HENRY 8th

Henry was the second son of Henry 7th who never expected nor wanted to be King as he was not the eldest son. He enjoyed a life of sport and warring rather than ruling, so he handed the boring task of running the country to a religious crook, Cardinal Wolsey, who conveniently died before Henry could murder him. Other advisors followed including Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, both who he murdered along with 50 or so others who crossed his path.

Henry is probably best remembered for having 6 wives, in a vain attempt to produce a healthy son and heir who could succeed him. Or so the story goes. Actually after 24 years with Katherine of Aragon he started falling in love with younger more glamorous models. Those not producing a boy, he murdered as he could only have one wife at a time, unless they conveniently died in childbirth or could be spirited away to live out their days in one of England’s many remote and dank castles.

Soon after his coronation he began to see himself as the reborn Henry 5th (Conqueror of all France) and set out to expand his territories back into France, north into Scotland and west to cover Wales and Ireland. He made little progress in France and Scotland but successfully annexed Wales and made himself King of Ireland but only ever occupied the area around Dublin.

Henry was a murderer executing about 130 people who stood in his way but on the positive side should be remembered for creating the first serious English Navy. He should also be remembered for changing the face of England for ever by shutting the many monasteries which over the years had become lazy and corrupt. This later lead to the creation of alternative secular independent “grammar” schools eventually allowing freedom from the old dogma of religious teaching and thought.

Chronological events

1491 Henry born at Greenwich, one year after his brother Arthur.

As the second in line to the throne he was not educated to be a future king which gave him time to pursue all his favourite pastimes including hunting, jousting and archery. However he was an accomplished musician with the Lute and learnt French and Latin but not how to manage the finances of a country.

1502 Arthur Henry’s elder brother died. Henry is only 11.

1509 Henry aged 18 is crowned King when his father died.

Henry married the widow of his eldest brother Arthur, the Spanish princess Katherine of Aragon who is now 24.

1510 To make himself popular he gets rid of his father’s two top tax collectors and financial advisors, Empson and Dudley who had helped Henry 7th  turn round the financial fortunes of England. He murdered them on trumped up charges of treason.

1511 Henry as a devout Catholic joined the Holy League with Spain and Germany to protect the Pope from French aggression. He sends an army into southern France (Navarre) to link up with a Spanish army under King Ferdinand. The Spanish fail to turn up and the English, disillusioned, hungry and sick, return home.

1512 Henry now sees himself as a reborn medieval, victorious Henry 5th and determines to retrieve the vast tracts of land in France inherited from Henry 2nd. He invades the north of France between Calais and Paris and takes three substantial towns. (Battle of the Spurs)

1513 The Battle of Flodden Field. The old enemy of England the Scots, making use of a perceived weakness as the English armies are in France invade the north of England with a huge army of more than 10,000 men under their king James 4th. Henry asked Thomas Howard the Earl of Surrey to form an army and confront the Scots who were supported with men and weapons from France.

Surrey won a decisive battle annihilating the Scots leaving all the 10,000 dead, one of them being James 4th King of Scotland. It was the last so called Medieval battle with both sides mixing cannon with archers and foot soldiers who used both pikes and axes. Surrey won using better tactics and James was the last British king to die in battle.

1515 Henry appoints Cardinal Thomas Wolsey as Chancellor to run the country on a day by day basis to allow Henry to continue to entertain his nobles, fight battles, enjoy his favourite sports of Stag Hunting, jousting, archery and lavish dining.

Wolsey runs the country for 14 years.

1516 Queen Katherine after 7 years of continuous pregnancies producing only still borns or children who died almost immediately after birth produces a healthy daughter, Mary (who will become Queen Mary 1st)

1517 The start of the Protestant movement in Germany. Priest Martin Luther pins a list of 95 acts of corruption regularly being made by Catholic priests and condoned by the Pope.

1520 Peace conference at the “Field of the Cloth of Gold”. Henry took an entourage of 5000 English Earls to France to meet with an even bigger contingent of French nobility under their new king Francis 1stEngland and France were at war again. in an attempt to sign a lasting peace treaty. In spite of much eating, drinking and sport two years later

1521 Henry wrote an essay defending the dogma of the Catholic Church of Rome against the (Protestant) theological attack from Martin Luther. The Pope, Leo 10th rewarded him by giving him the title of “Defender of the Faith”.

1522/3 Henry invades France twice with small forces and with limited vision and achieves nothing other than an unnecessary spending of cash he is quickly running out of.

1527 Henry has now been married to Katherine of Aragon for 18 years and the poor woman has been pregnant almost every year producing only one child who lives, Mary and no son. She has understandably also grown rather fat and Henry falls in love with vivacious and attractive daughter of an Earl, Anne Boleyn. Anne’s sister Mary had already been one of Henry’s mistresses, indeed his forth, the others being; Lady Anne Hastings, Jane Popicourt and Elizabeth Blount. Elizabeth produced a son for Henry whom he called Henry Fitzroy. Had the boy not died aged aged 17 in 1536, he would have been a claimant to the throne. Henry was not inclined to marry any of these women, even though at least one had produced a son, but chose instead to marry Anne Boleyn. This was impossible under the law of the Church of Rome so Henry instructed Cardinal Wolsey to find a way in negotiations with the Pope. Unfortunately The Pope had at the time been put in prison by none other that the Holy Roman Emperor Charles 5th who was Katherine of Aragon’s nephew. Unsurprisingly Wolsey failed, is accused of High Treason but dies in 1529 before he can be brought to trial.  

