyrs, were executed and many more pilloried. The most
prominent resisters included John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and
Thomas More, both of whom refused to take the Oath of Supremacy to the
King. Neither Henry nor Cromwell sought at that stage to have the men
executed; rather, they hoped that the two might change their minds and
save themselves. Fisher openly rejected Henry as the Supreme Head of
the Church, but More was careful to avoid openly breaking the Treasons
Act 1534, which (unlike later acts) did not forbid mere silence. Both
men were subsequently convicted of high treason, however - More on the
evidence of a single conversation with Richard Rich, the Solicitor
General - and both were executed in the summer of 1535.

These suppressions, as well as the Suppression of Religious Houses Act
1535, in turn, contributed to a more general resistance to Henry's
reforms, most notably in the Pilgrimage of Grace, a large uprising in
northern England in October 1536. Some 20,000 to 40,000 rebels were
led by Robert Aske, together with parts of the northern nobility.
Henry VIII promised the rebels he would pardon them and thanked them
for raising the issues. Aske told the rebels they had been successful
and they could disperse and go home. Henry saw the rebels as traitors
and did not feel obliged to keep his promises to them, so when further
violence occurred after Henry's offer of a pardon he was quick to
break his promise of clemency. The leaders, including Aske, were
arrested and executed for treason. In total, about 200 rebels were
executed, and the disturbances ended.

Execution of Anne Boleyn
==========================
On 8 January 1536, news reached the King and Queen that Catherine of
Aragon had died. The following day, Henry dressed all in yellow, with
a white feather in his bonnet. Queen Anne was pregnant again, and she
was aware that there might be consequences if she failed to give birth
to a son. Later that month, the King was thrown from his horse in a
tournament and was badly injured; it seemed for a time that his life
was in danger. When news of this accident reached the Queen, she was
sent into shock and miscarried a male child at about 15 weeks'
gestation, on the day of Catherine's funeral, 29 January 1536. For
most observers, this personal loss was the beginning of the end of
this royal marriage.

Although the Boleyn family still held important positions on the Privy
Council, Anne had many enemies, including Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of
Suffolk. Even her own uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, had come to resent
her attitude to her power. The Boleyns preferred France over the
Emperor as a potential ally, but the King's favour had swung towards
the latter (partly because of Cromwell), damaging the family's
influence. Also opposed to Anne were supporters of reconciliation with
Princess Mary (among them the former supporters of Catherine), who had
reached maturity. A second annulment was now a real possibility,
although it is commonly believed that it was Cromwell's anti-Boleyn
influence that led opponents to look for a way of having her executed.

Anne's downfall came shortly after she had recovered from her final
miscarriage. Whether it was primarily the result of allegations of
conspiracy, adultery, or witchcraft remains a matter of debate among
historians. Early signs of a fall from grace included the King's new
mistress, the 28-year-old Jane Seymour, being moved into new quarters,
and Anne's brother, George Boleyn, being refused the Order of the
Garter, which was instead given to Nicholas Carew. Between 30 April
and 2 May, five men, including George Boleyn, were arrested on charges
of treasonable adultery and accused of having sexual relationships
with the Queen. Anne was arrested, accused of treasonous adultery and
incest. Although the evidence against them was unconvincing, the
accused were found guilty and condemned to death. On 17 May 1536,
Henry and Anne's marriage was annulled by Archbishop Cranmer at
Lambeth Palace and the accused men were executed. Cranmer appears to
have had difficulty finding grounds for an annulment and probably
based it on the prior liaison between Henry and Anne's sister Mary,
which in canon law meant that Henry's marriage to Anne was, like his
first marriage, within a forbidden degree of affinity and therefore
void. At 8 am on 19 May 1536, Anne was executed on Tower Green.

Marriage to Jane Seymour; domestic and foreign affairs
========================================================
The day after Anne's execution, the 45-year-old Henry became engaged
to Seymour, who had been one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting. They
were married ten days later at the Palace of Whitehall, Whitehall,
London, in Anne's closet, by Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester.

With Charles V distracted by the internal politics of his many
kingdoms and external threats, and Henry and Francis on relatively
good terms, domestic and not foreign policy issues had been Henry's
priority in the first half of the 1530s. In 1536, for example, Henry
granted his assent to the Laws in Wales Act 1535, which legally
annexed Wales, uniting England and Wales into a single nation. This
was followed by the Second Succession Act (the Succession to the Crown
Act 1536), which declared Henry's children by Jane to be next in the
line of succession and declared both Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate,
thus excluding them from the throne. The King was granted the power to
further determine the line of succession in his will, should he have
no further issue.

On 12 October 1537, Jane gave birth to a son, Prince Edward, the
future Edward VI. The birth was difficult, and Queen Jane died on 24
October 1537 from an infection and was buried in Windsor. The euphoria
that had accompanied Edward's birth became sorrow, but it was only
over time that Henry came to long for his wife. At the time, Henry
recovered quickly from the shock. Measures were immediately put in
place to find another wife for Henry, which, at the insistence of
Cromwell and the Privy Council, were focused on the European
continent.

In 1538, as part of the negotiation of a secret treaty by Cromwell
with Charles V, a series of dynastic marriages were proposed: Mary
would marry a son of King John III of Portugal, Elizabeth would marry
one of the sons of King Ferdinand I of Hungary and the infant Edward
would marry one of Charles's daughters. It was suggested the widowed
Henry might marry Christina, Dowager Duchess of Milan. However, when
Charles and Francis made peace in January 1539, Henry became
increasingly paranoid, perhaps as a result of receiving a constant
list of threats to the kingdom (real or imaginary, minor or serious)
supplied by Cromwell in his role as spymaster. Enriched by the
dissolution of the monasteries, Henry used some of his financial
reserves to build a series of coastal defences and set some aside for
use in the event of a Franco-German invasion.

