Tudor and his 6 wives for almost 550 years has been of interest not only to historians, but also to people of art. And this is not surprising, since even without any adjustments it is in no way inferior to the plots of the most popular soap operas.

Many books have been written and dozens of films have been made on the topic of the monarch's numerous marriages. However, not all of them are true, so it will certainly be interesting for you to read documented facts that shed light on the relationship between Henry VIII Tudor, his wives and heirs, and why the king could not find a woman who could make him become an exemplary family man.

First marriage

Henry VIII ascended the English throne after the death of his father at the age of 17. He entered into his first marriage shortly before that. Moreover, this marriage was not only not out of love, but even its expediency from the point of view of strengthening England's position in Europe was questionable both by the father of the young king and his advisers.

The wife of the future king was Catherine of Aragon, a Spanish infanta, who, moreover, was the widow of Henry's older brother, Arthur. She was older than her husband and their marriage was opposed by the Catholic Church, which considers them close relatives. In order to get permission from the pope, Catherine even had to take an oath that she, despite being married to the Prince of Wales, remained a virgin. Based on these testimonies, the Spanish Infanta's first matrimonial union was declared invalid.

Absence of an heir

Having become king, young Henry completely obeyed his wife in matters of foreign policy. At the same time, the queen was most concerned about the interests of her native Spain. At the same time, everyone expected the birth of an heir from Catherine, but she only gave birth to dead children, or they died immediately after birth.

Finally, in 1516, 7 years after the wedding, the queen became the mother of a healthy girl, who was named Mary. According to the marriage contract of Catherine and Henry, in the absence of a couple of sons, the throne was to pass to the daughter. However, the king was afraid even of the thought that a woman would be on the throne of England. He continued to hope that Catherine would give him a son, but the next and last pregnancy of the queen ended in the birth of another dead boy, which made the threat of a dynastic crisis real.

Extramarital affairs

While the queen unsuccessfully tried to become the mother of the heir to the throne and was constantly pregnant or moving away from a difficult birth, Henry sought solace on the side. His most famous mistresses at that time were Bessie Blount, who gave birth to the king's son Fitzroy, and

Interestingly, in 1925, the first boy was given the title of Duke of Richmond and His Majesty did not even hide that he was the father of this child, while he did not recognize children from his second mistress, although everyone was sure that they were not born without his participation.

Ann Bolein

According to historians, all the wives of Henry 8 Tudor loved this extraordinary person to one degree or another. However, he did not idolize any of them, and subsequently hated them as much as Anne Boleyn.

The girl was the younger sister of his mistress Maria, but she was distinguished by exceptional ambition. She received an excellent education in Brussels and Paris and shone at court. Noticing signs of attention from the king, she met with him with pleasure for intellectual conversations, but was in no hurry to accept his courtship.

Perhaps the reason for her impregnability was the fate of her sister, who became Henry's concubine, and then was rejected and forgotten by him. The refusal only kindled the king's love ardor. To achieve her favor, he offered Anna the role of the wife of Henry 8 Tudor, although he already had a legal wife.

Divorce

Anna Klevskaya

Although England already had an heir to the throne, after the death of Joan Seymour, ambassadors were sent to many European capitals. They were instructed to find candidates for the role of the wife of Henry 8 Tudor. Portraits of girls from royal families had to be brought to London so that the king would choose his bride. As it turned out, no one was eager to give their daughter as a wife to a man who had two annulled marriages behind him and who executed the mother of his child.

With great difficulty, the ambassadors managed to persuade Duke Wilhelm of Cleves to marry his sister Anna to Heinrich. At the end of 1539, the princess arrived in Calais, where she met her fiancé. The king was disappointed, as the bride did not look at all like the girl from the portrait that had been sent to him. He returned to London in a rage and unleashed his anger on the courtiers, who betrothed him a "Flemish mare."

Nevertheless, he had to marry, but he declared publicly that he did not touch his wife. Despite this, Anna Klevskaya won universal love at court and became a good stepmother to the king's three children. Henry soon decided to cancel the barque. The queen did not resist, especially since her husband invited her to live in the palace as his "beloved sister".

Catherine Howard

By 1540, King Henry VIII Tudor of England and his wives were all over Europe. He could no longer hope to find a wife among the girls from the most august families, so he turned his eyes to the ladies-in-waiting of the fourth wife. Among them, he especially liked whom he married.

The marriage at first seemed happy, and Henry seemed to be 20 years younger. But the young wife was an anemone, and soon young people appeared in her retinue, with whom she was friendly before she became queen. Upon learning of his wife's infidelity, Henry ordered her to be executed in front of the crowd.

Catherine Parr

This woman happened to write the last chapter of the novel "Henry VIII and his six wives." At the time when the king proposed to her, she had already become a widow twice, and she was 31 years old. The king was over 50, and he told Lady Catherine that he hoped that she would be his comfort in old age. The new wife of Heinrich became friends with her husband's daughter Elizabeth and took up the education of his son Edward. The marriage lasted 4 years and ended with the death of the monarch.

Now you know some interesting facts about the events in which the main actors were the English king Henry VIII and his six wives. Fortunately, today everyone is free to marry as many times as they wish, and for this it is not at all necessary to cut off heads or plunge the whole country into the abyss of religious and civil wars.

