History UsefulNotes / TheHouseOfTudor

Henry seems to have been overjoyed by Elizabeth’s birth; there’s no evidence whatsoever that he was angry or upset, and in fact we have letters written in Henry’s hand before her birth pleading with the midwives to put Anne’s life before that of the child ''even if the child was a boy''. But then further into their marriage Anne miscarried at least two separate pregnancies, both boys, each in the second trimester (rather spookily, the last one happened on the day of Catherine of Aragon's funeral) and after three years the qualities which had attracted Henry in the first place -- her strong-minded wilfulness, especially -- began to repel him. It didn't help Anne's case that, unlike Catherine, she was unpopular with the general public, she had enemies at court who actively hated her, and she ''didn't'' have any relatives or friends either within or without the realm who were powerful enough/willing to support and protect her -- ''or'' to kick up a fuss should anything obviously untoward happen to her...

What also didn't help, and modern historians now believe was a key factor, was Henry having a near-fatal jousting accident. Not only did the news of the event actually trigger one of Anne's miscarriages, but the accident caused two serious injuries for Henry. One was probable brain damage from his horse rolling over him (which altered his personality and made him erratic); the other was a severe leg injury which would cause him to endure constant pain for the rest of his life (which made him irritable and easily angered). This incident put an end to most of the athletic Henry's many physical activities, leading him to become the overweight figure we recognize today, which also contributed to his frequent mood swings. Conveniently, at about this time Catherine of Aragon died (probably of cancer), and so if Henry were to end his marriage to Anne, there would be no more pressure for him to go back to her. And if he now remarried to someone ''else'', all parties would consider the new marriage legitimate as Catholics and those sympathetic to Catherine now considered him a widower.

Henry seems to have been overjoyed by Elizabeth’s birth; there’s no evidence whatsoever that he was angry or upset, and in fact we have letters written in Henry’s hand before her birth pleading with the midwives to put Anne’s life before that of the child ''even if the child was a boy''. But then further into their marriage Anne miscarried at least two separate pregnancies, both boys, each in the second trimester (rather spookily, the second one happened on the day of Catherine of Aragon's funeral) and after three years the qualities which had attracted Henry in the first place -- her strong-minded wilfulness, especially -- began to repel him. It didn't help Anne's case that, unlike Catherine, she was unpopular with the general public, she had enemies at court who actively hated her, and she ''didn't'' have any relatives or friends either within or without the realm who were powerful enough/willing to support and protect her -- ''or'' to kick up a fuss should anything obviously untoward happen to her...

Henry seems to have been overjoyed by Elizabeth’s birth; there’s no evidence whatsoever that he was angry or upset, and in fact we have letters written in Henry’s hand before her birth pleading with the midwives to put Anne’s life before that of the child ''even if the child was a boy''. But then further into their marriage Anne miscarried two separate pregnancies, both boys, each in the second trimester, and after three years the qualities which had attracted Henry in the first place -- her strong-minded wilfulness, especially -- began to repel him. It didn't help Anne's case that, unlike Catherine, she was unpopular with the general public, she had enemies at court who actively hated her, and she ''didn't'' have any relatives or friends either within or without the realm who were powerful enough/willing to support and protect her -- ''or'' to kick up a fuss should anything obviously untoward happen to her...

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[[note]]One notable historian, Dr Paul Doherty, claims that ''Unkempt and exhausted, 800 miles from England the shipwrecked young man prepared to meet his interrogators in a Madrid courtroom one June day in 1587. Suspected of spying after his ship ran aground just days earlier in the Bay of Biscay, the unshaven sailor feared for his life. But it was not the threat of incarceration that troubled him, but the repercussions of the secret he was about to reveal. Asked to identify himself, he replied: "I am the bastard son of Queen Elizabeth of England and her lover Robert Dudley."'', though whether there is any truth to this is unknown.[[/note]]. The first, long-lasting one was with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, her [[VictoriousChildhoodFriend childhood companion]]. If she was ever in love with anyone, she was in love with him -- but he was married, until his first wife Amy died under dubious circumstances that made their marriage impossible.[[note]]A number of modern medical historians believe that her death was caused by breast cancer; however, she was found dead from a fall down a flight of stairs, which didn't look very good at the time. An inquest was held and her husband was found innocent, but the damage to his chances of marrying Elizabeth was done.[[/note]] Leicester died shortly after the defeat of the Armada. Elizabeth mourned 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 through Leicester's second marriage. Unlike his stepfather, however, this Robert didn't know how to keep his mouth shut and got a big head. Bess was mildly displeased by this, so, like they did many times before, axe and head and block met again. 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 seem to have been 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").

Mary was forced to abdicate in favor of her infant son, and went to England and threw herself on Elizabeth's "mercy" which, in this case, was non-existent; having been in the situation herself, Elizabeth was taking no chances on someone being the threat to her that ''she'', probably unwillingly, had been to her half-sister. At first, Elizabeth was willing enough to shelter her cousin, and for several years Mary lived in what amounted to fancy jail.

