3 Ways To Remember Henry Viii S Wives

It is not strictly accurate. The marriages to Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves legally ended in annulment, not divorce. And both Anne of Cleves and Katherine Parr survived the king, in the sense of outliving him.

This version is inaccurate in the use of the term divorced, which should really be annulled. It also doesn’t tell you the order of the queens. However, it has a catchy meter and is easy to remember.

Catherine of Aragon had one child, a daughter, who would reign as Mary I (also known as “Bloody Mary”). Henry’s first marriage was also his longest, lasting from 1509 until 1533. Desperate for a son, Henry sought an annulment, claiming that the marriage was invalid because Catherine had been married to Arthur. When the pope refused, Henry broke with the Catholic Church, declared himself head of the church in England, and arranged for his own annulment.

Anne, too, had just one child, another daughter, who would become the famous queen Elizabeth I. After several miscarriages, Henry decided to end this marriage, too, on the pretext that Anne was having an affair with another man. Anne was tried for treason and beheaded in 1536.

In 1537, she gave birth to Edward VI, who would reign only briefly before his early death. Jane Seymour died just days after giving birth, plunging the king into grief.

Anne of Cleves co-operated in arranging the annulment of the marriage. She outlived Henry by a decade, dying at her castle in 1557.

Catherine Howard was Anne Boleyn’s first cousin, and she shared her fate. She was caught having an affair with Thomas Culpeper and was beheaded for treason in 1542.

Learned and pious, Katherine sought to reinforce the Protestant Reformation. Katherine was the first woman and Queen of England to publish a book under her own name. She would publish another after the death of King Henry. She remarried after his death to Sir Thomas Seymour; uncle to King Edward VI. After giving birth to her only child, christened Lady Mary (after her royal stepsister), Katherine died five days later on September 5th, 1548. Katherine’s tomb at Sudeley Castle, which features an elaborate effigy, is the most ornate tomb out of all of Henry’s wives.