by Paola Lizares
Home >> Henry VIII
Born in 1491, Henry VIII’s life could be divided into six chapters, one chapter for each of his wives. Indeed, Henry had six wives, one after the other. The first of them was Catherine of Aragon, the youngest daughter of Isabella I of Castille and Ferdinand II of Aragon (and, therefore, the sister of Joanna the Mad). Catherine had, in fact, married Henry’s older brother Arthur in 1501. But, a year later, Arthur died of an infection. His father, Henry VII, and Catherine’s parents were so interested in keeping their alliance that they wanted Catherine to marry Henry. As he would be marrying his brother’s wife, they needed a papal dispensation which, thanks to the pressure of the very pious Isabella, was quickly granted by Julius II.
Henry and Catherine were a happy couple for almost two decades, despite the fact that Henry was not a faithful husband. Catherine got pregnant several times, but only one daughter, Mary, grew up to be an adult. Mary would, in fact, become a future queen of England, but that was not Henry’s will. He yearned for a male heir. As Catherine was approaching menopause, Henry thought that it would be best to annul his marriage to Catherine and to marry somebody else.
In 1527, Henry asked Pope Clement VII for an annulment. But that was against Catherine’s wishes. Her nephew, Emperor Charles V, had conquered Rome, so even if the Pope had accepted to annul the royal marriage, Charles, for the honour of his aunt, wouldn’t have let him. What solution to this problem could Henry find?
In January 1533, Henry secretly married Anne Boleyn, one of Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting. Four months later, Henry had his marriage to Catherine annulled by Thomas Cranmer, the archbishop of Canterbury. To protect himself from the Pope (who readily excommunicated him), he had Parliament pass the Act of Supremacy, making the king of England the head of the English Church. It goes without saying that this way, aside from legalising his divorce from Catherine and his marriage to Anne, Henry also became the owner of all the wealth that the Church had amassed in England since the 6th century.
Catherine was separated from her daughter Mary, who was declared illegitimate, and was sent to live in humble conditions in isolated castles, in the hope that she would accept the divorce. She never did. As for Henry and Anne’s marriage, it wasn’t a happy one, either. Anne was beheaded only three years after marrying Henry, who quickly re-married. His third wife was Jane Seymour. But this is material for another Weekly Letter…
Released under the following licence: GNU Free Documentation Licence
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. Click the image or hyperlink below to view the full text of the licence.
For full licence description, go to: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2005-09-23 02:00:00 +0200
Copyright (C) ITT (http://www.itt.es) and Planet Lingua (http://www.lingua.es)
We have more weekly letters by Paola
Poll for this weekly letter
The most fascinating Spanish monarch of the 16th century was ...
Licencing
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. Click the image or hyperlink below to view the full text of the licence.
(click the above link for more information)
Add a comment
As far as I know, throughout history, kings were actually “kings” to begin with because they believed to have been given their power by God…... Seems like Henry made the mistake of believing himself to be one.
I wanted to mention the merits of St. Thomas More in all of this… Thomas stayed at the side of the King throughout most of his liife, until he found it necessary to “break up” his friendship with Henry VIII because of his refusal to approve of Henry’s “divorce” which is forbidden outright by the Catholic church- and still is by the way – for which Henry had him beheaded along with another Catholic saint, St. Edmund Campion. Henry persecuted Catholics and anyone who refused to sign an oath that gave him the power of the English Church (anglican church in modern day times?).
All in all an excellent article…
Paul
Glad you liked the article, Paul!
The funny thing is that Henry VIII didn’t like the Central European Protestants. His beliefs were much more on the Catholic side than on the Protestant side; he just didn’t like the Pope interfering with his own personal plans…
By the way, if Henry, the son of Diana, became king one day, would he be Henry IX?
1) What do you think about Henry VIII? How would you describe him?
I think he was a selfish, cruel and despotic man. Nevertheless, I think
he is one of the most well-known kings of England. I do not know
his life in depth, but it seems he didn’t care a lot about his wives. He
even executed two of them!!! The most important evenT during his
reign was the separation of the Church of England from Roman Catholicism,
maybe due to Henry’s obsession with producing a male heir.
2) Have you ever been in an Anglican church? Where and when?
No, I have never been in an Anglican church though I saw them in England.
I don’t like this King because he was not fair with his wives coverall with Catherine of Aragon. I know that the weading between Henry VIII and Catherine was a politic issue agreed for two countries to left France outside.
I don’t understand why Henry VIII was loved for his people and why didn’t recognice Mary Tudor as his daughter and the future Queen of England . As revenge Mary Tudor dedicated her life to persecute the anglicans and was named Bloody Mary.
After all, the future Queen of England was a woman, the daughter of Anne Boleyn and called Elisabeth I, so Henry VIII didn’t obtain a male heir. Sometimes the History is fair.
Whereabouts in England were you when you saw Anglican churches? I attended an Anglican service once, when I visited Oxford. The most interesting difference was that the priest was a woman. What do you think about the ordination of women?
Henry VII did have a son who became a king. This son was Edward VI. But he died when he was only 16. People say that he might have died of congenital syphilis. In this case, his mother, Jane Seymour, would have passed it on to him when she was pregnant, and she probably was infected by Henry VIII. In fact, five of the six wives of Henry VIII (i.e. all except the fourth one, Anne of Cleves*) are said to have contracted the syphilis bacteria from the king. So, if the king had never contracted syphilis, his son probably wouldn’t have been such a weak and fragile king, and would have lived longer. As we would say, Henry got his comeuppance, that is, his just punishment.
