History UsefulNotes / TheHouseOfTudor

In other matters, that whole "Virgin Queen" thing? Debatable. Good Queen Bess had at least two well-publicized affairs - the question is whether the hard-headed Elizabeth would have taken the risk of the damage an illegitimate royal pregnancy would have caused. The first, long-lasting one was with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, her [[VictoriousChildhoodFriend childhood companion]]. If she was in love with anyone, she was in love with him (but he was married, until his wife died under dubious circumstances that made their marriage impossible). Then Leicester dropped dead shortly after the defeat of the Armada. Elizabeth bawled for a few months, and then took up with the second Earl of Essex, also named Robert. He was, essentially, her boy-toy. She had reigned longer than he'd been alive. Incidentally, he was also Leicester's stepson. Unlike his stepfather, however, he didn't know how to keep his mouth shut and got a big head. Bess was mildly displeased by this, so she lopped it off. As for political matches it seems that she took her courtship with Francis (French: François), Duke of Anjou, at least somewhat seriously. Despite their age difference (Elizabeth was considerably older than her suitor) they seemed quite fond of one another. For a time Elizabeth even wore a frog shaped earring Francis sent her, a likely reference to her nickname for him ("my little frog").

She then married an English nobleman, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Why? They were half-cousins; they were both grandchildren of Henry VIII's sister Margaret. This gave them each substantial claims to the English throne, if Good Queen Bess died childless. Marriage united and strengthened their claims; their son, James, did in fact succeed Elizabeth. But that was later; at the time, Elizabeth forbade the match.

Mary fancied herself in love with Darnley, but the honeymoon didn't last. After a while, he began to suspect that she was having an affair with her court musician and secretary, an Italian called Rizzio. So he had Rizzio murdered. Right in front of her. While she was pregnant with Darnley's son.

Later, Lord Darnley's bedroom was blown up. He was found in the garden, in his nightshirt -- strangled. The chief suspect was a roguish Scottish noble called Lord Bothwell. Then, he married widowed Mary.

[[QuestionableConsent To this day, it is unknown whether Mary married Bothwell because she wanted to or because he raped her and she might have felt she didn't have a choice]]. Whatever the case, the Scottish nobles blamed her for Darnley's death. Consequently, there was a battle. Bothwell ran off to Denmark, hoping for sanctuary but ending his days chained to a pillar in a dungeon - he'd forgotten about the time he'd jilted the Danish King's daughter at the altar.

Mary was forced to abdicate and went to England.

Being a Catholic, she became a focus for Catholic opposition to Elizabeth (who had already been excommunicated by Pope Pius V). Eventually, Elizabeth had enough and after a trial on treason charges that may or may not have been true, Mary was beheaded. Because regicide looked rather bad back then (especially when it was your own cousin), Elizabeth allegedly arranged for the death warrant to be sent "accidentally". A softer view says that it was actually sent accidentally. Elizabeth blamed Sir William Cecil, who tended to say things that made Elizabeth unhappy. Unfortunately for her, Cecil was usually right, and she knew it.

Actually a descendant of the secret marriage between Catherine of Valois (Henry V's widow) and Owen Tudor. The Tudors were originally a minor noble family from Wales, and played it to the hilt when amassing followers before Bosworth Field (Henry's personal standard at the battle was the Welsh red dragon) and subsequently (he spent a good bit of money trying to prove he was descended from Myth/KingArthur, and named his eldest son Arthur to cement the connection). Henry's claim was weak (his mother, Margaret Beaufort, was the granddaughter of an illegitimate grandson of Edward III who was explicitly disinherited), but with every other claimant dead or imprisoned, the Lancastrians really weren't in a position to say much.