Marriage to Anne of Cleves
============================
Having considered the matter, Cromwell suggested Anne, the 25-year-old
sister of William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, who was seen as an
important ally in case of a Roman Catholic attack on England, for the
Duke fell between Lutheranism and Catholicism. Other potential brides
included Christina of Denmark, Anna of Lorraine, Louise of Guise and
Amalia of Cleves. Hans Holbein the Younger was dispatched to Cleves to
paint a portrait of Anne for the King. Despite speculation that
Holbein painted her in an overly flattering light, it is more likely
that the portrait was accurate; Holbein remained in favour at court.
After seeing Holbein's portrait, and urged on by the complimentary
description of Anne given by his courtiers, the 49-year-old King
agreed to wed Anne.

When Henry met Anne, however, he was much displeased with her
appearance. The King was reportedly taken aback and told his courtiers
"I promise you, I see no such thing as hath been shown me of her, by
pictures and report. I am ashamed that men have praised her as they
have done, and I love her not!" Despite his protests, Henry knew that
the situation was too far gone and he would have to wed his bride.

The marriage took place in January 1540, but it was never consummated.
The morning after their wedding night, Henry complained about his new
wife to Cromwell, stating:

Henry wished to annul the marriage as soon as possible so he could
marry another. Anne did not argue, and confirmed that the marriage had
never been consummated. Anne's previous betrothal to Francis of
Lorraine provided further grounds for the annulment. The marriage was
subsequently dissolved in July 1540, and Anne received the title of
"The King's Sister", two houses, and a generous allowance.

Marriage to Catherine Howard (and fall of Thomas Cromwell)
============================================================
It was soon clear that Henry had fallen for the 17-year-old Catherine
Howard, the Duke of Norfolk's niece. This worried Cromwell, for
Norfolk was his political opponent.

Shortly after, the religious reformers (and protégés of Cromwell)
Robert Barnes, William Jerome and Thomas Garret were burned as
heretics. Cromwell, meanwhile, fell out of favour although it is
unclear exactly why, for there is little evidence of differences in
domestic or foreign policy. Despite his role, he was never formally
accused of being responsible for Henry's failed marriage. Cromwell was
now surrounded by enemies at court, with Norfolk also able to draw on
his niece Catherine's position. Cromwell was charged with treason,
selling export licences, granting passports, and drawing up
commissions without permission, and may also have been blamed for the
failure of the foreign policy that accompanied the attempted marriage
to Anne. He was subsequently attainted and beheaded.

On 28 July 1540 (the same day Cromwell was executed), Henry married
the young Catherine Howard, a first cousin and lady-in-waiting of Anne
Boleyn. He was delighted with his new queen and awarded her the lands
of Cromwell and a vast array of jewellery. Soon after the marriage,
however, Queen Catherine had an affair with the courtier Thomas
Culpeper. She also employed Francis Dereham, who had previously been
informally engaged to her and had an affair with her prior to her
marriage, as her secretary. The Privy Council was informed of her
affair with Dereham whilst Henry was away; Thomas Cranmer was
dispatched to investigate, and he brought evidence of Queen
Catherine's previous affair with Dereham to the King's notice. Though
Henry originally refused to believe the allegations, Dereham
confessed. It took another meeting of the council, however, before
Henry believed the accusations against Dereham and went into a rage,
blaming the council before consoling himself in hunting. When
questioned, the Queen could have admitted a prior contract to marry
Dereham, which would have made her subsequent marriage to Henry
invalid, but she instead claimed that Dereham had forced her to enter
into an adulterous relationship. Dereham, meanwhile, exposed
Catherine's relationship with Culpeper. Culpeper and Dereham were both
executed, and Catherine too was beheaded on 13 February 1542.

Marriage to Catherine Parr
============================
Henry married his last wife, the wealthy widow Catherine Parr, in July
1543. A reformer at heart, she argued with Henry over religion. Henry
remained committed to an idiosyncratic mixture of Catholicism and
Protestantism; the reactionary mood that had gained ground after
Cromwell's fall had neither eliminated his Protestant streak nor been
overcome by it. Parr helped reconcile Henry with his daughters, Mary
and Elizabeth. In 1543, the Third Succession Act put them back in the
line of succession after Edward. The same act allowed Henry to
determine further succession to the throne in his will.

Shrines destroyed and monasteries dissolved
======================================================================
In 1538, the chief minister Thomas Cromwell pursued an extensive
campaign against what the government termed "idolatry" practised under
the old religion, culminating in September with the dismantling of the
shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. As a consequence,
the King was excommunicated by Pope Paul III on 17 December of the
same year. In 1540, Henry sanctioned the complete destruction of
shrines to saints. In 1542, England's remaining monasteries were all
dissolved, and their property transferred to the Crown. Abbots and
priors lost their seats in the House of Lords. Consequently, the Lords
Spiritualas members of the clergy with seats in the House of Lords
were knownwere for the first time outnumbered by the Lords Temporal.

