The Reign of King Henry VIII :: Biography Biographies Essays

The Reign of King atomic number 1 VIII Henry VIII (born 1491, ruled 1509-1547). The second son of Henry VIIand Elizabeth of York was one of Englands strongest and to the lowest degree popularmonarchs. He was born at Greenwich on June 28, 1491. The firstborn Englishruler to be educated under the influence of the Renaissance, he was a smart scholar, linguist, composer, and musician. As a youth he was gay andhandsome, skilled in all manner of athletic games, but in later life hebecame coarse and fat. When his elder brother, Arthur, died (1502), hebecame heir apparent. He succeeded his father on the throne in 1509, andsoon thereafter he married Arthurs young widow, Catherine of Aragon.During the first 20 years of his reign he left the shaping of policieslargely in the hands of his great counselor, Cardinal Wolsey (See Wolsey,Cardinal). By 1527 Henry had made up his mind to get rid of his wife. Theonly one of Catherines six children who survived infancy was a sickly girl,the Princes s Mary, and it was doubtful whether a woman could succeed to theEnglish throne. so too, Henry had fallen in love with a lady of the court,Anne Boleyn. When the pope (Clement VII) would not annul his marriage, Henry turnedagainst Wolsey, deprived him of his office of chancellor, and had himarrested on a charge of treason. He then obtained a divorce through ThomasCranmer, whom he had made archbishop of Canterbury, and it was soonannounced that he had married Anne Boleyn. The pope was and so defied. All ties that bound the English church toRome were broken. Appeals to the popes court were forbidden, all paymentsto Rome were stopped, and the popes authority in England was abolished. In1534 the Act of Supremacy declared Henry himself to be Supreme Head of theChurch of England, and anyone who denied this title was guilty of an act oftreason. Some changes were also made in the church services, the Bible wastranslated into English, and printed copies were placed in the churches.The monasteries throughout England were dissolved and their vast lands andgoods turned over to the king, who in turn granted those estates tonoblemen who would support his policies. In the northern part of thekingdom the people rose in rebellion in behalf of the monks, but thePilgrimage of Grace, as it was called, was put down. Although Henry reformed the government of the church, he refused to