Henry had to deal with a couple of pretenders to his throne along the way, but he strengthened his claim by marrying Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of King Edward IV, meaning that he secured his tie to the opposing family. The Tudor rose (depicted above) is emblematic of their marriage, being a joining of the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York. Elizabeth was intelligent, attractive, pious, and beloved by the people. Theirs was probably a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage, as Tudor historians seem to agree that she and Henry were genuinely attached to one another[[note]]Whether this was from the moment of marriage or developed is unknown; it's probably the latter as they were complete strangers on their marriage![[/note]]. Unusually for the time period (and especially when compared with his son), Henry is not known to have ever had any mistresses. Henry and Elizabeth had several children, the first being born just eight months after the wedding, and although Elizabeth didn't exert much political influence[[Note]]She did, however, occasionally put her foot down. There is a recorded instance of Henry appointing a bishop that his wife chose over one his mother chose.[[/note]], Henry respected her deeply. When their eldest son died in his teens, it was Elizabeth who comforted her husband and encouraged him to have another child - said child would, unfortunately, end Elizabeth's life, after which Henry went into such deep mourning that he actually became gravely ill, allowing no one to come near him except for his own mother; this was so unusual for the austere king that the members of his court were alarmed. He was young enough to remarry and it would have been politically advantageous to do so, but he had no interest. Even when he finally did give his advisers permission to find him a new bride, his list of desired qualities was recognised as basically being a carbon copy of Elizabeth, which of course they knew they would never be able to find.

So Henry moved onto Catherine Howard, one of Anne's ladies-in-waiting, who was [[BrokenRecord (go figure)]] everything Anne was not: tiny, boyish, spirited, frivolous, and auburn-haired. She was also in love with (and probably legally married to) another man, but that didn't matter: by that time, Henry wasn't taking no for an answer from anyone. After the marriage, Catherine, who, unlike Anne of Cleves, probably ''was a fool'' and was probably all of fifteen years old at this point, found a new boyfriend - Henry's closest body servant - and carried on with him behind the King's back[[note]]According to all sources, however, when the court was on progress to the house of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and his wife, Katherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk, she ''actually behaved herself''. What that says about the Duchess of Suffolk, who was able to keep Catherine in line, is up too you.[[/note]]Bad idea. When Henry found out he naturally had both the current and former boyfriends killed, [[DramaticallyMissingThePoint then sat around for months whining about how all women are whores.]]

Henry had to deal with a couple of pretenders to his throne along the way, but he strengthened his claim by marrying Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of King Edward IV, meaning that he secured his tie to the opposing family. The Tudor rose (depicted above) is emblematic of their marriage, being a joining of the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York. Elizabeth was intelligent, attractive, pious, and beloved by the people. Theirs was probably a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage, as Tudor historians seem to agree that she and Henry were genuinely attached to one another. Unusually for the time period (and especially when compared with his son), Henry is not known to have ever had any mistresses. Henry and Elizabeth had several children, the first being born just nine months after the wedding, and although Elizabeth didn't exert much political influence, Henry respected her deeply. When their eldest son died in his teens, it was Elizabeth who comforted her husband. Indeed, after Elizabeth's death, Henry went into such deep mourning that he actually became gravely ill, allowing no one to come near him except for his own mother; this was so unusual for the austere king that the members of his court were alarmed. He was young enough to remarry and it would have been politically advantageous to do so, but he had no interest. Even when he finally did give his advisors permission to find him a new bride, his list of desired qualities was recognized as basically being a carbon copy of Elizabeth, which of course they knew they would never be able to find.

Enter UsefulNotes/JaneSeymourRoyalty. A staunch Roman Catholic, Jane was everything Anne was not - quiet, placid, feminine, delicate, and blonde. (Henry was like that: every wife he chose was, in some way, the stark opposite of her predecessor.) Jane also refused to have sex with Henry until marriage, which didn't take very long: within months of Anne's last miscarriage her enemies had her charged with adultery, incest, and treason.[[note]]Not witchcraft; that’s a rather stupid myth perpetuated by the Victorians. The early Tudors considered witchcraft a stupid peasant superstition.[[/note]] She was convicted despite the evidence being a laughable tissue of lies, Henry (by now getting into the swing of this Supreme Head thing) annulled their marriage, and she was executed.

Henry was introduced to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves (German: ''Anna von Jülich-Kleve-Berg''), via a lovely Holbein portrait that now can be seen in The Louvre. Henry found her so unattractive in person that the marriage was annulled six months later without it having been consummated. (History does not record what Anne thought of Henry, who by this time weighed about 350 pounds and had nasty pus-spewing abscesses on both legs.) The strange part was that [[HollywoodHomely she wasn't really that unattractive]] - at least, none of the English courtiers who wrote about her after Henry's death mentioned her being anything but remarkably pleasant-looking. At least one said she was the best-looking of all of Henry's queens. But she was docile, tall, quite large-breasted, and largely trained in the domestic arts, and Henry tended to like them feisty, tiny, boyish, and with a classically-trained intellect. More than one historian has wondered if Henry became impotent at this point and blamed Anne instead of his weight. In the end, Anne, who presumably had by now read up on what happened to Queens One and Two (and had her decision greatly simplified by the fact that she was provably as pure and virgin as the day she was married), signed the annulment papers at the King's first suggestion, and thereby got a ''very'' generous settlement from a very relieved King Henry, which allowed her to outlive (and get richer than) the other five. Henry, who didn't actually ''dislike'' her as a person, treated her as an honorary sister; she got on incredibly well with both of his daughters, and was invited to all the events at court. Clearly, Anne was no fool.