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. Her father was the Duke of Cleves, an important mover and shaker in the emerging Protestant Schmalkaldic League who presumably judged having England in his back pocket would be worth whatever risk his daughter might face marrying Europe's most notorious serial monogamist. After Catherine of Aragon, she was Henry's only wife who would be considered a "royal", as the daughter of a sovereign prince. 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; Charles de Marillac, the French Ambassador, said at the time that while she was no great beauty she was quite attractive, pleasant and dignified. ''But'' she was also 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 -- plus Anne's heavy and unflattering German clothing did her no favours. More than one historian has wondered if Henry had become impotent by 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 genuinely ''liked'' Anne as a person even though he didn't want to be married to her, treated her as an [[LikeBrotherAndSister honorary sister]], and she was even referenced publicly as "the King's good sister"; she got on incredibly well with both of his daughters, was provided with a household and allowance, and was invited to all the events at court. Henry was so thankful for her acquiescence that her title of "the King's good sister" came with lofty status, and it was understood that, apart from the King's wife and daughters, she outranked ''everybody else at court.'' Clearly, Anne was no fool -- good for her! She never remarried and was the last of Henry's six wives to die, ten years after Henry, though Catherine of Aragon had a longer lifespan. She was also the first of Henry's wives to lack strong religious convictions; born and baptized Catholic, she was raised in a Protestant environment and most of her close relatives became leading lights of the early Protestant movement, but she herself only converted to Anglicanism to marry Henry, and then converted back to Roman Catholicism when her stepdaughter Mary took the throne.

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. Bothwell married the widowed Mary.

Mary was forced to abdicate in favor of her infant son, and went to England and threw herself on Elizabeth's "mercy" which, in this case, was non-existent. At first, Elizabeth was willing enough to shelter her cousin, and for several years Mary lived in what amounted to fancy jail.

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. Her father was the Duke of Cleves, an important mover and shaker in the emerging Protestant Schmalkaldic League who presumably judged having England in his back pocket would be worth whatever risk his daughter might face marrying Europe's most notorious serial monogamist. After Catherine of Aragon, she was Henry's only wife who would be considered a "royal", as the daughter of a sovereign prince. 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; Charles de Marillac, the French Ambassador, said at the time that while she was no great beauty she was quite attractive, pleasant and dignified. ''But'' she was also 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 -- plus Anne's heavy and unflattering German clothing did her no favours. More than one historian has wondered if Henry had become impotent by 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 genuinely ''liked'' Anne as a person even though he didn't want to be married to her, treated her as an [[LikeBrotherAndSister honorary sister]], and she was even referenced publicly as "the King's good sister"; she got on incredibly well with both of his daughters, was provided with a household and allowance, and was invited to all the events at court. Henry was so thankful for her acquiescence that her title of "the King's good sister" came with lofty status, and it was understood that, apart from the King's wife and daughters, she outranked ''everybody else at court.'' Clearly, Anne was no fool -- good for her! She never remarried and was the last of Henry's six wives to die, ten years after Henry, though Catherine of Aragon had a longer life.

This search took longer than expected, and it was nearly three years before Henry married again. This was partly due to the fluctuating politics in Europe that left Henry and his government constantly uncertain about who they needed to be allied with; and partly because the European marriage market, ''shockingly,'' was not that keen on a king who had gone through three wives in five years, with Anne Boleyn's fate standing out in particular. Apparently when Mary of Guise -- a French noblewoman who would later marry Henry's nephew James V of Scotland and give birth to [[UsefulNotes/MaryOfScotland Mary Queen of Scots]] -- learned that Henry had told the French ambassador that he was big in person and had need of a big wife, she glibly replied, "I may be a big woman, but I have a very little neck." When Henry's ambassadors were plying his suit to her, Christina of Denmark supposedly said, "If I had two heads, one should be at the King of England's disposal." While these stories might well be apocryphal, Christina at least made ''no'' secret of her aversion to marrying Henry, particularly since Catherine of Aragon was ''her great-aunt;'' when she posed for a portrait by Holbein she wore mourning dress, and given that she had been widowed over two years prior her choice of wardrobe was very telling. The wooing of both ladies went nowhere, and several other marriage negotiations also fell through.

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. Her father was the Duke of Cleves, an important mover and shaker in the emerging Protestant Schmalkaldic League who presumably judged having England in his back pocket would be worth whatever risk his daughter might face marrying Europe's most notorious serial monogamist. After Catherine of Aragon, she was Henry's only wife who would be considered a "royal", as the daughter of a sovereign prince. 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 had become impotent by 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 genuinely ''liked'' Anne as a person even though he didn't want to be married to her, treated her as an [[LikeBrotherAndSister honorary sister]], and she was even referenced publicly as "the King's good sister"; she got on incredibly well with both of his daughters, was provided with a household and allowance, and was invited to all the events at court. Henry was so thankful for her acquiescence that her title of "the King's good sister" came with lofty status, and it was understood that, apart from the King's wife and daughters, she outranked ''everybody else at court.'' Clearly, Anne was no fool -- good for her! She never remarried and was the last of Henry's six wives to die, ten years after Henry, though Catherine of Aragon had a longer life.

Henry seems to have been overjoyed by Elizabeth’s birth; there’s no evidence whatsoever that he was angry or upset, and in fact we have letters written in Henry’s hand before her birth pleading with the midwives to put Anne’s life before that of the child ''even if the child was a boy''. But then further into their marriage Anne miscarried two separate pregnancies, both boys, each in the second trimester, and after three years the qualities which had attracted Henry in the first place -- her strong-minded wilfulness, especially -- began to repel him. It didn't help Anne's case that, unlike Catherine, she was unpopular with the general public, she had enemies at court who actively hated her, and she ''didn't'' have any relatives or friends either within or without the realm who were powerful enough/willing to support and protect her -- or to kick up a fuss should anything obviously untoward happen to her...

