History remembers Henry VIII as a complex figure who wasn't born to be king. As a leader, he wrestled control of the English Church from the grip of Rome; as a husband, he had six wives, two of whom were beheaded for treason.
Henry VIII was born at Greenwich Palace on June 28, 1491, to King Henry VII and his wife, Elizabeth of York. Out of the king and queen's six children, only three others besides young Henry survived infancy: Arthur, Prince of Wales, Margaret, and Mary.
Young Henry was given a first rate education, as was valued among the royals and nobility of the day. He spoke fluent Latin and French; being the second son, he was destined for a life in the Church. But fate had a different mind. On April 2, 1502, the fifteen-year-old Prince of Wales was killed by sweating sickness. The disease also struck his widow, the Spanish Infanta, Catherine of Aragon. Catherine survived, however, and when it was determined that she wasn't carrying her late husband's son, his younger brother Henry was given the title of Prince of Wales.
Henry VII was keen to maintain a Spanish alliance. He proposed that his son Henry be betrothed to Arthur's widow. However, that was potentially problematic due the fact that any sexual relationship between Catherine and the late Arthur would mean that she and Henry shared an affinity. Once Catherine swore that she never consummated her marriage to her late husband, her parents, King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I, thought it would be prudent to seek a papal dispensation from Rome to make the betrothal valid. The dispensation was granted by Pope Julius II just over a year after Arthur's death.
King Henry VII lost interest in his alliance with Spain; however, upon his death, his son thought it was necessary to cement it. Thus, on June 11, 1509, Henry and Catherine were married; two weeks later they were crowned in Westminster Abbey.
The Renaissance aesthetic flourished in the court of Henry VIII. The king himself was an accomplished poet, having published ballads. An avid sportsman, he excelled at jousting and hunting. Despite his romantic lifestyle, his faith in Catholic Christian doctrines remained strong. In his early years, he had the famed Protestant Dr. William Tyndale burnt at the stake, making him a martyr for the Protestant Cause.
Henry VIII showed his cruelty early on when he had his father's advisors, Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, arrested on trumped up charges of treason. The two were beheaded in due course; this would be a sign of things to come.
Henry VIII's first and only living child by Catherine of Aragon was born on February 18, 1516. A girl, Mary was viewed as a royal disappointment in a time when male heirs were sought and favored. This gave rise to a great dissatisfaction with Catherine. Sometime after Mary's birth, he took two mistresses: Bessie Blount and Mary Boleyn.
Blount gave him an illegitimate son, Henry FitzRoy. It was this, perhaps, that told Henry the problem definitely did not lie in himself and was definitely the fault of his wife. Mary Boleyn had two children during her affair with the king, who did not acknowledge them; thus, it's been believed that they most likely weren't his.
As Henry grew more desperate for a son, he sought solace in Mary Boleyn's sister, Anne. Unlike her sister, Anne spurned the king's advances for a long time. It's widely believed that her denial of his affections was a basis for the sonnet Greensleeves.
Eventually, Anne relented due to her own ambitions and those of her family, and succumbed to Henry's seducement. Soon afterward, Henry VIII made his desires to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon known. There were many setbacks in obtaining the dispensation from the pope, a large one being the fact that the pope was imprisoned by the Hapsburgs at the time, thus an official dispensation couldn't be readily given or denied. Through cunning maneuvering, Anne secured her family's chaplain the position of Archbishop of Canterbury; she also formed an alliance with Thomas Cromwell, who in 1532, brought an argument before Parliament stating, to effect, that the Church was second to domestic royal supremacy. Thus, Henry was able to divorce Catherine of Aragon, sending her away and giving Anne her living quarters.
Anne and Henry were wed; she eventually produced him a daughter, Elizabeth. Henry was, understandably, outraged, for he went to a lot of trouble securing the right to marry her, only to be given a daughter. Anne soon found that Henry had reverted into his old ways of trumped up treasonous charges; she found herself in the middle of allegations of witchcraft and incest with her brother. The penalty for these crimes was death. With the unfounded conviction, she was beheaded on May 19, 1536 at Tower Green.
Henry married Anne's lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour, ten days after Anne's execution. Henry quickly passed a law stating that only his children by Jane were legitimate and his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, were now legal bastards. In October of 1537, Jane Seymour gave birth to Henry's son and heir, Edward, and died a few days later of infection.
After Jane's death, Henry married Anne of Cleves. Unimpressed by her homely appearance, he quickly divorced her. She remained in good favor and was often referred to as his "sister". He then married the teenage Catherine Howard, cousin and lady-in-waiting of Anne Boleyn. Catherine quickly began a treasonous affair with Thomas Culpepper and was executed on February 13, 1542.
Henry VIII's last and final marriage to the young and wealthy widow Catherine Parr was a happy one. Though they didn't see eye-to-eye on religion (she was a staunch reformer), she gained his affection for her sweetness and a devotion to him and his family. It was she who reconciled Henry with his daughters Mary and Elizabeth. Shortly after the reconciliation, Henry put his daughters back into the line of succession after their little brother, Edward.
On January 28, 1547, Henry VIII died of untreated type II diabetes, leaving behind a legacy of religious reform, marital cruelty, and a desperate attempt to preserve his dynasty. To this day, he's remembered as the most famous (and notorious) king in English history.