HENRY VIII 1491 – 1547

         Henry VIII was king of England (1509 – 1547), the image of the Renaissance king as immortalized by German artist Hans Holbein*, who painted him hands on hips, legs astride, exuding confidence and power.

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*Holbein, Hans, the Younger (1497-1543) — German painter and woodcut artist. He isbest known for his portraits, in particular those of the court of Henry VIII.

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                Henry VIII had six wives, fought numerous wars in Europe, and even aspired to become Holy Roman Emperor in order to extend his control to Europe. He ruthlessly increased the power of royal government, using Par­liament to sanction his actions. Henry ruled through powerful ministers who, like his six wives, were never safe in their positions. His greatest achievement was to initiate the Protestant in England. He rejected the au­thority of the pope and the Roman Catholic Church, confiscated church lands, and pro­moted religious reformers to power.

                  Born at Greenwich Palace in London on June 28, 1491, Henry was the second son of Hen­ry VII and Elizabeth of York. Although a willful child, Henry proved a capable stu­dent and studied languages, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and writing and speaking under his first tutor, English poet and satirist John Skelton*.

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* Skelton, John (c. 1460-1529) — English poet. He was tutor to the future Henry VIII.

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               He was an even more capable athlete and excelled at hunting and wresting. Henry loved music and could play, sing, and dance. When he was 11, Henry’s life was transformed by the death of his elder brother, Arthur. He was now heir to the throne and was made Prince of Wales in 1503, the year in which his moth­er and grandmother died. Henry now came decisively under the influence of his father, a stern and greedy man who left his son a healthy treasury and a secure crown upon his death in 1509.

                For the first time in generations an Eng­lish king came to the throne without the threat of a rebellion against him. Henry inherited a kingdom isolated from the rest of Europe and poor in natural resources. It was protected on three sides by water, but to the north lived the Scots, an ancient en­emy allied with France, England’s bitter rival. Henry VII’s chief concerns had been to control the independence of the nobility and to enrich the crown. He accomplished the first by executing opponents and confiscating their estates, the second by rais­ing taxes and by avoiding involvement in expensive wars. When Henry VIII became king, he set out on a different course to expand England’s power in Europe. To ease the dissatisfaction caused by his father’s means of raising money, Henry placed blame on the royal ministers Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley* and had them beheaded.

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* Empson, Richard (d. 1510) — English politician; Dudley, Ed­mund (1462-1510) — English lawyer and privy councellor.

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                He married his brother’s widow, Catherine of Aragon*, and entered into an alliance with King Ferdinand of Spain.

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* Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536) — First Queen of Henry VIII, mother of Mary I.

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                Where as his fa­ther had avoided war to save money, Henry and his allies were eager for confrontation. In 1513 Henry led a victorious campaign against the French; in retaliation the Scots declared war on England. Henry’s forces repelled the Scots at the Battle of Flodden Field where the king of Scotland, James IV, was killed.

                 For the next decade, Henry VIII attempted to act as a mediator between France and Spain, playing the countries against each other in hopes of gaining power in Europe. Despite his earlier military victory, Hen­ry’s subsequent diplomatic efforts and mil­itary campaigns were fruitless. In 1520 he met with Francis I, king of France, at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in France. This spectacular event of lavish entertainment and personal diplomacy failed to prevent another round of fighting among the Euro­pean powers. Henry’s wars emptied his treasury, and his efforts to raise taxes led to rioting among his subjects.

               A few years after Henry took the throne, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey*, a man as ambi­tious as the king, became the leader of Hen­ry’s government.

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* Woolsey, Thomas (1475-1530) — English cleric and politi­cian. In Henry VIII’s service from 1509, he became Archbishop of York 1514. Cardinal and Lord Chancellor 1515, and began the dissolution of monasteries.

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              Wolsey shouldered the burden of daily government, freeing the king from the work he least enjoyed. The cardinal was a capable administrator and diplomat and something of a social reform­er. He used the courts to prosecute the crimes of the rich, and Parliament to im­prove the lot of the poor. He put taxes on a footing by having Parliament create a sub­sidy financed through taxes. These taxes were based on a new assessment of lands, goods, and wades, and enhanced royal reve­nue. Although he could be ruthless against his opponents, Wosley preferred to work within the channels of the royal council and Parliament. Nevertheless, his power was based on his ability to achieve the king’s purposes, and it evaporated overnight when he could not secure the divorce that Henry demanded.