Henry seems to have been overjoyed by Elizabeth’s birth; there’s no evidence whatsoever that he was angry or upset, and in fact we have letters written in Henry’s hand before her birth pleading with the midwives to put Anne’s life before that of the child ''even if the child was a boy''. But then further into their marriage Anne miscarried two separate pregnancies, both boys, each in the second trimester, and after three years the qualities which had attracted Henry in the first place -- her strong-minded wilfulness, especially -- began to repel him. It didn't help that, unlike Catherine, Anne had no relatives or friends either within or without the realm who were powerful enough/willing to support and protect her -- or to kick up a fuss should anything obviously untoward happen to her...

* Laura Andersen's ''The Boleyn King'' trilogy is set in an Alternate History where [[ForWantOfANail Anne Boleyn did not miscarry and gave birth to a healthy boy]]. [[spoiler: Elizabeth I still becomes queen.]]
* 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 UsefulNotes/HenryVIII's wives. So far, ''Katherine of Aragon, The True Queen'' and ''Anne Boleyn, A King's Obsession,'' have been published.

This search took longer than expected, and it was nearly three years before Henry married again. This was partly due to the fluctuating politics in Europe that left Henry and his government constantly uncertain about who they needed to be allied with, and partly because the European marriage market was not that keen on a king who had gone through three wives in five years, with Anne Boleyn's fate standing out in particular. Apparently when Mary of Guise -- a French noblewoman who would later marry Henry's nephew James V of Scotland and give birth to [[UsefulNotes/MaryOfScotland Mary Queen of Scots]] -- learned that Henry had told the French ambassador that he was big in person and had need of a big wife, she glibly replied, "I may be a big woman, but I have a very little neck." When Henry's ambassadors were plying his suit to her, Christina of Denmark supposedly said, "If I had two heads, one should be at the King of England's disposal." While these stories might well be apocryphal, Christina at least made no secret of her aversion to marrying Henry, particularly since Catherine of Aragon was her great-aunt; when she posed for a portrait by Holbein she wore mourning dress, and given that she had been widowed over two years prior her choice of wardrobe was very telling. The wooing of both ladies went nowhere, and several other marriage negotiations also fell through.

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. Her father was the Duke of Cleves, an important mover and shaker in the emerging Protestant Schmalkaldic League who presumably judged having England in his back pocket would be worth whatever risk his daughter might face marrying Europe's most notorious serial monogamist. After Catherine of Aragon, she was Henry's only wife who would be considered a "royal", as the daughter of a sovereign prince. 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 had become impotent by 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 genuinely ''liked'' Anne as a person even though he didn't want to be married to her, treated her as an [[LikeBrotherAndSister honorary sister]], and she was even referenced publicly as "the King's good sister"; she got on incredibly well with both of his daughters, was provided with a household and allowance, and was invited to all the events at court. Henry was so thankful for her acquiescence that her title of "the King's good sister" came with lofty status, and it was understood that, apart from the King's wife and daughters, she outranked ''everybody else at court.'' Clearly, Anne was no fool -- good for her! She never remarried and was the last of Henry's six wives to die, though Catherine of Aragon had a longer life.

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 had been to have Guildford Dudley rule as king, but Jane refused to grant him that title, instead assigning him a duke -- at one point, when threatened about it by her husband, Jane did the smart thing and fled to an even scarier woman: ''her mother''. 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. Before the end, despite her reluctance about the whole thing, she had even begun to sign documents as "Jane the Quene" (spelling hers).

This search took longer than expected, and it was nearly three years before Henry married again. This was partly due to the fluctuating politics in Europe that left Henry and his government constantly uncertain about who they needed to be allied with, and partly because the European marriage market was not that keen on a king who had gone through three wives in five years, with Anne Boleyn's fate standing out in particular. Apparently when Mary of Guise -- a French noblewoman who would later marry Henry's nephew James V of Scotland -- learned that Henry had told the French ambassador that he was big in person and had need of a big wife, she glibly replied, "I may be a big woman, but I have a very little neck." When Henry's ambassadors were plying his suit to her, Christina of Denmark supposedly said, "If I had two heads, one should be at the King of England's disposal." While these stories might well be apocryphal, Christina at least made no secret of her aversion to marrying Henry, particularly since Catherine of Aragon was her great-aunt; when she posed for a portrait by Holbein she wore mourning dress, and given that she had been widowed over two years prior her choice of wardrobe was very telling. The wooing of both ladies went nowhere, and several other marriage negotiations also fell through.

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. Her father was the Duke of Cleves, an important mover and shaker in the emerging Protestant Schmalkaldic League who presumably judged having England in his back pocket would be worth whatever risk his daughter might face marrying Europe's most notorious serial monogamist. After Catherine of Aragon, she was Henry's only wife with royal blood. 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 had become impotent by 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 genuinely ''liked'' Anne as a person even though he didn't want to be married to her, treated her as an [[LikeBrotherAndSister honorary sister]], and she was even referenced publicly as "the King's good sister"; she got on incredibly well with both of his daughters, was provided with a household and allowance, and was invited to all the events at court. Henry was so thankful for her acquiescence that her title of "the King's good sister" came with lofty status, and it was understood that, apart from the King's wife and daughters, she outranked ''everybody else at court.'' Clearly, Anne was no fool -- good for her! She never remarried and was the last of Henry's six wives to die, though Catherine of Aragon had a longer life.

