70 Fun Facts About Henry VIII

Where was Henry born in June 1491?

Henry was born at Greenwich Palace (Placentia) on 28 June 1491, the second son of Henry VII, and 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.

At the age of two, Henry was appointed to which post?

In 1493, aged about two, Henry was made Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports; Henry VII heaped offices on the infant rather than share them with great families.

How old was Henry when he succeeded his father in April 1509?

Born 28 June 1491, Henry was 17 when Henry VII died on 21 April 1509; within weeks he announced he would marry his brother's widow after all.

Which two unpopular ministers of his father did Henry arrest after his coronation and execute in 1510?

Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, Henry VII's hated tax collectors, were arrested in 1509, attainted for treason and beheaded on Tower Hill in August 1510.

Who was Henry's first wife?

Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella and widow of Henry's brother, married Henry on 11 June 1509, weeks after his accession.

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

Elizabeth 'Bessie' Blount, a maid of honour, bore Henry FitzRoy in June 1519; the boy was made Duke of Richmond in 1525 and died in July 1536.

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

James IV was killed at Flodden on 9 September 1513 by an English army under the Earl of Surrey while Henry campaigned in France; the queen, as regent, oversaw the defence.

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

The Battle of the Spurs (16 August 1513) was a cavalry rout near Thérouanne that Henry trumpeted as a triumph; he then took Tournai and held it for about five years.

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 meeting near Calais did Henry spend a fortnight with Francis I of France?

The Field of the Cloth of Gold (7-24 June 1520), staged between Guînes and Ardres, featured jousts, feasts and a wrestling bout between the kings, yet produced no lasting alliance.

Which title did Pope Leo X give Henry in 1521 for his book defending the seven sacraments?

Leo X named Henry Defender of the Faith (Fidei Defensor) in October 1521 for his Assertio Septem Sacramentorum; Paul III revoked it after the break with Rome, and Parliament re-conferred it in 1544.

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; opponents countered with Deuteronomy, which commands marrying a childless brother's widow.

Which papal legate arrived in 1528 to hear Henry's annulment case, under orders to delay?

Lorenzo Campeggio reached London in October 1528; the legatine court opened at Blackfriars on 31 May 1529 and was adjourned in July when the pope revoked the case to Rome.

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 declared Henry the only Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England?

The Act of Supremacy (November 1534) made Henry 'the only Supreme Head in earth of the Church of England'; the Treasons Act passed 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 denying the royal supremacy?

John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, was beheaded on Tower Hill on 22 June 1535, weeks after Paul III made him a cardinal, making him the only cardinal Henry put to death.

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 some 30,000 rebels; Henry promised a pardon, then used fresh risings in early 1537 to execute its leaders and about 200 others.

Who led the northern rebels of 1536?

Robert Aske, a York lawyer, led the 1536 northern rebels; after Henry's promised pardon, renewed risings in early 1537 gave the pretext to arrest him, and he was hanged in chains at York in July 1537.

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

Ambassador Chapuys reported Henry appearing all in yellow, with a white feather in his bonnet, the day after his first wife died on 7 January 1536; Anne Boleyn miscarried on the day of the funeral, 29 January.

On what grounds did Cranmer probably annul the marriage to Anne Boleyn two days before her execution?

The archbishop voided the marriage on 17 May 1536, most likely on the affinity created by Henry's earlier affair with her sister Mary; Henry Percy had sworn there was no precontract.

Where was Anne Boleyn executed on 19 May 1536?

Anne Boleyn was beheaded by a French swordsman on a scaffold on Tower Green, inside the Tower of London, on 19 May 1536; five men, including her brother George, had died on Tower Hill two days earlier.

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

Henry became engaged the next day, 20 May 1536, and married his third wife ten days later, on 30 May, in the Queen's Closet at Whitehall.

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 the Younger painted Anne of Cleves at Düren in 1539; Henry later said he liked her not, yet the portrait was thought truthful and Holbein kept his post as King's Painter.

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

The marriage to Anne of Cleves, made on 6 January 1540, was annulled that July on grounds of non-consummation, with her earlier precontract to Francis of Lorraine cited as further support.

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

Anne of Cleves accepted the annulment and was styled the King's Sister, ranking after only the queen and the king's daughters, with Richmond Palace, Hever Castle and an allowance.

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 narrowly survived 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 in September 1538 and the saint's cult proscribed; Paul III cited it when he finally promulgated the bull of excommunication that December.

Roughly how many religious houses had been dissolved by January 1540?

Some 800 religious houses had been dissolved by early 1540, the last, Waltham Abbey, surrendering in March; roughly a fifth of England's landed wealth thereby passed to the crown.

What was the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535?

The Valor Ecclesiasticus was a survey of the Church's taxable wealth, compiled in 1535 by county commissioners after the First Fruits and Tenths Act redirected clerical taxes from Rome to the Crown.

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 Scottish army on the border; James V died on 14 December, leaving the week-old 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 was present at the siege of Boulogne, which fell on 18 September 1544; the Treaty of Camp (1546) let England keep it, but Edward VI's government sold it back to France in 1550.

How far did Francis I's attempted invasion of England get in the summer of 1545?

The French fleet of over 200 ships landed troops on the Isle of Wight in July 1545 after the inconclusive Battle of the Solent, in which the Mary Rose sank; the raiders were driven off within days.