I have already written. It remains to tell about the rest. The third wife of the king was Jane Seymour Anna's second cousin. Unlike previous wives of the king, Jane received a more than mediocre education, only enough to be able to read and write. The main emphasis in the education of girls from noble families in the 16th century was on traditional women's activities, such as needlework and housekeeping. She first appeared at court as a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon in the mid-1520s. Her older brother, Edward Seymour, by that time had already achieved some success in the career of a courtier: as a child, he served as a page in the retinue of the “French Queen” Mary Tudor, and upon his return to England, he held various positions under the king and cardinal Wolsey. After the annulment of his marriage to Catherine and Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn in 1533, Jane and her sister Elizabeth moved into the new queen's staff. In the summer of 1533, the envoy of Emperor Charles V, Eustache Chapuis, noted in reports that Queen Anne "fell into jealousy - and not without reason." The fleeting connections of the king with the ladies-in-waiting at first did not pose any threat to her position, but after the birth of her daughter Elizabeth (instead of the long-awaited son) and several miscarriages, Henry began to move away from his wife. In September 1535, while traveling through the country, the King and Queen stopped at Wulfhall, the Seymours' hereditary domain. It was there that Henry first paid close attention to the owner's daughter, Lady Jane Seymour. She was the complete opposite of Anna, both in appearance and in character: a blond, pale, calm and modest girl. If Anna was compared with a witch - she was thin, dark-haired and dark-eyed, and besides, impudent and capricious, then Jane looked more like a bright angel, the embodiment of peace and humility. Scholars still give various dates for the first meeting between Jane and Heinrich, but no doubt they knew each other even before Heinrich's visit to Wulfhall. It is known from entries in the parish registers that on Christmas Day 1533, the king presented gifts to several ladies-in-waiting - Lady Seymour was among those noted. Jane's older brothers - Edward and Thomas - noticing that the king sympathizes with their sister, did their best to make them spend as much time together as possible. In addition, it was clear that the relationship between Henry and Anna by the end of 1535 was very strained, and the king began to think about divorcing her. Jane and her entourage increasingly pushed him to think about the illegality of marriage with Anna, and soon he was already publicly declaring that he was "seduced and lured into this marriage by witchcraft" and that he "should take another wife." Already in March 1536, Henry openly made gifts to Jane and visited people with her, which caused indignation on the part of the queen. The courtiers were in a hurry to pay their respects to the new favorite, almost all of her supporters left Anna. After another miscarriage in January 1536, her fate was sealed: she was beheaded on May 19 of the same year on a trumped-up charge of "treason and adultery." Immediately after the execution of Anne Boleyn, the King's Privy Council filed a petition with a recommendation that he find himself a new wife soon. This was a common formality, since on May 20, the day after Anne's death, Henry and Jane were secretly engaged, and on May 30 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, married them in Whitehall Chapel. On June 4, she was officially proclaimed Queen of England, but Henry was in no hurry with her coronation until there was confidence that the new wife was not barren. As a queen, Jane suited almost everyone: kind, quiet, pious, and besides, she remained a follower of the old religion and sympathized with the disgraced Princess Mary. Only adherents of Protestantism remained dissatisfied, fearing that Jane would influence church reforms. But she was far from politics. Only once did she dare to stand up for the participants of the "Blessed Pilgrimage" and turned to Henry with a request to restore at least some of the monasteries, thereby causing his irritation and anger. The king sharply shouted at her and ordered her not to interfere in matters of national importance, recalling that the previous queen paid for it with her life. Jane made no further attempts to influence the actions of the king. From now on, the meaning of her life was the desire to create a proper family environment for him. “Ready to obey and serve” (eng. Bound to obey and serve) - such a motto was chosen by the new queen and followed it to the end. She spent most of her time doing needlework with her ladies-in-waiting, the closest of whom were her sister Elizabeth and Lady Anne Seymour, Edward's wife. At the request of Jane, the king allowed his eldest daughter, Lady Mary, to return to court in the summer of 1536 (after forcing her to sign a document according to which she recognized Henry as the head of the church in England, and his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was invalid), and Christmas 1536 was royal family met in in full force, including the little Lady Elizabeth, who was brought from Hertfordshire at the suggestion of Mary. In the spring of 1537, Jane informed Henry of her pregnancy. The king surrounded his wife with unprecedented care and fulfilled all her requirements and whims. To please the queen, he even appointed her brother Edward a member of the Privy Council. In September, she moved to Hampton Court, and on October 12, 1537, Jane fulfilled the king's cherished desire by giving birth to his son-heir - Edward, Prince of Wales. A few days later, the queen's condition worsened, and on October 24 she died of puerperal fever (there is an assumption that death was the result of an infection introduced during childbirth). She was buried in the chapel of St. George at Windsor Castle. According to Henry VIII, Jane Seymour was his most beloved wife. Before his death, he bequeathed to bury himself next to her. Next in line was Anna Klevskaya. Princess Anna was born on September 22, 1515 in Düsseldorf as the second child of Johann III, Duke of Cleves, and Maria von Jülich-Berg. On her father's side, she belonged to ancient family Lamarkov. Little information has been preserved about the childhood and youth of the princess. In addition to her, the family had two more daughters, Sibylla and Amelia, and a son, Wilhelm. It is known that Anna was very close to her mother, Duchess Maria. Anna, like her sisters, was brought up by her mother, and her education was reduced to the necessary minimum. She could read and write mother tongue, but she was not taught either Latin or French, she could neither sing, nor dance, nor play musical instruments, "for in Germany they reproach ladies for frivolity if they know music" (English ... for they take it heere yn Germanye for... an occasion of lightenesse that great Ladyes... have enye knowledge of musike). Among her virtues, only a meek disposition and the ability to needlework could be noted. Almost immediately after the death of Jane Seymour, Henry began to look for a new wife. Despite the presence of Crown Prince Edward, the fate of the dynasty was still vague, and to ensure the succession, he certainly needed another son. Not wanting to tie himself again with the ties of kinship with the Spanish monarchs, he decided to find himself a French wife. King Francis had a marriageable daughter - Marguerite, as well as the Duke of Guise - Rene, Louise and Marie. Through Castillon, the French ambassador to the English court, Henry informed Francis of his desire to meet with noble maidens in Calais to choose the most worthy of them. Francis declined the offer, noting that it was not customary for French women to exhibit "like trotting horses at a fair." Having failed with French brides, Henry turned his attention to the recently widowed Duchess Christina of Milan. In March 1538, he sent the court painter Hans Holbein to Brussels with an assignment to paint a portrait of the duchess, which Henry was delighted to receive. But Christina replied to the envoys of the king that she was by no means eager to marry Henry, for “his Majesty was so quickly delivered from the former queens ... that her advisers believe that her great-aunt was poisoned, and the second wife was innocently executed, and the third lost life due to improper care after childbirth", and added that if she had two heads, then "she would give one to his Grace". Thanks to his scandalous personal life, Henry gained such a sinister reputation on the continent that not a single European sovereign wanted to marry his daughter or sister to him, and one of the potential brides, Marie de Guise, allegedly stated in response to Henry's proposal that although she was a high growth, but her neck is short. By 1538, relations between the English kingdom and the Catholic European powers had deteriorated significantly, especially after the massacre of the relatives of Cardinal Reginald Pole, who were suspected of plotting against the king. They all advocated the restoration of Catholicism in England. The pope once again announced the excommunication of Henry from the church, and his supporters planned an invasion of England. Yielding to the insistent recommendations of Thomas Cromwell, the king set out to enlist the support of some Protestant state through marriage. Even earlier, John Hutton, the English ambassador in Brussels, reported that the Duke of Cleves had a daughter, but he "did not hear much praise either for her temper or her beauty." It soon became clear that the duke had two unmarried daughters: Anna and Amelia. In January 1539, Charles V and Francis I signed an alliance treaty in Toledo, which forced Henry to hurry up with the matchmaking and send Nicholas Wotton and Robert Barnes - staunch Protestants - to the court of Duke Johann to begin negotiations on the engagement with Anna or Amelia. By the time Henry's envoys arrived, Wilhelm, the son of the recently deceased Johann, had become Duke of Cleves. The new duke had a very strict concept of female modesty, and when the princesses were officially introduced to Wotton and Barnes, they were wearing such bulky dresses and thick headdresses that they could not see the appearance of the girls. To Watton's remark, Wilhelm replied: "Do you want to see them naked?" When this was reported to Cromwell, he immediately sent Hans Holbein to the continent to paint portraits of the sisters, and told the king: “Everyone praises the beauty of Lady Anna, since her face and figure are delightful. She far surpasses the Duchess of Saxony, as the golden sun surpasses the silver moon. Everyone praises her virtue and honesty, along with the modesty that is clearly visible in her appearance. Seeing the result of Holbein's work, the king ordered to continue negotiations, although he was somewhat depressed when he learned from Wotton's report that Anna did not own any foreign languages, nor secular talents. Nevertheless, Wotton noted that the princess was smart and capable, and assured the king that she was quite capable of quickly learning English language . On September 4, 1539, a marriage contract was signed, and already on December 11, Anna and her entourage arrived in Calais, where they were greeted by a royal delegation led by the Duke of Suffolk. One of the nobles who met her, Admiral Southampton, wrote to Henry that the princess was very nice, and that the king had made a worthy choice. Lady Lyle, in a letter to her daughter Anna Bassett, said that the future queen "is very noble and good, it will be very pleasant to serve her." The acquaintance of the bride and groom took place in Rochester, where Henry arrived as a private person, eager to find out what his future wife looks like, and "cherish love in his heart." For almost the entire meeting, the king and princess remained alone, and leaving Anna, Henry said: “I don’t see anything that was presented to me in the pictures and in the reports. I’m ashamed that people praised her so much, and I I don't like it at all!" Returning to Greenwich, the king unleashed his anger on Cromwell, unflatteringly referring to the bride as a "hefty Flemish mare." He, in turn, tried to lay all the blame on Southampton: "When the admiral discovered that the princess was different from the picture and descriptions made about her, he should have kept her in Calais until the king was notified that she was not as good as it seemed ". During the few days remaining before the wedding, the king's lawyers were looking for a way to terminate the engagement. However, on January 6, 1540, the wedding was played. Cromwell convinced Henry that the marriage was almost done and that it would be extremely imprudent to send the princess back. This step threatened trouble with Anna's brother, and besides, it left England without allies in the event of a possible attack by the French or Spaniards. The next morning after the wedding night, the king publicly declared: "She is not at all cute and she smells bad. I left her the same as she was before I went to bed with her." In personal conversations with Cromwell, Henry constantly complained that Anna was not at all a suitable wife for him. Meanwhile, Anna herself behaved with dignity, gradually mastered the English language and refined manners and aroused sympathy from many, with the exception of her own husband. She became a good stepmother to Prince Edward and Lady Elizabeth, and even Lady Mary, who at first scorned the Protestant, soon became friends with her father's new wife. The queen enjoyed life at the English court: she loved music and dancing, got a pet parrot and spent her days playing cards with her ladies-in-waiting and trying on luxurious outfits. And yet she could not help but notice the indifference of the king to her and, mindful of the fate of his previous spouses, she began to seriously fear that she might suffer the fate of Anne Boleyn. In March, at a meeting of the Privy Council, Henry expressed his doubts about the legality of the marriage with Anna due to her earlier engagement to the Duke of Lorraine, and that this obstacle prevents him from consummating his marriage. The ministers reassured the king by saying that failure to perform marital duties was a good enough reason to annul a marriage. In place of the queen, the duke intended his young niece, Lady Catherine Howard, who served as maid of honor to Anna and enjoyed the favor of Henry. In June 1540, Thomas Cromwell was arrested on charges of treason and sent to the Tower, while Anne was sent to Richmond, ostensibly because of the impending plague. The Parliament hastily resolved the issue of divorce. The formal reason for the divorce was documents relating to Anna’s first engagement to the Duke of Lorraine, the king’s statement that “he was married against his will,” and the lack of prospects for the appearance of heirs due to Henry’s inability to have intimate relations with his wife. No claims were made against Anna herself, the only intention of the king was to divorce her in order to marry Catherine Howard. When, on July 6, 1540, Charles Brandon and Stephen Gardiner came to Anne to persuade her to agree to an annulment, she gave in unconditionally to all demands. In gratitude, the king "gladly recognized her as his beloved sister", assigned her a substantial annual income of four thousand pounds and granted her several rich estates, including Hever Castle, once owned by the family of Anne Boleyn, on the condition that she remain in England. . After the divorce, the king left Anna in his family. Now she, as his "beloved sister", was one of the first ladies at court after Queen Catherine and Henry's daughters. In addition, the "loving brother" allowed her to remarry if she wished. Anna, in response, allowed him to control her correspondence with her family. At his request, she sent a letter to Duke William, saying that she was completely happy and satisfied with her status as "the king's relative". Anna celebrated New Year 1541 with her newfound family at Hampton Court. Heinrich, who until recently could not bear Anna as a wife, now warmly welcomed her as a "sister". The courtiers fell in love with her for her good nature, and after the execution of Catherine Howard, many hoped that the king would marry Anna again. The envoys of the Duke of Cleves, who turned to the king with a request to "take her back", Archbishop Thomas Cranmer replied that this was out of the question. Despite royal permission to marry anyone, Anna neglected this privilege. She was quite satisfied with her position in society and the fact that she did not depend on anyone except Heinrich, with whom she developed friendly relations. For a woman of that era, she had unprecedented freedom and was clearly not going to give it up. On July 12, 1543, Anna was invited to the wedding of Henry and Catherine Parr as one of the witnesses, and in 1553, together with Lady Elizabeth, she attended the solemn coronation of Queen Mary. Anna survived both her ex-husband Henry VIII and his son Edward VI. Shortly before her death, with the permission of Mary, she moved to an estate in London's Chelsea, which once belonged to Katharine Parr. There she died on July 17, 1557. In the will, she mentioned gifts for all servants and friends, while specifying that the "best jewel" was intended for the queen. Elizabeth also received some of the jewelry and a request to take into her service "the poor girl Dorothy Curzon." Anna of Cleves was buried in Westminster Abbey. Katherine (or Catherine) Howard became the fifth, but not the last wife of the king. Catherine is the daughter of the youngest of the Howards, Sir Edmund, and his wife, Lady Jocasta Culpeper, who had five children from her first marriage. From the union with Howard, Lady Jocasta had five more children. Sir Edmund was poor: according to English law, the younger sons received almost nothing from the hereditary mass, so they were forced to make their own way in life on their own. After the death of her mother, Lady Kate was given to be raised by the Dowager Duchess Agnes of Norfolk, stepmother of Thomas Howard. In the house of an elderly relative, the girl received a rather meager education. The atmosphere of extreme sexual promiscuity that reigned among the Duchess's ladies-in-waiting also contributed to the development of Lady Howard's vicious inclinations. The duchess looked at these "pranks" of the ladies-in-waiting quite indifferently. However, she had no idea that her granddaughter was quite successful in the "science of love." It is known that in her youth, Catherine had at least two close friends - Henry Manox (a music teacher - he later testified at the trial against her) and Francis Derem. In 1539, Sir Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, found his niece a place at court, where she quickly attracted the attention of Henry. The divorce from Anna brought relief to both parties - the Princess of Cleves also did not experience any friendly feelings for her husband. After the divorce, she remained to live in London as the "King's sister" and until the end of her days enjoyed universal respect. Henry married Kate Howard in July 1540, and the wedding was unusually modest. After the wedding, Henry seemed to be 20 years younger - tournaments, balls and other entertainment resumed at the court, to which Henry remained indifferent after the execution of Anne Boleyn. He adored his young wife - she was incredibly kind, simple-hearted, sincerely loved gifts and rejoiced at them like a child. Heinrich called his wife "a rose without thorns." However, the young queen was extremely careless in her actions. Catherine took all her “friends of youth” to court, and they knew too much about the life of the queen before marriage. In addition, Kate renewed her relationship with Francis Derem, whom she made her personal secretary. Then another gentleman from the “past life” appeared at the court - Thomas Culpeper (Kate's distant relative on the maternal side, whom she once wanted to marry). However, the young woman had enemies at court (or rather, they were the enemies of her influential uncle Norfolk), who hastened to call Thomas, Francis and other participants in the events to frankness. Among other things, Kate was in no hurry to fulfill her main duty - the birth of sons for England. (Henry had an heir - Edward, but the boy grew up sickly and lethargic). When Heinrich was informed of his wife's infidelity, he was taken aback. The reaction of the king was quite unexpected: instead of the usual anger - tears and complaints. The meaning of the complaints boiled down to the fact that fate did not give him a happy family life, and all his women either cheat, or die, or are simply disgusting. This behavior, by the way, emphasizes that Anna Boleyn most likely did not cheat on him. Otherwise, there would not have been such confusion on the part of her husband. It was the first time he had received such a blow. After interrogation of Culpeper, Derem and Manox, it became clear that Catherine had been deceiving the king all this time. But if she indicated that she was engaged to Derem (which he insisted on), then her fate would be much happier: according to English laws, her marriage to Henry would be considered illegitimate and, most likely, the royal couple would simply be divorced. However, Catherine stubbornly denied the fact of this engagement. On February 11, 1542, Lady Howard was transferred to the Tower, on February 13 she was beheaded in front of a curious crowd. The young woman met death in a state of deep shock - she had to be carried to the place of execution. After the execution, Lady Catherine's body was buried next to the grave of Anne Boleyn, another executed queen, who was her cousin: Catherine's father and Anna's mother were brother and sister - the children of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. Henry's last wife was Catherine Parr . Catherine Parr was born around 1512 as the first child of Sir Thomas Parr and Lady Maud Green. It is also difficult to indicate the place of birth - this could happen both in his father's castle Kendal in Westmoreland, and in London, where the Parr family owned a house in the Blackfires area. Catherine Parr spent her childhood in Kendal Castle, which her family had owned since the 14th century. Having lost her father early (he died in 1517), Catherine felt like an adult and responsible for her actions. She studied a lot and willingly, although the study of foreign languages ​​and philosophy was not included in the "program" of education of a noble lady of the 16th century. Lady Latimer's first reaction to the King's offer to be his "comfort in old age" was fright. However, Heinrich did not abandon his intention to marry Catherine and, in the end, she gave her consent. On July 12, 1543, the wedding took place in the royal chapel of Hampton Court. The wedding was played at Windsor, where the royal court remained until August. From the very first days of her life together with Heinrich, Catherine tried to create conditions for a normal family life for him. Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of the executed Anne Boleyn, enjoyed her special disposition. A strong friendship developed between the stepmother and stepdaughter - they corresponded actively and often had philosophical conversations. With Henry's other daughter, Princess Mary, the queen had a less friendly relationship. The reason for this was the religious intolerance of the Catholic Mary towards the Protestant Catherine Parr. Prince Edward was not immediately imbued with love for her stepmother, however, she managed to attract him to her side. In addition, the queen closely followed the training of the heir to the throne. In 1545-1546, the king's health deteriorated so much that he could no longer fully engage in solving state problems. However, the suspiciousness and suspicion of the king, on the contrary, began to acquire a threatening character. Catherine was several times, as they say, on the verge of death: the queen had influential enemies, and, in the end, the king could believe them, and not his wife. At that time, the execution of queens in England was no longer surprising. The king several times decided to arrest Catherine, and each time he refused this step. The reason for the royal disfavor was mainly the radical Protestantism of Catherine, who was carried away by the ideas of Luther. January 28, 1547, at two o'clock in the morning, Henry VIII died. And already in May of the same year, the Dowager Queen married Thomas Seymour, Jane Seymour's brother. (There, too, everyone met with everyone, yes, yes!) Thomas Seymour was a far-sighted man and, having proposed to Lady Catherine, he expected to become the husband of the regent. However, his hopes were not realized. In addition, Henry's daughters - Princesses Elizabeth and Mary - reacted to the marriage very hostilely. Edward, on the contrary, expressed his admiration that his beloved uncle and no less beloved stepmother started a family. The family life of Lord Seymour and the former queen was not happy. Catherine, already middle-aged and faded, was jealous of her attractive husband for all the young beauties. True, when Catherine became pregnant, Thomas Seymour again turned into a devoted spouse. At the end of August 1548, their daughter Mary was born. Catherine Parr herself died on September 5, 1548 from puerperal fever, sharing the fate of many women of her era. Although Parr was married four times, Mary Seymour was her only child. About her future fate practically nothing is known; when her father was executed and his estate confiscated, she was left an orphan in the upbringing of Willoughby's relatives. She was last mentioned in 1550 at the age of two; she may have died in childhood or lived a life of obscurity (about which there are a number of conjectures based on ambiguous arguments). Young Kat Parr was only 14 or 15 years old when she was married to the elderly, sixty-three-year-old Lord Edward Borough. The wedding took place in 1526. The family life of the spouses was quite happy. Moreover, Catherine managed to become a true friend for the children of Lord Borough, who were almost twice as old as their stepmother. However, in 1529 Lady Borough became a widow. In 1530, the young widow received a new marriage proposal. It came from John Neville, Lord Latimer, also a widower. Accepting this offer, Lady Catherine moved to her husband in Snape Castle. Here she again found herself in the role of a stepmother - Latimer had a daughter, Margaret, from her first marriage. In the second half of the 1530s, the Latimers were often at the court of the king, and Henry VIII treated this couple very friendly. After the execution of his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, Henry increasingly drew attention to the smart and friendly Lady Latimer. She was already thirty-one years old, which by the standards of the 16th century was not considered the age of youth, however, the king himself was far from young. Lord Latimer at that time was already seriously ill and, alas, there was no hope of recovery. When he died in 1543, the king began to aggressively court Lady Latimer.

No matter how much historians write about the English King Henry VIII, interest in this truly outstanding person does not decrease.