1529 Henry is now supported by two new favourites; Sir Thomas More as Chancellor in the supreme role and Thomas Cramner as Archbishop of Canterbury. Cramner is a supporter of the new Protestant doctrines of Luther and More is a Catholic as is King Henry. To solve the problem of annulling his marriage to Katherine, Cramner suggests that Henry should split with Rome altogether and that the King of England should become the supreme head of a new Church of England then they can make up their own rules on divorce. Henry desperate to get into bed with Anne Boleyn goes along with the idea but Thomas More does not. Henry sends More to the Tower and he is beheaded in 1535.

1533 Protestant Cramner now has no opposition to his concept of making Catholic Henry the supreme head of the English Church. Queen Katherine is divorced on invented grounds and Henry finally marries an already pregnant Anne Boleyn. Their daughter Elizabeth is born a few months later.

1536 After only three years of marriage to vivacious and intelligent Anne, Henry falls in love with 21 year old Jane Seymour one of Anne’s illiterate ladies in waiting. Henry now with no moral overseer can easily get rid of Anne, this time by invented charges of adultery and she in beheaded.

The English Reformation under Thomas Cromwell.

Meanwhile under Thomas Cromwell who Henry gives the new title Vicar General and supported by Parliament, the English Reformation gathers apace. In Europe under Luther it is mainly under the guise of getting rid of beliefs which alow corruption in the Church like the selling of indulgencies ie corrupt priests demanding money from parishioners to guarantee their passage or that of their loved ones to heaven after death. In England under Cromwell it was closing corrupt monasteries where they had identified six appalling practices which had been condoned by Cardinal Wolsey including.

• Excessive money being taken from local poor people via monasteries for land rents or trumped up fines enabling Bishops and other church leaders like Cardinal Wolsey to live like lords. Wolsey gained enough money to build Hampton Court Palace.
• If poor people hadn’t enough money to pay, for example to graze livestock on monastery land, the monks would simply confiscate the peasant’s sheep.
• Many priests and monks were non resident preferring a life at a university rather than tending the poor.

Cromwell dealt with corrupt Monasteries by closing the small ones and transferring their income to the state.

In the north of England this resulted in riots called the Pilgrimages of Grace which were suppressed by Henry’s supporters.

Cromwell then authorised the distribution of a new Bible written for the first time in English to all churches.

Meanwhile Jane Seymour gives birth to the long sort after healthy son who they called Edward. Unfortunately Jane dies soon after childbirth.  

1539 Cromwell now transferred his attention to the larger monasteries which were just as corrupt and extremely wealthy. In all some 3000 were destroyed and their wealth transferred to the crown. At the same time Henry reinforced the Catholic elements of Church doctrine which the Protestant preachers were against notably;

• The priests must remain celibate
• The doctrine of transubstantiation, ie the supposed miraculous change of wine into blood and bread into the flesh of Jesus during mass.

1540 Cromwell advises Henry to marry again and suggests a 25 year old German princess Anne of Cleves. After Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour poor Anne appears ugly and Henry not only refuses to sleep with her but determines to get rid of Cromwell for bringing him such an ugly girl. Cromwell who is never allowed to defend himself is beheaded on trumped up charges at Tower Hill. 6 months later Henry, now 49 and getting fat marries a 15 year old beauty but unfortunately uneducated and illiterate, Katherine Howard. Katherine is not what Henry is looking for and she is beheaded, again on trumped up charges of adultery.

1542 Henry now recommences his military campaigns against Scotland who had again invaded the north of England and then back to France because they supported the Scots. Henry annihilated the Scottish army and the Scottish king James 5th died in sorrow soon after. Hid baby daughter Mary Queen of Scots inherited the Scottish throne. In France Henry who still ruled Calais attacked and occupied the neighbouring town of Boulogne. This minor skirmish netted England 2 million crowns from France as a fine for supporting Scotland and Boulogne was retained as surety.

1543 Henry now 52 and getting old, tired and fat marries the  31 year old twice widowed Katherine Parr who makes an excellent step mother to the royal children, Mary 27, Elizabeth 10 and Edward aged 6 and nurses rather than sleeps with the ageing Henry.

1544 The Protestant movement gathers pace under Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cramner. Henry instructs Cramner to produce a book of Common Prayer in English. All written church material is in Latin in the Catholic Church. However in Henry’s last speech to Parliament before he dies he denounces Lutherism as a faith developed by the Devil.

1547 Henry dies and is succeeded by his son Edward aged 9 under the guidance of his uncle Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, a staunch Protestant.