So Henry moved onto Catherine Howard, one of Anne's ladies-in-waiting, who was [[BrokenRecord (go figure)]] everything Anne was not: tiny, boyish, spirited, frivolous, and auburn-haired. She was also in love with (and probably legally married to) another man, but that didn't matter: by that time, Henry wasn't taking no for an answer from anyone. After the marriage, Catherine, who, unlike Anne of Cleves, probably ''was a fool'' and was probably all of fifteen years old at this point, found a new boyfriend - Henry's closest body servant - and carried on with him behind the King's back. Bad idea. When Henry found out he naturally had both the current and former boyfriends killed, [[DramaticallyMissingThePoint then sat around for months whining about how all women are whores.]]

As noted above, there was also a guy called Sir Francis Walsingham, who effectively got the whole British espionage system going (including 007, which is how John Dee, a prominet schollar and occultist, signed his letters). English drama flourished under her reign, particularly two gentlemen named Creator/WilliamShakespeare and Creator/ChristopherMarlowe. Diplomatic ties were established with the Ottoman Empire, Barbary States and Japan which led to the expansion of trade. She also granted Sir Walter Raleigh a charter to explore and plant a colony north of Spanish Florida, which would come to be called "Virginia" (perhaps named after her).

* ''Series/TheTudors'' sadly only focuses on the latter half of Henry VIII's reign, [[AdaptationalAttractiveness although, you'd be hard pressed to guess that.]]

* The future Henry VII cameoed in the first episode of the first ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' series. In this AlternateUniverse, he lost the Battle of Bosworth Field and went into hiding during Richard IV's reign. That same episode revealed he did eventually take the throne and retconned most of Richard III's reign and all of Richard IV's reign, but we do not find out how until the final episode of the series. [[spoiler: Edmund's friends accidentally poison the entire Yorkist line.]]

Later, Lord Darnley's bedroom was blown up. He was found in the garden, in his nightshirt -- strangled. The chief suspect was a roguish Scottish noble called Lord Bothwell, who later kidnapped Mary and raped her. She then married him.

This sounds like a candidate for Worst Idea Ever but at the time it was believed that rape rendered a woman irredeemably befilthed unless she married her rapist, so Mary might have felt she didn't have a choice. The Scottish nobles, however, disagreed with her. Strongly. There was a battle. Bothwell ran off to Denmark, hoping for sanctuary but ending his days chained to a pillar in a dungeon - he'd forgotten about the time he'd jilted the Danish King's daughter at the altar.

Became king after raising an army with help from the King of France and beating UsefulNotes/RichardIII at the Battle of Bosworth Field after one noble (Baron Stanley, perhaps not incidentally his stepfather, whom he made Earl of Derby for his trouble)[[note]]A peerage that [[LongRunners remains in the family to this day]]: most notably, Lord Stanley of Preston, early Governor-General of Canada and namesake of [[UsefulNotes/{{Vancouver}} Stanley Park]] and UsefulNotes/TheStanleyCup, became ''16th'' Earl of Derby before he could present his trophy.[[/note]] didn't do anything and his brother Sir William Stanley changed sides, thus "officially" ending the UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses. The thorn bush thing isn't true, along with Richard III being a hunchback[[note]]Well, not to as severe a degree as Shakespeare claimed. The discovery of his skeleton, however, revealed that he did have a slight spinal deformity which could have been the origin of the rumours.[[/note]] or being really desperate for a horse – Creator/WilliamShakespeare has a lot to answer for. Henry had to deal with a couple of pretenders to his throne along the way, but he strengthened his claim by marrying Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of King Edward IV, meaning that he secured his tie to the opposing family. The Tudor rose (depicted above) is emblematic of their marriage, being a joining of the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York. Elizabeth was intelligent, attractive, pious, and beloved by the people. Theirs was probably a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage, as Tudor historians seem to agree she and Henry were genuinely attached to one another. Indeed after Elizabeth's death, Henry did not remarry despite the political benefits.

