Here are the quick facts on King Henry VIII 1
- Born: 28 June 1491
- Died: 28 January 1547
- Married 6 times (see list below)
- Children:
- Elizabeth I
- Mary I
- Edward IV
- Broke with the Roman Catholic Church
- His first marriage, to Catherine of Aragon, had failed
to produce a son and male heir to the throne. - Henry asked Pope Clement VII to grant him a divorce from Catherine. He argued that the marriage was against God’s will, due to the fact that she had briefly been married to Henry’s late brother, Arthur.
- Divorce wasn’t really a Catholic option, so the real relief sought was annulment — as if the marriage had never taken place.
- Henry claimed the marriage was never valid because of Catherine’s marriage to his brother. See Leviticus 20:21:
And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.
- However most people know this verse applies to living brothers, not a deceased brother.
- Catherine’s nephew, Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, had sieged Rome and had virtually surrounded the pope.
- Henry asked and received the Pope’s blessing to go ahead with the marriage in 1509.
- Henry claimed the marriage was never valid because of Catherine’s marriage to his brother. See Leviticus 20:21:
WIVES OF HENRY VIII
- Catherine of Aragon, Married 11 June 1509 – 23 May 1533 (23 years, 11 months and 12 days) . Annulled Died 7 January 1536. Mother of Queen Mary I.
- Anne Boleyn, m. 28 May 1533 – 17 May 1536 (2 years, 11 months and 19 days). Annulled, then beheaded. Died 19 May 1536. Beheaded at the Tower of London. Mother of Queen Elizabeth I.
- Jane Seymour, m. 30 May 1536 – 24 October 1537 (1 year, 4 months and 24 days). Died 24 October 1537, twelve days after giving birth due to complications. Mother of King Edward VI.
- Anne of Cleves, m. 6 January 1540 – 9 July 1540 (6 months and 3 days). Annulled. Died 16 July 1557.
- Catherine Howard, m. 28 July 1540 – 23 November 1541 (1 year, 3 months and 26 days). Beheaded. Died 13 February 1542. Beheaded at the Tower of London.
- Catherine Parr, 12 July 1543 – 28 January 1547 (3 years, 6 months and 16 days) . Survived Henry VIII. Later remarried to Thomas Seymour. Died 5 September 1548.
- SOURCES: C N Trueman “Henry’s Divorce from Catherine,” historylearningsite.co.uk; “How Henry VIII’s Divorce Led to Reformation,” History.com; Modern World History, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, (2018) [↩]