Second invasion of France and the "Rough Wooing" of Scotland
======================================================================
The 1539 alliance between Francis and Charles had soured, eventually
degenerating into renewed war. With Catherine of Aragon and Anne
Boleyn dead, relations between Charles and Henry improved
considerably, and Henry concluded a secret alliance with the Emperor
and decided to enter the Italian War in favour of his new ally. An
invasion of France was planned for 1543. In preparation for it, Henry
moved to eliminate the potential threat of Scotland under his young
nephew, James V. The Scots were defeated at the Battle of Solway Moss
on 24 November 1542, and James died on 15 December. Henry now hoped to
unite the crowns of England and Scotland by marrying his son Edward to
James's successor, Mary. The Scottish regent Lord Arran agreed to the
marriage in the Treaty of Greenwich on 1 July 1543, but it was
rejected by the Parliament of Scotland on 11 December. The result was
eight years of war between England and Scotland, a campaign later
dubbed "the Rough Wooing". Despite several peace treaties, unrest
continued in Scotland until Henry's death.

Despite the early success with Scotland, Henry hesitated to invade
France, annoying Charles. Henry finally went to France in June 1544
with a two-pronged attack. One force under Norfolk ineffectively
besieged Montreuil. The other, under Suffolk, laid siege to Boulogne.
Henry later took personal command, and Boulogne fell on 18 September
1544. However, Henry had refused Charles's request to march against
Paris. Charles's own campaign fizzled, and he made peace with France
that same day. Henry was left alone against France, unable to make
peace. Francis attempted to invade England in the summer of 1545 but
his forces reached only the Isle of Wight before being repulsed in the
Battle of the Solent. Financially exhausted, France and England signed
the Treaty of Camp on 7 June 1546. Henry secured Boulogne for eight
years. The city was then to be returned to France for 2 million crowns
(£750,000). Henry needed the money; the 1544 campaign had cost
£650,000, and England was once again facing bankruptcy.

Physical decline and death
======================================================================
Late in life, Henry became obese, with a waist measurement of , and
had to be moved about with the help of mechanical devices. He was
covered with painful, pus-filled boils and possibly had gout. His
obesity and other medical problems can be traced to the jousting
accident on 24 January 1536 in which he suffered a leg wound. The
accident reopened and aggravated an injury he had sustained years
earlier, to the extent that his doctors found it difficult to treat.
The chronic wound festered for the remainder of his life and became
ulcerated, preventing him from maintaining the level of physical
activity he had previously enjoyed. The jousting accident is also
believed to have caused Henry's mood swings, which may have had a
dramatic effect on his personality and temperament.
The theory that Henry had syphilis has been dismissed by most
historians. Historian Susan Maclean Kybett ascribes his death to
scurvy, which is caused by insufficient vitamin C most often due to a
lack of fresh fruit and vegetables in one's diet.

A 2010 study suggests Henry may have been of Kell-positive blood type
to explain both his physical and mental deterioration, being
consistent with some symptoms of the McLeod syndrome, and the high
mortality in the pregnancies attributed to him.

Henry's obesity hastened his death at the age of 55, on 28 January
1547 at the Palace of Whitehall, on what would have been his father's
90th birthday. The tomb he had planned (with components taken from the
tomb intended for Cardinal Wolsey) was only partly constructed and was
never completed (the sarcophagus and its base were later removed and
used for Lord Nelson's tomb in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral).
Henry was interred in a vault at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle,
next to Jane Seymour. Over 100 years later, King Charles I (ruled
1625-1649) was buried in the same vault.

Wives, mistresses, and children
======================================================================
Known children of Henry VIII of England
Name Birth Death Notes
! colspan=4 | **'By Catherine of Aragon**' (married Palace of
Placentia 11 June 1509; annulled 23 May 1533)
Unnamed daughter 31 January 1510 stillborn
Henry, Duke of Cornwall 1 January 1511 22 February 1511 died aged
almost two months
Unnamed son 17 September 1513 died shortly after birth
Unnamed son November 1514 died shortly after birth
Queen Mary I 18 February 1516 17 November 1558 married Philip II of
Spain in 1554; no issue
Unnamed daughter 10 November 1518 stillborn in the 8th month of
pregnancy or lived at least one week
! colspan=4 | **'By Elizabeth Blount**' (mistress; bore the only
illegitimate child Henry VIII acknowledged as his)
Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset 15 June 1519 23 July
1536 illegitimate; acknowledged by Henry VIII in 1525; no issue
! colspan=4 | **'By Anne Boleyn**' (married Dover 14 November 1532,
and then again Westminster Abbey 25 January 1533; annulled 17 May
1536) beheaded 19 May 1536
Queen Elizabeth I 7 September 1533 24 March 1603 never married; no
issue
Unnamed child Summer 1534 miscarriage or false pregnancy
Unnamed child 1535 Possible miscarriage
Unnamed son 29 January 1536 miscarriage of a child, believed male, in
the fourth month of pregnancy
! colspan=4 | **'By Jane Seymour**' (married Palace of Whitehall 30
May 1536) died 24 October 1537
King Edward VI 12 October 1537 6 July 1553 died unmarried, age 15; no
issue
! colspan=4 | **'By Anne of Cleves**' (married Palace of Placentia 6
January 1540) annulled 9 July 1540
no issue
! colspan=4 | **'By Catherine Howard**' (married Oatlands Palace 28
July 1540; annulled 23 November 1541) beheaded 13 February 1542
no issue
! colspan=4 | **'By Catherine Parr**' (married Hampton Court Palace
12 July 1543) Henry VIII died 28 January 1547
no issue

Succession
======================================================================
Upon Henry's death, he was succeeded by his only surviving son, Edward
VI. Since Edward was then only nine years old, he could not rule
directly. Instead, Henry's will designated 16 executors to serve on a
regency council until Edward reached 18. The executors chose Edward
Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, elder brother to Jane Seymour (Edward's
mother), to be Lord Protector of the Realm. Under provisions of the
will, if Edward died childless, the throne was to pass to Mary, Henry
VIII's daughter by Catherine of Aragon, and her heirs.

