68 Fun Facts About Henry VIII

At which Thames-side palace, also the birthplace of his daughters Mary and Elizabeth, was Henry born in June 1491?

Greenwich Palace saw Henry born on 28 June 1491, the second son of Henry VII; with an elder brother as heir, he was never expected to reign.

Which elder brother of Henry died in 1502, only 20 weeks after marrying his Spanish bride?

Arthur, Prince of Wales, died at Ludlow on 2 April 1502, about twenty weeks after his wedding; ten-year-old Henry inherited his title and, eventually, his widow.

Which royal dukedom was Henry, a king's second son, given at the age of three in 1494?

Duke of York was one of many honours Henry VII piled on the infant, who was already Constable of Dover Castle at two; giving great offices to a child let the king keep control of them himself.

In which church was the 17-year-old Henry crowned in June 1509?

Westminster Abbey saw Henry crowned beside his new queen on 24 June 1509, thirteen days after their wedding; four years earlier, still a boy, he had formally rejected the match.

Which two unpopular ministers of his father did Henry arrest within days of becoming king and execute in 1510?

Empson and Dudley, Henry VII's hated revenue collectors, were seized in April 1509, just after the old king died, and beheaded in 1510; sacrificing them was an easy way for a new king to win popularity.

Who was Henry's first wife?

Catherine of Aragon, widow of Henry's elder brother, married him on 11 June 1509; the marriage he later fought to annul lasted almost 24 years, longer than his other five put together.

Which mistress bore Henry an acknowledged illegitimate son, Henry FitzRoy, in 1519?

Elizabeth Blount, one of the queen's attendants, bore the boy in June 1519; Henry made him Duke of Richmond at six, and it was widely said that he meant the child to be his successor.

At which 1513 battle, fought while Henry was campaigning in France, was King James IV of Scotland killed?

Flodden cost James IV his life on 9 September 1513; the queen, ruling England as regent, sent a piece of the dead king's coat to her husband in France as a trophy.

Which minor 1513 victory over the French did Henry seize on for propaganda?

The Battle of the Spurs, a cavalry rout near Thérouanne on 16 August 1513, is usually said to take its name from the haste with which the French horsemen spurred away, chased for six miles.

To seal peace in 1514, Henry married his sister Mary to which elderly king?

Mary Tudor married the 52-year-old Louis XII of France on 9 October 1514 to seal the Anglo-French peace; he died within three months. She had earlier been betrothed to the Habsburg heir.

At what lavish 1520 summit near Calais did Henry meet Francis I of France?

The Field of the Cloth of Gold ran from 7 to 24 June 1520, all jousts and feasting; yet within three weeks Henry had signed a secret treaty with Francis's great rival, Emperor Charles V.

Which title did Pope Leo X give Henry in 1521 for his book against Martin Luther?

Leo X named Henry Defender of the Faith in 1521 for his Assertio Septem Sacramentorum; Paul III revoked the title after the break with Rome, so Parliament re-granted it by statute.

Which churchman ran Henry's domestic and foreign policy as Lord Chancellor from 1515 to 1529?

Thomas Wolsey, cardinal and Lord Chancellor from 1515, fell in 1529 after failing to win the annulment, was charged with praemunire and died at Leicester in November 1530 on his way to trial.

Which Old Testament book did Henry cite to argue his marriage to his brother's widow Catherine was cursed?

Henry leaned on Leviticus 20:21, which warns that a man who takes his brother's wife shall be childless; awkwardly, Deuteronomy 25:5 tells a man to marry his dead brother's childless widow.

Which Italian cardinal came to England in 1528 as papal legate to hear Henry's annulment case?

Lorenzo Campeggio opened the hearing at the end of May 1529, but in July it was suspended and the pope recalled the case to Rome; the failure cost Henry's chief minister his office within months.

Which pope refused Henry's annulment and later excommunicated him?

Clement VII, a virtual prisoner of the emperor after the 1527 Sack of Rome, refused the annulment and in July 1533 declared Henry excommunicate unless he took back his first wife.

Which archbishop of Canterbury declared Henry's first marriage void in 1533?