Nowadays, Henry is considered a steady and slightly dull set of hands at the helm of England. However, he only appears as such in comparison to his extravagant and exciting son: Henry VII was in fact an intelligent, suspicious and steady king, which England needed after years of civil war.

The deaths of his wife Elizabeth and their eldest son Arthur within a year of one another seem to have hit Henry hard, as after that he became considerably harsher to his nobles--and the people in general--and died himself only a few years after. He was buried next to Elizabeth at Westminster Abbey, in a chapel named for himself.

There seems to be a consideration that Jane was rather weak and easily coerced into the events of 1553. While it's true that she didn't have any part in the plans to install her on the throne, it is foolish to consider her weak. She was a Tudor, after all. Northumberland's plan at been to have Guildford Dudley rule as king, but Jane refused to grant him that title, instead assigning him a duke. When some of the council began changing sides and fleeing the Tower of London to go help Mary, Jane took control of the castle's keys ''personally''. She was also incredibly intelligent, with schooling better than her cousins Mary and Elizabeth. She spoke several languages, and was a skilled letter writer. Like Edward VI, the signs were there that she would have been a competent, if pious, monarch.

It should be mentioned that modern medicine has brought some irony to cases where men such as Henry VIII find another woman when their wife produces only daughters, [[ScienceMarchesOn as the chromosome that determines sex is transmitted by the male.]] Also ironic is that the problems Henry kept having with his children being stillborn or dying in infancy may also have been his genes: some scientists suspect that Henry was positive for the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kell_antigen_system Kell]][[subscript:1]] blood antigen, which can cause [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Kell_hemolytic_disease_of_the_newborn a disease that causes stillbirths or infant deaths]] if the mother had previously been exposed to the antigen (which in those days would have meant by becoming pregnant with a baby who had the antigen). This would explain why Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour's second children by Henry died when Elizabeth and Edward were healthy (or at least, healthy enough to survive infancy). Mary being a third pregnancy throws a monkey wrench into this theory, but only so far; Kell is a more or less Mendelian dominant trait, so if Henry was heterozygous for the trait (which he almost certainly was), it is possible that Mary was Kell[[subscript:1]]-negative.[[note]]That Henry's first child by Catherine of Aragon was stillborn rather than healthy does not really interfere with the theory, either; in the 16th century, stillbirths were common for all kinds of reasons.[[/note]]

* Laura Andersen's ''The Boleyn King'' trilogy is set in an Alternate History where[[ForWantOfANail Anne Boleyn did not miscarry and have birth to a healthy boy]]. [[spoiler: Elizabeth I still becomes queen.]]

Mary's husband would ultimately be Philip II (''Felipe''), King of Spain, Naples and [[InNameOnly Jerusalem]], the only son of Charles V.[[note]]Philip succeeded to the Throne of Spain after his father abdicated his various titles at the age of 54 and retired, exhausted and gout-ridden, to a Spanish monastery. He was to die a few years later.[[/note]] During their reign, England lost Calais, a port in northern France that was England's only territory in that country following the Hundred Years' War. There was a considerable age gap between them (she was 11 years his senior) and years of poor health and stress had taken a heavy toll on Mary. Mary seems to have been devoted to him, but it is unlikely that the cold and self-contained Philip reciprocated her devotion. Mary was notably desperate for a baby; she seemed twice to have become pregnant, but with no result -- the symptoms were possibly either psychosomatic or the result of an ovarian cyst -- perhaps both. In a very interesting case of {{what might have been}}, had the pregnancy been real and [[DeathByChildbirth killed Mary]], parliament passed an act [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_Act_1554 to make Philip her successor]], and in such an event, he would have likely taken Mary's half-sister Elizabeth as a subsequent wife, adding England to the Habsburgs' {{long list}} of territories. In any case, she had no child, and upon the death of the first undisputed Queen Regnant in English history the throne promptly passed to the second...

