Tudor England The Tudor Reign Begins The Tudor reign in England began in 1485 after Henry Tudor (of the House of Lancaster) defeated King Richard III (of the House of York), claiming himself King Henry VII and married Elizabeth of York; finally ending the War of Roses that had lasted for nearly 30 years and effectively uniting the feuding families. King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York had four children survive infantcy; Arthur, Henry, Margaret and Mary. Arthur will be named the Prince of Wales while Henry was named the Duke of York. In an attempt to keep military and political alliances aligned in Europe, King Henry VII arranged marriages for Margaret and Mary. Margaret will marry King James IV of Scotland while Mary will marry King Louis XII of France. Furthermore, Prince Arthur will have a marriage arranged with Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of the Spanish King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I. The King always envisioned Prince Arthur as the next Tudor King and Henry as a high-ranking official on Arthur’s court. However, just four months after Arthur was married to Catherine of Aragon, he died from an unknown illness on April 2nd, 1502. He was just six months short of his sixteenth birthday. This moved the younger Henry into the heir of the throne. Known for strengthening the English judicial system, Henry VII also grew the treasury funds of England and successfully kept all others from claiming the throne. He died in 1509 after a short battle with tuberculosis. His son, Henry VIII will take over later that year at 17 years old. King Henry VIII English Reformation From 1514 to 1529, Henry VIII had relied on Thomas Wolsey, a Catholic cardinal, to guide his national and foreign policies. Wolsey enjoyed a lavish existence under Henry, but when Wolsey failed to deliver Henry's quick annulment from Catherine, the cardinal quickly fell out of favor. After 16 years of power, Wolsey was arrested and falsely charged with treason. He subsequently died in custody. Henry's actions upon Wolsey gave a strong signal to the pope that he would not honor the wishes of even the highest clergy and would instead exercise full power in every realm of his court. In 1534, Henry VIII declared himself supreme head of the Church of England. After Henry declared his supremacy, the Christian church separated, forming the Church of England. Henry instituted several statutes that outlined the relationship between the king and the pope and the structure of the Church of England: the Act of Appeals, the Acts of Succession and the first Act of Supremacy, declaring the king was "the only Supreme Head in Earth of the Church of England." These changes seeped down to very small details of worship. Henry ordered clergy to preach against superstitious images, relics, miracles and pilgrimages, and to remove almost all candles from religious settings. Fully separated now from the pope, the Church of England was under England's rule, not Rome's. From 1536 to 1537, a great uprising took hold, during which 30,000 people rebelled against the king's changes. It was the only major threat to Henry's authority as monarch. The rebellion's leader and 200 others were executed. Henry VIII’s Wives Catherine of Aragon At the age of 17, Henry married Catherine of Aragon, Spain, and the two were crowned at Westminster Abbey. Henry VIII’s father wanted to uphold his family's alliance with Spain, so he offered his young son to Catherine, who was the widow of Henry’s brother Arthur. The two families requested that Pope Julius II officially grant release to Arthur and Catherine's marriage. The pope granted it, but the official marriage of Henry and Catherine was postponed until the death of Henry VII in 1509. Although Catherine gave birth to Henry’s first child, a daughter, Mary, Henry grew frustrated by the lack of a male heir and resulted in his first divorce in 1533. Anne Boleyn Mary Boleyn, introduced Henry to her sister, Anne Boleyn, and Anne and Henry began secretly seeing one another. Because Catherine was now 42 and unable to conceive another child, Henry set on a mission to obtain a male heir by arranging a way to officially end his marriage with Catherine. In 1533, Anne Boleyn became pregnant. Henry decided he didn't need the pope's permission on matters of the Church of England and declared his first marriage annulled. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn married secretly in January 1533. Inside the court, however, Queen Anne suffered greatly from her failure to produce a living male heir. After she miscarried twice, Henry became interested in one of Anne's ladies-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. In an all-out effort to leave his unfruitful marriage, Henry contrived an elaborate story that Anne was plotting to murder him. On May 15, 1536, Henry put her on trial. Anne, regal and calm, denied all charges against her. Four days later, Henry's marriage to Anne was annulled and declared invalid. Anne Boleyn was then taken to the Tower Green, where she was beheaded in private on May 19, 1536. Jane Seymour Within 11 days of Anne Boleyn's execution, on May 30, 1536, Jane Seymour and Henry VIII formally wed. However Jane was never officially coronated or crowned queen. In October 1537, following a difficult pregnancy, Jane Seymour produced the king’s long-hoped-for son, Edward. Just nine days after giving birth, Jane died from a pregnancy-related infection. Because Jane was the only of Henry’s spouses to bear him a son, he considered her to be his only "true" wife. He and his court mourned for an extended period of time after her passing. Anne of Cleves Three years after the death of Jane Seymour, Henry was ready to marry again, mainly to guarantee the succession of his crown. He questioned in foreign courts about the appearances of available women. Anne, the sister of the Duke of Cleves, was suggested. A German artist who served as the king's official painter was sent out to create a portrait of her. However after the couple married, in January 1540, Henry disapproved of Anne in the flesh and divorced her after six months. Catherine Howard Within weeks of his divorce to Anne of Cleves, Henry married the very young Catherine Howard, a first cousin of Anne Boleyn, in a private marriage on July 28, 1540. Henry, 49, and Catherine, 19, started out happy. Henry was now dealing with tremendous weight gain and a bad leg, and his new wife gave him enthusiasm for life. He repaid her with lavish gifts. Happiness would not last long for the couple. Catherine began seeking the attention of men her own age—a very dangerous effort for the queen of England. After an investigation into her behavior, she was deemed guilty and beheaded on February 13, 1542. Catherine Parr Independent and well-educated, Catherine Parr was Henry's sixth and last wife; the pair were married in 1543. She was the daughter of Henry's first wife, Catherine of Aragon. The most well-documented incident of Catherine Parr's life was her effort to ban books, a truly horrible act under her husband's leadership that practically got her arrested. When Henry came to scold her for her actions, she bowed to him, saying she was only looking to create a situation where he could teach her the proper way to behave. Henry accepted it saving her from a brutal end. Henry VIII’s Death As a middle-aged man, Henry suffered from a jousting accident that opened a violent wound in his leg which ulcerated and left him unable to play sports. His eventual obesity required that he be moved with mechanical inventions. His habit of binge- eating highly fatty meats was perhaps a symptom of stress. On January 28, 1547, at the age of 55, King Henry VIII of England died. Henry VIII was buried in St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle alongside his deceased third wife, Jane Seymour. Henry's only surviving son, Edward, inherited the throne, becoming Edward VI. Princesses Elizabeth and Mary waited in succession. The Final Tudor Monarchs King Edward VI Edward VI, was born on October 12, 1537, in London, England. Edward was King Henry VIII’s only son; his mother, Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour, died just nine days after his birth. Although Edward has traditionally been viewed as a frail child who was never in good health, some recent studies have found that until several years before his death, he was a healthy, athletically inclined youth. His tutors found him to be intellectually gifted, an advanced student of Greek, Latin, French, and religion. On January 28, 1547, Henry VIII died and Edward succeeded to the throne. Henry had announced that during Edward’s early years the government was to be run by a council; in fact, Edward’s uncle, Edward Seymour had almost supreme power, with the title of Protector, until he was overthrown in 1549 by the dishonest John Dudley. The young king was the mask behind which Dudley controlled the government. The measures taken by both Seymour and Dudley to consolidate the English Reformation, however, agreed with Edward’s own intense dedication to Protestantism. In January 1553 Edward showed the first signs of tuberculosis, and by May it was evident that the disease would be deadly. Edward was determined to exclude his two half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, from the succession and to put Dudley’s daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, and her male heirs in direct line for the throne.