by Carol H. Morgan

Created on: January 06, 2008   Last Updated: January 01, 2009

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

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• Next Page >>