Source: Ivonin Yu.E., Ivonina L.I. Rulers of the destinies of Europe: emperors, kings, ministers of the 16th - 18th centuries. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2004.

In his actions, political and personal motives were combined in a very bizarre and at first glance contradictory way; Henry VIII was portrayed as a king-zhuir, who did little public affairs and was constantly in a whirlwind of court entertainment ( Special attention usually turn to his scandalous personal life), sometimes a cruel and treacherous tyrant, sometimes an extremely prudent sober politician, indifferent to women, arranging marriages only for political reasons and maintaining a magnificent court only out of necessity, for reasons of prestige. One of his biographers believed that the behavior of Henry VIII testified to the paranoid inclinations of the English monarch. Of course, this opinion is debatable. Many assessments of the king suffer from one-sidedness. The only thing that all the authors who wrote about him unconditionally agree on is that Henry VIII was a despot. In fact, in an amazing way, he combined the features of a noble knight and a tyrant, but (p. 115) a sober calculation, aimed at strengthening his own power, prevailed.

His favorites, major statesmen of England in the 16th century, who actually laid the foundation for English absolutism, were mainly engaged in political affairs - Thomas Bulley and Thomas Cromwell. To these one could add the great English humanist Thomas More, who served as Lord Chancellor of England from 1529-1532. But, firstly, the time of his ministry was short-lived, and secondly, with all his brilliant abilities, he not only did not determine the policy of the English kingdom, but simply was not a major statesman, although he was well versed in the secret springs of making important state decisions. Nevertheless, More suffered the same sad fate as Woolsey and Cromwell: all three fell into disgrace, but if Booley managed to die a natural death, avoiding the inevitable execution, then More and Cromwell ended their days on the scaffold.

Both contemporaries and historians recognize Henry VIII as a tyrant. Without naming names, here are some statements by various authors: “Henry VIII was a tyrant, but a brilliant and capable sovereign”, “He definitely became a despot, but in his actions he was consistent with the will of the people”, “He had willpower and an uncompromising character, which in were able to lead him to a predetermined goal, despite the obstacles ... "One of characteristic features Henry VIII was very accurately noted by Thomas More. After the king visited the house of More in Chelsea (a suburb of London), the son-in-law of the great humanist, William Roper, expressed his admiration for the love that Henry VIII showed for More. To this More sadly remarked: "I must tell you that I have no reason to be proud of my relationship with the king, for if at the cost of my head it will be possible to get at least one fortress in France, the king will not be slow to do so." Already near death, Cardinal Wolsey, who had studied his king well, said to Sir William Kingston: "You must be sure of what you put into his head (p. 116) because you will never take it back." As the years passed, Henry VIII became even more suspicious and vengeful, destroying real and imaginary enemies with horrific cruelty.

The formation of the character of the English king was largely facilitated by the conditions in which he was brought up. It is they who allow answering the question why from an angelic youth he mature years turned into a monster. The situation of the first decades of the Tudor rule, when here and there riots of supporters of Richard S York and anti-tax protests broke out, determined the desire of Henry VII, the father of the hero of this essay, not to lose power at any cost. In addition, in the last (p. 117)

years of reign between him and his son, the future Henry VIII, there were disagreements. The prince did not want to marry Catherine of Aragon, who, after the death of her first husband Arthur, who was the prince's older brother, lived in England, waiting for her fate to be decided. Henry VII believed that the marriage of his son, heir to the throne, and Catherine of Aragon was the best way strengthening the alliance between England and Spain. In this case, in his opinion, the protection of England from attack by France was guaranteed. In addition, the English king was very attracted by Catherine's large dowry, which he did not want to miss. Henry VIII was known for his love of money. The young prince was forced to agree with the will of his father and obediently smile, although behind his smile there was a deep hatred for his parent. At the same time, seeing the reluctance of the Spaniards to marry his son Henry and Catherine, the old king defiantly treated his daughter-in-law, the widow of Prince Arthur, coldly. The English king wanted to force the Spaniards themselves to go (p.118) to rapprochement with London. Catherine was no longer invited to court holidays. Her table was much worse than that of the royal family, she was given little cash and, finally, she was kept in the dark about her marriage to Henry. Meanwhile, the young prince was enjoying himself with might and main, and Henry VII secretly encouraged this.

At the beginning of 1509, Henry VII, already completely ill (he, like his eldest son Arthur, died of tuberculosis), did not even mention the marriage of Henry and Catherine of Aragon. But on his deathbed, he told his son: "We do not want to put pressure on the prince, we want to leave him freedom of choice." But still last words his were: "Marry Catherine."

The young king's advisers quickly brought the matter to an end, and soon the marriage was concluded. Thus, an extremely complex knot of contradictions was tied between England, Spain and the Habsburgs, since the nine-year-old grandson of Ferdinand of Aragon, Karl Habsburg, Catherine's nephew, was the only real contender for the Spanish throne.

The first years of the reign of Henry VIII passed in an atmosphere of court festivities and military adventures. The two million pounds left by the stingy Henry VII in the royal treasury were melting away at a disastrous rate. The young king enjoyed wealth and power, spending his time in non-stop entertainment. An excellently educated and versatile person, Henry VIII initially aroused hopes among people oriented towards humanistic ideals. Lord William Mountjoy in May 1509 wrote to the great humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam: “I say without hesitation, my Erasmus: when you hear that the one whom we could call our Octavian has taken the throne of your father, your melancholy will leave you in an instant ... Our king desires not gold, pearls, jewels, but virtue, glory, (p. 119) immortality!” Henry VIII himself, prone to writing in his younger years, in a song that he wrote and set to music, presented his way of life and ideal like this:

I will be until the last days

Loving a cheerful circle of friends -

Envy, but don't you dare interfere

I have to please God with my

game: shoot

Sing dance -

Here is my life

Or multiply a row

I am not free to such delights?

But the biggest and indestructible passion of the second Tudor was power and glory. The splendor of the Plantagenet crown, the restoration of whose power he dreamed of, pushed him to a risky war in alliance with his father-in-law Ferdinand of Aragon against France. The income of the English king at that time did not allow him to lead such a wasteful lifestyle and large-scale politics. Although Parliament was generally obedient, but, mindful of recent anti-tax speeches, it was not very willing to allow the collection of emergency taxes. The king was poorer than all the big feudal lords put together, but he spent more than them. England did not have its own fleet - if necessary, the ships of Italian and Hanseatic merchants were used. The English kings also did not have a regular army. Under Henry VII, a detachment of arquebusiers was created, and Henry VIII formed a detachment of spearmen. There were (p. 120) permanent garrisons in several border fortresses, total number soldiers which did not exceed 3 thousand people. Although theoretically they could serve as the core for creating a standing army, but this was too little, and the Tudors could not do without foreign mercenaries.

The first twenty years of his reign, Henry VIII was occupied mainly with foreign policy issues. The ambition of the young king seemed to know no bounds, but there was no money for the implementation of grandiose plans. Unsuccessful war with France in 1512–1513 cost the British treasury 813 thousand pounds. Ally Ferdinand of Aragon, having concluded a separate peace with the French king Louis XII, actually left England face to face with France. The collection of a subsidy of £160,000 voted by Parliament in 1514 yielded less than a third of the amount required. Without the risk of triggering a wave of anti-tax protests, it was impossible to continue an active foreign policy. There was another important reason for the turn in the foreign policy of the English king. As soon as he got bogged down in the war with France, relations with Scotland immediately escalated. On August 22, 1513, the Scottish king James IV, at the head of an army of 60,000, moved to the English border. He saw France as the guarantor of Scotland's independence from England's encroachments and often acted in alliance with her. That is what happened this time as well. At a difficult moment, the French crown turned to the Scottish king for help. But on September 9, at the Battle of Flodden, the Scots, who had always fought poorly on the plain, suffered a crushing defeat, and on August 10, 1514, a peace treaty was signed between Louis XII and Henry VIII. One of the goals of the English monarch was to get the support of France in order to take over Castile. According to the English king, it was supposed to belong to the daughters of Ferdinand of Aragon, one of whom - Catherine - was his wife. Henry VIII did not give up hope of expanding his possessions. He saw the Spanish marriage as a means to enhance his international prestige. (p.121)

The successor of Louis XII on the French throne, Francis I, who actively continued the Italian policy of his predecessors, decided that the Anglo-Scottish conflicts should not draw France, which was conducting military operations in Italy, into a war against England. After the victories of Francis I in the autumn of 1515 in Lombardy and the death of Ferdinand of Aragon at the beginning of 1516, the balance of power in Western Europe changed drastically. Spain ended up under the rule of Charles V. Its foreign policy took on a clear pro-Habsburg direction, which complicated the relationship between England and the Empire.

The changes that took place were to affect Albion's position in Western European affairs. England began to return to the policy of balance of power, developed by Henry VII, which was advocated in the time of Henry VIII by the then Lord Chancellor of the kingdom and Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, Thomas Wolsey.

This politician managed to take over the reins of government at a time when Henry VI11 preferred to dance and hunt. For 15 years, Wolsey was the second political figure in England after the king. In his biography, written by George Cavendish in 1554-1558. and published only in 1641, it is said that Woolsey was born into a butcher's family in Ipswich, a town in the county of Suffolk. He early discovered a propensity for learning and was able to get higher education V Oxford University. In 1503 Wolsey became chaplain to Sir Richard Nanfan, who was Governor of Calais. The governor trusted him, and on his recommendation, the young priest was sent on a diplomatic mission to Emperor Maximilian T. A successful assignment contributed to the rapid advancement of Wolsey through the ranks. Shortly before his death, Nengfan recommended his chaplain to Henry VII himself. Having taken the same position under the king, Wolsey gained access to the court (p. 122)

However, already in November 1509 he was appointed a member of the Privy Council, and now he had constant contacts with the young king, who needed capable and active executors of his will. When, in 1511, England heard, as it later turned out to be false, rumors about the imminent death of Pope Julius II, Wolsey quite seriously told his sovereign about how much benefit he could get if he made him a cardinal. The cardinal cap was a necessary step towards the papal tiara. Soon, Wolsey really becomes a cardinal, having removed the Archbishop of York, Cardinal Bainbridge, from his path (it is believed that Wolsey's agents in Rome poisoned him). This happened in July 1514. The death of Bainbridge opened the way for Wolsey to the rank of archbishop of York and the rank of cardinal. Then he becomes the Lord Chancellor of England and receives from

(p.123) the pope agrees to be a cardinal legate of the Roman curia in England with broad powers. Huge power is concentrated in the farts of the butcher's son. In fact, Wolsey controlled the foreign policy of England and managed the country's finances. Foreign ambassadors most often turned to him. In his house (he soon built a beautiful new palace in Lambeth - a man of modest origin was simply obsessed with a craving for luxury) there were always crowds of people looking for his support and help.

The following years could serve as an eloquent illustration of Woolsey's "balance of power" policy. On the one hand, Francis I was looking for friendship with England, on the other hand, Karl Habsburg sought, through the mediation of Wolsey, to personally meet with the English king. This became especially evident after the election of the latter as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Since a direct clash between France and the Empire was brewing, both sides were looking for an ally and sought to enlist, if not support, then at least the neutrality of England. The splendor of the meeting of the English and French kings in the valley of Ard in northern France in the spring of 1520 did not match its results. In addition to general assurances of love and friendship, french king heard nothing important from Henry VIII. During the meeting in the valley of Ard, a curious episode occurred. When Woolsey, in his welcoming speech, listing the titles of the English king, reached the words “Henry, King of England and France” (the claim was completely untrue, but it showed the ambitions of the English monarch), he exclaimed, laughing: “Remove this title!”

And yet the temptation to expand his possessions at the expense of France was so great that the English king decided to make an alliance with the emperor against Francis I. The war against France could cost England dearly, but this did not stop the ambitious monarch. He demanded money from Woolsey, and as much as possible. In 1522–1523 (p. 124) the Lord Chancellor raised £352,231 in forced loans, and the following year tried to replenish the treasury by a loan he called "friendly subsidy", but this venture was unsuccessful. In a number of counties the situation was fraught with armed uprisings. All this, of course, inspired alarm, nevertheless Henry VIII decided to go to war against France.

He met the news of the defeat of the French at Pavia with an exclamation: “All the enemies of England have been destroyed! Pour me more wine!” In Westminster Abbey, with the participation of Woolsey himself, a solemn mass was celebrated with the singing of “Thee, O Lord, we praise!”. The English king hurried to send a congratulatory letter to Charles V, in which he promised to help complete the Italian campaign, for which he demanded to cede part of the French lands (Brittany, Guyenne and Normandy) to England. In making these claims, he was thinking completely unrealistically. First, Charles V did not have the opportunity to build on the successes achieved; this was hampered by the lack of finances and the outbreak of the Peasants' War in Germany. Secondly, the emperor was not going to satisfy the territorial claims of Henry VIII. It was these circumstances that influenced Karl's decision to refuse to marry Henry's daughter Mary. The emperor gave preference to a Portuguese princess with her dowry of 900,000 ducats. In addition, Princess Isabella had already reached marriageable age, and Mary was not even nine years old.

Having been refused by the emperor, Henry VIII was faced with an alternative. The continuation of the alliance with the Habsburgs threatened to put England in the position of an unequal partner. On the other hand, an alliance or at least benevolent neutrality towards France, the only country capable of withstanding the struggle against the Habsburgs, promised economic and political benefits, since the success of the French in the changed situation could strengthen the position of Henry VIII. However, the turn towards rapprochement with France did not occur immediately. Only at the end of the summer of 1525 was Wolsey able to go to France and (p. 125) there sign the agreement he had long conceived on peace and eternal friendship between the two countries.