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. Her father was the Duke of Cleves, an important mover and shaker in the emerging Protestant Schmalkaldic League who presumably judged having England in his back pocket would be worth whatever risk his daughter might face marrying Europe's most notorious serial monogamist. After Catherine, she was Henry's only wife with royal blood. 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 had become impotent by 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 genuinely ''liked'' Anne as a person even though he didn't want to be married to her, treated her as an [[LikeBrotherAndSister honorary sister]], and she was even referenced publicly as "the King's good sister"; she got on incredibly well with both of his daughters, was provided with a household and allowance, and was invited to all the events at court. Henry was so thankful for her acquiescence that her title of "the King's good sister" came with lofty status, and it was understood that, apart from the King's wife and daughters, she outranked ''everybody else at court.'' Clearly, Anne was no fool -- good for her!

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 had become impotent by 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 genuinely ''liked'' Anne as a person even though he didn't want to be married to her, treated her as an [[LikeBrotherAndSister honorary sister]], and she was even referenced publicly as "the King's good sister"; she got on incredibly well with both of his daughters, was provided with a household and allowance, and was invited to all the events at court. Henry was so thankful for her acquiescence that her title of "the King's good sister" came with lofty status, and it was understood that, apart from the King's wife and daughters, she outranked ''everybody else at court.'' Clearly, Anne was no fool -- good for her!

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, and Henry (by now getting into the swing of this Supreme Head thing) annulled their marriage, and she was executed. In one last act of "kindness" to his former wife, Anne was beheaded by a professional executioner from France, who used a sword and made it quick.[[note]]This really ''was'' an act of kindness, though it hardly sounds like it. Being a headsman was a brutal occupation, and one which didn't exactly do wonders for one's mental health. As such, the headsman would often drink heavily on the day of an execution, which could sometimes lead to an absolute bloodbath when the axe swings would ''miss''. Some executions took multiple swings before the head was severed from the body, by which point the victim would be practically mutilated. By getting Anne a master swordsman who could do the job with one clean stroke, Henry kept her from suffering too grievously. Nevertheless, the fact that this French executioner arrived as fast as he did already suggests to historians that Henry has hired him way before Anne's set trial, further cementing the fact that Henry has committed to removing Anne regardless of whether she is innocent or compliant.[[/note]] Some historians suggest that Jane, rejecting gifts of money from Henry -- she reportedly kissed the letter he wrote and sent it ''and'' the purse of money that came with it back to the King, who was enraptured at her actions -- was more cunning than she outwardly portrayed herself to be, was playing the long game and, much like Anne, ''won.''

This search took longer than expected, and it was nearly three years before Henry married again. This was partly due to the fluctuating politics in Europe that left Henry and his government constantly uncertain about who they needed to be allied with, and partly because the European marriage market was not that keen on a king who had gone through three wives in five years, with Anne Boleyn's fate standing out in particular. Apparently when Mary of Guise -- a French noblewoman who would later marry Henry's nephew James V of Scotland -- learned that Henry had told the French ambassador that he was big in person and had need of a big wife, she glibly replied "I may be a big woman, but I have a very little neck." When Henry's ambassadors were plying his suit to her, Christina of Denmark supposedly said "If I had two heads, one should be at the King of England's disposal." While these stories might well be apocryphal, Christina at least made no secret of her aversion to marrying Henry, particularly since Catherine of Aragon was her great-aunt; when she posed for a portrait by Holbein she wore mourning dress, and given that she had been widowed over two years prior her choice of wardrobe was very telling. The wooing of both ladies went nowhere, and several other marriage negotiations also fell through.

So Henry moved on to Catherine Howard, a cousin of Anne Boleyn. Catherine was one of Anne's ladies-in-waiting, and [[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 also 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, the young queen ''actually behaved herself''. What that says about the Duchess of Suffolk, who was able to keep Catherine in line, is up to 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.]] Given Catherine's age and other events in her life [[note]]She was likely around ''thirteen'' when she had her first 'relationship' with Henry Mannox, her music teacher, who was at least ten years older than her and may even have been in his mid-thirties. During her interrogation Catherine claimed that Francis Dereham, the aforementioned man to whom she was probably legally married (due to a pre-contract), essentially forced himself upon her. While witnesses from Norfolk House (where both of them were living at the time of their affair) refuted this and said Catherine enjoyed Dereham's attentions, please recall that Catherine was still likely no more than fifteen at this point, and Dereham, again, was more than ten years older than her, meaning he might have pressured her into accepting said attentions. As for the man with whom she was accused of adultery, Thomas Culpeper (who was, once more with feeling, [[RuleOfThree at least ten years older than Catherine]]) theories have been raised that he might have had knowledge of her previous affairs and hoped to use them to gain leverage and power over the young Queen. He may also have been a rapist; in 1539 a Thomas Culpeper was accused of, and granted a royal pardon for, raping a park-keeper's wife and then murdering a villager... though admittedly this might have been Culpeper's elder brother, confusingly also called Thomas.[[/note]] there are historians who now suspect she may have been coerced into the relationship and quite possibly raped -- and then beheaded for it.

