Henry VII died at the age of 52 on the 21st of April 1502, leaving his son Henry to be crowned Henry VIII. King Henry VIII was 6 foot 2 inches tall. He went hunting each day and he sometimes chased stags for 30 miles. He was good at archery, he enjoyed jousting tournaments and, incredibly, he found time to spend 5 hours each day in mass at church. He also spent time playing musical instruments, writing poetry, going to parties and dancing at balls and on top all of that, he managed to be King! Finally, the people of England were content. After years of war, they now had a young energetic, fit, artistic King, and everybody agreed that he was the rightful King.

But Henry VIII should never have been king. He had an older brother called Arthur, and Henry VII had married Arthur off to Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of King Phillip of Spain, to form an alliance between England and Spain. However, Arthur died 4 months after the marriage at the age of 15, and when their father Henry VII died, his younger brother Henry was crowned king instead. The advisors of the new king decided that Henry should marry Catherine of Aragon to continue the alliance. Henry knew that if he refused, it could result in war. Since Spain was a very powerful country at that time, and very rich, Henry did not take any chances. He accepted the marriage suggestion, and took Catherine as his wife in 1509.

They had seven or eight children together, but only one daughter (Mary) survived. She was born in 1529; they had been married for twenty years. Henry really needed a son, otherwise, after he died he would have no successor and there could be war again. Henry had already set his sights on another lady - Anne Boleyn, one of Queen Catherine’s ladies in waiting. Anne was young and pretty and Henry was certain she would give him the son he wanted. Even though he knew what was at stake, he decided he would marry her. Henry’s advisors tried to say that Henry’s marriage to Catherine had been illegal because she had already been married to his brother, Arthur. But the Pope did not agree and refused to allow Henry VIII’s divorce proposal to go ahead. Henry was not going to stand for this. He set up his own church, but this time, not Roman Catholic. The Pope excommunicated him (which means he expelled Henry from the Roman Catholic Church). Henry also destroyed most of the Roman Catholic monasteries, and took their money and land. He reduced abbeys such as Fountains Abbey to ruins. This time was called the Reformation.

Henry decided to marry again, this time to Anne of Cleves, giving England a powerful alliance with Germany. He married her on the 6th January, 1540. Before he met her, he did not know what she looked like, so he sent an artist to paint her. But the artist made her look prettier than she actually was – so when Henry met her, he called her a horse because to him she looked ugly! Even so, they were still married. Henry divorced her after 6 months, and made her his sister instead.

In 1540, at the age of 50, Henry married the 19-year-old cousin of Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard. However, rumours began that she was seeing other men and was also plotting against him, so in 1542, he had her beheaded.

The same year, Henry married his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr. She looked after Henry, who was by now often ill, and she also brought his three children together again and arranged the best tutors for them. In January of 1547, Henry himself died. Catherine Parr survived, and went on to marry again.

Here is a rhyme to remember his 6 wives:
Divorced, beheaded, died,
Divorced, beheaded, survived.