Excommunicated by the Pope, in Henry divorced Catherine and married Anne, who was now pregnant. Catherine, now Princess Dowager of Wales, was forced to leave court. For the next three years she lived in seclusion in a series of dank castles and manors with just a few servants. Prior to the break with Rome, for centuries Mass had been said in Latin.
Cranmer believed it was important for the people to worship in English and so was responsible for the first English Bible authorized for public use which was distributed to every church in the land. Revolts against the new Church of England and the new service were put down. Thomas Cromwell became Vicar-General and later Chancellor and was instrumental in the Dissolution of the Monasteries from to Ironically after all this upheaval, the longed-for child was a girl, Elizabeth , and Henry was bitterly disappointed.
On 2nd May , Anne was arrested. On 19th May Anne was beheaded at the Tower of London- the first English queen to be publicly executed. Henry married his mistress Jane Seymour just over a week later. The ruins of Glastonbury Abbey. Jane, a committed Catholic, begged Henry to abandon the Dissolution of the Monasteries. However when she gave birth to the long awaited male heir, Edward in , all was forgiven and Henry was ecstatic.
Unfortunately following the birth Jane contracted puerpural fever and died: Henry was distraught. The Dissolution of the Monasteries began in and ended in Monastic lands, works of art and buildings were sold off. Monks, abbots and others who resisted were executed. Taxation and the wealth taken from the monasteries allowed him to establish a modern navy. Jane Seymour Anne of Cleves. This was a political match, an alliance between two non-Catholic countries.
A portrait of Anne was painted by Hans Holbein, probably the most famous of the Tudor court painters, and Henry agreed to the match. Both parties were happy for the marriage to be annulled after just 6 months and Anne was granted a generous income and several homes including Hever Castle. Anne remained in England and was a frequent visitor to Court as an honoured guest. Cromwell however was not forgiven for arranging the disastrous match and was executed on a trumpted-up charge of treason.
Henry was now no longer the athletic sportsman he once was. A disastrous accident at the age of 44, when his horse rolled on him in a tournament, had left him with a crippled leg. Unable to exercise, Henry nevertheless continued with his lavish lifestyle, gaining so much weight that by the end of his life he measured 4.
Overweight and plagued by leg ulcers, Henry still yearned for a second male heir to secure the succession. Despite rumours of love affairs before she came to Court, Henry married Catherine in Catherine Howard Catherine Parr. Catherine was a member of the powerful Howard family; her father was younger brother to the Duke of Norfolk. She had no interest in being a mistress. When Henry sought an annulment from his first wife to marry Anne, Rome refused.
Henry and Anne wed in January of , and Anne gave birth to their first child, Elizabeth , in September the same year. Henry remained hopeful Anne would give him a son, but after a series of stillborn births, Henry lost interest in his wife.
When he took a mistress, Anne became enraged. Desperate to end the relationship, Henry accused her of adultery and treason and had the marriage annulled. On May 19, , Anne was beheaded for her alleged crimes. She is by far the most studied of Henry VIII's wives, but much of her life remains a mystery, including the terms of her execution. Jane had served as a lady-in-waiting to both Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. On October 12, , Jane gave birth to Edward VI and died from complications of the birth several weeks later.
After the Dowager Duchess found out, Catherine was sent to court to serve as a lady-in-waiting to Anne of Cleves.
The pair were married in Cranmer saw this as his chance to reduce the influence of his political rival, the Roman Catholic house of Norfolk. Rather than admitting to the earlier affair and possible precontract with Dereham, which would have allowed for her annulment and banishment, Catherine maintained that the relationship was not consensual.
It became treasonous to fail to disclose premarital sexual relations to the monarch within twenty days of marriage, or to incite a person to engage in adultery as the Queen consort. Within months, Catherine had gone the same way as her cousin Anne, executed for high treason. On her route by barge to the Tower of London she likely have passed under the impaled heads of her reported lovers, Culpeper and Dereham, on London Bridge.
She married Henry in July , just four months after Catherine Howard was beheaded, and went on to outlive him — though only by a year. Catherine Parr had been married twice before, being titled Lady Burgh and then Lady Latimer, and married again around six months after Henry died, making her the most married English queen. But she considered it her duty to marry the King instead. In , Catherine, who held strong Protestant sympathies, faced a plot to get rid of her by anti-Protestant officials.
These officials tried to turn Henry against Catherine and even drew up a warrant for her arrest. But Catherine outwitted them and successfully reconciled with her husband, avoiding the same fate as her unlucky predecessors.
She also differed from her predecessors being 30 years old, and a scholar. She became the first English queen to write and publish a book under her own name in , with Prayers and Meditations. Seymour is reported to have also had interests in the future queen, Lady Elizabeth, who lived with the married couple.
TV A new online only channel for history lovers. Sign Me Up. Image Credit: Public Domain. Anne of Cleves by Hans Holbein the Younger. In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Gareth Russell, author of Young and Damned and Fair, a riveting account of Catherine's tragic marriage to an unstable King, and the tragedy of her life in a dangerous hothouse where the odds were stacked against her.
Catherine Parr attributed to Master John, c. If you fancy serving your guests up a Henry VIII style banquet this Christmas, do it in style in one of our machine washable aprons.
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