Why Did Henry VIII Have Six Wives? The Hunt for a Son That Split a Church

Henry VIII had six wives mainly because he was desperate for a legitimate son to inherit the English crown, and because he refused to accept that a marriage could stand in his way. When his first queen, Catherine of Aragon, did not give him a surviving boy, he spent years trying to end the marriage, broke with the Pope to do it, and then moved from queen to queen. Strictly speaking, though, he never divorced anyone: three of his marriages were annulled, declared never to have been valid in the first place, and in legal terms he had only three wives. Two queens were beheaded, one died after childbirth, and the last outlived him.

A second son who was never meant to rule

Henry was born at Greenwich on 28 June 1491, the second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. The heir was his elder brother Arthur, who married a Spanish princess, Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. Henry received a first-rate education, became fluent in Latin and French, and grew into an athletic, musical young man.

Then, in 1502, Arthur died at fifteen, only twenty weeks after his wedding. Henry became heir, and to keep the Spanish alliance alive his father arranged for him to marry his brother's widow. When Henry became king in April 1509, he married Catherine with a papal dispensation, permission from the Pope to marry his brother's widow. That detail would matter enormously twenty years later.

Wife one: Catherine of Aragon and the missing heir

The Tudor dynasty was young. Henry's father had won the throne in battle, and the memory of civil war made a clear male successor feel essential. Catherine had two stillborn sons, in 1513 and 1515, before giving birth in February 1516 to a daughter, Mary, the only child of the marriage to survive. Henry did have a son, Henry FitzRoy, with his mistress Elizabeth Blount, but an illegitimate child was a weak claimant.

By 1527 Henry had convinced himself that the marriage was "blighted in the eyes of God". He pointed to Leviticus 20:21, a verse forbidding a man to take his brother's wife, and argued that the Pope had never had the power to permit the marriage. Ironically, earlier in his reign Henry had written a defence of the Catholic sacraments that earned him the papal title Fidei Defensor, "Defender of the Faith".

The "King's great matter" and the break with Rome

The other reason for the urgency was Anne Boleyn, a charismatic young woman at court who refused to become his mistress. Henry asked Pope Clement VII for an annulment, but the Pope would not grant it. Catherine's nephew was the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, the most powerful ruler in Europe, which made Rome's position even more delicate.

Henry's solution was to remove the Pope from the question. Henry and Anne married in secret, and a second ceremony took place in London on 25 January 1533. In May, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer declared the marriage to Catherine null and the marriage to Anne valid. The Act of Supremacy of 1534 then declared the King "the only Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England", and refusing the oath that recognised this became treason. Henry later dissolved the monasteries and took their wealth, a central part of the English Reformation.

Wife two: Anne Boleyn and a daughter, not a son

Anne was crowned on 1 June 1533 and gave birth on 7 September to a daughter, Elizabeth. Nobody at the time knew that this baby would become Elizabeth I, one of England's most famous monarchs. What Henry saw was another girl, followed by miscarriages.

In the spring of 1536 Anne's position collapsed. Five men, including her own brother George, were arrested and accused of adultery with the Queen; Anne was charged with treasonous adultery and incest. The evidence was unconvincing, but all were found guilty. The marriage was annulled on 17 May, and Anne was beheaded on Tower Green on 19 May 1536. Historians still debate exactly why she fell.

Wife three: Jane Seymour, the son, and the loss

The day after Anne's execution, Henry became engaged to Jane Seymour, one of Anne's ladies-in-waiting, and married her ten days later. On 12 October 1537 Jane gave birth to the long-awaited son, Prince Edward. The birth was difficult, and Jane died twelve days later from an infection. Henry finally had his heir, but the cost had been enormous, and Jane was buried at Windsor, where Henry himself would later be laid to rest.

Wives four, five and six

The fourth marriage was diplomacy. Thomas Cromwell suggested Anne of Cleves, sister of a German duke who could be a useful ally, and the painter Hans Holbein was sent to make her portrait. When Henry met her, he was displeased with her appearance, and the marriage was annulled in July 1540 on the grounds that it had never been consummated. Anne did well out of it: she received the title "The King's Sister", two houses and a generous allowance. Cromwell, blamed in part for the fiasco, was executed.

On the very day of Cromwell's execution, 28 July 1540, Henry married the teenage Catherine Howard, a cousin of Anne Boleyn. Within little more than a year her past and present relationships with other men came to light, and she was beheaded on 13 February 1542. His sixth and final wife, the wealthy widow Catherine Parr, married him in July 1543. She argued with him about religion, helped reconcile him with his daughters Mary and Elizabeth, and survived him.

The king's body and temper

The Henry of the later marriages was not the handsome athlete of 1509. A jousting accident on 24 January 1536 reopened an old leg wound that festered for the rest of his life. He became obese, with a waist of about 54 inches, and in the end had to be moved with mechanical devices. Some historians believe the injury affected his moods and temperament. The old idea that he had syphilis has been dismissed by most historians.

Henry died on 28 January 1547, aged 55, and was succeeded by his son Edward VI. The great irony is that all three of his surviving children ruled England in turn, and the longest and most celebrated reign belonged to Elizabeth, the daughter whose birth had disappointed him. Henry spent his reign chasing a son, and history remembers him best through the daughters he tried to set aside.

Learn with Henry VIII: English phrases about marriage and power

Phrase	Meaning	Example
to tie the knot	to get married	Henry tied the knot six times.
to fall out of favour	to lose someone's support	Cromwell fell out of favour in 1540.
to break with tradition	to stop following old customs	Henry broke with tradition and with Rome.
a match made in heaven	a perfect couple	Henry and Anne of Cleves were not a match made in heaven.
to have the last laugh	to win in the end	Elizabeth had the last laugh.

Try this: Write a short paragraph about one of Henry's queens using "tie the knot" and "fall out of favour". Then explain in English the difference between an annulment and a divorce.