On one of the holidays, which were arranged by the cheerful fat man Buley, who loved to show off his wealth, the king met a woman who later played a fatal role in the fate of the cardinal. For all his prudence, Henry VIII was a great womanizer and did not refuse love adventures. Bouley introduced him closer to the young lady-in-waiting to the queen, Anne Boleyn. As a girl, she accompanied Henry VIII's sister Mary, who married Louis XP, to France. From 1519 to 1522 Anne Boleyn was in the retinue of the wife of Francis I Claude and returned to England at the age of 16. In Paris, she acquired good manners, learned how to keep up a conversation, play musical instruments, and mastered several foreign languages, primarily French. Anna herself, cheerful, charming and witty, was one of the most attractive ladies at the court of the young (p. 126) king. The authors of previous years usually write that Henry VIII was captivated by her huge eyes. But in last years, quite in the spirit of our time, they more often began to point to the pronounced sex appeal of Anne Boleyn, who was not at all reputed to be a beauty. In short, Henry VIII fell passionately in love. But the main thing was that he planned to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. When Bouley heard from the king about his intentions, he knelt before his sovereign and begged him for a long time to give up such thoughts. For the Bouleys, the issue of the divorce of Henry VIII was very important, because it affected the interests of the church.

Bouley understood that it was almost impossible to get consent to the king's divorce from the pope, since Catherine of Aragon was the emperor's aunt and much depended on the position of Charles V. Another thing is when Henry VIII took his mistresses, this was not at all forbidden; by the way, one of them bore him a son, to whom the king gave the title of Earl of Richmond, and he did it defiantly, since only daughter Maria survived from Catherine's children (the rest of the children were born dead). In the future, the younger sister of Anne Boleyn, Mary, also became the mistress of Henry VIII. Perhaps events would have taken a different turn, but the maid of honor refused to be another favorite of the king, insisting that he marry her. Henry VIII, not accustomed to resistance, sought to conquer the lady of his heart at all costs.

To understand the reason for such persistence of Anne Boleyn, let's say a few words about her origin. Her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, was married to Lady Anne Plantagenet, half-sister of Henry VII. In 1509 he became the bed-keeper of Henry VIII. He was often given various diplomatic missions. Thomas Boleyn came from the London bourgeoisie, but managed to marry his sister to the Duke of Norfolk. Thus, behind the back of the new favorite stood one of the powerful leaders of the old aristocracy, who planned to make Anna a means of pressure on the king. Knowing the nature of Henry VIII, (p.127) striving to achieve the desired goal in any way, Norfolk and his supporters supported the persistence of Anne Boleyn.

The idea of ​​a divorce from Catherine of Aragon arose a long time ago. A few years before the wedding, in a secret document dated June 27, 1505, Henry, then Prince of Wales, protested against the proposed marriage to Catherine, questioning its legality on the grounds that he himself was not yet of marriageable age. Perhaps the above-mentioned document was compiled later, but no one has been able to prove it. It seems that Henry VIII had very good political reasons for getting rid of the dictates of Spain by breaking the dynastic marriage union. In 1514, when there was a rapprochement between England and France, sealed by the marriage of the sister of the English king Mary and Louis XII, Henry VIII intended to divorce Catherine of Aragon, apparently based primarily on political reasons. But for such a divorce, very good reasons were needed. Bouley, for example, proposed as a reason to point to the absence of a male heir for the royal couple - a very significant argument from the point of view of succession to the throne. The king himself, who in his youth was preparing to accept the rank of Archbishop of Canterbury and received a good theological training, found in the Bible, in the Book of Leviticus, a phrase that said that he who is married to his brother's wife commits a great sin. Henry VIII did not fail to make this fact widely publicized. The situation was ridiculous - the king, after almost 18 years of family life, discovered that all this time he had lived in sin and his marriage, from the point of view of all Christian laws, was invalid. On June 22, 1527, Henry VIII told Catherine of Aragon that his wisest and most learned advisers were of the opinion that he and she had never been husband and wife and that Catherine should decide for herself where she should now be. The king's passion for Anne Boleyn intensified every day. He bombarded Anna with tender love letters (p. 128) but she was adamant. One of the reasons for her resistance was that the favorite had previously been in love with the young Lord Henry Percy and was about to marry him. The king, of course, did not want this, and not without the help of the Bulls, the young lord was sent to the north of England. Subsequently, Anna found out who was guilty of the collapse of her girlish hopes, and said: "If it were in my power, I would give the cardinal a lot of trouble." At the same time, she flirted with Sir Thomas Wyatt. Woolsey found himself in a difficult position. Being close to the king and at first the only person who learned about the passion of his sovereign, he would have to contribute to the satisfaction of the desires of the monarch. But in the depths of his soul, Wolsey sought to implement another marriage option: realizing that a divorce from Catherine of Aragon was inevitable (he knew his king very well), the cardinal decided that the best match for Henry VIII would be a French princess.

It would seem that the cardinal bathed in the rays of glory, was influential and rich, but in the situation that arose he sometimes became at a standstill, especially since he felt Anne Boleyn's cold attitude towards her person. After losing Percy and agreeing to become the king's wife after Henry VIII's divorce, Anne saw Woolsey as one of the obstacles to her ambitious dream of becoming an English queen. She demanded that Henry VIII arrest Wolsey and threatened to leave the royal court.

Henry VIII expected to obtain permission to divorce Catherine of Aragon from the pope. But after the defeat of Rome in May 1527, the positions of Pope Clement VII weakened, and, subsequently going to reconciliation with Charles, the pope did not want to anger him by agreeing to the divorce of the English king from the emperor's aunt.

Meanwhile, the international situation began to change in favor of Charles V. After most of the French army died from the plague near Naples in 1528, it became obvious that Francis I would come to an agreement with the emperor. Wolsey's sincere belief (p. 129) that an alliance with France was the only way to persuade the pope to compromise and resist the Habsburgs by diplomatic means required unconditional participation in hostilities, but this inevitably aroused the displeasure of the king and the intrigues of the feudal opposition led by Norfolk. By itself, the Anglo-French alliance did not bring benefits to the Tudor government, but its anti-Habsburg course in foreign policy did not change. This is evident primarily from the history of the divorce proceedings of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. The opinion often found in the literature that divorce was the reason for the Reformation needs to be clarified, because in reality everything was more complicated. It became such an occasion only by the autumn of 1529. With the strengthening of the anti-Habsburg direction of England's foreign policy, the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon not only turned out to be unprofitable, but also extremely dangerous, since the emperor's aunt could unite around herself all pro-Habsburg and opposition elements to Henry VIII. The implementation of a divorce and the conclusion of a new marriage with the sanction of the pope would be at the same time a compromise with the papal curia. The desire of the English king to reach an agreement with the pope was largely determined by the fact that Clement VII in the recent past was the cardinal protector of England, that is, the defender of her interests in the papal curia. When the divorce proceedings began, these tasks were carried out by Lorenzo Campeggio, who was associated with Buley for many years of cooperation. In addition, Woolsey believed that the arrival of Campeggio in England would be a means for the pope to put pressure on the emperor in Italian affairs. Therefore, the king and the lord chancellor turned to Clement VII with a request to send a commission from Rome to carry out the divorce proceedings. But when the French began to suffer defeats in Italy, and the pope learned about the emperor’s negative attitude towards the idea of ​​divorce, he hastened to instruct Campeggio to “restore peace and harmony in the family of the English king” and prevent divorce. (p.130)

Habsburg diplomats tried to bribe Wolsey with a hefty sum of money and the promise of the rank of Archbishop of Toledo, so that he would do everything possible to aggravate relations between England and France. Wolsey, who was hired to find a compromise solution to the king's family problems, found himself in a very difficult position. He repeatedly convinced Campeggio that Charles V was unlikely to use the divorce case to attack Rome or England. Meanwhile, the group that supported Anne Boleyn sought the removal of Woolsey, who, trying to prevent this, sought to strengthen his position with the help of foreign policy actions aimed at rapprochement with France.

At the trial of the cardinals, Catherine of Aragon behaved with great dignity. Her main line of defense was that she married Henry VIII as a virgin. Wolsey naturally defended the position of the king, but Campeggio did not want to decide on the satisfaction of the claim of Henry VIII. With that, the papal envoy left England. The Duke of Suffolk said this about the court of the cardinals: “Since the foundation of the world, no one from your estate has done good to England. If I were king, I would immediately order both of you to be sent into exile. The inconclusive outcome of the trial of the cardinals was alarm signal for Woolsey. This was the beginning of his downfall.

Reformation sentiments intensified in the country, and Wolsey remained a Catholic and was a determined opponent of the Reformation. His wealth, his impunity, and his special position under the king, which he paraded in a purely medieval spirit, had long irritated court circles, which aroused hatred of the cardinal in English society. The party of Norfolk and Suffolk, with the help of Anne Boleyn, sought the resignation of Wolsey. Soon the Lord Chancellor, in full accordance with the English political traditions of the time, was accused of high treason. In October 1529 Wolsey retired and retired from political affairs to York, his archbishop's seat. (p.131) It is noteworthy that his resignation took place on the eve of the "Parliament of the Reformation" (1529-1536), which carried out major church reforms.

The intention to carry out reform measures "from above" might have seemed unexpected. Indeed, the king did not fall in love so much that, for the sake of a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, he would break with the Catholic Church! In any case, it seemed so to many contemporaries, and this circumstance has influenced the opinion of historians up to the present day. After all, many knew that Henry VIII in his youth was preparing to accept the rank of Archbishop of Canterbury, was well-versed in theology and was an adherent of the Catholic faith. For the treatise "In Defense of the Seven Sacraments" directed against Luther (most of it is believed to have been written by Thomas More), Pope Leo X in 1521 bestowed on him the title "Defender of the Faith." Not without the king's knowledge, Bishop John Fisher of Rochester, his former tutor and his future victim, published a treatise On the Defense of the Catholic Faith against Luther's "Babylonian Captivity". True, in 1525, on the initiative of the former Danish king Christian II, who was expelled from his country and was trying to get the support of the German princes, an attempt was made to reconcile Henry VIII and Luther. The reformer wrote to the English king a letter of apology for the fact that in the heat of controversy, in response to Henry VIII's treatise "In Defense of the Seven Sacraments", he resorted to insults (expressions like "narrow-minded monster", "Thomist whore" were among them, perhaps, the most innocent). But Henry VIII answered very evasively - the English king continued to consider Luther the main culprit of the Peasants' War in Germany.

The main question of the royal Reformation was, first of all, to decide what belonged to God and what belonged to Caesar, that is, the English king. A crisis was brewing, a turn in politics was inevitable, and the fall of Wolsey became a matter of time. Obviously, this was felt by the party of Norfolk and Anne Boleyn, who were lurking on the resignation of the Lord Chancellor. “Whatever the course of this case,” wrote the ambassador of the emperor, Eustace Chapuis, “those who raised this storm will stop at nothing until they destroy the cardinal, knowing full well that if he regains his lost prestige and power, they themselves will pay head." The Duke of Norfolk even swore in private that he would rather eat Wolsey alive than allow him to rise again.

Accusing Wolsey of treason, Henry VIII said that he was intriguing in the papal curia with the aim of subordinating the English king to the throne of Rome. But even in York, the cardinal was not left alone. Norfolk's party feared that the deposed Lord Chancellor might again be in power. After all, the actions of Henry VIII were often unpredictable, and the conspirators themselves were well aware of the absurdity and falsity of the accusations against the cardinal. A little over a year after Woolsey's resignation, he was called back to London. Tower constable Kingston came for him. It meant scaffold. But on the way to London, Woolsey, shocked by royal disfavor, became ill, and he died at Leicester Abbey on November 29, 1530. In his dying confession, Woolsey said that he vigilantly fought against the Lutheran sect, which should not strengthen in the kingdom, because heretics cause great damage churches and monasteries. Here he gave the example of Bohemia during the Hussite wars, where heretics seized the kingdom and subjugated the king and court. “It is impossible, I beg you,” Wolsey addressed the king, “so that the communities rise up against the king and the nobles of the English kingdom.” This appeal is extremely interesting. Either Wolsey really did not understand the king's intentions to rob the church, which proves the exceptional ability of Henry VIII to hide his goals, or he wanted to die in peace with the Catholic Church in this way. The behavior of Henry VIII is also interesting. Wolsey was already being taken to London to certain death, and the king, when discussing matters in the Privy Council, exclaimed: “... Every day I notice that I miss the Cardinal of York!” (p.133)

With these words, Norfolk and Suffolk could not have a feeling of fear for their lives - what if the king takes it and restores Wolsey at court. But a few days later he died. However, the words of the king could also mean that the party of Norfolk will not replace Henry VIII of the fallen chancellor, and that he himself understands this very well. By the way, Henry VIII used this technique often, while blaming those who contributed to the fall of his favorites. So it was in the case of Thomas More, and with Thomas Cromwell, and with his future wife Anne Boleyn.

During the years of Henry's reign, key positions were occupied by prominent statesmen who largely determined the policy of those years. To one degree or another, the king listened to their opinion and relied on them, but he always left the final decision to himself.