In mid-1546 she and Henry celebrated their third wedding anniversary, which doesn't seem like much of a milestone until you realize that she was only the ''second'' of Henry's wives to reach it. Although Henry provided for any children he might have with her in his Third Succession Act of 1544 (behind only his son Edward and ahead of both Mary and Elizabeth), it was clear by this point that he was incapable of fathering any more children - and perhaps she was infertile as well, as she'd had no children with her previous two husbands. Certainly the priority of having more sons - which had driven each of his previous four marriages - was not a paramount concern with Catherine, who was in any event already over 30 when she married the king - only Anne Boleyn had been older (and only if you accept her year of birth as 1501).

Even ignoring this, it is ''obvious'' from a cursory analysis of Henry VIII's well-known sexual history that he had reproductive health issues. Considering six undisputed sexual relationships of Henry VIII (Catherine of Aragon, Bessie Blount, Anne Boleyn, Madge Shelton, Jane Seymour and Katherine Howard)[[note]] Henry is well-known to have never slept with Anne of Cleves. It also is unclear if his marriage to Catherine Parr was consummated. Also as noted above it is unclear if Mary Boleyn's children were Henry's bastards.[[/note]] 4 of the 6 women became pregnant. Of these four women, there were 12 pregnancies. Of these 12 only 5 would be carried to full-term. Comparatively, Henry VII's father impregnated Elizabeth of York six times (possibly seven) with 5 children being delivered full-term.

To heap on the irony, Henry's second daughter, Elizabeth I, whom he declared illegitimate after he had her mother beheaded, became Queen of England and is considered one of the greatest English monarchs. On the other hand, she did effectively end the Tudor dynasty (and Henry's direct legitimate line) by never marrying or having children, so it is [[DeliberateValuesDissonance unlikely old Henry would have taken too much comfort in that.]]

Before Edward's final illness, there were no doubts that he would eventually marry and father a large family of sons, rendering moot the Succession Act passed in Henry's lifetime (by which first Mary, then Elizabeth, would succeed Edward if he died without heirs of his own). When it became obvious that Edward wouldn't live long enough to secure the succession, the king sought to change the succession to eliminate any possibility of Catholic Mary returning the country to Rome, but he couldn't find a legal way to do so without disinheriting Elizabeth as well.[[note]]In fact, it wasn't legal for Edward to change the succession in his will; the succession had been set by Parliament (creating a precedent, incidentally) that no mere royal will, let alone that of a minor, could set aside.[[/note]] No matter: his first will, written in his own hand some time before his death, left the succession to the eldest son of Lady Jane Grey, a cousin of Edward's (technically first cousin once removed; her maternal grandmother was Henry VIII's youngest and favorite sister, Mary Tudor) who had recently been married (much against her will) to Lord Guildford Dudley, son of the Duke of Northumberland, head of the Council of Regency and one of Edward's senior advisers. It wasn't long, though, until Edward realized that he wasn't even going to live long enough for Jane to have any children, so he amended his will to leave the throne directly to her.

Jane's life was spared for the present; Mary wasn't stupid or irrational enough to believe a fifteen-year-old bookworm had engineered a coup all by herself, and understood that the plot was mainly carried out by Jane's father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland. Mary's original intent was to have Jane and her husband convicted of treason, imprisoned, and then quietly released once things had died down. With Northumberland, however, Mary used the tried and true method of monarchs for hundreds of years and, well, you probably get the idea -- his head ended up in a basket.

Jane's ''father,'' however, the Duke of Suffolk, couldn't give up the possibility of his descendants being on the throne -- so they staged ''another'' attempt to get her there, and this time, Mary's hand was forced. Her cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (the one who was Catherine of Aragon's nephew), would not allow the marriage between Mary and his son to take place until Mary's throne was absolutely secure. Mary gave the go-ahead for Jane to be executed, with the caveat that she would be spared if she was found to be pregnant ''or'' renounced her faith and converted to Catholicism. Jane, a fanatical Protestant who spent part of her imprisonment writing a diatribe on the evils of the Pope, refused.

England's very first Queen Regnant, Mary I was Henry VIII's daughter and his only surviving child by Catherine of Aragon. As a little girl, she was doted on by both of her parents, especially as time passed and she continued to be their only surviving child. She was declared Princess of Wales in all but actual title (and some of her contemporaries actually did refer to her as "the Lady Mary, Prince of Wales"), being given the colors of the Prince of Wales to use for her livery and allowed to use the official seal of Wales on her correspondence.[[note]]The reason she was not formally created as Princess of Wales is because it's a courtesy title reserved exclusively for the wife of the Prince of Wales. To call Mary "Princess of Wales" would actually have been a sort of step ''down'' in title from what she was throughout her childhood, which was heir apparent.[[/note]] As a girl, she was sent with her household to Ludlow, then the traditional seat of the Prince of Wales, to continue her education. Everything changed for Mary, however, when Anne Boleyn became queen. With her parents' marriage declared invalid, Mary was declared a bastard, struck from the succession, stripped of her title as "Princess", separated from her mother, and forced into her baby half-sister's service as a lady-in-waiting. When ordered to recognize Anne Boleyn as Queen of England and Elizabeth as Princess, Mary declared that she knew of no Queen but her mother, and no Princess but herself -- she might, however, call Elizabeth her sister, as she called Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Henry VIII's illegitimate son, her brother.

