Rogues Gallery: Henry VIII

sandmountainslim · Rogues Gallery: Henry VIII

http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/scotwatch/photos/view/78cd?b=3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England
http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon41.html
http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page19.asp
Henry VIII, King of England "and Ireland" was a ruthless scoundrel
best known for the murder of his wives, his eating habits, playing
dice and being a general waste of DNA. Henry was the man responsible
for the death of James IV and the brave men at Flodden Field and was
no friend to the Scots, he was the son of the Henry Tudor the self
declared English King and Elizabeth of York the turncoat sister of
Richard III, the true King of England. Henry VIII was known not only
for his ruthlessness but also for his delusion that he was a religious
leader, his bad personal hygiene and the fact that his voice was much
like that of a woman. Henry blessed the world with his passing on 28
January 1547 of unknown causes but rumoured to be a result of his
syphilis. Good Riddance to Henry VIII!
Deo Vindice
WP

HENRY VIII (r. 1509-1547)

Henry VIII was born at Greenwich on 28 June 1491, the second son of
Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. He became heir to the throne on the
death of his elder brother, Prince Arthur, in 1502 and succeeded in 1509.

In his youth he was athletic and highly intelligent. A contemporary
observer described him thus: 'he speaks good French, Latin and
Spanish; is very religious; heard three masses daily when he hunted
... He is extremely fond of hunting, and never takes that diversion
without tiring eight or ten horses ... He is also fond of tennis.'

Henry's scholarly interests included writing both books and music, and
he was a lavish patron of the arts.

He was an accomplished player of many instruments and a composer.
Greensleeves, the popular melody frequently attributed to him is,
however, almost certainly not one of his compositions.

As the author of a best-selling book (it went through some 20 editions
in England and Europe) attacking Martin Luther and supporting the
Roman Catholic church, in 1521 Henry was given the title 'Defender of
the Faith' by the Pope.

From his father, Henry VIII inherited a stable realm with the
monarch's finances in healthy surplus - on his accession, Parliament
had not been summoned for supplies for five years. Henry's varied
interests and lack of application to government business and
administration increased the influence of Thomas Wolsey, an Ipswich
butcher's son, who became Lord Chancellor in 1515.

Wolsey became one of the most powerful ministers in British history
(symbolised by his building of Hampton Court Palace - on a greater
scale than anything the king possessed). Wolsey exercised his powers
vigorously in his own court of Chancery and in the increased use of
the Council's judicial authority in the court of the Star Chamber.

Wolsey was also appointed Cardinal in 1515 and given papal legate
powers which enabled him to by-pass the Archbishop of Canterbury and
'govern' the Church in England.

Henry's interest in foreign policy was focused on Western Europe,
which was a shifting pattern of alliances centred round the kings of
Spain and France, and the Holy Roman Emperor. (Henry was related by
marriage to all three - his wife Catherine was Ferdinand of Aragon's
daughter, his sister Mary married Louis XII of France in 1514, and the
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was Catherine's nephew.)

An example of these shifts was Henry's unsuccessful Anglo-Spanish
campaigns against France, ending in peace with France in 1520, when he
spent huge sums on displays and tournaments at the Field of the Cloth
of Gold.

Henry also invested in the navy, and increased its size from 5 to 53
ships (including the Mary Rose, the remains of which lie in the
Portsmouth Naval Museum).

The second half of Henry's reign was dominated by two issues very
important for the later history of England and the monarchy: the
succession and the Protestant Reformation, which led to the formation
of the Church of England.

Henry had married his brother's widow, Catherine of Aragon, in 1509.
Catherine had produced only one surviving child - a girl, Princess
Mary, born in 1516. By the end of the 1520s, Henry's wife was in her
forties and he was desperate for a son.

The Tudor dynasty had been established by conquest in 1485 and Henry
was only its second monarch. England had not so far had a ruling
queen, and the dynasty was not secure enough to run the risk of
handing the Crown on to a woman, risking disputed succession or
domination of a foreign power through marriage.

Henry had anyway fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, the sister of one of
his many mistresses, and tried to persuade the Pope to grant him an
annulment of his marriage on the grounds that it had never been legal.

Royal divorces had happened before: Louis XII had been granted a
divorce in 1499, and in 1527 James IV's widow Margaret (Henry's
sister) had also been granted one. However, a previous Pope had
specifically granted Henry a licence to marry his brother's widow in 1509.