*The story of Anne of Cleves is very funny. She saved her neck probably because Henry VIII found her ugly. In fact, before they got married, they hadn’t met in person. All Henry VIII knew about her looks was a portrait by Hans Holbein in which she looked prettier than in real life. So Henry was extremely disappointed by her looks, and refused to sleep with her. (I don’t think she was really attracted to the grossly obese king, either.) So she never got syphilis
-she was the last of the six wives to die!I think women should be ordained. There nothing against it in Catholic doctrine. And indeed, why would there be?
The problem with the Church of England is that it’s vicars aren’t really sure that they believe in God. It’s sort of Catholicism for Kiddies.
My grandmother wouldn’t like female priests at all! She doesn’t even like it when women give you Communion! Even if she were far away from the centre aisle, she’d drift towards the centre aisle to get the Communion from the priest (male, of course) instead of from the woman on her side of the church.
I think the Pope would have something to say about that… Aside from the fact that women are not allowed to be priests, the interesting part is actually discovering why…
Many people are pleasantly surprised to find out that being a priest has nothing to do with being a man or a woman, but in fact, being a representative of Jesus Christ on earth, which brings it to a whole different level.
To say that there is nothing against it in Catholic doctrine seems to be an opinion and certainly not the stance of the Catholic Church.
I invite anyone to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church on this… The book offers an explanation of why this is so…
Cheers for now!
PG
So do you think that the Church of England is wrong?
So what can our conclusion be? That sexually transmitted diseases are a punishment for immoral behaviour or that God’s blessed ones are ugly?
“All who are baptised in Christ, have put on Christ.There is no longer any discrimination between Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female.â€? Galatians 3,28
There is nothing in Catholic dogma which prevents the ordination of women priests. There has been no ‘infallible’ teacing on this (the 5 conditions of infallible teaching have not been met).
The official Magisterium of the Church endorsed the legitimacy of slavery as such until Pope Leo XIII in 1888!
The ninth Council of Toledo in 655 AD imposed slavery on the children of priests (yes, the CHILDREN!)
The Synod of Melfi under Pope Urban II in 1089 imposed slavery on the wives of priests (yes, the WIVES)
So the Church’s teaching authority has been seriously flawed in the past and there is little reason to think it is not flawed now.
Traditions are fine but you can not confer acceptability on an error which has simply grown old.
... so said the handsome Wesley. :-)
1) In my opinion Henry VIII was a poor man that for the one hand hates women but for the other he didn´t know live with them. Besides, he was like Louis XVI, he was so powerful to found a different Church with his own rules. But I think all de monarchies were completely crazy, allways thinking in their desires.
2) No, I never have been in an Anglican church.
Thanks for responding, Laura! But I think the only relationship between Henry VIII and Louis XVI was the loss of heads: Henry beheaded and Louis was beheaded! :-)
In order to understand te behaviour of Henry VIII it is necesary to trip to the XVI century. He was the king of a country that was fighting against another countries, and by those days the power was based on wars, frontiers, friends and enemies. Maybe he only wanted to have several strong sons that could receive his kingdon, to have friends in another countries and to destroy his enemies. But this politics was the same in other countries and for another kings. If the queen couldn’t give him a healthy son, the queen wasn’t valid. And when you have all the power and you think that you are so near from God, you can change of wife or kill her if you want.
If somebody has a faith and he thinks that a catholic marriage is forever, it is imposible to get divorced. And maybe for him his first marriage was forever, and the other weren’t valids. Or maybe the only way to get marry again for him was after to get widower. I don’t know.
I don’t know very well the Anglicanism and Protestantism, but I think that there is more differences betwen these religions and the Catholicism that the fact that the women can be priests. It is a tradition question. If you have a tradition maybe you must remind it. All the religions have good things, but they have also bad things. The fact that women can be priests is a good thing in the Anglicanism, but the fact that they couldn’t in the Catholicism is not bad. Only it is different.
For me the more interesting Spanish monarch of all times is Philip II.
Yes, I think you’re right about whether it’s good or bad to ordain women. Personally speaking, it’s a topic that I don’t really care about (I would never want to become a priest, anyway). I only raised the topic because, until Wednesday, there were only 4 comments on my Weekly Letter, when the previous ones have all had almost 20 comments. I only wanted to raise a controversial issue in order to add more comments to my Weekly and, thus, look more popular.
Sorry if I have created conflict! :-(
There are differences of opinion but no conflicts.
:-)
I care about the question very much because I am a Roman Catholic…and why should God only want men as priests?
Is God a man or something?
No, he isn’t. :-)
The real problem about monarchies is the belief that they can do everything they want, although perhaps nowadays it is not absolutly this way.
Enry´s behaviour was a reflection of a person who was very impulsive: he doesn´t matter Catherine´s feelings, he wanted to have a son and he didn´t think about it too much and remarried again.
On the other hand the problem of a convenience marriage: I think nowadays is the most usual tradition of monarchy and I agree they should be happy but we don´t have to forget they have privileges other citizen will never have along their lives.
Or should you say “No, s/he isn’t?” Hmmm…