Henry VIII
Henry VIII (1491-1547). King of England. He succeeded his father Henry VII in 1509 and the same year married Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his elder brother Arthur. In the early years of his reign he was hand-some, accomplished, and active in foreign affairs. However, his policy was dominated during the 1520s by his anxiety to end his marriage to Catherine, because of his love for Anne Boleyn and his desire for a male heir. Unable to obtain papal consent for an annulment’ Henry proclaimed himself Head of the English Church (1534) and began the dissolution of the monasteries. He subsequently married Anne but had her beheaded for alleged adultery just two years later. His third wife, Jane Seymour, died in childbirth (1537), while his marriage to Anne of Cleves (1540) lasted just a few weeks before being annulled. His fifth wife Catherine Howard was also beheaded for adultery (1542); in 1543 Henry married Catherine Parr, who survived him.
“The crimes and cruelties of this Prince were too numerous to be mentioned..and nothing can be said in his vindication, but that his abolishing religious houses and leaving them to the ruinous depredations of time has been of infinite use to the landscape of England in general, which probably was a principal motive for his doing it, since otherwise why should a man who was of no religion himself be at so much trouble to abolish one which had for ages been established in the kingdom? Jane Austen on Henry VIII, The History of England”