His prayers went unanswered. For some years, Henry had been "courting" (modern historians are more likely to see it as "stalking") a young woman of his court named Anne Boleyn. She was everything Catherine was not: fiery instead of placid, defiant instead of obedient, hot-headed instead of calm. She refused to sleep with Henry for years, saying that her chastity was worth more to her than her own life. Naturally this made Henry even more eager to have her, both because she said no and because she was young enough to give him a son. By this time multiple pregnancies and stillbirths, as well as the stress of Henry's treatment of her, seems to have taken a toll on Catherine and led to premature menopause. Exactly what induced Anne to finally sleep with Henry has been debated for centuries (modern historians think she finally gave in because she had no choice, while the Victorians thought she was a scheming whore), but suffice to say she did and was soon pregnant. Henry was overjoyed, and finally gave up trying to convince the Pope; he officially separated the English Church from Rome, made himself Supreme Head, and directed his new Archbishop of Canterbury to annul his marriage to Catherine. He was so intent that his son, his long-awaited, desperately-wanted heir, would be born legitimately that he was willing to destroy centuries of religious tradition to do so.

This did not go over well with Henry, but even then he reasoned that if the first child (Elizabeth) was a healthy girl, the second would be a healthy boy. But then Anne miscarried two boys, each in the second trimester, and each was said to be deformed. Anne had also made enemies at court and (arguably worse) the qualities that had attracted Henry in the first place - her strong-minded wilfulness, especially - now repelled him.

Enter UsefulNotes/JaneSeymourRoyalty. A staunch Roman Catholic, Jane was everything Anne was not - quiet, placid, feminine, delicate, and blonde; nor was she, despite most portrayals making her so, stupid; if anything, Jane was the smartest - have a baby, make sure it's a boy, keep your gob shut, and then ''die''. (Henry was like that: every wife he chose was, in some way, the stark opposite of her predecessor.) Jane also refused to have sex with Henry until marriage, which didn't take very long: within weeks of Anne's last miscarriage her enemies charged her with adultery, incest, and witchcraft. She was convicted, Henry (by now getting into the swing of this Supreme Head thing) annulled their marriage, and she was executed.

Ten days later Henry married Jane. A year and a half later Jane died after giving birth to Henry's only legitimate son, Edward VI. Common wisdom has it that "she had the good fortune to bear a male heir, and the good sense to die almost immediately afterward, before the King could tire of her". Which isn't to say she never pissed him off, especially after she tried to dissuade him from closing down the monasteries and taking their lands and goods, or insisting he reinstate Mary to the succession and welcome her back to court.

Giving him the son he'd waited 27 years for meant he forgave Jane a lot, however, and Henry was fond of referring to her as his first true wife. While his marriage to Catherine of Aragon lasted much longer and his passion for Anne Boleyn was much more all-encompassing, Henry went out of his way later in life to honor Jane. When he commissioned a portrait of his dynasty, Jane appeared posthumously with him and their son, and he was later buried with her at his own direction.

You have to pity Pope Clement. On one hand he couldn't annul the marriage, since the man holding him hostage would have killed him for the insult to his aunt and cousin. On the other hand he could hardly just say "no" to a powerful king like Henry. Thanks to siding with the losers in the Parthian Wars (the reason Charles was holding him hostage), the rise of Protestantism in Germany, and the encroaching Ottoman Empire in the east Clement didn't have too many friends left other than England. So he temporized. He held hearings, he reserved judgments, he delayed things again and again, praying that one of them would just go off and die before things came to a head.

* Historian Alison Weir has published several novels based on the Tudors. ''Innocent Traitor'' covers the life of Lady Jane Grey, also heavily featuring Mary Tudor and with several cameos by Elizabeth. ''The Lady Elizabeth'' is about Elizabeth's life from the death of Anne Boleyn to the death of Mary I, while its sequel, ''The Marriage Game'', covers her reign as queen. She is currently publishing the ''Six Tudor Queens'' series, with a novel for each of HenryVIII's wives. So far, ''Katherine of Aragon, The True Queen'' and ''Anne Boleyn, A King's Obsession,'' have been published.