If Mary's issue failed, the crown was to go to Elizabeth, Henry's
daughter by Anne Boleyn, and her heirs. Finally, if Elizabeth's line
became extinct, the crown was to be inherited by the descendants of
Henry VIII's deceased younger sister, Mary, the Greys.

The descendants of Henry's sister Margaret Tudorthe Stuarts, rulers of
Scotlandwere thereby excluded from the succession. This provision
ultimately failed when James VI of Scotland, Margaret's
great-grandson, became king of England and Ireland in 1603.

Edward VI himself would disregard the will and name Jane Grey his
successor.

Public image
======================================================================
Henry cultivated the image of a Renaissance man, and his court was a
centre of scholarly and artistic innovation and glamorous excess,
epitomised by the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He scouted the country
for choirboys, taking some directly from Wolsey's choir, and
introduced Renaissance music into court. Musicians included Benedict
de Opitiis, Richard Sampson, Ambrose Lupo, and Venetian organist
Dionisio Memo, and Henry himself played and kept a considerable
collection of flute instruments including recorders. He was skilled on
the lute and played the organ, and was a talented player of the
virginals. He could also sightread music and sing well. He was an
accomplished musician, author, and poet; his best-known work is
"Pastime with Good Company" ("The Kynges Ballade"). It is also
frequently said that Henry wrote the sixteenth-century English folk
song "Greensleeves". However, it is certain he did not, as
"Greensleeves" is based on an Italian style of composition that did
not reach England until after Henry's death.

Henry was an avid gambler and dice player, and excelled at sports,
especially jousting, hunting and real tennis. He was also known for
his strong defence of conventional Christian piety. He was involved in
the construction and improvement of several significant buildings,
including Nonsuch Palace, King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and
Westminster Abbey in London. Many of the existing buildings which he
improved were properties confiscated from Wolsey, such as Christ
Church, Oxford, Hampton Court Palace, the Palace of Whitehall and
Trinity College, Cambridge.

Henry was an intellectual, the first English king with a modern
humanist education. He read and wrote English, French and Latin, and
owned a large library. He annotated many books and published one of
his own, and he had numerous pamphlets and lectures prepared to
support the reformation of the church. Richard Sampson's 'Oratio'
(1534), for example, was an argument for absolute obedience to the
monarchy and claimed that the English church had always been
independent of Rome. At the popular level, theatre and minstrel
troupes funded by the crown travelled around the land to promote the
new religious practices; the Pope and Catholic priests and monks were
mocked as foreign devils, while Henry was hailed as the glorious king
of England and as a brave and heroic defender of the true faith. Henry
worked hard to present an image of unchallengeable authority and
irresistible power.
Henry was a large, well-built athlete, over tall, strong, and broad
in proportion. His athletic activities were more than pastimes; they
were political devices that served multiple goals, enhancing his
image, impressing foreign emissaries and rulers, and conveying his
ability to suppress any rebellion. He arranged a jousting tournament
at Greenwich in 1517 where he wore gilded armour and gilded horse
trappings, and outfits of velvet, satin, and cloth of gold with pearls
and jewels. It suitably impressed foreign ambassadors, one of whom
wrote home that "the wealth and civilisation of the world are here,
and those who call the English barbarians appear to me to render
themselves such". Henry finally retired from jousting in 1536 after a
heavy fall from his horse left him unconscious for two hours, but he
continued to sponsor two lavish tournaments a year. He then started
gaining weight and lost the trim, athletic figure that had made him so
handsome, and his courtiers began dressing in heavily padded clothes
to emulate and flatter him. His health declined rapidly near the end
of his reign.

Government
======================================================================
The power of Tudor monarchs, including Henry, was 'whole' and
'entire', ruling, as they claimed, by the grace of God alone. The
Crown could also rely on the exclusive use of those functions that
constituted the royal prerogative. These included acts of diplomacy
(including royal marriages), declarations of war, management of the
coinage, the issue of royal pardons and the power to summon and
dissolve Parliament as and when required. Nevertheless, as evident
during Henry's break with Rome, the monarch stayed within established
limits, whether legal or financial, that forced him to work closely
with both the nobility and Parliament (representing the gentry).

In practice, Tudor monarchs used patronage to maintain a royal court
that included formal institutions such as the Privy Council as well as
more informal advisers and confidants. Both the rise and fall of court
nobles could be swift: Henry did undoubtedly execute at will, burning
or beheading two of his wives, 20 peers, four leading public servants,
six close attendants and friends, one cardinal (John Fisher) and
numerous abbots. Among those who were in favour at any given point in
Henry's reign, one could usually be identified as a chief minister,
though one of the enduring debates in the historiography of the period
has been the extent to which those chief ministers controlled Henry
rather than vice versa. In particular, historian G. R. Elton has
argued that one such minister, Thomas Cromwell, led a "Tudor
revolution in government" independently of the King, whom Elton
presented as an opportunistic, essentially lazy participant in the
nitty-gritty of politics. Where Henry did intervene personally in the
running of the country, Elton argued, he mostly did so to its
detriment. The prominence and influence of faction in Henry's court is
similarly discussed in the context of at least five episodes of
Henry's reign, including the downfall of Anne Boleyn.