In October 1529, Thomas More, the great humanist, was appointed Lord Chancellor, the author of many writings, including theological ones, directed against Luther and the English reformers. More had once performed several diplomatic assignments admirably, but had shown no inclination towards affairs of state, as they distracted him from his scholarly pursuits. Perhaps Henry VIII hoped that the scientist, far from the affairs of state administration, would be his obedient tool and would not pursue an independent policy. Although More did not really have much influence on state affairs, he did not become an obedient tool of the king, especially where it offended his convictions of a humanist and a faithful Catholic, which ultimately cost him not only the position of Lord Chancellor (in 1532 he retired), but also the head. More, refusing to take the oath to the king as the head of the Anglican Church, was accused of high treason and executed in June 1535. Henry VIII was ruthless when it came to defiance, even from the people he called his friends.

Naturally, Thomas More could not solve divorce cases. But the English king was stubborn in his (p. 134) desire to divorce Catherine of Aragon. In June 1530 an address was sent to the pope in the name of all the English people, signed by seventy ecclesiastical and secular lords and eleven members of the House of Commons, who expressed their misgivings about the absence of an heir to the throne in England. The message indicated that if the pope persisted in his unwillingness to grant permission for the divorce, the English government would find other means to remove the obstacle. Even earlier, the congress of the English clergy decided that the marriage of Catherine of Aragon with Henry VIII was contrary to divine laws. Now it remained to find a person who could become an instrument of the king in the divorce case. They became the previously unknown Thomas Krenmer, one of the most mysterious and curious figures of that time. Perhaps we would never have known about him if it were not for the divorce of the king, which was widely discussed in various circles of the English population. Krenmer suggested the need to collect the opinions of theological faculties of European universities in favor of divorce. Krenmer's proposal was reported to Henry VIII, and from then on his rise began. Indeed, many universities were on the side of the king, and only the Sorbonne spoke out, albeit in a very evasive manner, against divorce. Success in solving this case contributed to the further promotion of Krenmer through the ranks. This outwardly attractive, elegant, physically strong (up to the age of 66 he rode excellently), insinuating and prudent man after the death in 1532 of the Archbishop of Canterbury William Warham becomes primate, i.e. the head of the Catholic Church in England. Owing to his elevation to the king, he soon gives permission for the Divorce of Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon, and then crowns the monarch with Anne Boleyn, who by this time was already pregnant with the future Queen Elizabeth. Since then, Krenmer has become a faithful servant of Henry VIII. He will outlive not only the king himself, but also his son Edward VI (1547–1553). In 1556, during the reign (p. 135) of Mary the Bloody Krenmer will become a victim of repression against the Protestants - he will be burned at the stake.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was a consistent Protestant, but very flexible and cautious. Where he saw the decisive resistance of the king, he retreated. Crenmer was a supporter of the secularization of monasteries, but, unlike Thomas Cromwell, was in no hurry to implement it. He pleaded for Anne Boleyn when the king was about to execute her, but he did it carefully, with caution: he always had a loophole for retreat. Henry VIII fully appreciated these qualities of Krenmer, and although the fate of the latter hung in the balance several times due to the intrigues of Norfolk and his supporters, he still managed to maintain his position. The archbishop looked modest and humble, did not participate in the robbery of monasteries, and this saved him from the attacks of Henry VIII.

But the most important statesman of England in the reign of Henry VIII was undoubtedly Thomas Cromwell. His portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger gives an excellent idea of ​​the character of this man. Small in stature, stout, with a strong-willed double chin, small green eyes, a short neck, very mobile, he was the embodiment of power, energy and business activity. Cromwell was distinguished by cunning, he knew how to get close to exactly the people he needed, and to hide his moods and thoughts. A lowly man (he was the son of a blacksmith), Cromwell began his career as a mercenary soldier in Italy, then went into the service of Wolsey, was his sales agent, and later became a confidant. He favorably married the daughter of a wealthy London merchant and soon became a Member of Parliament. When Wolsey fell, Cromwell became very alarmed. In any case, he behaved very cautiously towards his former patron and soon tried to dissociate himself from him. In the parliament of 1529, Cromwell received a seat already thanks to the Duke of Norfolk, who then enjoyed the favor of the king. The patronage of Norfolk opened the doors of the royal court wide to the ambitious young man. When the "Parliament of the Reformation" began to work, meeting from November 3, 1529 to April 4, 1536, Cromwell began to consider his program, the purpose of which was to simultaneously strengthen the royal power in England and his own elevation in the ranks. There is a legend that tells how Cromwell fell into favor with Henry VIII. It was known that the king liked to walk alone in the morning hours in the garden of Westminster Abbey. Knowing this, Cromwell, wrapped in a black cloak, hid behind one of the trees. As soon as the king caught up with him, Cromwell stepped out from behind a tree, revealed himself to him and outlined his plan, which consisted of three important points: the implementation of a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, the secularization of church and monastery lands, and the implementation of a policy of balance between France and the Empire. Henry VIII liked this program very much, and soon began quickly promoting Cromwell in his service, as a result of which the former agent Wolsey became the king's first favorite.

Cromwell's administrative career is indicative: in 1533 he became Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1534 - Secretary of State, which corresponds to the modern Minister of Foreign Affairs, in 1535 - Vicar General, i.e. the manager of the affairs of the church, in 1536 - Lord Privy Seal, in 1539 - Lord Chief Ruler of England, in 1540 he complains of the title of Earl of Essex. Almost all the threads of government were in the hands of Cromwell - finance, the church, foreign policy. He did not even need the position of Lord Chancellor, which since 1532 was held by the insignificant and not playing any serious Role, Sir Thomas Audley. The main events of the Royal Reformation in England, starting with the Canterbury Clergy Pardon Act (1532) and ending with the secularization of church and monastic lands, are associated primarily with the name of Thomas Cromwell. (p.137)

In matters of faith, Cromwell was above all a practical politician: he cannot be considered a consistent Protestant, since he viewed the Reformation as a means of strengthening the state and royal power. The subjugation of the clergy and the establishment of royal supremacy over the church were the main goals of Cromwell's religious policy. However, his financial measures were not successful. As a result of secularization, most of the former monastery and church lands ended up not in the hands of the king, but first in the ownership of the nobility and then, as a result of speculation and resale, in the hands of numerous medium and small nobles (gentry). The matter came to curiosities. For example, for a deliciously prepared pudding, the king granted one court lady the land of the largest Glastonbury Abbey. It was a typically feudal gesture. In any case, the king needed to show his generosity. Although the "price revolution" had just begun, as a result of unfavorable trade conditions, lean years and food shortages, prices began to rise, the costs of maintaining the army, the state apparatus and the court, and strengthening the borders increased. Therefore, the government received practically nothing.

In the 30s. the teaching and organization of the Anglican Church was formed, the head of which was the English king. Despite all the fluctuations either in the direction of Protestantism or in the direction of Catholicism, with the direct participation of Cromwell, a pragmatic average rate between Rome and Wittenberg - the path that suited primarily the English monarchy, which sought to strengthen its power over the church and plunder it, and was least of all inclined to any significant changes in doctrine and dogma. Under Cromwell, the Bible was allowed to be published in English. This Bible was allowed (p. 138) to be read only by gentlemen and wealthy merchants. Cromwell himself did not make visible deviations from orthodox doctrine, for example, he characterized as erroneous the writings and judgments of the radical reformer Tyndall in a letter to his friend, famous diplomat and merchant Stephen Vaughan. The king, relying on the obedient Parliament and the state apparatus led by Cromwell, could afford to be indifferent to all the anathemas and excommunications coming from the Roman Curia.

Simultaneously with the main anti-church measures, Cromwell began the reorganization of the state apparatus. The new favorite of Henry VIII sought to strengthen a rigid centralized, almost despotic system of government, completely subordinate to the king, and not to parliament. The administrative reforms of Thomas Cromwell played a huge role in creating such a management system.

However, all of them were carried out spontaneously, as needed, according to precedent, and most importantly, the piling up of posts and reliance on the mercy of the king suggests that there were quite a few typical medieval features in Cromwell's policy. He did not have a real concrete plan for reforming the state apparatus and clear theoretical views. One of the last Plantagenets, Reginald Pohl, who became Cardinal of the Roman Curia in 1536, even before his final departure for Italy, talked with Cromwell and was shocked to hear from him that Plato exists only for scholarly disputes, and therefore saw him as an all-powerful favorite " messenger of Satan”, who seduced the king and destroyed the Field family (in 1538, the 72-year-old mother of Reginald Paul Matilda was executed). Of course, one cannot ignore the intensification of repression under Cromwell - in 1532 alone, 1445 people were executed on charges of treason. The peak of persecution came in 1536-1537. By numerous executions, carried out more at the initiative of the king himself than of his faithful servant, Cromwell earned himself the hatred of many segments of the population of England. (p.139)

Cromwell was most directly involved in the marriage affairs of Henry VIII. In early January 1536, Anne Boleyn was relieved of her burden with a dead child (it was a boy). The king complained to one of his confidants that God again denied him a son. He, Henry, was allegedly seduced by the power of witchcraft and therefore entered into marriage with Anna, and if so, this marriage should be annulled, and the king should take a new wife. By the spring of 1536, Anne Boleyn's position was shaken. Her relationship with her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, became distinctly hostile. Her influence on the king at the time of her marriage was greatly reduced. In the spring of 1536, Henry VIII began to attract Jane Seymour, who, in general, did not stand out in anything special. The attitude of the king towards this girl began to be talked about at court, even ballads were composed, because of which (p. 140) she, her brother Earl of Hertford (the future Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector under Edward VI) and his wife were removed to their estates. The ambassador of Charles V, Eustace Chapuis, ceased to accompany the king and Anna after mass to the refectory. This was already a bad sign. Anna realized that she had lost her political importance in the eyes of the emperor. The news of Henry VIII's penchant for Jane Seymour was met with mixed reviews at European courts. The new favorite was a relative of the London Bishop Stokesley, one of the supporters of the Catholic opposition. The French king Francis I began to think that this could have bad consequences for the Franco-English alliance, and Charles V suggested that Henry, having divorced Anna, would go to reconciliation with him and with the Roman Curia.

But Henry VIII not only divorced Anne Boleyn, but also executed her. First, she was accused of adultery (Cromwell's agents played a prominent role in preparing the charge), and after this charge turned out to be untenable, of an attempt on the king's life. According to the concepts of that time, this was tantamount to high treason. On May 19, 1536, Anne Boleyn was executed and Henry VIII immediately married Jane Seymour. It is curious that after some time the English king reproached Cromwell for having slandered his second wife. One can imagine how the heart sank in the chest of the all-powerful minister. But marriage to Jane Seymour did not change anything in the religious policy of Henry VIII. When Jane tried to convince him of the need to rebuild the monasteries, the king reminded her of Anne Boleyn's sad experience of meddling in state affairs.

But soon Henry VIII became a widower. Jane Seymour Died during the birth of the future King Edward VI on October 12, 1537. By the way, this circumstance gave rise to the hope in the soul of Emperor Charles V that, with the help of various options, it would be possible to arrange the marriage of the widowed English king with any of the relatives of the Habsburg house. In particular, Henry VIII was offered as a wife the 16-year-old (p. 141) widow of the Duke of Milan. In parallel, negotiations were underway for the marriage of the Portuguese Prince Louis and Mary Tudor. These negotiations continued throughout the first half of 1538. But the Habsburg diplomats, instead of the initially promised 100,000 dowry crowns for the Duchess of Milan, finally called the ridiculous amount of 15,000. It seems that the Habsburg diplomacy deliberately played for time, trying to prevent the successful completion of the ongoing negotiations between London and Paris and the Protestant princes of Germany.

Negotiations with them occupied a special place in the diplomacy of Henry VIII. With the help of an alliance with the German princes and France, he and Cromwell hoped to create a powerful counterbalance to the Habsburgs. In general, Thomas Cromwell was extremely active in negotiations with the Germans, since, not without reason, he saw in uniting with them a means to strengthen the foreign policy positions of the English monarchy. However, there were significant obstacles in the way of creating this union. According to the Nuremberg Religious Peace of 1532, Protestant princes could conclude political agreements only with those states that recognized the exposition of the principles of the "Augsburg Confession" of 1530, i.e. Lutheranism, or at least Zwinglianism. Of course, Catholic France was immediately out of the game. Some hope was given to the princes by the Reformation in England, but it was, as already mentioned, far from being in the Lutheran spirit.

Henry VIII did not at all strive for religious unity with the German Protestants. Guided by internal political considerations, he did not want to allow the deepening of reform processes in the country if Lutheranism was recognized as an official dogma. As for the foreign policy aspect, the English crown was, at first glance, in a rather favorable situation, since France, the Empire and the Protestant principalities of Germany were simultaneously seeking an alliance with it. At the beginning of the summer of 1538, the English king was waiting for the results of negotiations in Nice. It was clear that the emperor (p. 142) sought to achieve a long truce in order to once again try to subordinate the Lutheran princes to her power. But such a turn of affairs would inevitably have an impact on the policy of both England and the Schmalkaldic League and, perhaps, even contribute to their rapprochement. The demonstration of Franco-imperial rapprochement in the form of maneuvers of the combined fleet at the mouth of the Scheldt, which followed eight months after the conclusion of the ten-year truce in Nice, alerted Henry VIII, although the hope of resuming the policy of "balance of power" did not fade away. Meanwhile, the situation in Western Europe escalated.

The threat of an anti-English expedition became more and more tangible. On February 21, 1539, all English ships in the Dutch ports were under arrest, the French and Spanish ambassadors were recalled from London. The Royal Navy was put on alert, the fortifications on the south coast were urgently preparing to repel the enemy landings. But soon the incident was over. The fleet of Charles V in Antwerp was disbanded, and the ambassadors returned to London. Obviously, no one was going to seriously attack England, especially the French king. It also played a role that both Charles V and Francis I were counting on allied relations with Henry VIII in the future, realizing that the conflict between the Empire and France could soon resume with renewed vigor.

