Henry VIII

Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 22 April 1509, and King of Ireland from 18 June 1542, until his death in 1547. Born in Greenwich, Henry was the second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. His elder brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales, had been the heir apparent, but died in 1502 at the age of 15. Henry VII died in 1509, and Henry took the throne at the age of 17. He married Catherine of Aragon, who had been Princess of Wales and became widowed from Arthur. Henry had sought a male heir from Catherine, who produced the future Mary I but no surviving male children. The English church had been in communion with the pope of the Catholic Church. Henry desired to annul the marriage to Catherine, appealing to Pope Clement VII. Since Catherine was the aunt of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, the pope delayed the verdict amid political pressure from Charles. Henry had become impatient with the delay, secretly marrying Anne Boleyn in 1532. Thomas Cranmer, the archbishop of Canterbury, declared Henry's marriage to Catherine to be null and void on 23 May 1533. The pope formally rejected the English proceedings and maintained that Henry was married to Catherine, and later excommunicated Henry from the Catholic Church. Henry then broke from the Church, and passed the Act of Supremacy 1534 which established the monarch as Supreme Head of the Church of England. The English Reformation that followed attempted to develop a centralised religious identity in England and Ireland. He dissolved monasteries and convents, seized their wealth, disposed of their assets, destroyed buildings and relics, dispersed or destroyed libraries, and provided for their former personnel and functions. Henry had six wives in total; during the process of annulment from Catherine, he married Anne Boleyn. Anne produced one child, the future Elizabeth I, and was charged with high treason and executed by beheading in the Tower of London. Henry married Jane Seymour in 1536, who gave birth to Edward, the heir apparent. Catherine Parr was Henry's last wife, taking care of him during his final years until his death in 1547. Henry's contemporaries considered him an attractive, educated, and accomplished king. He has been described as "one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne" and his reign described as the "most important" in English history. He was an author and composer. As he aged, he became severely overweight and his health suffered, and he was frequently characterised in his later life as a lustful, egotistical, paranoid, and tyrannical monarch. Three of his children became English monarchs: Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I.