From 1514 to 1529, Thomas Wolsey, a cardinal of the established
Church, oversaw domestic and foreign policy for the King from his
position as Lord Chancellor. Wolsey centralised the national
government and extended the jurisdiction of the conciliar courts,
particularly the Star Chamber. The Star Chamber's overall structure
remained unchanged, but Wolsey used it to provide much-needed reform
of the criminal law. The power of the court itself did not outlive
Wolsey, however, since no serious administrative reform was undertaken
and its role eventually devolved to the localities. Wolsey helped fill
the gap left by Henry's declining participation in government
(particularly in comparison to his father) but did so mostly by
imposing himself in the King's place. His use of these courts to
pursue personal grievances, and particularly to treat delinquents as
mere examples of a whole class worthy of punishment, angered the rich,
who were annoyed as well by his enormous wealth and ostentatious
living. Following Wolsey's downfall, Henry took full control of his
government, although at court numerous complex factions continued to
try to ruin and destroy each other.

Thomas Cromwell also came to define Henry's government. Returning to
England from the continent in 1514 or 1515, Cromwell soon entered
Wolsey's service. He turned to law, also picking up a good knowledge
of the Bible, and was admitted to Gray's Inn in 1524. He became
Wolsey's "man of all work". Driven in part by his religious beliefs,
Cromwell attempted to reform the body politic of the English
government through discussion and consent, and through the vehicle of
continuity, not outward change. Many saw him as the man they wanted to
bring about their shared aims, including Thomas Audley. By 1531,
Cromwell and his associates were already responsible for the drafting
of much legislation. Cromwell's first office was that of the master of
the King's jewels in 1532, from which he began to invigorate the
government finances. By that point, Cromwell's power as an efficient
administrator, in a Council full of politicians, exceeded what Wolsey
had achieved.

Cromwell did much work through his many offices to remove the tasks of
government from the Royal Household (and ideologically from the
personal body of the King) and into a public state. But he did so in a
haphazard fashion that left several remnants, not least because he
needed to retain Henry's support, his own power, and the possibility
of actually achieving the plan he set out. Cromwell made the various
income streams Henry VII put in place more formal and assigned largely
autonomous bodies for their administration. The role of the King's
Council was transferred to a reformed Privy Council, much smaller and
more efficient than its predecessor. A difference emerged between the
King's financial health and the country's, although Cromwell's fall
undermined much of his bureaucracy, which required him to keep order
among the many new bodies and prevent profligate spending that
strained relations as well as finances. Cromwell's reforms ground to a
halt in 1539, the initiative lost, and he failed to secure the passage
of an enabling act, the Proclamation by the Crown Act 1539. He was
executed on 28 July 1540.

Finances
==========
Henry inherited a vast fortune and a prosperous economy from his
father, who had been frugal. This fortune is estimated at £1,250,000
(the equivalent of £375 million today). By comparison, Henry VIII's
reign was a near disaster financially. He augmented the royal treasury
by seizing church lands, but his heavy spending and long periods of
mismanagement damaged the economy.

Henry spent much of his wealth on maintaining his court and household,
including many of the building works he undertook on royal palaces. He
hung 2,000 tapestries in his palaces; by comparison, James V of
Scotland hung just 200. Henry took pride in showing off his collection
of weapons, which included exotic archery equipment, 2,250 pieces of
land ordnance and 6,500 handguns. Tudor monarchs had to fund all
government expenses out of their own income. This income came from the
crown lands that Henry owned as well as from customs duties like
tonnage and poundage, granted by Parliament to the King for life.
During Henry's reign the revenues of the Crown remained constant
(around £100,000), but were eroded by inflation and rising prices
brought about by war. Indeed, war and Henry's dynastic ambitions in
Europe exhausted the surplus he had inherited from his father by the
mid-1520s.

Henry VII had not involved Parliament in his affairs very much, but
Henry VIII had to turn to Parliament during his reign for money, in
particular for grants of subsidies to fund his wars. The dissolution
of the monasteries provided a means to replenish the treasury, and as
a result, the Crown took possession of monastic lands worth £120,000
(£36 million) a year. The Crown had profited by a small amount in 1526
when Wolsey put England onto a gold, rather than silver, standard, and
had debased the currency slightly. Cromwell debased the currency more
significantly, starting in Ireland in 1540. The English pound halved
in value against the Flemish pound between 1540 and 1551 as a result.
The nominal profit made was significant, helping to bring income and
expenditure together, but it had a catastrophic effect on the
country's economy. In part, it helped to bring about a period of very
high inflation from 1544 onwards.

Reformation
=============
Henry is generally credited with initiating the English Reformationthe
process of transforming England from a Catholic country to a
Protestant onethough his progress at the elite and mass levels is
disputed, and the precise narrative not widely agreed upon. Certainly,
in 1527, Henry, until then an observant and well-informed Catholic,
appealed to the Pope for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine. No
annulment was immediately forthcoming, since the papacy was now under
the control of Charles V, Catherine's nephew. The traditional
narrative gives this refusal as the trigger for Henry's rejection of
papal supremacy, which he had previously defended. Yet as E. L.
Woodward put it, Henry's determination to annul his marriage with
Catherine was the occasion rather than the cause of the English
Reformation so that "neither too much nor too little" should be made
of the annulment. Historian A. F. Pollard has argued that even if
Henry had not needed an annulment, he might have come to reject papal
control over the governance of England purely for political reasons.
Indeed, Henry needed a son to secure the Tudor Dynasty and avert the
risk of civil war over disputed succession.