Conclusions were drawn from the events that took place in London. Cromwell convinced Henry VII! strengthen the alliance with the Protestant princes by taking a wife from some German princely house. Perhaps the minister showed here excessive impatience, which later cost him dearly. But to a certain extent it can be understood. Cromwell was tired of waiting for the French crown or the imperial authorities to finally agree to the participation of England in their affairs, and so that the country would not be in political isolation, he decided to turn again to the German Protestants. (p.143)

In this situation, the “Cleves” option finally took shape, which was based on the idea of ​​concluding dynastic marriages between the Tudors and the Dukes of Jülich-Cleve, the owners of a small but strategically important duchy located in the lower reaches of the Rhine. Protestant leaders would hardly have been able in the future to protect the young Duke Wilhelm from the claims of Charles V, who threatened to take Gelderland from Jülich-Kleve. Therefore, they made an attempt to interest the English crown with the prospect of marrying Princess Mary to William, and his older sister Anna to Henry VIII himself. This gave hope for the acquisition of two allies at once, i.e., the Schmalkalden League and Jülich-Kleve, without reaching a religious compromise.

Cromwell liked the idea very much, because now it was not necessary to bring the theologians to agreement, England became an ally of Julich-Cleve by virtue of dynastic marriages, and since this duchy, in turn, was an ally of the Protestant princes of Germany, this meant the actual political rapprochement of England with the Schmalkalden Union . Foreign policy success, as Cromwell hoped, would allow him to crack down on the opposition. The minister unequivocally pointed out to the king: in the ongoing negotiations, nothing interferes with the English government, its demands are not rejected, because the Schmalkaldians do not want to suffer defeat from the emperor and the pope; in addition, the representatives of Charles V have not yet given an answer whether he agrees to England playing the role of mediator in relations between France and the Empire. Wouldn't it be better to enlist the support of the German princes in time than to suddenly find yourself face to face with the combined forces of France and the Empire!

The king, convinced by the logic and onslaught of Cromwell, relented, and the minister began to rush his agents so that they would receive a positive response from the representatives of the Schmalkaldic League as soon as possible. Yet Cromwell was not entirely sure that he had finally (p. 144) convinced Henry VIII. The stakes in this political game were too high!

As it turned out, Cromwell was clearly in a hurry. He was frightened by the unlikely threat of a joint action between the Empire and France against Albion (for the latter, this would be tantamount to recognizing political dependence on Charles V) and therefore took the wrong step. At that time, he was very worried about rumors about the emperor's preparations for war. The king who already had great experience both in breaking marriage ties and in violation of political agreements, he always had the opportunity to refuse an alliance with the Protestant princes if new options for political combinations with France and the Habsburgs arose. Moreover, the actual union was not sealed by a formal agreement.

In October 1539, an agreement was concluded on the marriage of Henry VIII and Anna of Cleves. Of course, the solution to the question of marriage was purely political in nature. But the English king, already fairly plump and flabby for his 48 years, and also suffering from a fistula in his leg, was still not indifferent to female charms. Before marrying Anna, he wanted to see her life-size portrait. Such a portrait, painted in a hurry by the famous artist Hans Holbein the Younger, was delivered to London. The English diplomat Wallop proved to the king that Anna was pretty and a model of all virtues, but the portrait testified otherwise: although the famous artist flattered the original a little, he still could not hide the many flaws in the bride's appearance. According to the concepts of that time, Anna of Klevskaya was an overripe girl of 24 years old, not well brought up, tall (Henry VIII loved women of graceful build), with large, ugly features. When the English king saw this portrait, he uttered the famous phrase: “This is a Westphalian horse!” Nevertheless, there was nowhere to retreat, and on January 6, 1540, Anna of Cleves arrived in London. Henry VIII tenderly kissed her, they were married, and in the evening he confessed to one of his courtiers that he (p. 145) survived almost the most disgusting day of his reign. This was already a bad sign for Cromwell. Soon after the marriage, Henry VIII began to insist on a divorce from Anna of Cleves on the pretext that before him she had a relationship with the son of the Duke of Lorraine, however, such statements were unfounded. Cromwell was able to temporarily slow down the implementation of the plans of the king.

Henry VIII sent the Duke of Norfolk to Paris on a diplomatic mission, whose task was to obtain France's consent to participate in a new anti-imperial alliance. Norfolk soon reported to London that Francis I could hardly start a war against the emperor, for he was now bargaining with him because of the Duchy of Milan and hoping for concessions.

Naturally, without the help of France, military operations against Charles V would have been simply unthinkable for England. As a result, the alliance with the German Protestants became completely unnecessary for the English (p. 146) king. But there was a desire to get closer to the Habsburgs. The king's irritation with a major foreign policy failure and marriage with Anna of Cleves, which he, according to his assurances, never touched, turned against Cromwell. Soon Henry VIII secretly sanctioned the arrest of his favorite. The fall of Cromwell was not only the result of failures in the international arena, but also the result of a short-term strengthening of the feudal Catholic opposition, which took advantage of his mistakes. He also aroused dissatisfaction with the fact that he appropriated a considerable part of the secularized monastic property. According to not entirely accurate data, he got wealth in the amount of about 100 thousand pounds. Krenmer, not without malice, wrote to the king: "I am sure that others received the best lands, and not Your Majesty."

On June 10, 1540, at a meeting of the Privy Council, the all-powerful until that time favorite was accused of high treason and arrested. It happened like this. About three o'clock in the afternoon, Cromwell joined the other members of the Council to begin the afternoon session. He found them standing around a table, to which Cromwell walked to take his seat. "You're in a hurry, gentlemen, let's get started," he said. In response, the leader of the opposition, Norfolk, said in a loud voice: “Cromwell, you must not sit here. Traitors don't sit with gentlemen." Norfolk's words were a conventional sign by which the officers of the guard came out from behind the drapery. Cromwell was arrested and taken to the Tower. One of the main charges brought against him was patronage of Protestants. In the Tower, Cromwell, deciding that his fall was caused by a return to Catholicism, began to beg the king for forgiveness, then proudly declare that he was ready to die in the Catholic faith. Henry VIII was such a secretive, cunning and unpredictable person that even Cromwell, who knew him well and almost always knew how to guess the mood of the king, did not understand that the royal Reformation in England, carried out on the initiative and at the behest of Henry himself, was not accidental, but was quite (p. 147) a natural phenomenon, only apparently retaining the appearance of a toy that can be pulled at the whim of the lord first in one direction, then in the other.

Not yet deprived of all his titles and positions, Cromwell, right in the Tower, sanctioned the divorce of Henry VIII from Anna of Cleves, who was immediately declared a queen widow with her husband alive. (However, this was already the second queen widow; the first was Catherine of Aragon, who died on January 8, 1536) It is curious that Anna of Cleves remained in England: she was given a decent allowance and a palace in which she lived the rest of her life, completely invisible no one needs.

On June 28, 1540, the execution of the former favorite took place. A day later, six more people were executed - three Protestants accused of heresy, and three Catholics accused of treason. By this, Henry VIII, as it were, showed that he did not at all intend to revise his church policy, adhering to a middle course between Rome and Wittenberg.

After some time, either indulging in memories, or really appreciating the administrative abilities of Cromwell, Henry VIII once declared at a meeting of the Privy Council that he would never again have such a servant as Cromwell. However, with these words, he, as it were, warned the leaders of the feudal opposition that the sad fate of the disgraced minister could await them.

In the last years of his reign, Henry VIII no longer relied on the help of favorites. Wolsey and Cromwell belonged to the realm of the shadows, while Norfolk and Gardiner were brilliant courtiers and clever schemers, but by no means statesmen large scale. By the way, their fate was also unenviable. Rarely did anyone of any significant figures at the court (p. 148) of Henry VIII manage to avoid prison or execution. Shortly before his death, the king accused Norfolk and his son the Earl of Surrey, then a well-known poet, of plotting against him, and therefore of treason. Surrey was executed, and Norfolk was saved from the scaffold only by the death of the despot king. He spent all the years of the reign of Edward VI (1547-1553) in the Tower - they simply forgot about him - only the accession to the throne of the Catholic Mary Tudor (in the Protestant tradition - Bloody Mary) saved him from inevitable death in prison. He left the Tower a very feeble old man and no longer played any role in political affairs. Gardiner also had to spend some time in captivity in the Tower under the young Edward VI, for whom the protectors Somerset and Northumberland, supporters of Protestantism, ruled. During the reign of Mary (1533-1558) he served as Lord Chancellor, pursuing a very cautious and cunning policy, but he did not stay long in this post.

In the last years of his life, the suspiciousness and suspicion of Henry VIII increased dramatically. Everywhere he seemed to see conspiracies, attempts on his life and on the throne. Suspicions that tormented the king led him to strike at his real and imaginary enemies before they could do anything. The best illustration of this is the execution of Surrey and the imprisonment of Norfolk. Prince Edward grew up a weak and sickly boy, and in an effort to secure the throne for the Tudor dynasty, the king redid the will several times. In the last version, the order of succession to the throne was as follows: Edward, in the event of his death - Mary, also sickly and weak-willed, and after her, in the event of her death, her daughter from her marriage to Anna Boleyn Elizabeth.

From February 1545, Henry VIII again began to establish relations with the Protestant princes of Germany, who feared that Charles V would soon start a war against them. In the end, between Francis I and Henry VIII on June 7, 1546, a peace treaty was concluded, which could be an important step in creating a new anti-Habsburg coalition. But the English king himself was already clearly weakening. (p.149)

During the peace ceremony with France, eyewitnesses wrote, he constantly leaned on the shoulder of Krenmer. At the same time, Henry VIII made concessions to the Protestants in England itself. Crenmer was allowed to translate the main prayers and psalms into English. Parliament, in order to put an end to disputes over the succession to the throne (since Edward was weak and sickly, the Catholics insisted on recognizing Mary as the legitimate heir, and the Protestants - Elizabeth), issued a decree granting the king the exclusive right to transfer the crown to anyone by means of a special charter or will. On the basis of this decree, in November 1546, a will was drawn up, which has already been mentioned above.

In the 40s. the old king married twice more. At first he liked the twenty-year-old niece of the Duke of Norfolk, Catherine Howard. Uncle did his best to make her queen. But soon Henry VIII discovered that Catherine Howard was unfaithful to him, most importantly, he was afraid of the increased influence of Norfolk. Catherine was accused of adultery and executed. The king then married Lord Latimer's widow, Catherine Parr, who had already survived three husbands before this marriage. She did not interfere in political affairs, which, however, did not prevent Henry VIII from trying to bring her to justice, but the death of the king, which followed on January 26, 1547, saved Catherine Parr from the scaffold that threatened her. She outlived her fourth husband.

When Henry VIII died, the courtiers did not immediately dare to believe it. They thought that the bloody king only pretended to be asleep and listened to what they were saying about him in order to get out of bed to take revenge on them for their insolence and rebelliousness. And only when the first signs of decomposition of the body appeared, it became clear that the tyrant would no longer get up.

What is remarkable about the reign and politics of this king? It seems that, first of all, the fact that during the years of his reign the main stones were laid in the foundation (p. 150) of the English absolute monarchy and developed the main principles of the "balance of power" policy in international affairs which distinguished England for many centuries to come. But all this was created by extremely despotic methods. The insidious, suspicious and cruel king was ruthless not only in relation to his real enemies, but also to those who built the building of English absolutism (Wolsey, Cromwell), and to those who made up the world glory of England of those years (Thomas More).

In the policy of Henry VIII, one could feel both the legacy of the Middle Ages and the germs of the national policy of subsequent eras.

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1 Richard III of York is the last king of the York dynasty. The War of the Scarlet and White Roses (1455-1485) between the supporters of the Yorks and the Lancasters ended in victory for the latter, and Henry Tudor, a relative of the Lancasters, ascended the throne.

2 This refers to Octavian Augustus, from 27 BC. e. to 14 AD princeps of the Roman state, and in fact the emperor (hence the name of his reign - the principate of Augustus). He patronized writers and historians.

3 The dynasty that ruled England from 1154 to 1399. As a result of the marriage of the English queen Matilda, daughter of the English king Henry 1 (1100-1135), and Count of Anjou Geoffroy Plantagenet, a huge power was formed, which, in addition to England, included Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, Poitou. Its first ruler was the son from this marriage, King Henry 11 (1154-1189), who married the Countess Allenore of Aquitaine (her first husband was the French King Louis VII). As a result of this dynastic union, the south-west of France came under the rule of the English king.

4 A chaplain is a priest who serves at a chapel, a small private church.

5 The Privy Council is the highest advisory body under the English kings, which included the most important dignitaries.

6 Tiara is a headdress worn by popes at solemn ceremonies.

7 A cardinal legate is a representative of the Pope in a country.

8 "Thomistic" from "Thomism" - the teachings of Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274), as well as the philosophical and theological system developed by him, officially recognized by the Catholic Church.

9 Secularization is the conversion of monastic and church property into state property.

10 "Price Revolution" - what happened in Western Europe in the 16th century. a sharp rise in prices (on average 4-5 times) due to the depreciation of gold and silver due to an increase in its import from the American colonies of Spain, the growth of the urban population and the transfer of the main trade routes from the Mediterranean and the Baltic to the Atlantic.

