Free Divorced, Beheaded, Died: The History of Britain's Kings and Queens in Bite-Sized Chunks by Kevin Flude Page A

a non-aggression pact. All of this suggested the dawning of a new age of peace, although it did not last long. Henry left most of the detail of government to Cardinal Wolsey, a butcher’s son who was an administrative genius, and who rose to become Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York. He did, however, greatly improve the royal navy, building some magnificent warships.
    Henry’s relationship with Catherine was strained by his affairs and by her failure to produce a male heir. From her many pregnancies, only one child survived – a girl, Princess Mary. In 1526 events took a sinister turn for Catherine when Henry fell in love with Anne Boleyn, the sister of one of his former mistresses. Made sophisticated by a stay in France, Anne was shrewd enough to refuse the King the prize he yearned for. Henry became convinced that the lack of a male heir was God’s punishment for marrying his brother’s widow, and he was so confident that the Pope would grant an annulment that in 1528 he told Anne they would soon be married.
    But the Pope was under the control of Catherine’s nephew, Emperor Charles V, and despite Wolsey’s increasingly desperate attempts, he would not grant Henry a divorce. Wolsey fell from power and was replaced first by Thomas More, who was executed when he refused to support Henry’s plans, and later Thomas Cromwell. Henry achieved the divorce he wanted by making the momentous step of taking England out of the Roman Catholic Church and forming the Church of England, with himself at its head. This gave the King licence to dissolve or demolish the rich, unpopular monasteries, which owned about a third of the country, an act which greatly bolstered the royal treasury, although the widespread destruction of monastic libraries caused an immeasurable cultural loss for the nation. Unlike Anne, Cromwell and other supporters of the Crown, however, Henry was in no sense committed to a ‘Protestant’ Reformation, and lived and died a Catholic, if not a Roman one.
    Henry married Anne in 1533, but she too failed to produce the male heir required, giving birth to a daughter, Elizabeth. Henry became convinced that she had used witchcraft to seduce him and that she was an insatiable adulteress. A list of five lovers was compiled, which included her own brother. Subjected to torture, they were forced to admit their guilt and were executed. Anne followed them to the block in 1536. The King then married the gentle Jane Seymour, who produced the much-desired male heir, Edward, but died twelve days later.
    Henry next turned to a foreign wife, Anne of Cleves, to help consolidate Protestant alliances, but she was not as pretty as Holbein’s portrait of her had suggested and so she was quickly divorced, which was a diplomatic disaster. Cromwell, who had suggested the marriage, was executed for treason. He was not adequately replaced and the gains made earlier in the reign were dissipated with unsuccessful and expensive wars in France and Scotland.
    By this time Henry’s disposition had become grimmer. He was suspicious to the point of paranoia and his bad temper was exacerbated by a painful leg injury which would not heal and prevented exercise. In his late forties, he married the teenaged Catherine Howard. But she too was accused of adultery and treason and she was executed in 1542. A year later, Henry was married to his sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr, who outlived him.
    Henry died in 1547, leaving the throne to his only son, Edward. Although his reign was not as successful as the early years had promised, Henry did leave behind a more united country. Administrative practices in the north and west were aligned with those in the south and helped bring to an end the separatist tendencies in Northumberland, and the over-mighty aristocrats who had caused the Wars of the Roses had lost their power base.
    Henry had three or four illegitimate children in addition to those by his wives, Mary, Elizabeth and Edward.

    E DWARD