In any case, between 1532 and 1537, Henry instituted a number of
statutes that dealt with the relationship between king and pope and
hence the structure of the nascent Church of England. These included
the Statute in Restraint of Appeals (passed 1533), which extended the
charge of 'praemunire' against all who introduced papal bulls into
England, potentially exposing them to the death penalty if found
guilty. Other acts included the Supplication against the Ordinaries
and the Submission of the Clergy, which recognised Royal Supremacy
over the church. The Ecclesiastical Appointments Act 1534 required the
clergy to elect bishops nominated by the Sovereign. The Act of
Supremacy in 1534 declared that the King was "the only Supreme Head on
Earth of the Church of England" and the Treasons Act 1534 made it high
treason, punishable by death, to refuse the Oath of Supremacy
acknowledging the King as such. Similarly, following the passage of
the Act of Succession 1533, all adults in the kingdom were required to
acknowledge the Act's provisions (declaring Henry's marriage to Anne
legitimate and his marriage to Catherine illegitimate) by oath; those
who refused were subject to imprisonment for life, and any publisher
or printer of any literature alleging that the marriage to Anne was
invalid subject to the death penalty. Finally, the Peter's Pence Act
was passed, and it reiterated that England had "no superior under God,
but only your Grace" and that Henry's "imperial crown" had been
diminished by "the unreasonable and uncharitable usurpations and
exactions" of the Pope. The King had much support from the Church
under Cranmer.

To Cromwell's annoyance, Henry insisted on parliamentary time to
discuss questions of faith, which he achieved through the Duke of
Norfolk. This led to the passing of the Act of Six Articles, whereby
six major questions were all answered by asserting the religious
orthodoxy, thus restraining the reform movement in England. It was
followed by the beginnings of a reformed liturgy and of the 'Book of
Common Prayer', which would take until 1549 to complete. But this
victory for religious conservatives did not convert into much change
in personnel, and Cranmer remained in his position. Overall, the rest
of Henry's reign saw a subtle movement away from religious orthodoxy,
helped in part by the deaths of prominent figures from before the
break with Rome, especially the executions of Thomas More and John
Fisher in 1535 for refusing to renounce papal authority. Henry
established a new political theology of obedience to the crown that
continued for the next decade. It reflected Martin Luther's new
interpretation of the fourth commandment ("Honour thy father and
mother"), brought to England by William Tyndale. The founding of royal
authority on the Ten Commandments was another important shift:
reformers within the Church used the Commandments' emphasis on faith
and the word of God, while conservatives emphasised the need for
dedication to God and doing good. The reformers' efforts lay behind
the publication of the Great Bible in 1539 in English. Protestant
Reformers still faced persecution, particularly over objections to
Henry's annulment. Many fled abroad, including the influential
Tyndale, who was eventually executed and his body burned at Henry's
behest.

When taxes once payable to Rome were transferred to the Crown,
Cromwell saw the need to assess the taxable value of the Church's
extensive holdings as they stood in 1535. The result was an extensive
compendium, the 'Valor Ecclesiasticus'. In September 1535, Cromwell
commissioned a more general visitation of religious institutions, to
be undertaken by four appointee visitors. The visitation focused
almost exclusively on the country's religious houses, with largely
negative conclusions. In addition to reporting back to Cromwell, the
visitors made the lives of the monks more difficult by enforcing
strict behavioural standards. The result was to encourage
self-dissolution. In any case, the evidence Cromwell gathered led
swiftly to the beginning of the state-enforced dissolution of the
monasteries, with all religious houses worth less than £200 vested by
statute in the crown in January 1536. After a short pause, surviving
religious houses were transferred one by one to the Crown and new
owners, and the dissolution confirmed by a further statute in 1539. By
January 1540 no such houses remained; 800 had been dissolved. The
process had been efficient, with minimal resistance, and brought the
crown some £90,000 a year. The extent to which the dissolution of all
houses was planned from the start is debated by historians; there is
some evidence that major houses were originally intended only to be
reformed. Cromwell's actions transferred a fifth of England's landed
wealth to new hands. The programme was designed primarily to create a
landed gentry beholden to the crown, which would use the lands much
more efficiently. Although little opposition to the supremacy could be
found in England's religious houses, they had links to the
international church and were an obstacle to further religious reform.

Response to the reforms was mixed. The religious houses had been the
only support of the impoverished, and the reforms alienated much of
the populace outside London, helping to provoke the great northern
rising of 1536-37, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Elsewhere the
changes were accepted and welcomed, and those who clung to Catholic
rites kept quiet or moved in secrecy. They reemerged during the reign
of Henry's daughter Mary (1553-58).

Military
==========
Apart from permanent garrisons at Berwick, Calais, and Carlisle,
England's standing army numbered only a few hundred men. This was
increased only slightly by Henry. Henry's invasion force of 1513, some
30,000 men, was composed of billmen and longbowmen, at a time when the
other European nations were moving to hand guns and pikemen but the
difference in capability was at this stage not significant, and
Henry's forces had new armour and weaponry. They were also supported
by battlefield artillery and the war wagon, relatively new
innovations, and several large and expensive siege guns. The invasion
force of 1544 was similarly well-equipped and organised, although
command on the battlefield was laid with the dukes of Suffolk and
Norfolk, which in the latter case produced disastrous results at
Montreuil.

