Henry was the second son of Henry VII, first of the Tudor line, and Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV, first king of the short-lived line of York. During the reign of Henry VIII, between 1509 and 1547, a­n estimated 57,000 [source: The Tudors] and 7­2,000 [source: Historic Royal Palac­es] English subjects lost their heads.It was a violent time in history, but Henry VIII may have been particularly bloodthirsty, … He refitted several vessels with the latest guns including the Mary Rose, which sank in 1545. Despite the obvious pointlessness of the fighting, the appearance of success was popular. Henry's final marriage to Catherine Parr, who acted like a nurse, was more harmonious and she would go on to outlive him. After Wolsey's downfall, Thomas Cromwell became Henry's chief minister and earned the confidence of the King by helping him to break with Rome and establish Henry VIII as head of the Church of England. After the death of his elder brother Arthur in 1502, Henry became heir to the English throne. Henry VIII was the king of England (1509–47). Wolsey proved himself to be an outstanding minister in his organisation of the first French campaign and while the Scots saw this war as an opportunity to invade England, they were defeated at Flodden in 1513. With Charles Laughton, Robert Donat, Franklin Dyall, Miles Mander. Consultant editor for the. When his elder brother, Arthur, died in 1502, Henry became the heir to the throne. This set up the administrative machinery for the control of the fleet. However war with France ultimately proved expensive and unsuccessful. Henry VIII, (born June 28, 1491, Greenwich, near London, England—died January 28, 1547, London), king of England (1509–47) who presided over the beginnings of the English Renaissance and the English Reformation. Over four years Cromwell ordered that 800 monasteries be disbanded and their lands and treasures taken for the crown. Directed by Alexander Korda. He wanted to remarry and produce a male heir. King Henry VIII created the Church of England in 1536 as a result of a dispute with the pope, who would not permit Henry to get a divorce from his wife and marry his long-time mistress. He broke with the Roman Catholic Church and had Parliament declare him supreme head of the Church of England, starting the English Reformation, because the pope would not annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Nevertheless, the years from 1515 to 1527 were marked by Wolsey’s ascendancy, and his initiatives set the scene. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. In addition, he had several children who died soon after birth and an illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, who died at age 17. The cardinal had some occasional ambition for the papal tiara, and this Henry supported; Wolsey at Rome would have been a powerful card in English hands. By 1515 Wolsey was archbishop of York, lord chancellor of England, and a cardinal of the church; more important, he was the king’s good friend, to whom was gladly left the active conduct of affairs. When Henry VII died in 1509, this popular eighteen-year-old prince, known for his love of hunting and dancing, became King Henry VIII. Yet the unpopular means for governing the realm soon reappeared because they were necessary. Henry never altogether abandoned the positive tasks of kingship and often interfered in business; though the world might think that England was ruled by the cardinal, the king himself knew that he possessed perfect control any time he cared to assert it, and Wolsey only rarely mistook the world’s opinion for the right one. The wars ended in 1485 when Henry Tudor won the battle of Bosworth and gained the throne of England. Henry was excommunicated by the Pope. When he became king there were five royal warships. Catherine was executed for adultery and treason in 1542. The subject of countless stories, TV programs, and movies, Henry VIII is most famous for being hugely fat, having a fixation with beheadings, and for having no fewer than six wives during the course of his nearly 38-year reign.. Thomas Wolsey's ascendancy was cut short by this failure. Henry's personal religious beliefs remained Catholic, despite the growing number of people at court and in the nation who had adopted Protestantism. HENRY VII. Read about our approach to external linking. He was worried that he had only one surviving child, Mary, to show for his marriage to Catherine, who was now in her 40s. The Inventory of Henry VIII compiled in 1547 is a list of the possessions of the crown, now in the British Library as Harley MS 1419.. So the king asked Cardinal Wolsey to appeal to Pope Clement VII for an annulment and it soon became clear he wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, who had been a lady-in-waiting to his first wife. When he became king at age 18, great things were expected of him. This act also brought him much needed wealth through the dissolution of the well-funded monasteries. In 1533, Henry VIII broke with the church and married the now pregnant Anne Boleyn in a secret ceremony. His six wives were, successively, Catherine of Aragon (the mother of the future queen Mary I), Anne Boleyn (the mother of the future queen Elizabeth I), Jane Seymour (the mother of Henry’s successor, Edward VI), Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr. By his death he had built up a navy of around 50 ships. Henry VIII married six times between 1509 and 1543 in pursuit of heirs and political alliances. In September 1533 Anne gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth I). Henry VIII was survived by three children, each of whom sat on the throne of England: Edward VI (ruled 1547–53), Mary I (ruled 1553–58), and Elizabeth I (ruled 1558–1603). He was the second Tudor monarch and was well-known for having six wives. At the time this was a seismic shift in the power dynamics of Europe, as England’s split from Rome was confirmed. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. The English reformation had begun. Henry continued with fruitless and expensive campaigns against Scotland and France. Henry VIII - Henry VIII - Legacy: As king of England from 1509 to 1547, Henry VIII presided over the beginnings of the English Reformation, which was unleashed by his own matrimonial involvements, even though he never abandoned the fundamentals of the Roman Catholic faith. Their marriage was short lived. Updates? Moreover, in Thomas Wolsey, who organized his first campaign in France, Henry discovered his first outstanding minister. Soon after his accession, Henry married Catherine of Aragon, Arthur’s widow, and the attendant lavish entertainments ate into the modest royal reserves. Henry blamed Cromwell for this mismatch and soon afterwards had him executed for treason. In 1521 Pope Leo X conferred the title of Defender of the Faith on Henry for his book 'Assertio Septem Sacramentorum', which affirmed the supremacy of the Pope in the face of the reforming ideals of the German theologian, Martin Luther. Henry VIII is one of the most famous kings in English history. Soon after he obtained the papal dispensation required to allow him to marry his brother's widow, Catherine of Aragon. Henry had grown tired of her, and after two further pregnancies ended in miscarriages, she was arrested in 1536 on trumped up charges of adultery and publicly beheaded at the Tower of London. During the period 1513–29 Henry pursued an active foreign policy, largely under the guidance of his Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, who shared Henry's desire to make England stronger. Henry VIII was born on June 28, 1491, with big shoes to fill. It was alleged that she had a previous relationship with Henry's courtier Francis Dereham and an affair with another courtier Thomas Culpeper. In 1540, the aging King married the teenage Catherine Howard. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Henry also built the first naval dock in Britain at Portsmouth and in 1546 he established the Navy Board. His father was the triumphant Henry VII, who had won the Wars of the Roses, and his maternal grandfather was the fearsome King Edward IV.However, despite how his life turned out, Henry wasn’t supposed to step into those shoes. When his elder brother, Arthur, died in 1502, Henry became the heir to the throne; of all the Tudor monarchs, he alone spent his childhood in calm expectation of the crown, which helped give an assurance of majesty and righteousness to his willful, ebullient character. Henry VIII, king of England (1509–47) who presided over the start of the English Renaissance and the English Reformation. Henry Tudor (1457-1509) was crowned Henry VII on 30 October 1485 beginning a new dynasty. On 3 November 1534 King Henry VIII became the Head of the newly founded Church of England. Henry was the second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV. His wives were Catherine of Aragon (the mother of Mary I), Anne Boleyn (the mother of Elizabeth I), Jane Seymour (the mother of Henry’s successor, Edward VI), Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr. Corrections? King Henry VIII of England is one of history’s most famous rulers, though not for his power as king. In fact, there was never any chance of this happening, any more than there was of Henry’s election to the imperial crown, briefly mooted in 1519 when the emperor Maximilian I died, to be succeeded by his grandson Charles V. That event altered the European situation. The cultural and social impact was significant, as much of the land was sold to the gentry and churches and monasteries were gutted and destroyed. King of England from 1509, when he succeeded his father Henry VII and married Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his elder brother Arthur. King Henry VIII is probably the best-known English ruler of all time. Six feet tall, powerfully built, and a tireless athlete, huntsman, and dancer, he promised England the joys of spring after the long winter of Henry VII’s reign. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-VIII-king-of-England, The Catholic Encyclopedia - Biography of Henry VIII, PBS LearningMedia - The Protestant Reformation | Inside the Court of Henry VIII, Henry VIII - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Henry VIII - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), Learn about King Henry VIII, a savior and an enlightened ruler of England who later became to be known as being obstinate, self-indulgent, ruthless, and bloodthirsty, Discover the tragedies of King Henry VIII's six marriages. Seeking to annul his union to Catherine of Aragon, he separated the English church from the Catholic hierarchy. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. He was buried next to Jane Seymour in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. King Henry VIII marries five more times after his divorce from his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. The marriage was a disaster and Henry divorced Anne a few months later. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. by Hans Holbein the younger (Getty Images). The final years of his reign witnessed Henry VIII's physical decline and an increasing desire to appear all-powerful. More serious was Henry’s determination to engage in military adventure. Henry VIII's early military campaigns began when he joined Pope Julius II's Holy League against France in 1511. Assistant Master and Professor of History, Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. But, unwilling to anger Catherine of Aragon's nephew – the most powerful ruler in Europe, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V – the Pope refused. Wolsey’s attempt to reverse alliances at this unpropitious moment brought reprisals against the vital English cloth trade with the Netherlands and lost the advantages that alliance with the victor of Pavia might have had. Henry VIII is known as the 'father of the Royal Navy.' Henry and his ministers exploited the dislike inspired by his father’s energetic pursuit of royal rights by sacrificing, without a thought, some of the unpopular institutions and some of the men that had served his predecessor. In an attempt to establish ties with the German Protestant alliance, Thomas Cromwell arranged a marriage between the king and German princess Anne of Cleves. Henry was the only child and heir of King Henry V.He was born on 6 December 1421 at Windsor Castle.He succeeded to the throne as King of England at the age of nine months on 1 September 1422, the day after his father's death; he remains the youngest person ever to succeed to the English throne. Henry VIII is one of the most famous kings in English history. Jane Seymour died after childbirth and Henry ordered that she be granted a queen's funeral. Henry, the second son of King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, was born on 28 June 1491 at Greenwich Palace. Omissions? Henry himself displayed no military talent, but a real victory was won by the earl of Surrey at Flodden (1513) against a Scottish invasion. Married six times, he left a minor heir and a … In Charles, the crowns of Spain, Burgundy (with the Netherlands), and Austria were united in an overwhelming complex of power that reduced all the dynasties of Europe, with the exception of France, to an inferior position. Europe was being kept on the boil by rivalries between the French and Spanish kingdoms, mostly over Italian claims; and, against the advice of his older councillors, Henry in 1512 joined his father-in-law, Ferdinand II of Aragon, against France and ostensibly in support of a threatened pope, to whom the devout king for a long time paid almost slavish respect. In the first years of his reign Henry VIII effectively relied on Thomas Wolsey to rule for him, and by 1515 Henry had elevated him to the highest role in government: Lord Chancellor. He was an excellent student and athlete who enjoyed hunting and dancing. From 1521, Henry became an outpost of Charles V’s imperial power, which at Pavia (1525), for the moment, destroyed the rival power of France. His break with the papacy in Rome established the Church of England and began the Reformation. In the late 15th century England was torn by a series of civil wars between two dynasties, the Yorkists and the Lancastrians. Henry was acutely aware of the importance of securing a male heir during his reign. Image: Henry VIII (1491–1547) He excelled in book learning as well as in the physical exercises of an aristocratic society, and, when in 1509 he ascended the throne, great things were expected of him. Please select which sections you would like to print: While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Henry VIII died on 28 January 1547 and was succeeded by his son, Edward VI. The inventory was made following a commission of 14 September 1547 during the first year of the reign of Edward VI of England.The surviving manuscripts list the possessions of Henry VIII item by item, by their location in houses. Henry VIII’s fame instead lies in the number of wives that he had: six in total, though only three of them were deemed legal in the eyes of the church. He was the second Tudor monarch and was well-known for having six wives. Henry's marital history started under a cloud of suspicion, as his marriage to Catherine of Aragon meant he was forming a union with his brother's widow. It provoked a serious reaction in England, and Henry concluded that Wolsey’s usefulness might be coming to an end. Henry's third marriage, this time to lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour, finally produced the son he so desperately desired with the birth of Edward in 1537. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). BBC News - Henry VIII's papal letter reproduced, BBC News - Henry VIII love letter exhibited, The Guardian - Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon reunited, The Independent - Accident that turned Henry VIII into a tyrant, The British Monarchy - Henry VIII (r.1509-1547). Ascendancy was cut short by this failure is known as the 'father of the most famous kings in history... Tudor monarch and was well-known for having six wives months later act also brought him much needed wealth the. 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