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Henry VIII (1491-1547) doesn't have a reputation as one of history's best husbands. His reputation comes down to us as a notoriously cruel tyrant, and a womanizer and lecher. Those things are probably true for the most part, as they are for a number of the Kings of England. But the more interesting story in Henry's reputation in how he treated his six wives (where the number DOES distinguish himself from any other English monarch) was not in what he kind of husband he WAS, but rather what kind of husband he was TRYING to be. Ironically, it is possible that some of the seeds of how awful his six marriages turned out were likely sewn in his parents' own GOOD marriage - one he was trying his whole life to emulate.

Henry VII (1457-1509), his father, and hailed originator of the Tudor line, was an unlikely King. With a tenuous claim to the throne himself, he just happened to get lucky enough to defeat the unpopular Richard III on the battlefield. The country was sick of civil war so they bought it without too much protest (though the divisions of the "Lancastrians" and "Yorkiststs" would continue for centuries to come). One of Henry II's next moves was to marry Elizabeth of York to placate the more legitimate royal line and quickly produced multiple male heirs with her. But while his match with Elizabeth was initially politically motivated, it was also hugely successful: they loved each other dearly. The miserly Henry Tudor lavished on Elizabeth where he didn't anywhere else, and never fully recovered after her death while giving birth to their last child, a daughter, who also died that day.

CATHERINE OF ARAGON (1448-1536)"Divorced"

After his father's and older brother's deaths, Henry VIII by his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon (a princess from Spain) in 1508 he was likely picking up the pieces of his family along with following the tradition of a political and royal marriage. He was too young to think of his own differing strategy at aged 18, and was probably put to it by one or another of his advisers if he didn't have any actual wish to do it himself. That was the cheapest and easiest solution if nothing else and surely he wanted to begin producing his own heirs as soon as possible.

There was of course great hope of this at first. Catherine's mother had had nine surviving children. And it very likely could have worked for them if they had produced a male heir, whatever the personal feelings, because they did have some happiness - which may have continued if they had been lucky enough to have a son survive. He gave this marriage a good twenty years with few mistresses - that actually seems like somewhat of a traditional husband by today's standards, much less a 16th century king's. But in marriage like in his rule he was haunted by the same ghosts that haunted his father - securing the Tudor legacy - and felt taunted that his father had succeeded where he had not: managing to grant England an heir AND also to have a wife he loved.

Begetting an heir to continue the work of his father and the Tudor dynasty would become an obsession of his entire reign. In addition, his realm was going through some cultural changes. He felt ridiculed by notions bandied about in Europe that the British Isles were still stuck in the Middle Ages while the Renaissance was advancing on the continent. And while outwardly contemptuous of King Francis I of France and Emperor Charles V, he envied the greater cultural and personal reputation of his continental rivals. Whatever his motives, his divorce from Catherine would plague him in many ways through his entire tenure as King, and beyond. His country's sympathy toward Catherine put her daughter on the throne when they knew she would terrorize a nation that was largely becoming Protestant by that time.

ANNE BOLEYN (1501/7-1536) "Beheaded"

So it is little surprise that in one of the only actual documented early references to Anne Boleyn, with whom he began a relationship about 1528, she was referred to as "a fresh young maiden returned from France" who had recently come to court. Henry apparently was for various reasons taken in by this local noble's daughter and lady to his Queen, and quite possibly for her Frenchness, education and sophistication. Unlike the more traditional Katherine, Anne perhaps seemed more like a jewel he could show off in his crown. And since he had given the political side of his parents' marriage success a shot, (unsuccessfully it seemed since Katherine's family had since lost their prestige), why not try for their passion?

