Henry VIII’s reign is remembered for his six marriages, but it was his first, to the Spanish princess Katherine of Aragon, that lasted the longest and set the stage for the turmoil that followed. Katherine of Aragon was born on December 16, 1485, the youngest child of Spain’s Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. She first traveled to England in 1501 to marry Henry’s older brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales. Arthur died just five months after their wedding, and the marriage was subsequently arranged with the newly crowned Henry VIII.
The couple remained married for 24 years. Katherine gave birth to six children, but only one daughter, the future Mary I, survived infancy. Henry’s obsessive desire for a male heir and his growing attraction to one of Katherine’s ladies-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn, brought the marriage to an end and sparked the English Reformation. Katherine, who continued to regard herself as England’s rightful queen, was eventually banished from court.
She died of cancer in 1536. Anne Boleyn, believed to have been born in 1501, likely first encountered the king in March 1522 when she performed in a play at Whitehall Palace. While Anne’s sister Mary acted as Henry’s mistress until about 1525, Anne herself held out for the possibility of marriage. After seven years of courtship, and with the creation of a divorce-permitting Church of England, Henry married Anne in 1533.
But like her predecessor, Anne gave birth to only one surviving daughter, the future Elizabeth I. To make way for his next marriage to Jane Seymour, Henry had Anne investigated for high treason. Within a month she was convicted of adultery, incest, and conspiracy to kill the king. Anne was beheaded in the Tower of London on May 19, 1536.
Jane Seymour, likely born in either 1508 or 1509, became a maid of honor to Katherine of Aragon as early as 1527 and later served in Anne Boleyn’s household when Anne became queen. It is thought that Henry’s interest in Jane began just three months before Anne’s execution. The two were betrothed the day after Anne’s beheading and married only ten days later. By March 1537 Jane had fallen pregnant.
Edward, later the teenage King Edward VI, was born at Hampton Court Palace on October 12, 1537, after a labor lasting three nights. Despite the joy at the birth of a male heir, Jane soon fell seriously ill. She died twelve days later, probably from a postpartum infection. After Jane’s death in October 1537, Henry waited two years before his short marriage to Anne of Cleves.
Negotiations began in 1539 with the goal of forming a political alliance with Anne’s brother William, a leader of Protestantism in western Germany. Anne, born in 1515 in the Holy Roman Empire, married the English king soon after her arrival in England. When she first arrived, Henry supposedly exclaimed to Thomas Cromwell, “I like her not! ” The marriage was never consummated and was soon annulled.
As a settlement, Anne was given a generous annual income and lifelong possession of Richmond Palace, as well as Anne Boleyn’s former residence, Hever Castle. Anne outlived Henry and his other five wives, and she likely died of cancer on July 16, 1557. Katherine Howard, the first cousin of Anne Boleyn, was born sometime between 1518 and 1524. She was a niece of Thomas Howard, a prominent politician at Henry’s court who helped secure her a place in Anne of Cleves’s household when Katherine was about 13.
It is believed she had a relationship with, or was groomed by, her music teacher Henry Mannox, and she may have had a longer sexual relationship with the young nobleman Francis Dereham. Katherine and Henry were wed on July 28, 1540, just three weeks after Henry’s marriage to Anne of Cleves was annulled. Soon after, Katherine may have become involved with Henry’s favorite male courtier, Thomas Culpeper. Katherine gave birth to no children during her 18-month marriage to Henry.
By the summer of 1541, rumors of Katherine’s current and past liaisons began to circulate. She was charged with treason and beheaded on February 13, 1542. The twice-widowed Katherine Parr, born in 1512, married the king in July 1543. She was devoutly religious and published several books, making her the first English queen to become a published author.
As Henry’s health declined, Katherine became a target of anti-Protestant officials who felt threatened by her relatively progressive views. A warrant was even secured for her arrest. She managed to reconcile with the king, and after Henry’s death in 1547, Katherine married Thomas Seymour.
She died in September 1548 after giving birth and contracting a postpartum fever.