page_title: House of Tudor
section_title: Henry VIII
hierarchical_section_title: House of Tudor / Henry VIII
caption_attribution_description: 40 years old Catherine of Aragon English: Catherine of Aragon Español: Catalina de Aragón Deutsch: Katharina von Aragón
context_page_description: The House of Tudor was an English royal house, descended from the Tudors of Penmynydd. Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and its realms, including their ancestral Wales and the Lordship of Ireland from 1485 until 1603, with six monarchs in that period: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey, Mary I and Elizabeth I. The Tudors succeeded the House of Plantagenet as rulers of the Kingdom of England, and were succeeded by the House of Stuart. The first Tudor monarch, Henry VII of England, descended through his mother from a legitimised branch of the English royal House of Lancaster. The Tudor family rose to power in the wake of the Wars of the Roses, which left the House of Lancaster, with which the Tudors were aligned, extinct in the male line.
  Henry VII succeeded in presenting himself as a candidate not only for traditional Lancastrian supporters, but also for discontented supporters of their rival House of York, and he took the throne by right of conquest.
context_section_description: The new King Henry VIII succeeded to the throne on 22 April 1509. He married Catherine of Aragon on 11 June 1509; they were crowned at Westminster Abbey on 24 June the same year. Catherine had been the wife of Henry's older brother Arthur (died 1502); this fact made the course of their marriage a rocky one from the start. A papal dispensation had to be granted for Henry to be able to marry Catherine, and the negotiations took some time. Despite the fact that Henry's father died before he was married to Catherine, he was determined to marry her anyway and to make sure that everyone knew he intended on being his own master.
  When Henry first came to the throne, he had very little interest in actually ruling; rather, he preferred to indulge in luxuries and to partake in sports. He let others control the kingdom for the first two years of his reign, and then when he became more interested in military strategy, he took more interest in ruling his own realm. In his younger years, Henry was described as a man of gentle friendliness, gentle in debate, and who acted as more of a companion than a king. He was generous in his gifts and affection and was said to be easy to get along with. The Henry that many people picture when they hear his name is the Henry of his later years, when he became obese, volatile, and was known for his great cruelty.
  Catherine did not bear Henry the sons he was desperate for; her first child, a daughter, was stillborn, and her second child, a son named Henry, Duke of Cornwall, died 52 days after birth. A further set of stillborn children followed, until a daughter, Mary, was born in 1516. When it became clear to Henry that the Tudor line was at risk, he consulted his chief minister Cardinal Thomas Wolsey about the possibility of annulling his marriage to Catherine. Along with Henry's concern that he would not have an heir, it was also obvious to his court that he was becoming tired of his aging wife, who was six years older than he was. Wolsey visited Rome, where he hoped to get the Pope's consent for an annulment. However, the Holy See was reluctant to rescind the earlier papal dispensation and felt heavy pressure from Catherine's nephew, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, in support of his aunt. Catherine contested the proceedings, and a protracted legal battle followed. Wolsey fell from favour in 1529 as a result of his failure to procure the annulment, and Henry appointed Thomas Cromwell in his place as chief minister c.  1532.
  Despite his failure to produce the results that Henry wanted, Wolsey actively pursued the annulment (divorce was synonymous with annulment at that time). However, Wolsey never planned that Henry would marry Anne Boleyn, with whom the king had become enamoured while she served as a lady-in-waiting in Queen Catherine's household. It is unclear how far Wolsey was actually responsible for the English Reformation, but it is very clear that Henry's desire to marry Anne Boleyn precipitated the schism with Rome. Henry's concern about having an heir to secure his family line and to increase his security while alive would have prompted him to ask for a divorce sooner or later, whether Anne had precipitated it or not. Only Wolsey's sudden death at Leicester
  on 29 November 1530 on his journey to the Tower of London saved him from the public humiliation and inevitable execution he would have suffered upon his arrival at the Tower.
caption: Catherine of Aragon: the Church of England annulled her marriage after she failed to produce a male heir to the Tudor dynasty
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