Thomas Cranmer, consecrated archbishop in March 1533, pronounced the first marriage null at Dunstable Priory on 23 May 1533 and five days later upheld the Boleyn marriage.

Which act of 1534 made Henry head of the Church of England in place of the pope?

The Act of Supremacy made Henry 'the only Supreme Head in earth of the Church of England'; the Treasons Act passed in the same session made denying that title high treason.

Which chancellor was executed in 1535 on the evidence of one conversation with Richard Rich?

Thomas More was convicted of treason on Richard Rich's account of a single Tower conversation and beheaded on 6 July 1535; he had relied on silence, which the Treasons Act did not punish.

Which bishop of Rochester was beheaded in June 1535 for refusing to accept Henry as head of the Church?

John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, was beheaded on 22 June 1535, weeks after Paul III made him a cardinal; the honour left Henry unmoved, and the execution outraged Rome.

What was the great northern uprising of October 1536 against Henry's religious changes called?

The Pilgrimage of Grace, which began in Yorkshire in October 1536, drew tens of thousands of rebels; Henry promised a pardon, then used fresh risings in early 1537 to execute the leaders and about 200 people in all.

Who led the northern rebels of 1536?

Robert Aske, a Yorkshire-born lawyer of Gray's Inn, led the 1536 northern rebels; after Henry's promised pardon, fresh risings in early 1537 gave the pretext to arrest him, and he was executed at York that July.

How did Henry dress the day after learning that his first wife had died in January 1536?

All in yellow, with a white feather in his bonnet, Henry celebrated the news with festivities, by the imperial ambassador's report; yellow is sometimes explained instead as Spain's colour of mourning.

Which sister of Anne Boleyn had been Henry's mistress before the king pursued Anne?

Mary Boleyn's affair with Henry came back to haunt her sister: in church law it made Anne forbidden kin to him, one of the grounds suggested for the annulment pronounced two days before Anne's execution.

How was Anne Boleyn executed in May 1536?

By sword: Henry spared her the axe and had an expert swordsman brought across the Channel, a small mercy for the queen he had condemned; her alleged lovers had died two days earlier.

How soon after Anne Boleyn's execution did Henry become engaged to his third wife?

The next day, 20 May 1536, Henry was betrothed to a woman who had been one of Anne's own ladies-in-waiting; they married ten days after that.

Which wife gave Henry his longed-for son in October 1537 and died twelve days later?

Jane Seymour bore Prince Edward on 12 October 1537 and died of childbed complications on 24 October; she was buried at St George's Chapel, Windsor, where Henry was later laid beside her.

Which act of 1535–36 united England with its western neighbour as a single nation?

The Laws in Wales Act of 1535 (in force 1536) annexed Wales to England, extending English law and shire administration and giving Welsh constituencies seats in Parliament.

Which painter was sent to Cleves to portray Henry's prospective fourth bride?

Hans Holbein painted both Anne and her younger sister Amelia in 1539 so that Henry could choose between them; the likenesses pleased him far more than the bride did when she arrived.

What was the chief ground for annulling Henry's fourth marriage in 1540?

Non-consummation was the chief ground when the marriage to Anne of Cleves was annulled in July 1540, six months after the wedding; her old betrothal to Francis of Lorraine, cleared beforehand, was revived as a second.

What title did Henry's fourth wife receive after the annulment, along with two houses and an allowance?

Anne of Cleves did not contest the annulment and was rewarded: styled the King's Sister, she received a generous settlement of houses and lands and lived on in England until 1557.

Henry married Catherine Howard on 28 July 1540, the same day as what other event?

The execution of Thomas Cromwell on Tower Hill, 28 July 1540, coincided with Henry's wedding to Catherine Howard at Oatlands; the Cleves marriage Cromwell had brokered had destroyed him.

With which courtier did Catherine Howard have an affair after her marriage to Henry?

Thomas Culpeper, a gentleman of the privy chamber, met the queen secretly in 1541 with Lady Rochford's help; Dereham, an earlier lover, named him under interrogation, and both men were executed in December 1541.

Which wealthy widow became Henry's sixth and final wife in July 1543?