Dad and Anne Boleyn were not pleased by this. Exactly how much Anne resented Mary is unclear, but historians tend to agree that she was unpleasant at ''best'' to her stepdaughter. Luckily for Mary, Anne lost her head, and Mary's subsequent stepmothers were more sympathetic. After her mother's death, she caved, and signed papers repudiating her parents' marriage, which restored good relations between herself and her father. Her father and Jane Seymour named her godmother to Prince Edward, and she was chief mourner at Jane Seymour's funeral. She was eventually restored to the succession, although she remained legally born out of wedlock and was styled "the Lady Mary, the King's daughter," rather than "Princess."[[note]]Meaning, she could not be officially referred to as "The Princess Mary" or "Lady Princess." She was still a princess of the blood, but not ''the'' Princess of England. [[/note]]

Like the rest of the Tudors, Mary was very intelligent and well-educated, but she never showed the same zeal for learning as Elizabeth or Edward. While she lacked the charisma that characterized her father and sister, she was capable of inspiring great loyalty in her subjects (before the... well, keep reading), and ''especially'' in her friends and servants. A very generous, motherly woman, Mary was often asked by friends to stand godmother to their children, and also acted as a substitute mother figure to her much-younger siblings. It was she who urged Henry VIII to bring Elizabeth back into favor after the fall of Anne Boleyn (and sent her own jewels to support Elizabeth financially in the aftermath of Anne's execution when Henry VIII wouldn't give any money toward the child's upkeep), and her brother Edward once wrote her a letter saying he loved her better than anyone else.

As a child, Mary had been betrothed to her cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, the son of Catherine of Aragon's sister Juana and her husband, Philip. This match delighted her parents, as they both eagerly anticipated a grandson who would rule the majority of Roman Catholic Europe. This dream ended, however, when Charles withdrew from the betrothal in favor of another first cousin, Princess Isabella of Portugal. Charles' reneging seems to have blindsided and outraged Henry -- as evidenced by his whole "annulling his first marriage" thing -- although the fact that, at the time of the betrothal, Charles was 22 and Mary was ''six'' may have been a factor. Mary herself seemed to hold no grudge against Charles for it. She (naively) came to rely on Charles as a source of emotional support and advice, particularly when it came to politics. Notoriously guileless, Mary never seemed to realize that Charles ultimately blew with the wind -- for example, during the siege of Rome while Henry VIII was attempting to have his first marriage annulled, Charles seemed to waffle over how big an insult to Catherine and Mary the annulment would actually be, and later was reportedly overjoyed to hear of Lady Jane Grey's accession. Meanwhile, Mary claimed to regard Charles V (her cousin and ex-betrothed, remember) almost as a father, and that her most prized possession was an early letter he'd written to her during their engagement.

She then married an English nobleman, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Why? They were half-cousins; they were both grandchildren of Henry VIII's older sister Margaret. This gave them each substantial claims to the English throne, if Good Queen Bess died childless. Marriage united and strengthened their claims[[note]]Which of them had the better claim depends on who you ask. Mary's was the senior claim by strict law of descent; she was the daughter of Margaret Tudor's elder son from her indisputably legitimate first marriage, but both Mary and her father had been born in Scotland and were not English citizens. Darnley was the son of Margaret Tudor's daughter from her annulled (and therefore sketchy) second marriage, and both he and his mother had been born and lived in England. Darnley was also that rarest of unicorns, a male Tudor who lived long enough to shave, while Mary was already an anointed queen in her own right. Their marriage patched up the weaknesses in each other's claims and meant they would be competing directly with Elizabeth and the other potential heirs, not each other. On the other hand, their grandmother renounced the claims of herself and her descendants to the throne and Henry VIII explicitly disinherited Margaret's entire line in his will. So, you know, who you ask.[[/note]] and their son, James, did in fact succeed Elizabeth. But that was later; at the time, Elizabeth forbade the match. Or didn't -- some historians believe that Elizabeth knew Darnley was ''such a prick'' that anyone who married him would tire of him and get rid of him, and that she knew ''exactly what she was doing when she sent him to Scotland with Robert Dudley'' and that everything that happened with him and Mary was planned to bring Mary down!

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. Bothwell 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.[[note]]She was definitely tired of him, but Mary's goal was always the English throne, and she knew Darnley, despite being cruel, frivolous, and an international embarrassment, was more of a help than a hindrance in that regard, if no other, and that annulling her marriage to him would threaten their son's inheritance to both realms, while having him killed would ruin her credibility and stain her honor, especially in England, where Darnley was still Queen Elizabeth's cousin. From a pragmatic standpoint of realizing her ambitions, Mary's only course of action was to reconcile with Darnley, and she seemed to have been doing that. Darnley was murdered the night before he was set to resume conjugal relations with Mary. Consensus seems to be that Bothwell and other lords killed Darnley, and then the other lords pinned the blame on Bothwell ''and'' Mary to justify deposing her.[[/note]] 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 cousin at the altar.