Henry's break with Rome incurred the threat of a large-scale French or
Spanish invasion. To guard against this, in 1538 he began to build a
chain of expensive, state-of-the-art defences along Britain's southern
and eastern coasts, from Kent to Cornwall, largely built of material
gained from the demolition of the monasteries. These were known as
Henry VIII's Device Forts. He also strengthened existing coastal
defence fortresses such as Dover Castle and, at Dover, Moat Bulwark
and Archcliffe Fort, which he visited for a few months to supervise.
Wolsey had many years before conducted the censuses required for an
overhaul of the system of militia, but no reform resulted. In 1538-39,
Cromwell overhauled the shire musters, but his work mainly served to
demonstrate how inadequate they were in organisation. The building
works, including that at Berwick, along with the reform of the
militias and musters, were eventually finished under Queen Mary.

Henry is traditionally cited as one of the founders of the Royal Navy.
Technologically, Henry invested in large cannon for his warships, an
idea that had taken hold in other countries, to replace the smaller
serpentines in use. He also flirted with designing ships personally.
His contribution to larger vessels, if any, is unknown, but it is
believed that he influenced the design of rowbarges and similar
galleys. Henry was also responsible for the creation of a permanent
navy, with the supporting anchorages and dockyards. Tactically,
Henry's reign saw the first steps of the Navy moving from prioritising
boarding tactics to emphasising gunnery instead. The Tudor navy was
enlarged from seven ships to up to 50 (the 'Mary Rose' among them),
and Henry was responsible for the establishment of the "council for
marine causes" to oversee the maintenance and operation of the Navy,
becoming the basis for the later Admiralty.

Ireland
=========
At the beginning of Henry's reign, Ireland was effectively divided
into three zones: the Pale, where English rule was unchallenged;
Leinster and Munster, the so-called "obedient land" of Anglo-Irish
peers; and the Gaelic Connaught and Ulster, with merely nominal
English rule. Until 1513, Henry continued the policy of his father, to
allow Irish lords to rule in the King's name and accept steep
divisions between the communities. However, upon the death of the
Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, Lord Deputy of Ireland,
fractious Irish politics combined with a more ambitious Henry to cause
trouble. When Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormond, died, Henry
recognised one successor for Ormond's English, Welsh and Scottish
lands, whilst in Ireland another took control. Kildare's successor,
the 9th Earl, was replaced as Lord Deputy of Ireland by the Earl of
Surrey in 1520. Surrey's ambitious aims were costly but ineffective;
English rule became trapped between winning the Irish lords over with
diplomacy, as favoured by Henry and Wolsey, and a sweeping military
occupation as proposed by Surrey. Surrey was recalled in 1521, with
Piers Butler - one of the claimants to the Earldom of Ormond -
appointed in his place. Butler proved unable to control opposition,
including that of Kildare. Kildare was appointed lord deputy in 1524,
resuming his dispute with Butler, which had before been in a lull.
Meanwhile, James FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Desmond, an Anglo-Irish
peer, had turned his support to Richard de la Pole as pretender to the
English throne; when in 1528 Kildare failed to take suitable actions
against him, Kildare was once again removed from his post.

The Desmond situation was resolved on his death in 1529, which was
followed by a period of uncertainty. This was effectively ended with
the appointment of Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset and
the King's son, as lord deputy. Richmond had never before visited
Ireland, his appointment a break with past policy. For a time it
looked as if peace might be restored with the return of Kildare to
Ireland to manage the tribes, but the effect was limited and the Irish
Parliament soon rendered ineffective. Ireland began to receive the
attention of Cromwell, who had supporters of Ormond and Desmond
promoted. Kildare, on the other hand, was summoned to London; after
some hesitation, he departed for London in 1534, where he would face
charges of treason. His son, Thomas, Lord Offaly, was more forthright,
denouncing the King and leading a "Catholic crusade" against Henry,
who was by this time mired in marital problems. Offaly had the
Archbishop of Dublin, John Alen, murdered and besieged Dublin. Offaly
led a mixture of Pale gentry and Irish tribes, although he failed to
secure the support of Lord Darcy, a sympathiser, or Charles V. What
was effectively a civil war was ended with the intervention of 2,000
English troops - a large army by Irish standards - and the execution
of Offaly (his father was already dead) and his uncles.

Although the Offaly revolt was followed by a determination to rule
Ireland more closely, Henry was wary of drawn-out conflict with the
tribes, and a royal commission recommended that the only relationship
with the tribes was to be promises of peace, their land protected from
English expansion. The man to lead this effort was Antony St Leger, as
Lord Deputy of Ireland, who would remain in post past Henry's death.
Until the break with Rome, it was widely believed that Ireland was a
Papal possession granted as a mere fiefdom to the English king, so in
1542 Henry asserted England's claim to the Kingdom of Ireland free
from the Papal overlordship. This change did, however, also allow a
policy of peaceful reconciliation and expansion: the Lords of Ireland
would grant their lands to the King, before being returned as
fiefdoms. The incentive to comply with Henry's request was an
accompanying barony, and thus a right to sit in the Irish House of
Lords, which was to run in parallel with England's. The Irish law of
the tribes did not suit such an arrangement, because the chieftain did
not have the required rights; this made progress tortuous, and the
plan was abandoned in 1543, not to be replaced.