Well he soon found out why it wasn't good to ignore the politics when you marry not just as a man but as the royal head of a nation: marrying a common subject had many problems. Those problems led to her downfall quickly in the brief three years that she was officially his queen. One problem was that instead of the increased admiration abroad that he craved, he garnered ridicule for her common status and questionable morals (ironically morals she had likely acquired in France). And more importantly for his practical success as a ruler, because she represented only one power faction of his subjects and wielded that power against the others, perhaps even rashly, the others busily worked against her to get her rival, the passive Jane Seymour, on the throne instead. In the end she became so unpopular that Henry had no choice but to give her up, whatever his personal feelings on the matter, because she was doing his crown harm and little good.

Their relationship and her fate is littered with tragic irony, but one of the bitterest was that sealing her fate was actually Catherine's death, from what was rumored to have been caused from cruel treatment or even poisoning by Anne herself. She would have actually remained protected as long as Catherine lived, because Henry would have known that if he had Anne executed Catherine would have renewed her legal assertion that they were still married. But since that didn't happen, he told his advisers he wanted out and quickly.

Trumped up charges were produced on such things as adultery with five men, witch craft, and conspiring for the death of the king. In a gesture seen as magnanimous but in actuality was probably an icy cold final touch, he called for executioners by sword from France, the country Anne was closely affiliated with. Henry waited to hear the cannon sound her death and was off like a shot himself to the Seymour's, where he was betrothed the next day.

JANE SEYMOUR, (1508-1537) "Died"

Whether coming natural to her or taking advice from her noble Seymour family and others as Anne had done, Jane deliberately made herself everything that the doomed Anne wasn't: she put back on the traditional gabled headdress and shunned Anne's French hood, made much of her traditional religion and virtue, and she actually succeeded at putting Henry off until she secured an unrivaled betrothal and then marriage eleven days after Anne Boleyn's execution.

It is said that Jane was Henry's most beloved wife, as he had his portrait painted with her well after her death and was buried with her. But that may have been with reflection, after giving birth to his son and heir in 1537. Their relationship was actually a bit bland, and he betrayed her by breaking his promise to her and suppressing a Catholic rebellion with which she had sympathy. It is possible if she had been any more outspoken in support of rebels she would have found herself in as much danger as any of his other wives.

In the meanwhile, the rising star of Thomas Cromwell was still a bit concerned that Henry not have a marriage that allied him with Europe in any way. There is debate about whether Cromwell himself was a devout Protestant or merely wanted to secure an alliance with some non Catholic territory. As Jane Seymour lay delirious and dying with child bed fever (calling for Henry but he didn't come) the Duke of Cleves found himself in an enviable position. Their dukedom was a tiny area but coveted for its neutrality in politics and in religion and its position on the Rhine. They had avoided either domination by the Vatican or the loathing (of Henry) of Lutheranism.

ANNE OF CLEVES (1515-1537) "Divorced"

After his two years of mourning Jane, he finally agreed to the political match with Anne of Cleves. But their famous first meeting, was a disaster. His former three wives had played well their role of charmed admirer - he obviously liked the flattery of his vanity even more than the actual beauty of his wives. Jane herself was much more plain and dour than Anne or even Catherine in her youth, but she, too, knew what he wanted. Even the aging Catherine pleased him when would pretend she thought he was some dashing stranger whenever he put on his (unconvincing) disguise.

But someone failed to warn Anne of Cleves that he was coming. She wasn't dressed to impress at the time, and he was in disguise. When she saw him, he probably just looked like some fat middle aged man coming to hug her - and probably did not give him the reaction to this advance that he would hope to have from a wife for the rest of his life. He left the meeting and said to his attendants "I like her NOT."

Therefore, while history has bought Henry's side that she was too hideously ugly to be Queen, Poor Anne's appearance was very likely not quite as disappointing as it was claimed, but a result of the fact that the two of them just didn't hit it off. Interestingly he never blamed the portraitist, only Cromwell for thinking up the idea of the match. Cromwell got a dull ax for his thanks. Anne herself, probably cowering and waiting for her own executioners, received the most generous treatment of any of his six wives, even his widow: including the gift of Anne Boleyn's childhood home, Hever Castle. This shows that being a royal princess does have its advantages and protection that Anne Boleyn didn't because she was a commoner, and that Catherine of Aragon didn't have because she didn't cooperate.