In May 1529, Wolsey failed to gain the Pope's agreement to resolve
Henry's case in England. All the efforts of Henry and his advisers
came to nothing; Wolsey was dismissed and arrested, but died before he
could be brought to trial.

Since the attempts to obtain the divorce through pressure on the
papacy had failed, Wolsey's eventual successor Thomas Cromwell
(Henry's chief adviser from 1532 onwards) turned to Parliament, using
its powers and anti-clerical attitude (encouraged by Wolsey's
excesses) to decide the issue.

The result was a series of Acts cutting back papal power and influence
in England and bringing about the English Reformation.

In 1532, an Act against Annates - although suspended during 'the
king's pleasure' - was a clear warning to the Pope that ecclesiastical
revenues were under threat.

In 1532, Cranmer was promoted to Archbishop of Canterbury and,
following the Pope's confirmation of his appointment, in May 1533
Cranmer declared Henry's marriage invalid; Anne Boleyn was crowned
queen a week later.

The Pope responded with excommunication, and Parliamentary legislation
enacting Henry's decision to break with the Roman Catholic Church soon
followed. An Act in restraint of appeals forbade appeals to Rome,
stating that England was an empire, governed by one supreme head and
king who possessed 'whole and entire' authority within the realm, and
that no judgements or excommunications from Rome were valid.

An Act of Submission of the Clergy and an Act of Succession followed,
together with an Act of Supremacy (1534) which recognised that the
king was 'the only supreme head of the Church of England called
Anglicana Ecclesia'.

The breach between the king and the Pope forced clergy, office-holders
and others to choose their allegiance - the most famous being Sir
Thomas More, who was executed for treason in 1535.

The other effect of the English Protestant Reformation was the
Dissolution of Monasteries, under which monastic lands and possessions
were broken up and sold off. In the 1520s, Wolsey had closed down some
of the small monastic communities to pay for his new foundations (he
had colleges built at Oxford and Ipswich).

In 1535-6, another 200 smaller monasteries were dissolved by statute,
followed by the remaining greater houses in 1538-40; as a result,
Crown revenues doubled for a few years.

Henry's second marriage had raised hopes for a male heir. Anne Boleyn,
however, produced another daughter, Princess Elizabeth, and failed to
produce a male child. Henry got rid of Anne on charges of treason
(presided over by Thomas Cromwell) which were almost certainly false,
and she was executed in 1536. In 1537 her replacement, Henry's third
wife Jane Seymour, finally bore him a son, who was later to become
Edward VI. Jane died in childbed, 12 days after the birth in 1537.

Although Cromwell had proved an effective minister in bringing about
the royal divorce and the English Reformation, his position was
insecure. The Pilgrimage of Grace, an insurrection in 1536, called for
Cromwell's dismissal (the rebels were put down) but it was Henry's
fourth, abortive and short-lived marriage to Anne of Cleves that led
to Cromwell's downfall. Despite being made Earl of Essex in 1540,
three months later he was arrested and executed.

Henry made two more marriages, to Katherine Howard (executed on
grounds of adultery in 1542) and Catherine Parr (who survived Henry to
die in 1548).

None produced any children. Henry made sure that his sole male heir,
Edward, was educated by people who believed in Protestantism rather
than Catholicism because he wanted the anti-papal nature of his
reformation and his dynasty to become more firmly established.

After Cromwell's execution, no leading minister emerged in the last
seven years of Henry's reign. Overweight, irascible and in failing
health, Henry turned his attention to France once more.

Despite assembling an army of 40,000 men, only the town of Boulogne
was captured and the French campaign failed. Although more than half
the monastic properties had been sold off, forced loans and currency
depreciation also had to be used to pay for the war, which contributed
to increased inflation. Henry died in London on 28 January 1547.

To some, Henry VIII was a strong and ruthless ruler, forcing through
changes to the Church-State relationship which excluded the papacy and
brought the clergy under control, thus strengthening the Crown's
position and acquiring the monasteries' wealth.

However, Henry's reformation had produced dangerous Protestant-Roman
Catholic differences in the kingdom. The monasteries' wealth had been
spent on wars and had also built up the economic strength of the
aristocracy and other families in the counties, which in turn was to
encourage ambitious Tudor court factions.

Significantly, Parliament's involvement in making religious and
dynastic changes had been firmly established. For all his concern over
establishing his dynasty and the resulting religious upheaval, Henry's
six marriages had produced one sickly son and an insecure succession
with two princesses (Mary and Elizabeth) who at one stage had been
declared illegitimate - none of whom were to have children

Bigchap

All i can say on this post is............