When Mary was kicked off the Scottish throne, the heir to the English throne became her son, James VI, who like his mother had ascended to the throne as an infant. James VI was a Protestant. Realising that he couldn't get a Catholic onto the English throne any other way, Philip II of Spain (yes, the man who was married to Mary I), also rather annoyed at English support for the United Netherlands (which were [[UsefulNotes/TheEightyYearsWar rebelling against him rather ferociously]]) and privateering (overt state-sponsored piracy) on his treasure ships, got a blessing from Pope Sixtus V and moved onto the second key aspect of the reign of Elizabeth I:

You have to pity Pope Clement. On one hand he couldn't annul the marriage, since the man holding him hostage would have literally 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 (chiefly France) in the Italian 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, probably praying that one of them would just go off and die before things came to a head. [[note]] To Henry's eternal fury though, the Pope gave an annulment to Henry's sister Margaret, Queen of Scotland. Margaret wasn't married to anyone who would kill the Pope if their marriage was annulled.[[/note]]

You have to pity Pope Clement. On one hand he couldn't annul the marriage, since the man holding him hostage would have literally 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 (chiefly France) in the Italian 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, probably praying that one of them would just go off and die before things came to a head. [[note]] To Henry's eternal fury though, the Pope gave an annulment to Henry's sister Margaret, Queen of Scotland.[[/note]]

You have to pity Pope Clement. On one hand he couldn't annul the marriage, since the man holding him hostage would have literally 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 (chiefly France) in the Italian 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, probably praying that one of them would just go off and die before things came to a head. [[note]] To Henry's eternal fury though, the Pope gave an annulment to Henry's sister Margaret, Queen of Scotland. [[\note]]

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, the sister of Mary Boleyn/Carey, one of his mistresses. 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, her multiple pregnancies and stillbirths, as well as the stress of Henry's treatment of her (apart from anything else, he allowed her ''no'' access to their daughter and the two weren't even permitted to write to one another), 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 point to a possible secret marriage at Dover in November 1532, 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 semi-secretly married (or remarried) Anne in January 1533, 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. [[note]]Interestingly, Henry ''did'' have a living son at this time -- but unfortunately, said son was his acknowledged bastard Henry Fitzroy. Fitzroy's existence was one of the major reasons for Henry's anger/suspicions of Catherine, as his mistress Bessie Blount had given him a healthy son. Henry adored Fitzroy and made him Duke of Richmond and Somerset, Captain of Calais, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Henry actually thought about making him ''King'' of Ireland but was talked out of it. Fitzroy was the most powerful peer in the realm next to the King and Henry seems to have always had Fitzroy in mind as his "spare", but was possibly warming up to the idea of making him the official heir as an Act of Parliament was passed in 1536 granting Henry the right to declare anyone his heir. Sadly and ironically, Fitzroy died of consumption round about the time that the Act which could have made him the future king of England was going through Parliament.[[\note]]

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, the sister of Mary Boleyn/Carey, one of his mistresses. 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, her multiple pregnancies and stillbirths, as well as the stress of Henry's treatment of her (apart from anything else, he allowed her ''no'' access to their daughter and the two weren't even permitted to write to one another), 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 point to a possible secret marriage at Dover in November 1532, 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 semi-secretly married (or remarried) Anne in January 1533, 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. [[note]]Interestingly, Henry ''did'' have a living son at this time -- but unfortunately, said son was his acknowledged bastard Henry Fitzroy. Fitzroy's existence was one of the major reasons for Henry's anger/suspicions of Catherine, as his mistress Bessie Blount had given him a healthy son. Henry adored Fitzroy and made him Duke of Richmond and Somerset, Captain of Calais, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Henry actually thought about making him ''King'' of Ireland but was talked out of it. Fitzroy was the most powerful peer in the realm next to the King and Henry seems to have always had Fitzroy in mind as his "spare", but was possibly warming up to the idea of making him the official heir as an Act of Parliament was passed in 1536 granting Henry the right to declare anyone his heir. Sadly and ironically, Fitzroy died of consumption round about the time that the Act which could have made him the future king of England was going through Parliament.[[/note]]

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. The Tudor line's famous tendency toward red hair was also introduced by her. 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 and another recorded instance of Elizabeth convincing Henry -- with the help of her mother-in-law, Margaret Beaufort -- not to send Princess Margaret to Scotland in 1502 as she was "too young"; Henry, ultimately, acquiesced to her wishes and sent Princess Margaret in June 1503 instead, four months after Elizabeth was dead.[[/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; the birth of said child would, unfortunately, end Elizabeth's life. Her death sent Henry 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 -- indeed, the King remained a widower until the moment of his death.

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, the sister of Mary Boleyn/Carey, one of his mistresses. 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, her multiple pregnancies and stillbirths, as well as the stress of Henry's treatment of her (apart from anything else, he allowed her ''no'' access to their daughter and the two weren't even permitted to write to one another), 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 point to a possible secret marriage at Dover in November 1532, 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 semi-secretly married (or remarried) Anne in January 1533, 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.[[note]]Interestingly, Henry ''did'' have a living son at this time -- but unfortunately, said son was his acknowledged bastard Henry Fitzroy. Fitzroy's existence was one of the major reasons for Henry's anger/suspicions of Catherine, as his mistress Bessie Blount had given him a healthy son. Henry adored Fitzroy and made him Duke of Richmond and Somerset, Captain of Calais, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Henry actually thought about making him ''King'' of Ireland but was talked out of it. Fitzroy was the most powerful peer in the realm next to the King and Henry seems to have always had Fitzroy in mind as his "spare", but was possibly warming up to the idea of making him the official heir as an Act of Parliament was passed in 1536 granting Henry the right to declare anyone his heir. Sadly and ironically, Fitzroy died of consumption round about the time that the Act which could have made him the future king of England was going through Parliament.[[/note]]