KATHERINE HOWARD (1522-1542) "Beheaded"

Whatever the possibilities of doing the honorable thing and marrying a wife he didn't love for its advantages of the kingdom on the continent, Henry simply couldn't rid himself of the ideal of his parents' ideal political marriage but also their love match. Whatever the cost, he wanted love at least as a MAN, perhaps more than he longed for a successful kingdom. And as his power, tyranny and confidence increased through the realm, he wasn't worried about his political popularitiy. He thought once again that he could afford to give up the politics for a bit of fun that he hadn't had for ages. Historians think that he had his fifth wife, Katherine Howard, in mind when he bought off the annulment from Anne of Cleves.

Henry had called the teen-aged Howard, cousin to Anne Boleyn, his 'Rose without a thorn.' Sticky quote. Because Katherine was probably the real adulteress that he had framed his second wife, Anne Boleyn to be as a pretense to get rid of her. From a young age Katherine Howard had lived in a near brothel, a storehouse of available Howard ancestry that was raided by local noble men. When Henry found out, he was humiliated, though if it had been up to him he may have saved her life - after all, he knew in his heart that her morals were no worse than his.

"Is it true that such a sweet thing must die?" was his pathetic plea to his stern advisers. It was true that she had been caught in a relationship with privy groom Thomas Culpepper, but also there were motivations to get rid of her, just as there were Anne. Henry's advisers knew their master might only live a few more years, many of whom didn't really want Katherine as the teen-aged regent of his young son Edward VI. At that point, they knew that whatever wife outlived him would likely hold some powerful cards in the future, as it actually was for the fourth husband of his next wife.

CATHERINE PARR, (1512-1548) "Survived"

So off with Katherine Howard's head (only the second of two wives who were actually executed, but still a pretty high percentage) and on to wife number six. So ashamed at his fifth wife's past, Henry had passed some pretty stern legislation concerning his future bride to be. Not only was anyone actually complicit in her infidelity guilty of treason as Katherine Howard's attendant Jane Rochford had been, but anyone who WITHHELD SUSPICION was also equally guilty. This created the possibility that if someone even heard a rumor or had a fleeting thought and didn't report it they might find themselves following along to the block. So naturally all his subjects were all relieved when Katherine Parr, who was twice widowed, was the chosen as his bride to be, probably even against her own will.

Henry liked her for several reasons. She was modest and pious (he tended to vacillate back and forth on whether he liked this trait) and she was older and independently wealthy and thus not beholden to any court faction. But even these traits and her loving care and tender handling of the king (she had nursed older husbands before) didn't save her from the dread of execution: she by luck alone escaped it when by accident she discovered her Catholic rivals' plot to have her burned for her Protestant fervor. She had to trick Henry from letting her advisers haul her off. Fairly pathetic ends to a half decade of seeking love, that it would come to this; and who knows what other marital horrors were avoided by Henry's death in his mid fifties in 1547.

Parr made out fairly well as she survived him and was able to marry the love of her life, Thomas Seymour, who she had wanted to marry before being summoned to be Henry's queen. Interestingly it was Catherine Parr's protestant fervor that ended up setting England on a more direct course toward Protestantism. Henry had backslid, of course almost having her burned as a Protestant heretic, and enjoying Catholic last rites for himself even as he also persecuted other Catholics. Catherine Parr and Thomas Seymour, who directed the education of Elizabeth and also influenced the regency of Edward VI, were to have shaped England's first truly Protestant rulers.

CONCLUSION

It is widely believed that one is more successful in marriage with a good of parental marriage to follow. Likely that is true for the most part, but it may not always be so. For in the case of the tragic six Queens of Henry the VIII, their husband's bleak record as a husband can be placed partly at the feet of his parents' smashing success. Each one of them suffered as he struggled to meet the diplomatic purposes of having a consort while retaining the wish that he had truly loved them as his parents loved each other.

Learn more about this author, Carol H. Morgan.
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