Historiography
======================================================================
The complexities and sheer scale of Henry's legacy ensured that, in
the words of Betteridge and Freeman, "throughout the centuries, Henry
has been praised and reviled, but he has never been ignored". In the
1950s, historian John D. Mackie summed up Henry's personality and its
impact on his achievements and popularity:

A particular focus of modern historiography has been the extent to
which the events of Henry's life (including his marriages, foreign
policy and religious changes) were the result of his own initiative
and, if they were, whether they were the result of opportunism or of a
principled undertaking by Henry. The traditional interpretation of
those events was provided by historian A. F. Pollard, who in 1902
presented his own, largely positive, view of the King, lauding him,
"as the King and statesman who, whatever his personal failings, led
England down the road to parliamentary democracy and empire".
Pollard's interpretation remained the dominant interpretation of
Henry's life until the publication of the doctoral thesis of Geoffrey
Elton in 1953.

Elton's 1977 book on 'The Tudor Revolution in Government' maintained
Pollard's positive interpretation of the Henrician period as a whole,
but reinterpreted Henry himself as a follower rather than a leader.
For Elton, it was Cromwell and not Henry who undertook the changes in
government - Henry was shrewd but lacked the vision to follow a
complex plan through. Henry was little more, in other words, than an
"ego-centric monstrosity" whose reign "owed its successes and virtues
to better and greater men about him; most of its horrors and failures
sprang more directly from [the King]".

Although the central tenets of Elton's thesis have since been
questioned, it has consistently provided the starting point for much
later work, including that of J. J. Scarisbrick, his student.
Scarisbrick largely kept Elton's regard for Cromwell's abilities but
returned agency to Henry, who Scarisbrick considered to have
ultimately directed and shaped policy. For Scarisbrick, Henry was a
formidable, captivating man who "wore regality with a splendid
conviction". The effect of endowing Henry with this ability, however,
was largely negative in Scarisbrick's eyes: to Scarisbrick, the
Henrician period was one of upheaval and destruction and those in
charge worthy of blame more than praise. Even among more recent
biographers, including David Loades, David Starkey, and John Guy,
there has ultimately been little consensus on the extent to which
Henry was responsible for the changes he oversaw or the assessment of
those he did bring about.

This lack of clarity about Henry's control over events has contributed
to the variation in the qualities ascribed to him: religious
conservative or dangerous radical; lover of beauty or brutal destroyer
of priceless artefacts; friend and patron or betrayer of those around
him; chivalry incarnate or ruthless chauvinist. One traditional
approach, favoured by Starkey and others, is to divide Henry's reign
into two halves, the first Henry being dominated by positive qualities
(politically inclusive, pious, athletic but also intellectual) who
presided over a period of stability and calm, and the latter a
"hulking tyrant" who presided over a period of dramatic, sometimes
whimsical, change. Other writers have tried to merge Henry's disparate
personality into a single whole; Lacey Baldwin Smith, for example,
considered him an egotistical borderline neurotic given to great fits
of temper and deep and dangerous suspicions, with a mechanical and
conventional, but deeply held piety, and having at best a mediocre
intellect.

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Style and arms
======================================================================
Many changes were made to the royal style during his reign. Henry
originally used the style "Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of God, King
of England, France and Lord of Ireland". In 1521, pursuant to a grant
from Pope Leo X rewarding Henry for his 'Defence of the Seven
Sacraments', the royal style became "Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of
God, King of England and France, Defender of the Faith and Lord of
Ireland". Following Henry's excommunication, Pope Paul III rescinded
the grant of the title "Defender of the Faith", but an Act of
Parliament (35 Hen. 8. c. 3) declared that it remained valid; and it
continues in royal usage to the present day, as evidenced by the
letters FID DEF or F.D. on all British coinage. Henry's motto was
"Coeur Loyal" ("true heart"), and he had this embroidered on his
clothes in the form of a heart symbol and with the word "loyal". His
emblem was the Tudor rose and the Beaufort portcullis. As king,
Henry's arms were the same as those used by his predecessors since
Henry IV: 'Quarterly, Azure three fleurs-de-lys Or (for France) and
Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England)'.

In 1535, Henry added the "supremacy phrase" to the royal style, which
became "Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of God, King of England and
France, Defender of the Faith, Lord of Ireland and of the Church of
England in Earth Supreme Head". In 1536, the phrase "of the Church of
England" changed to "of the Church of England and also of Ireland". In
1541, Henry had the Irish Parliament change the title "Lord of
Ireland" to "King of Ireland" with the Crown of Ireland Act 1542,
after being advised that many Irish people regarded the Pope as the
true head of their country, with the Lord acting as a mere
representative. The reason the Irish regarded the Pope as their
overlord was that Ireland had originally been given to King Henry II
of England by Pope Adrian IV in the 12th century as a feudal territory
under papal overlordship. The meeting of the Irish Parliament that
proclaimed Henry VIII as king of Ireland was the first meeting
attended by the Gaelic Irish chieftains as well as the Anglo-Irish
aristocrats. The style "Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of God, King of
England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith and of the Church
of England and also of Ireland in Earth Supreme Head" remained in use
until the end of Henry's reign.

See also
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* Family tree of English monarchs
* History of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom
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* List of English monarchs
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Scholarly studies
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* History of foreign policy.

Primary sources
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* Multiple volumes, covers from 1509 to January 1547. Originally
published by His Majesty's Stationery Office (1864-1920).
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External links
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* [https://www.royal.uk/henry-viii Henry VIII] at the official website
of the British monarchy
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[https://www.rct.uk/collection/people/henry-viii-king-of-england-1491-1547#/type/subject
Henry VIII] at the official website of the Royal Collection Trust
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License
=========
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Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_