11 The Schmalkaldic Union is a religious and political union of the Protestant sovereigns of Germany, created in December 1530 and directed against the Catholic princes and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

Cathedral in Peterborough (Cambridgeshire). The majestic building evokes the memory of Notre Dame Cathedral…

The abbey and cathedral of Saints Peter, Paul and Andrew were founded in 655. The current building is the third in a row, standing on the site of two burned down ones. Its construction began in 1118 and lasted 120 years. In addition to the magnificent western pediment and ancient interior decoration, the grave of the first wife of Henry VIII Catherine of Aragon is of historical interest (the left side of the Cathedral, on the grave there are flowers and a card on Christmas, remember). Nearby is an exhibition-stand from the history of England and the Cathedral (apparently permanent: two years ago it was in the same place), a portrait of Henry VIII - a strong figure in a royal costume with regalia, a face expanding downwards, a portrait of his first wife Catherine of Aragon - sweet female face, rather strong-willed, straight parting of hair hidden under a light brown cap; downcast eyes.

Brown dress, matching decoration - beads around the neck.

She was the youngest daughter of the founders of the Spanish state, King Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, the first wife of King Henry VIII of England. Catherine of Aragon arrived in England in 1501. She was 16 years old, and she was to become the wife of Crown Prince Arthur - the son of King Henry VII. Thus, the king wanted to protect himself from France and raise the authority of England among European states.

Arthur at the time of marriage was only 14 years old. He was a sickly, consumptive youth. And a year after the wedding, he died without leaving an heir, since he did not enter into an intimate relationship with his young wife. Catherine remained in England as a young widow, but in fact as a hostage, because by that moment her father had not yet managed to pay her dowry in full, and besides, it seems that he was not going to pay. She lived in such uncertainty for the next eight years.

She saw salvation in renunciation of the worldly bustle and turning to God (she had nothing but the title of dowager princess, a small allowance and a retinue exclusively consisting of Spanish nobles who came with her. She was a burden both for King Henry VII of England and for her father, King Ferdinand.Her mother, the brave Queen Isabella, has died.

By the age of twenty, she indulged in severe asceticism - constant fasting and masses. One of the courtiers, fearing for her life, wrote to the Pope. And an order immediately came from him: to stop self-torture, since it could be life-threatening.

In fact, the same state considerations as during the marriage of Catherine and Arthur contributed to the marriage of Henry, the youngest son of the King of England, and now the heir, to Catherine, who was six years older than the groom. Negotiations regarding their marriage began during the life of Henry VII and continued after his death. Catherine became Queen of England two months after Henry VIII's accession to the throne. However, before the wedding, Henry had to get permission from the Pope - Julius. Church law forbade such marriages, but the Pope gave the English king special permission, largely because Catherine and Arthur never actually became husband and wife.

Due to Catherine's lack of surviving sons, Henry insisted, after 24 years of marriage, on a divorce (more precisely, annulment) in 1533. This step was one of the reasons for Henry's conflict with the Pope, the break with the Roman Catholic Church and the reformation in England.

In May 1533 Henry married Anna. He never received the consent of either the Pope or Catherine. It was decided that from that moment on, the power of the Pope did not extend to England. Henry declared himself the head of the Church (since 1534), and the marriage with Catherine was invalid.

The people loved Queen Catherine: when Henry decided to fight the French, he longed for the glory of an outstanding military leader, he left Catherine as regent. At this time, taking advantage of the absence of the king, the Scottish lords, led by James IV, invaded the territory of England. The Queen personally designed much of the defense plan. On September 9, 1513, the Scots were defeated in the hills near Flodden, King James himself was killed. Catherine was proud of this victory.

Catherine did not recognize this marriage. She continued to call herself queen and answered all threats that she was the legitimate wife of the king of England.

Catherine spent two more years in obscurity, spiteful critics continued to pester her, she was not allowed to see her daughter. However, despite all the troubles in her heart there was a place for love for her husband. She wrote to the Pope, imploring him not to forget Henry and Mary.

She lived in a small room, the windows of which overlooked the moat, filled with rotten water, and the neglected hunting park of Kimbolton. Her retinue consisted of three ladies-in-waiting, half a dozen maids, and a few devoted Spaniards looking after the household. In 1535, she fell ill, as it later became known, incurably.

On January 7, 1536, Catherine felt that she was dying. She managed to dictate a will, according to which she left all the money she had to her close associates. Daughters (the eldest daughter of Henry VIII from marriage with Catherine of Aragon - Mary I Tudor (1516 - 1558) - Queen of England since 1553, Also known as Mary Bloody (or Bloody Mary), Mary the Catholic. Not a single monument was erected to this queen in her homeland) she bequeathed her furs and a gold necklace, which was part of her dowry brought from Spain. She also wrote a farewell letter to Heinrich. In it, she asked him not to forget his daughter, reminded him of her legal title and said that she still loved him.

Henry VIII was married six times.

His wives, each of whom was backed by a certain political or religious faction, were sometimes forced to make changes in their political or religious views.

In 1524, in the retinue of Catherine of Aragon, who was already rather tired of the king, the monarch noticed a new pretty face.

Daughter of one of the king's dignitaries, Earl Thomas Boleyn. The engagement to her former fiancé, Lord Percy, is broken off and preparations are made for a new wedding. In 1533, Henry married Anne Boleyn, in September their daughter Elizabeth was born. So, this passion of the king was worth the break with Rome, the elimination of Catholicism and its institutions in the country and the cooling of relations with Spain.

Only two years lasted love for Anne Boleyn. In his wife's retinue, Heinrich meets a new object of adoration - Jane Seymour. Possession of it becomes his goal for the near future. The wife, as luck would have it, does not give a divorce, it is worse for her. You have to understand that you can't command your heart. The king finds a way to gain freedom. If you don’t disperse, then “remove” (saying modern language criminal elements). The most convenient pretext is adultery. And "well-wishers", always ready to help their beloved king, begin to look for "evidence". At one of the balls, the queen drops her glove. She is raised and returned to her owner by Henry Noris, who is in love with her. The "Watching Eye" took note of this. Ease in communication with his brother, Lord Rochefort, provides a pretext for accusations of incest. Several more nobles are seen falling in love with the queen. One of them, Smytoks, promised to testify about adultery for a "moderate fee".

Apparently, Henry guessed that the church would not forgive him for a second divorce. In addition to divorce, only her death could free her from her former wife.

Henry called an executioner from France to execute his wife (the French succeeded in chopping off the head, because it was they who invented the guillotine - a device for quickly and painlessly chopping off the head). On May 15, 1536, the executioner cut off Anna's head not with an ax, but with a sharp and long sword, the first time. Anna did not suffer for long. Her daughter Elizabeth was deprived of her right to inherit the throne. Subsequently, the king, not without regret, remembered Anne Boleyn.

Recently published a love letter from Henry VIII to his future second wife Anne Boleyn, in French, believed to be January 1528. This letter has been kept in the Vatican for five centuries, it will be exhibited for the first time in the British Library in London.

"From now on, my heart will belong only to you."
“The expression of your affection for me is so strong, and the beautiful words of your message are so heartfelt that I am simply obliged to respect, love and serve you forever,” the king writes. “For my part, I am ready, if possible, to surpass you in loyalty and desire to please you.”

The letter ends with the signature: "Mr. loves A.B.” and the initials of the beloved enclosed in a heart.

After Pope Clement VII refused to invalidate Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon (in order to marry Anne Boleyn), the English monarch broke with the Vatican and eventually created the Church of England, independent of Rome.

The British monarch bears the title

Supreme Ruler of the Church of England.

... The ghost of Anne Boleyn is known (recall that she was accused of adultery and incest, although, apparently, her only fault was that she was tired of her husband) ... Anne Boleyn was executed in May 1536 directly in the Tower (the towers of the fortress was a state prison), where she was kept. After the execution, her body was hastily buried in the chapel of St. Peter, in the Tower. But the soul of the unfortunate queen did not calm down. Since then, her ghost has been regularly appearing for several centuries at regular intervals, sometimes at the head of a procession heading to the chapel of St. Peter, sometimes alone in different places in the old fortress: at the place where the execution took place ...

One of the most impressive apparitions of a ghost occurred in the winter of 1864. One night a sentry was found lying unconscious. He was court-martialed on the charge of falling asleep on duty. Then he said that before dawn he saw a white silhouette emerge from the fog. He wore a cap, under which his head was missing; silhouette went to the sentry.

After the usual three hails of warning, the soldier approached the ghost, but when the bayonet of the gun pierced him through, lightning ran through the barrel, and the sentry himself fainted from shock.

All this would seem to be just a clever excuse, if two other soldiers and an officer, who testified after the accused, did not say that they also noticed the ghost through the window. When it turned out that the ghost in all four cases appeared under the door of the room in which Anne Boleyn spent her last night on the eve of her execution, the tribunal decided to release the sentry.

The nightmare recurred from time to time until early XIX century. Once, late at night, a completely atheistic officer noticed a bright glow pouring from the windows of the chapel, which he himself locked at sunset. Having obtained a ladder, the officer climbed up it, looked out the window - and almost fell down from fear.

Inside, he saw a whole retinue of the Tudor court, led by Anna. A terrible procession moved towards the altar and, reaching it, gradually seemed to go under the floor ... After some time, the officer achieved the opening of the floor of the chapel, and under the slabs they found the remains of the queen along with her dead retinue ... After the remains were reburied with the appropriate royal honors , the ghost of the innocently injured queen disappeared from the Tower forever.

The King marries Jane Seymour. She could not boast of a brilliant education and "gallant" manners, since in the 16th century the education of an English girl was reduced to religion, needlework and the basics of housekeeping. The ability to read and write was considered sufficient for a young aristocrat who wanted to make a court career.

Lady Jane's brothers, Thomas and Edward, on the contrary, were brought up at the king's court from childhood (they were pages), and subsequently occupied various lucrative positions. Therefore, there was nothing surprising in the fact that from the mid-1520s, their sister Jane was adopted as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon. After Anne Boleyn became queen, Lady Jane passed "at the disposal" of the new lady.

On Christmas Day 1533, the King gave gifts to several ladies-in-waiting, Lady Seymour among those honored.

After Anna Boleyn "disappointed" the king - instead of the desired son, she gave birth to only a girl (the future Elizabeth I), relations between Henry and the queen began to noticeably worsen. Moreover, Anna was intolerant, quick-tempered and ambitious. Having made many enemies at court, the queen gradually turned Henry away from herself. The years 1534 and 1535 passed in family scandals, stormy showdowns and the vain expectation of another queen's pregnancy.

It was at this time, in 1535, that the king became interested in the modest maid of honor Seymour. She was the complete opposite of Anna: blond, pale, very quiet and in agreement with everyone. If Anna was compared with a witch, and even with a witch - she was thin, dark-haired and black-eyed, then Jane looked much more like a bright angel.

The royal wedding of 1536 was unusually modest. in the spring of 1537, Jane informed Henry of her pregnancy. The king surrounded his wife with unprecedented care and fulfilled all her requirements and whims.

The heir was born healthy, handsome and similar to both spouses. But only Jane was not destined to rejoice ...

For two days the young queen suffered in childbirth. I had to choose - mother or child. Doctors, knowing the explosive nature of the sovereign, were even afraid to hint about it. "Save the child. I can get as many women as I like,” was the decisive and calm answer.

Jane died of puerperal fever.

The famous ballad of the English group The Rolling Stones "Lady Jane" is dedicated to Jane Seymour and is based on the letters of King Henry VIII. The song also mentions Anna Boleyn (lady Ann) and Mary Boleyn (Mary). Each of the three women has their own verse.

In Europe, the monarch, so cold-bloodedly getting rid of his wives, began to be afraid. In 1539, Henry VIII met his "beloved", Princess Anna of Cleves, from a portrait. The daughter of the Duke of Cleves - Johann III and Maria von Geldern - was born on September 22, 1515, in Düsseldorf.

The portrait of Anna, painted by the great artist Holbein, made an excellent impression on the 48-year-old Heinrich. He was not embarrassed by the fact that his chosen one was engaged to the Duke of Lorraine for a short time - according to English laws, a new marriage could not be considered legitimate.

On September 4, 1539, the marriage contract was signed. At the very beginning of 1540, Anna arrived in England. The first meeting of the bride and groom took place in Rochester, where Henry arrived as a private person.

One look at Anna was enough - the king was disappointed. Instead of the pale and graceful beauty that Holbein portrayed, Heinrich was confronted by a large, massive woman with rather rough features. Straightforward Henry took out all his anger on Cromwell, who allegedly "slipped him a hefty Flemish mare."

The original was quite disappointing. Probably, it was not Anna's appearance that was repulsive at all, but her stiffness, inability to stay in society, the cut of her clothes, unusual for the king's eyes, and the lack of proper grace.

"Where did you find this scarecrow? Send her back immediately! ”He got angry at Cromwell (the Protestant party, led by the favorite and first minister of the king, Thomas Cromwell, found the bride for the king). "It's impossible, Your Majesty! If you break the marriage contract, Europe may declare war on England."

Anna did not like Heinrich either, besides, she heard rumors about the ruined Anne Boleyn even in Kleve.

Heinrich resigned himself, but he could not fulfill his conjugal duty. For six months, the Princess of Cleves lived in England - her husband did not honor her with his attention. Anna was a kind stepmother to both Prince Edward and Princesses Betsy and Mary. She got used to the English court: she fell in love with music and dancing, got herself dogs and parrots.

The divorce of the spouses went, surprisingly, calmly. Anna, having judged everything sensibly and sorted out all the pros and cons, gathered the Privy Council to give an answer to the divorce proposal.