So Henry moved onto Catherine Howard, one of Anne's ladies-in-waiting, who was everything Anne was not: tiny, boyish, spirited, frivolous, and auburn-haired. She was also in love with (and probably legally married to) another man, but that didn't matter: by that time, Henry wasn't taking no for an answer from anyone. After the marriage, Catherine, who, unlike Anne of Cleves, probably ''was a fool'' and was probably all of fifteen years old at this point, found a new boyfriend - Henry's closest body servant - and carried on with him behind the King's back. Bad idea. When Henry found out he naturally had both the current and former boyfriends killed, [[DramaticallyMissingThePoint then sat around for months whining about how all women are whores.]]

Anyways, Henry did separate England from Rome. Unlike what Whig history implies, he didn't do it specifically because of his desire for UsefulNotes/AnneBoleyn either. He did it because his only heir was Mary, a daughter, and Henry wanted at that point to make absolutely sure that she would never become Queen in her own right – after all, you couldn't possibly make a strong dynasty out of women rulers... (At this point, there had ''never'' been a Queen Regnant of England -- discounting the unfortunate 12th-century Matilda, granddaughter of [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfNormandy William the Conqueror]], who was usurped by her cousin Stephen, fought a great civil war against him, and never really got a chance to rule... though her [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfPlantagenet descendants]] did.) This meant that he couldn't divorce Catherine like many an heirless king had done to a barren wife before; he needed an annulment, something far more serious that would have made Catherine a whore and Mary a bastard in the eyes of almost anyone who mattered. The only way to get an annulment was to apply to the Pope. Unfortunately for Henry the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Catherine's nephew, was at that very moment holding the Pope hostage.

Mary's husband would ultimately be Philip II (''Felipe''), King of Spain and the son of Charles V.[[note]]Philip succeeded to the Throne of Spain after his father abdicated his various titles at the age of 54 and retired, exhausted and gout-ridden, to a Spanish monastery. He was to die a few years later.[[/note]] During their reign, England lost Calais, a port in northern France that was England's only territory in that country following the Hundred Years' War. There was a considerable age gap between them (she was 11 years his senior) and years of poor health and stress had taken a heavy toll on Mary. Mary seems to have been devoted to him, but it is unlikely that the cold and self-contained Philip reciprocated her devotion. Mary was notably desperate for a baby; she seemed twice to have become pregnant, but with no result -- the symptoms were possibly either psychosomatic or the result of an ovarian cyst -- perhaps both. In any case, she had no child, and upon the death of the first undisputed Queen Regnant in English history the throne promptly passed to the second...

Became king after raising an army with help from the King of France and beating UsefulNotes/RichardIII at the Battle of Bosworth Field after one noble (Baron Stanley, whom he made Earl of Derby for his trouble)[[note]]A peerage that [[LongRunners remains in the family to this day]]: most notably, Lord Stanley of Preston, early Governor-General of Canada and namesake of [[UsefulNotes/{{Vancouver}} Stanley Park]] and UsefulNotes/TheStanleyCup, became ''16th'' Earl of Derby before he could present his trophy.[[/note]] didn't do anything and his brother Sir William Stanley changed sides, thus "officially" ending the UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses. The thorn bush thing isn't true, along with Richard III being a hunchback[[note]]Well, not to as severe a degree as Shakespeare claimed. The discovery of his skeleton, however, revealed that he did have a slight spinal deformity which could have been the origin of the rumours.[[/note]] or being really desperate for a horse – Creator/WilliamShakespeare has a lot to answer for. Henry had to deal with a couple of pretenders to his throne along the way, but he strengthened his claim by marrying Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of King Edward IV, meaning that he secured his tie to the opposing family. The Tudor rose (depicted above) is emblematic of their marriage, being a joining of the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York. Elizabeth was intelligent, attractive, pious, and beloved by the people. Theirs was probably a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage, as Tudor historians seem to agree she and Henry were genuinely attached to one another. Indeed after Elizabeth's death, Henry did not remarry despite the political benefits.

Edward's death occurred in July of 1533, and Jane (again, unwillingly) was crowned Queen four days later. Her reign lasted nine days before a justifiably annoyed Mary I showed up with an army. Unfortunately for Northumberland, he'd failed in his attempt to secure the princess in person before proclaiming Jane as queen instead (well used to watching her own back, Mary had sprung into action on the first news of Edward’s death, and was already on her way to seek support in East Anglia by the time Northumberland’s men arrived at her home), and he'd grossly underestimated Mary's popularity with the likes of conservatives, Catholics and those who were loyal to the memory of her mother and believed Catherine had been treated unfairly. It was a ''big'' army. Heads rolled, right into a basket.