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, the sister of Mary Boleyn/Carey, one of his mistresses. 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, her multiple pregnancies and stillbirths, as well as the stress of Henry's treatment of her (apart from anything else, he allowed her ''no'' access to their daughter and the two weren't even permitted to write to one another), 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 point to a possible secret marriage at Dover in November 1532, 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 semi-secretly married (or remarried) Anne in January 1533, 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.[[note]]Adding another twist to the plot is the fact that Henry ''did'' have a living son at this time -- but unfortunately, said son was his acknowledged bastard Henry Fitzroy (there are theories that at least one of Mary Boleyn's children was also fathered by Henry, but if that ''was'' the case he never acknowledged them). Fitzroy's existence was one of the major reasons for Henry's anger/suspicions of Catherine, as his mistress Bessie Blount had given him a healthy son. Henry adored Fitzroy and made him Duke of Richmond and Somerset, Captain of Calais, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Henry actually thought about making him ''King'' of Ireland but was talked out of it. Fitzroy was the most powerful peer in the realm next to the King and Henry seems to have always had Fitzroy in mind as his "spare", but was possibly warming up to the idea of making him the official heir as an Act of Parliament was passed in 1536 granting Henry the right to declare anyone his heir. Sadly and ironically, Fitzroy died of consumption (the same disease that killed Henry VII and Edward VI) round about the time that the Act which could have made him the future king of England was going through Parliament.[[/note]]

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, the sister of Mary Boleyn/Carey, one of his mistresses. 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, her multiple pregnancies and stillbirths, as well as the stress of Henry's treatment of her (apart from anything else, he allowed her ''no'' access to their daughter and the two weren't even permitted to write to one another), 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 point to a possible secret marriage at Dover in November 1532, 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 semi-secretly married (or remarried) Anne in January 1533, 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. [[note]] Adding another twist to the plot is the fact that Henry ''did'' have a living son at this time -- but unfortunately, said son was his acknowledged bastard Henry Fitzroy (there are theories that at least one of Mary Boleyn's children was also fathered by Henry, but if that ''was'' the case he never acknowledged them). Fitzroy's existence was one of the major reasons for Henry's anger/suspicions of Catherine, as his mistress Bessie Blount had given him a healthy son. Henry adored Fitzroy and made him Duke of Richmond and Somerset, Captain of Calais, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Henry actually thought about making him ''King'' of Ireland but was talked out of it. Fitzroy was the most powerful peer in the realm next to the King and Henry seems to have always had Fitzroy in mind as his "spare", but was possibly warming up to the idea of making him the official heir as an Act of Parliament was passed in 1536 granting Henry the right to declare anyone his heir. Sadly and ironically, Fitzroy died of consumption (the same disease that killed Henry VII and Edward VI) round about the time that the Act which could have made him the future king of England was going through Parliament.[[/note]]

To heap on the irony, Henry's second daughter, Elizabeth I, whom he declared illegitimate after he had her mother beheaded, [[SocietyMarchesOn became Queen of England and is considered one of the greatest English monarchs.]] On the other hand, she did effectively end the Tudor dynasty (and Henry's direct legitimate line) by never marrying or having children, so it is [[DeliberateValuesDissonance unlikely old Henry would have taken too much comfort in that.]]

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). [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem Henry's claim was weak]]; his mother, Margaret Beaufort, was the granddaughter of an illegitimate grandson of Edward III who was ''explicitly'' disinherited. On the other hand, with every other claimant dead or imprisoned, the Lancastrians really weren't in a position to say much... or anything at all for that matter! From birth until his coronation he was the 2nd Earl of Richmond (and is thus often called "Richmond" in many histories, including ''Theatre/RichardIII''), having been born the posthumous son of his father.[[note]]He was attainted after Edward IV took the throne in 1461, restored to his former title with the Readeption of Henry VI in 1470, and then attainted ''again'' after 1471 when Edward IV took the throne back.[[/note]] This is the reason Richmond-upon-Thames in London is so named, as he built a palace there in his reign and named it for his (former) dignity. (It had previously been called ''Sheen''.) He was an only child; his mother was ''13'' when he was born and the difficult labour probably rendered her sterile. By all accounts, he was a MommasBoy, and Lady Margaret (who survived her son, albeit by less than a year) was the dominant lady at his court throughout his reign, even over his Queen. She was styled "My Lady the King's Mother," though with her son's permission she signed letters and documents as "Margaret R," signifying her position as honorary Queen Mother.

You have to pity Pope Clement. On one hand he couldn't annul the marriage, since the man holding him hostage would have literally 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 (chiefly France) in the Italian 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, probably praying that one of them would just go off and die before things came to a head. [[note]] To Henry's eternal fury though, the Pope gave an annulment to Henry's sister Margaret, Queen of Scotland. [[\note]]

You have to pity Pope Clement. On one hand he couldn't annul the marriage, since the man holding him hostage would have literally 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 (chiefly France) in the Italian 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, probably praying that one of them would just go off and die before things came to a head.