               To Henry’s mind, the greatest failure of his reign was his inability to produce a male heir. This he blamed on his Spanish wife, Catherine, whose only child was the Prin­cess Mary. Henry had affairs with ladies of his court until he felt in love with Anne Boleyn*, one of the great beauties of the age and a woman of strong will, shrewd po­litical instincts, and Protestant religious be­liefs.

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* Boleyn, Anne (1507-1536) — Queen of England as second wife of Henry VIII. Mother of future Queen Elizabeth I, but was unable to produce a male heir to the throne, and was executed on a false charge.

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               From 1527 Henry was looking for a way out of his marriage, arguing from biblical authority that the union with his brother’s window was invalid. Henry sent Wolsey to Rome to present the English case before the papacy, and when this failed Wolsey was forced from power. He was re­placed with Sir Thomas More*, whom Hen­ry had made lord chancellor.

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* More, Sir Thomas (1478-1535) — English politician and au­thor.

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              More than en­listed the aid of scholars throughout Eu­rope in seeking support for Henry’s case. Whatever the merits of the case, however, the divorce was a political impossibility. Catherine’s nephew was Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and the most powerful ruler in Europe, and the pope would not take sides against Charles. Henry would have to find another way to accomplish his goal.

                Beginning in 1529, Henry used Parliament to exert pressure on the pope. Claiming that they were correcting abuses, the Reforma­tion Parliament*, as it came to be called, voted to ban payments from English bishops to Rome and to end the independence of the English clergy.

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* Reformation Parliament — English parliament of November 1529—April 1536 which passed Thomas Cromwell’s antipapal legislation.

Cromwell, Thomas (1485-1540) — English pol­itician who drafted the legislation that made the Church of England independent of Rome.

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                Previously the clergy had owed allegiance only to the pope. By these acts Henry gained the power to appoint his own bishops; be used it to appoint one of Anne Boleyn’s friends, Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), as Archbishop of Canterbury.

              When Anne became pregnant in 1532, the “King’s Great Matter” could no longer await legal resolution. Thomas Cromwell, one of the king’s advisers, led a circle or powerful politicians associated with Anne in coun­seling Henry to break with Rome. In addi­tion to the laws Parliament had already passed shifting religious authority to Hen­ry, Parliament passed a law prohibiting appeals to the pope in matters of marriage. Such questions were now to be decided by the archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer, who declared Henry’s union with Catherine void. Henry officially married Anne and made her queen. In September, Anne gave birth to a daughter, Princess Elizabeth.

          In response to Henry divorcing Catherine, the pope excommunicated the king and, by extension, the nation. Although this had little effect on the king, it displeased practicing Catholics. Following the break with Rome, Henry and Cromwell undertook a reorganization of church and state. Hen­ry was declared supreme head of the church in England, and all of the payments nor­mally made to the pope now went to the crown. Parliament altered the succession to exclude Princess Mary in favour of the chil­dren of Anne Boleyn, in hopes a boy would eventually be born. It was treason to ques­tion either Henry’s new title or the succes­sion. The king accepted small changer in catholic religious beliefs and practices. The Bible was translated into English, priests were allowed to marry, and the shrines of saints were destroyed. Henry’s own religious beliefs remained Catholic, despite the grow­ing number of people at court and in the nation who had adopted Protestant religious beliefs (see reformation). He prevented the more fervent of these Protestants from making radical changes to religious doctrine by instituting the Six Articles of 1539. This document outlined the tenets of the church of England, all of which were Catholic in nature.

            In 1534 Cromwell began a wholesale confis­cation of the enormous wealth of the Cath­olic Church, estimated at three times that of the crown. A survey of the buildings, lands, and possessions of the English reli­gious houses was completed in 1535, and thereafter Parliament began passing laws dissolving these Catholic groups, a process that was completed by 1540. The crown then took possession of all their property, pay­ing small pensions to the approximately 10,000 monks and nuns who were deprived of their homes. In a reversal of roles, many towns were forced to assist the people who had once provided charity to the less fortu­nate. To pay for his continued wars, Henry sold the former monastic lands to nobles and gentry, who thereby gained an interest in the success of Henry’s reformation and became dependent upon the king.