Catherine Parr, twice widowed (latterly of Lord Latimer), married Henry on 12 July 1543; a committed reformer, she came through a heresy plot in 1546 and helped restore his daughters to favour.

Which 1543 act restored Mary and Elizabeth to the order of inheritance after their brother?

The Third Succession Act of 1543 placed Mary and Elizabeth back in line after Edward and empowered Henry to settle the further succession by will, which he used to pass over the Scottish Stuarts.

The dismantling of whose shrine at Canterbury in 1538 led Pope Paul III to excommunicate Henry?

Thomas Becket's shrine at Canterbury was stripped of its treasures in 1538; that December Paul III at last issued the excommunication he had held in suspense for three years.

What is Henry's closure of England's monasteries called?

The Dissolution closed hundreds of religious houses in the late 1530s; royal visitors' reports of monastic vice gave Parliament its case, and the lands and treasures went to the crown.

What was the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535?

A survey of the Church's taxable wealth, the Valor Ecclesiasticus was compiled in 1535 because taxes once paid to the pope now went to the Crown, which wanted to know what they were worth.

At which 1542 battle were the Scots of James V defeated, weeks before that king's death?

At Solway Moss on 24 November 1542 a small English force routed a much larger Scottish army; James V died within weeks, leaving a baby daughter, Mary, as queen.

What name was later given to Henry's eight-year war to force a marriage between his son and the infant Mary of Scots?

The Rough Wooing (1543-1551) began after the Scottish Parliament repudiated the 1543 treaty that had promised the infant Mary to Prince Edward; Hertford's 1544 raid burned Edinburgh.

Which French port did Henry personally capture in September 1544?

Henry took personal command of the siege of Boulogne, which fell in September 1544; the peace of 1546 let England hold the port for eight years, after which France could buy it back.

Where did French troops come ashore during Francis I's attempted invasion of England in the summer of 1545?

The Isle of Wight was as far as the invasion got: French troops made a brief landing in July 1545 while the fleets fought indecisively in the Solent, and neither side gained anything.

What shows that Henry's waist passed 50 inches late in life?

His armour, made to measure, charts the change from a young sportsman's build to a waist of more than 50 inches; by the end he was too heavy to walk and had to be moved about by machinery.

What lasting injury is a jousting fall in January 1536 blamed for giving Henry?

A festering leg wound is traced to the fall, which reopened an old injury; the ulcer plagued Henry for the rest of his life, and by 1538 the pain at times left him unable to speak.

In the schoolroom rhyme on the fates of Henry's wives, which word comes last, after 'divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded'?

Survived is the last word, for the sixth wife, who outlived him; the rhyme bends the facts, though, because Henry's 'divorces' were annulments, rulings that the marriages had never been valid.

Which condemned nobleman was saved from the block when Henry died in January 1547?

Norfolk's attainder passed Parliament on 27 January 1547, but Henry died that night before it could be carried out; the duke's son, the poet Earl of Surrey, had gone to the block only days earlier.

The sarcophagus Henry took from his fallen cardinal for his own tomb was later used for whose tomb at St Paul's?

The black sarcophagus, begun for the cardinal and appropriated by Henry, lay unused at Windsor until 1806, when it was used for Lord Nelson's tomb in the crypt of St Paul's.

Henry's son, king at nine, left the crown to which great-niece of Henry?

Lady Jane Grey, granddaughter of Henry's sister Mary, was named heir by the dying Edward VI in 1553, setting aside his own half-sisters; she was proclaimed queen but deposed within days.

Which folk song is often, and wrongly, said to have been written by Henry?

"Greensleeves" is first recorded in September 1580, when a ballad of that name was registered in London; Henry had been dead for 33 years, and the song's link to him is legend.

Which song is the best-known piece of music that Henry really did write?

"Pastime with Good Company", also known as The King's Ballad, dates from the first years of his reign; its verses defend a young king's taste for hunting, singing and dancing.

Which Thames-side palace did Henry take over from his cardinal chancellor?

Hampton Court was leased and lavishly rebuilt by the cardinal from about 1514, then made over to Henry, who added the Great Hall; his son Edward was born there in 1537.