Heinrich left Anna in his family - as a "sister". This was dictated by a number of circumstances: Anna of Klevskaya fell in love with the children of the king, a number of courtiers found her an extremely amiable and pleasant woman. Heinrich did not want to come into conflict with Anna's brother, the Duke of Berg-Julig-Cleve, who was one of the most influential rulers of Germany. And Anna herself sincerely fell in love with her new homeland.

Henry proclaimed Anna his "sister" and thus she remained the most noble lady after the new queen and princesses Mary and Betsy. Anna received generous gifts from the king: the castles of Richmond and Hever, as well as a solid annual income.

The correspondence between Heinrich and Anna suggests that the former spouses lived very friendly. The king always signed his messages "Loving Brother Heinrich".

The instigator of this marriage, Thomas Cromwell, was arrested and placed in the Tower. He lived only to testify in the divorce case - on June 28, 1540, he was executed on charges of treason and heresy.

Anna did not remarry. She survived both Henry VIII and his son Edward VI. Anna von Cleve died on July 16, 1557 in London. Anna of Cleves was buried in Westminster Abbey.

In July 1540, Henry married 19-year-old Kate Howard. The wedding was modest. After the wedding, Henry seemed to be 20 years younger - tournaments, balls and other entertainment resumed at the court, to which Henry remained indifferent after the execution of Anne Boleyn. He adored his young wife - she was incredibly kind, simple-minded, sincerely loved gifts and rejoiced at them like a child. Heinrich called Kate "a rose without thorns."

However, young Howard was extremely careless in her actions - Kate took all her "friends of youth" to the court, and they knew too much about the queen's life before marriage. In addition, Kate renewed her relationship with Francis Dirham, whom she made her personal secretary.

Then another gentleman from the "past life" appeared at the court - Thomas Kelpeper (Kate's distant relative on the maternal side, whom she once wanted to marry).

However, the young woman had enemies at court (or rather, they were the enemies of her influential uncle Norfolk ...

The innocence of the young "rose" began to irritate the elderly king.

When Heinrich was informed that his naive Kate was not such a "rose" at all, he was simply confused. The reaction of the king was quite unexpected - instead of the usual anger, there were tears and complaints. The meaning of the complaints boiled down to the fact that fate did not give him a happy family life, and all his women either cheat, or die, or are simply disgusting.

In early February 1542, Lady Howard was transferred to the Tower, and two days later she was beheaded in front of a curious crowd. The young woman met her death in a state of deep shock - she had to be carried to the place of execution.

After the execution, the body of Lady Kate was buried next to the remains of Anne Boleyn, another executed queen, who, by the way, was also a relative of the Howards.

Feeling in my heart that I am unloved,

Henry the Eighth executed his wives.

Henry's sixth wife is Katherine Parr, daughter of a baronet, widow of the elderly Lord Edward Borough. Young Kat Parr was only 14 or 15 years old when she was married in 1526 to an elderly, sixty-three-year-old lord. The family life of the spouses was quite happy. Moreover, Catherine managed to become a true friend for the children of Lord Borough, who were almost twice as old as their stepmother. However, in 1529 Lady Borough became a widow.

In 1530, the young widow received a new marriage proposal. It came from John Neville, Lord Latimer, a widower. Accepting this offer, Lady Catherine moved to her husband in Snape Castle. Here she again found herself in the role of a stepmother - Latimer had a daughter, Margaret, from her first marriage.

In the second half of the 1530s, the Latimers were often at the court of the king, and Henry VIII treated this couple very friendly.

In the second half of the 1530s, the Latimers often visited the king's court, and Henry VIII treated this couple very friendly. After the execution of his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, Henry increasingly paid attention to the smart and friendly Lady Latimer. She was already thirty-one years old, which by the standards of the 16th century was not considered the age of youth, however, the king himself was far from young.

Lord Latimer at that time was already seriously ill and, alas, there was no hope of recovery. When he died in 1543, the king began to aggressively court Lady Latimer.

Lady Latimer's first reaction to the King's offer to be his "comfort in old age" was fright. However, Heinrich did not abandon his intention to marry Catherine and, in the end, she gave her consent.

On July 12, 1543, the wedding took place in the royal chapel of Hampton Court. The wedding was played in Windsor.

From the very first days of her life together with Heinrich, Catherine tried to create conditions for a normal family life for him. Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of the executed Anne Boleyn, enjoyed her special disposition.

A strong friendship developed between the stepmother and stepdaughter - they corresponded actively and often had philosophical conversations.

Clever and energetic, Catherine skillfully neutralizes the court intrigues weaving against her. Despite the increased suspicion of her husband, Katerina throughout the four years of marriage does not give him a reason for discontent.

In 1545-1546, the king's health deteriorated so much that he could no longer fully deal with state problems. However, the suspiciousness and suspicion of the king, on the contrary, began to acquire a threatening character. Catherine was several times, as they say, on the verge of death: the queen had influential enemies, and, in the end, the king could believe them, and not his wife. The king several times decided to arrest Catherine, and each time he refused this step. The reason for the royal disfavor was mainly the radical Protestantism of Catherine, who was carried away by the ideas of Luther. January 28, 1547, at two o'clock in the morning, Henry VIII died. And already in May of the same year, the Dowager Queen married Thomas Seymour, Jane Seymour's brother.

Who knows, perhaps Henry VIII served as a prototype for the character of Charles Perrault's fairy tale "Bluebeard" (Perrault wrote it down in the 17th century in France, the name of the hero is Gilles de Ré. The last wife of Bluebeard has no name in the fairy tale, but her older sister's name is Anna )?..

“Once upon a time there was a man who had beautiful houses both in the city and in the countryside, dishes, gold and silver, furniture all embroidered and carriages gilded from top to bottom. But, unfortunately, this man had a blue beard…”

C The reign of Henry the Eighth, the second Tudor king, was one of the longest and most well-documented in the history of England. Everyone knows the events of his personal life, which would be more than enough for three men, and not for one: six wives, two of whom he executed, divorced one, and abandoned the other, declaring the marriage invalid. short biography some of his wives could fit into one line:

Divorced, Beheaded, Died; Divorced, executed, died

Divorced, Beheaded, Survived. Divorced, executed, survived..

Further, confusion with children, who is illegitimate, who is not. In order to gain freedom of personal life, he broke with the pope, who did not approve of divorces, and the evil Pinocchio became the head of the church himself, simultaneously executing everyone who did not have time to adapt.
Despite the fact that the TV series "The Tudors" and also the movie "The Other Boleyn Girl" depict King Henry as a muscular, handsome brunette, in fact, of course, he was not one. Or was?
At the age of sixteen, they wrote about him: "A talented rider and knight, he is popular among his entourage for ease of handling." When Henry the Eighth turned fifty, it was said of him: "Aged before his age ... he is often quick-tempered, easily falls into anger and succumbs more and more to black depression as the years pass."
It is interesting to trace the changes in the appearance of the king, which reflected not only the natural course of time, but also the events that happened to him.

So, on June 28, 1491, King Henry the Seventh and his wife Elizabeth York had a second son, who was named after his father.
I think it was an angel with golden curls and bright eyes. True, the child was extremely spoiled, he even had his own whipping boy, who was punished for the hooliganism of the little prince.

Prince Henry grew up to be a well-educated and well-read man, fluent in French and Latin and Spanish, well-versed in mathematics, heraldry, astronomy and music, and interested in science and medicine. He was a true man of the Renaissance - he loved art, poetry, painting, and at the same time, he was sincerely devout.
Importantly, academic knowledge did not prevent him from becoming a tall, handsome, well-built athlete and passionate hunter; By the way, I loved ... tennis. However, the lack of discipline in education, the unbridled character, the unwillingness to study what is not interesting, traits excusable for the second son of the king, later brought him and England many problems during his reign.
The Venetian envoy wrote of the young prince that he was the most handsome of the monarchs he had taken away, above average height, with slender and finely shaped legs, very fair skin, with bright, reddish-brown hair, cut short in the French fashion; the round face was so beautiful that it would suit a woman; his neck was long and strong.
The fact that the prince was well built is also confirmed by the dimensions of his youthful armor: 32 inches in the waist and 39 inches in the chest (81 cm and 99 cm). His height was and remained 6 feet 1 inch, which is about 183 cm, if I am not mistaken, with a weight of 95 kg. He also had good health: in his youth, he only had a mild case of smallpox, but periodically suffered, also in a mild form, from malaria, which was common in Europe at that time (there were many swamps drained now).

Portrait of 18-year-old Henry (where, in my opinion, for some reason he looks terribly like his great-uncle, Richard III).
And this is the young Prince Hal through the eyes of a contemporary artist.

Armor of young Henry (left) and armor of Henry in his 40s (right)

Henry in 1521 (aged 30)

Portrait of Henry aged 34-36 Age 36-38

In the eyes of his subjects, the young king, who ascended the throne after his miserly father, who sent to the chopping block or into exile the last of his surviving relatives after the battle of Bosworth, who had not convened Parliament for ten whole years, was the personification of a new beautiful hero. "If the lion knew his strength, hardly anyone would be able to cope with him," Thomas More wrote about him.
His reign proceeded more or less smoothly until the king reached the age of 44.

Heinrich at the age of 40: the prime of life

By this time, the king had already divorced Catherine of Aragon and married the clever Anna Boleyn, but the turbulent events did not particularly affect his health: until 1536 he had no problems with him, except for a gradual increase in weight. Judging by the very detailed ordinance drawn up by him personally regarding the royal table, the king had, as they say, a brutal appetite for meat, pastries and wine. Hence the fullness that is already present in the portrait at the age of 40, which is not present in the portrait of 30-year-old Henry (see above). Yes, the king was a womanizer and a glutton, but he has not yet become Bluebeard and a tyrant.
What happened in January 1536 at the tournament at Greenwich? The already rather obese Heinrich could not resist in the saddle and collapsed in armor from the horse, which also wore armor. The horse then fell on top of him. The king was unconscious for two hours, his legs were crushed and, most likely, suffered from several fractures. His health was rightfully feared so much that Queen Anne had a miscarriage: unfortunately, it was a boy. As if that weren't enough, the king's illegitimate son, the young Duke of Richmond, soon died, and Anne was soon accused of adultery.
Fractures and other wounds healed at first, but soon the king began to be tormented not only by headaches, but also by chronic, extensive, wet, purulent ulcers on his legs. From the pain he could not speak and was silent for ten days in a row, suppressing a torn scream. Doctors unsuccessfully tried to heal these ulcers by piercing them with a red-hot iron, or excising them, not letting them drag on, in order to "help the infection come out with pus." Also, most likely, the king had suffered from diabetes for a long time by this time (hence the incurability of ulcers). Is it any wonder that physical suffering, coupled with the consequences of a head injury, completely changed the character of the monarch?
Now researchers claim that as a result of an injury at a tournament in 1536, Henry the Eighth suffered damage to the frontal lobes of the brain responsible for self-control, perception of signals from the external environment, social and sexual behavior. In 1524, when he was 33 years old, he also suffered a minor injury when he forgot to lower his visor and the tip of an opponent's spear hit him hard above his right eye. This gave him recurring severe migraines. But in those days they did not know how to treat brain injuries, as well as diabetes.

The surrounding people knew about the state of health of the king, but everyone who dared to open their mouths was accused of treason and sent to the scaffold. Heinrich could issue an order in the morning, cancel it by lunchtime, and then be furious when he learns that it has already been carried out.
From that moment began a new, dark stage of the reign.
The most passionate desire of the king at this point was to obtain an heir to continue the Tudor dynasty. Combined with the serious psychological changes that occurred to him after 1536, this desire resulted in a series of impulsive and cruel acts for which Henry is famous to this day. It is more than likely that the king suffered by that time and a lack of potency. Even the actual fulfillment of his dream with the birth of a son from Jane Seymour, Edward, could not change anything.

Heinrich is about 49 years old

Henry VIII and the guilds of barbers and surgeons (the king was very interested in medicine, and these guilds were created under his patronage). The king is 49 years old on the canvas.

Detail of a 1545 portrait showing Henry, Edward and - posthumously - Jane Seymour.

And this is the whole portrait, left and right - the two daughters of the king.

Despite his morbid condition, his spirit was stronger than his body, and Heinrich lived for another eleven years. Ignoring the prohibitions of doctors, he traveled a lot, continuing an active foreign policy, hunted and ... ate much more. The creators of the History Channel documentary recreated his diet based on preserved sources: the king consumed up to 13 meals a day, consisting mainly of lamb, chicken, beef, venison, rabbit meat and a variety of feathered birds like pheasant and swan, he could drink 10 pints (1 pint \u003d 0.57 l) of ale a day, as well as wine. Although, on the other hand, it is also possible that it was only the king's menu offered to him by the chefs, and by no means what he actually ate. But...
With the impossibility of the former mobility, he quickly gained weight and by the age of fifty weighed ... 177 kilograms! Judging again by the armor, his waist from 81 cm in girth at the age of 20 grew to 132 cm at the age of about 50 years. By the end of his life, he could barely walk on his own. The ulcers on his legs only worsened, and they gave off such a strong smell that he announced the approach of the king long before he entered the room. Catherine Parr, whom he married in 1543, was for him more nurse than wife, only she could calm the monarch's fits of rage. He died in 1547, exhausted by attacks of fever and another cauterization of ulcers.

In fact, judging by the armor of the end of his reign, the width of the king's torso was almost equal to his height!

All the variety of existing portraits of Henry the Eighth is posted on this wonderful resource:

And here in English you can watch the documentary "Inside the Body of Henry the Eighth"