               The king’s motives for dissolving the reli­gious houses were mostly financial, and his motives for breaking with Rome both polit­ical and personal; however, these actions fed into the widespread hostility against the catholic Church that was becoming common throughout Europe. A growing number of Catholics were opposed to the activities of the papacy, the wealth of the clergy, and the corruption of the religious orders. They wanted these institutions to be reformed. English people who favoured these views supported Henry’s reformation. Henry also received support from people who were adopting the religious views of German re­former Martin Luther. His ideas, which were very different from some of the major ten­ets of the Catholic Church, had filtered into England through merchants and had begun to find adherents, especially in cities. These Protestant religious views were also becom­ing popular at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

              The Reformation in England was not ac­complished without opposition. Despite the legislation of king and parliament, most of the nation clung to the Catholic Church. Throughout the 1530s and into the 1540s more than 300 people were executed for trea­son, most for rebelling against the new re­ligious order. Among Henry’s councilors, Sir Thomas More refused to recognize the king as supreme head of the church and was executed for his Catholicism, along with a number of bishops and prominent nobles. In 1536 a serious rebellion, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, occurred in the north­ern counties. The rebellion combined eco­nomic grievances with an attachment to the institutions of the Catholic Church. It rep­resented the most serious threat to Henry’s reign, although it was ultimately quelled. In most parishes, however, these was a sul­len acceptance of Protestant innovations.

             Cromwell, who now had more power than Wolsey, was capable of crushing resist­ance, but not of gaining support. In order to deal with the problems of administer­ing and selling the church lands confis­cated by the crown, he initiated impor­tant changes in the way government busi­ness was conducted, creating greater effi­ciency and control. He established sepa­rate departments of state, with their own collectors, secretaries, and judges, to re­ceive the wealth confiscated from the church. These courts, as they were called, were able to resolve disputed quickly and prevented the traditional royal courts from being overburdened with cases. Cromwell served as the effective head of Henry’s government for eight years, and Henry left him to run the business of government. Ultimate power, however, remained in the king’s hands, and Henry used it to become involved in the series of matrimonial dis­asters for which he is famous. By 1536 Henry had tired of Anne Boleyn, and Cromwell joined with several councilors to turn the king decisively against her. In less than a month she was tried on trumped-up changes of adultery, execut­ed, and replaced by Jane Seymour*.

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* Seymor, Jane (1509-1537) — English noble, wife of Henry VIII.

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              Jane finally provided Henry with his male heir, the future Edward VI, although she died in childbirth. Henry’s next three marriag­es occurred in rapid succession. The king married Anne of Cleves* as part of Cromwell’s plan for a Protestant union with German prices, but divorced her af­ter only six months-Henry’s displeasure with Cromwell over this match led to Cromwell’s execution.

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* Anne of Cleves (1515-1557) — fourth wife of Henry VIII.

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                 Henry then married Catherine Howard, had her executed with­in a year, and finally settled down with Catherine Parr* in 1543, the wife who survived him.

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* Howard, Catherine (1520-1542) — Queen consort of Hen­ry VIII;

Parr, Catherine (1512-1548) — sixth wife of Henry VIII.

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               As Henry aged he became bitter and angry. One by one he had either killed his old coun­cilors or driven them from royal service. In 1542 he again entered into continental war­fare, joining Emperor Charles V in his war against France. That same year Scots in­vaded England and were again defeated, this time at Solway Moss where their king, James V, received mortal wounds. James’s death freed England from the threat of invasion for the next generation. The wars of Henry’s old age were no more successful than those of his youth, and to pay for these wars Henry had to sell the richest of the monastic lands, raise taxes, and debase the coinage. His popularity diminished with his strength. He died on January 28, 1547, and was succeeded by his ten-year-old son, Edward VI.

               Viewed by some as the embodiment of the warrior king who restored England’s hon­our, by others as a tyrant who ruled by the chopping block, the life of Henry VIII has been a source of continuous fascination. Catholic writers pictured him as the devil, English Protestants credited him as the founder of their religion. His appetites be­came legendary, whether he was wresting with Francis I, eating and drinking enor­mous meals, or marrying six women. After the civil wars of the preceding century that had weakened the monarchy, Henry VIII reestablished the power of the English crown. This was done largely through the work of his powerful ministers Wolsey and Cromwell. They made use of new Privy Council (the former royal council) and Par­liament.