Elizabeth's status as the Virgin Queen served to inspire a cult of loyalty in her subjects, who often portrayed and imagined her as a goddess or the Virgin Mary. Elizabeth, in turn, referred to her subjects as "all her husbands." The "marriage question" also served as a handy, quick-and-dirty foreign policy tool - so long as the question remained open, so to speak. But was she really a virgin? Modern sensibilities tend to assume that any romantic involvement involves sex, and as far back as the Victorian era historians laboured to find a reason why Elizabeth never married that went beyond "good politics". Some believed that Elizabeth's exposure to her father - and, more importantly, how her father [[OffWithHisHead treated his wives]] - might have scared her off marriage, while others suggested she had a reproductive defect of some kind. (The most fanciful even suggested that she was a ''man''; never mind the numerous gynecological examinations she endured during marriage negotiations.) Some historians have [[NotThatTheresAnythingWrongWithThat speculated]] on Elizabeth's sexual [[BiTheWay orientation]], despite her clear affection for and attraction to both Roberts Dudley and Devereux as well as the fact that many royals throughout history who are today recognized as gay have [[LieBackAndThinkOfEngland done their royal duty]] and produced offspring for the good of the realm and the family.[[note]]See: in England: (Possibly) Elizabeth's own ancestor [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfPlantagenet Edward II]]; See also: in France: UsefulNotes/LouisXIV's younger brother [[AgentPeacock Philippe, Duc d'Orléans]].[[/note]] Modern historians who recognize Thomas Seymour's predations for what they were have posited that the abuse rendered her afraid of sex. All of that said, a case can easily be made that Elizabeth would have been a fool to engage in premarital sex if there was any chance of pregnancy, and would have been a fool to marry and give up all her power to a subject or a foreign prince.

Enter UsefulNotes/JaneSeymourRoyalty. A staunch Roman Catholic, Jane was everything Anne was not - quiet, placid, feminine, delicate, and blonde. (Henry was like that: every wife he chose was, in some way, the stark opposite of her predecessor.) Jane also refused to have sex with Henry until marriage, which didn't take very long: within weeks of Anne's last miscarriage her enemies charged her with adultery, incest, and witchcraft. She was convicted, Henry (by now getting into the swing of this Supreme Head thing) annulled their marriage, and she was executed.

So Henry moved onto Catherine Howard, one of Anne's ladies-in-waiting, who was everything Anne was not: tiny, boyish, spirited, frivolous, and auburn-haired. She was also in love with (and probably legally married to) another man, but that didn't matter: by that time, Henry wasn't taking no for an answer from anyone. After the marriage, Catherine, who was probably all of fifteen years old at this point, found a new boyfriend - Henry's closest body servant - and carried on with him behind the King's back. Bad idea. When Henry found out he naturally had both the current and former boyfriends killed, [[DramaticallyMissingThePoint then sat around for months whining about how all women are whores.]]

* ''The Doubled Edge'' series by Creator/MercedesLackey is a retelling of Queen Elizabeth I's life from her birth to her crowning, but with the Sidhe elves involved. The Seleighe (Bright Court) Elves are working for a future in which Elizabeth becomes queen, while the Unseleighe (Dark Court) elves want one in which Mary is queen. Having Edward VI as king is the compromise choice that both sides can live with.

Henry today is also known for being one of the few monarchs to leave his country's treasury fuller when he died than when he was crowned, thanks to his stringent taxation (later nicknamed "The Tight-fisted Tudor"). He actually taxed his subjects (as was his right) for the knighting of his son Arthur, after Arthur had actually died. Nevertheless, to presume that this wealth procured through austerity did not lead to any indulgence on his part (as well as the corruption of his ministers) would be, strictly speaking, not true. If any, [[DeliberateValuesDissonance most of the means he used to enrich the treasury would be considered blatant extortion by modern-day standards]] and were considered extortion by many of his lords.

He was a fine monarch in the way that UsefulNotes/{{Singapore}} is a fine city. Incidentally ([[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial and, not related in the least]]), helped with a [[TropeNamers Trope Name]]: MortonsFork was named for a bit of sharp practice under his watch. Well, his Chancellor's, at least. His financial methods and rule were so hated that just after Henry died some of his ministers were executed due to them assisting him in extorting money from his subjects.