What was Henry's waist measurement late in life?

Armour made for Henry around 1540 shows a waist of about 54 inches; in his last years he was so heavy that he was moved about with the help of mechanical devices.

What happened to Henry in a jousting accident on 24 January 1536?

The fall left him unconscious for two hours; the festering ulcer and his mood swings are traced to it.

A 2010 study proposed which blood type to explain Henry's decline and his wives' many failed pregnancies?

Catrina Banks Whitley and Kyra Kramer proposed in 2010 that Henry was Kell-positive, which could cause a Kell-negative partner's later pregnancies to fail, and that McLeod syndrome explained his decline; most historians dismiss the old syphilis theory.

How old was Henry when he died on 28 January 1547?

Born 28 June 1491, Henry was 55 when he died at the Palace of Whitehall on 28 January 1547, after more than 37 years on the throne.

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

The black marble 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.

How old was Henry's son when he succeeded him as king in 1547?

Edward VI was nine, born 12 October 1537, when he succeeded on 28 January 1547; the executors named in Henry's will made his uncle Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, Lord Protector.

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

"Greensleeves" is often credited to Henry, but it was first registered in 1580 and is built on an Italian ground bass, the romanesca, that reached England after his death in 1547.

What is Henry's best-known genuine musical composition?

"Pastime with Good Company", also called The Kynges Ballade, was written by Henry soon after his accession and survives in the Henry VIII Manuscript; he played lute, organ and virginals.

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

Hampton Court, begun by the cardinal in 1514, passed to Henry as the cardinal lost favour in 1528-29; he added the Great Hall and vast kitchens, and his son Edward was born there in 1537.

How many tapestries did Henry hang in his palaces?

Henry's inventories list some 2,000 tapestries across his palaces, many woven in Flanders; his nephew James V of Scotland owned about 200.

To roughly what size did Henry expand the Tudor navy from the seven ships he inherited?

Henry expanded the fleet from the seven ships he inherited to up to 50, with great ships like the Mary Rose and Henry Grace à Dieu, and is traditionally counted a founder of the Royal Navy.

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

The Device Forts, named for the royal 'device' (plan) of 1539, were squat artillery castles such as Deal, Walmer and St Mawes, often built with stone from dissolved monasteries against a Franco-Imperial invasion.

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

The Crown of Ireland Act 1542 made Henry King of Ireland; the old title Lord of Ireland rested on a twelfth-century papal grant, awkward once Henry had broken with Rome.

What was Henry's personal motto, embroidered on his clothes with a heart symbol?

Coeur Loyal ('loyal heart') was Henry's youthful motto, embroidered on his clothes as a heart with the word 'loyal'; he jousted as 'Sir Loyal Heart' at the 1511 Westminster tournament.

Which poet served as tutor to the young Prince Henry from about 1496?

The poet John Skelton tutored Prince Henry from about 1496 to 1502, writing the Speculum Principis for him, and later styled himself orator regius; his satires targeted the cardinal.

Which historian argued that Thomas Cromwell, not Henry, drove a 'Tudor revolution in government'?

G. R. Elton's The Tudor Revolution in Government (1953) credited the king's minister with remodelling the state; Elton called Henry an 'ego-centric monstrosity' whose successes were owed to better men around him.

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?

Henry was fluent in Latin and French and learned some Italian; he is often called the first English king with a humanist education, and wrote the Assertio Septem Sacramentorum in Latin.

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

William Tyndale, translator of the New Testament into English, was strangled and burned at Vilvoorde near Brussels in October 1536; Henry's own doctrine of obedience borrowed from Tyndale's Obedience of a Christian Man.

Which 1539 act, pushed by the Duke of Norfolk, reasserted Catholic doctrine with harsh penalties?

The Act of Six Articles (1539), steered through the Lords by the Duke of Norfolk, reaffirmed transubstantiation, clerical celibacy and private masses, with burning for denying the first; Latimer and Shaxton resigned their sees.

The princess born to Anne Boleyn in September 1533 was named in honour of whom?

Elizabeth, born on 7 September 1533, was named for Elizabeth of York, the king's mother, and shared the name of Anne's mother, Elizabeth Howard; Henry had confidently expected a son.

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

Henry VII, his father, was born at Pembroke Castle on 28 January 1457; Henry VIII died at the Palace of Whitehall on the same date 90 years later.

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.

How many executors did Henry's will name to form a regency council for the young Edward VI?

Henry's will named 16 executors as a regency council for his son; they soon made Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, the boy's uncle, Lord Protector.

Which of these palaces did Henry build rather than confiscate from Wolsey?

Nonsuch Palace in Surrey was begun by Henry in April 1538 as a showpiece to rival Francis I's Chambord, meant to have no equal; the other three came from the cardinal's forfeited foundations.

Which body did Henry set up in 1546 to administer the navy?

The council for marine causes, created in 1546, put naval administration under salaried officers and evolved into the Navy Board; Henry's reign also saw warship tactics shift from boarding towards gunnery.

Which Irish noble led a 'Catholic crusade' against Henry in 1534 and besieged Dublin?

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.

Which bishop married Henry and Jane Seymour at Whitehall, ten days after their engagement?

The wedding took place in Anne Boleyn's closet at the Palace of Whitehall.