Which swift and deadly epidemic repeatedly sent Henry fleeing from house to house with only a few attendants?

The sweating sickness could kill within hours; in the 1528 outbreak Henry broke up his court and kept changing residence, while Anne Boleyn caught it and recovered.

Which warship of Henry's navy sank in the Solent in 1545 as he watched from the shore?

Mary Rose sank as Henry looked on from Southsea Castle; the king who built England a standing navy lost one of its finest ships, and her hull was raised from the seabed in 1982.

What were Henry's coastal artillery forts from Kent to Cornwall, begun in 1539, called?

The Device Forts, Deal Castle among them, were squat gun castles begun in 1539 because France and the Empire seemed ready to invade; the wealth of the closed monasteries paid for much of the work.

In 1542 Henry changed his Irish title from Lord of Ireland to what?

King of Ireland became Henry's title under the Crown of Ireland Act 1542, replacing the older Lord of Ireland; by then most Irish chiefs had formally submitted to him.

Henry jousted in a lavish court tournament in February 1511 to celebrate what?

The birth of his son on New Year's Day 1511 prompted the tournament, where the king jousted under the name Coeur Loyal, 'Loyal Heart'; the baby prince died on 22 February, days after the jousts.

A cannon fired during a 1613 play about Henry burned down which London playhouse?

The Globe caught fire on 29 June 1613 when a stage cannon in Shakespeare's Henry VIII set the thatch alight; the company had a new playhouse standing on the site within a year.

Which duke did Henry have beheaded for treason in May 1521?

Edward Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham and a descendant of Edward III, was convicted of treason on the evidence of his own servants and beheaded on Tower Hill on 17 May 1521.

Which languages was the young Henry fluent in besides English?

Latin and French both came fluently to Henry, who also picked up some Italian; schooled by leading tutors, he grew up to argue theology in print against Martin Luther.

Which English Bible translator was executed at Vilvoorde in 1536 after Henry had sought his arrest?

William Tyndale, who translated the New Testament into English, was strangled and burned near Brussels in October 1536; by then Henry's own chief minister was appealing, in vain, for his life.

Which 1539 measure reasserted traditional Catholic doctrine in Henry's church, with harsh penalties for dissent?

The Act of Six Articles made denying transubstantiation a burning offence and upheld clerical celibacy and private masses; bishops Latimer and Shaxton resigned their sees over it.

Anne Boleyn's daughter, born in September 1533, was probably named in honour of whom?

Elizabeth of York, the king's mother, is one likely namesake and Anne's own mother, Elizabeth Howard, the other; both parents had confidently expected a boy.

Henry VIII died on 28 January 1547, a date that would have been whose 90th birthday?

His father, Henry VII, was born on 28 January 1457. Henry VIII's death was then kept secret for three days while his councillors rode to take charge of the young heir.

Which later king was buried in the same vault as Henry VIII at St George's Chapel, Windsor?

Charles I was buried in Henry's vault in St George's Chapel on 9 February 1649, ten days after his execution; the vault was reopened in 1813 and his coffin identified.

Henry's debased silver coins of the 1540s earned him which nickname?

Old Coppernose stuck because the coins were largely copper under a thin wash of silver, which rubbed away first on the nose of Henry's portrait.

Which lavish Surrey palace did Henry begin building from scratch in 1538?

Nonsuch Palace cost a village: Henry pulled down Cuddington's church and manor house to clear the site. A later royal mistress dismantled it and sold the materials to settle her debts.

Which Cambridge college did Henry found in 1546, the year before he died?

Trinity College was made by merging two older colleges; the statue of its founder over the Great Gate held a chair leg for much of the past century, a student prank, until a sceptre replaced it in 2023.

Which Irish noble renounced his allegiance to Henry in 1534 and laid siege to Dublin Castle?

Thomas, Lord Offaly, 'Silken Thomas', son of the Earl of Kildare, renounced allegiance in June 1534, besieged Dublin Castle and was blamed for the murder of Archbishop John Alen; he was hanged at Tyburn in 1537.