King Henry VIII and Bloody Mary Biography

King Henry VIII and Bloody Mary Biography

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Henry VIII was born at Greenwich on 28 June 1491, the second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. He became heir to the throne on the death of his elder brother, Prince Arthur, in 1502 and succeeded in 1509.
In his youth he was athletic and highly intelligent. A contemporary observer described him thus: 'he speaks good French, Latin and Spanish; is very religious; heard three masses daily when he hunted ... He is extremely fond of hunting, and never takes that diversion without tiring eight or ten horses ... He is also fond of tennis.'
Henry's scholarly interests included writing both books and music, and he was a lavish patron of the arts.
He was an accomplished player of many instruments and a composer. Greensleeves, the popular melody frequently attributed to him is, however, almost certainly not one of his compositions.
As the author of a best-selling book (it went through some 20 editions in England and Europe) attacking Martin Luther and supporting the Roman Catholic church, in 1521 Henry was given the title 'Defender of the Faith' by the Pope.
From his father, Henry VIII inherited a stable realm with the monarch's finances in healthy surplus - on his accession, Parliament had not been summoned for supplies for five years. Henry's varied interests and lack of application to government business and administration increased the influence of Thomas Wolsey, an Ipswich butcher's son, who became Lord Chancellor in 1515.
Wolsey became one of the most powerful ministers in British history (symbolized by his building of Hampton Court Palace - on a greater scale than anything the king possessed). Wolsey exercised his powers vigorously in his own court of Chancery and in the increased use of the Council's judicial authority in the court of the Star Chamber.
Wolsey was also appointed Cardinal in 1515 and given papal legate powers which enabled him to by-pass the Archbishop of Canterbury and 'govern' the Church in England.
Henry's interest in foreign policy was focused on Western Europe, which was a shifting pattern of alliances centered round the kings of Spain and France, and the Holy Roman Emperor. (Henry was related by marriage to all three - his wife Catherine was Ferdinand of Aragon's daughter, his sister Mary married Louis XII of France in 1514, and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was Catherine's nephew.)
An example of these shifts was Henry's unsuccessful Anglo-Spanish campaigns against France, ending in peace with France in 1520, when he spent huge sums on displays and tournaments at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
Henry also invested in the navy, and increased its size from 5 to 53 ships (including the Mary Rose, the remains of which lie in the Portsmouth Naval Museum).

The second half of Henry's reign was dominated by two issues very important for the later history of England and the monarchy: the succession and the Protestant Reformation, which led to the formation of the Church of England.
Henry had married his brother's widow, Catherine of Aragon, in 1509. Catherine had produced only one surviving child - a girl, Princess Mary, born in 1516. By the end of the 1520s, Henry's wife was in her forties and he was desperate for a son.
The Tudor dynasty had been established by conquest in 1485 and Henry was only its second monarch. England had not so far had a ruling queen, and the dynasty was not secure enough to run the risk of handing the Crown on to a woman, risking disputed succession or domination of a foreign power through marriage.

Henry had anyway fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, the sister of one of his many mistresses, and tried to persuade the Pope to grant him an annulment of his marriage on the grounds that it had never been legal.
Royal divorces had happened before: Louis XII had been granted a divorce in 1499, and in 1527 James IV's widow Margaret (Henry's sister) had also been granted one. However, a previous Pope had specifically granted Henry a licence to marry his brother's widow in 1509.
In May 1529, Wolsey failed to gain the Pope's agreement to resolve Henry's case in England. All the efforts of Henry and his advisers came to nothing; Wolsey was dismissed and arrested, but died before he could be brought to trial.

Since the attempts to obtain the divorce through pressure on the papacy had failed, Wolsey's eventual successor Thomas Cromwell (Henry's chief adviser from 1532 onwards) turned to Parliament, using its powers and anti-clerical attitude (encouraged by Wolsey's excesses) to decide the issue.
The result was a series of Acts cutting back papal power and influence in England and bringing about the English Reformation.
In 1532, an Act against Annates - although suspended during 'the king's pleasure' - was a clear warning to the Pope that ecclesiastical revenues were under threat.
In 1532, Cranmer was promoted to Archbishop of Canterbury and, following the Pope's confirmation of his appointment, in May 1533 Cranmer declared Henry's marriage invalid; Anne Boleyn was crowned queen a week later.

The Pope responded with excommunication, and Parliamentary legislation enacting Henry's decision to break with the Roman Catholic Church soon followed. An Act in restraint of appeals forbade appeals to Rome, stating that England was an empire, governed by one supreme head and king who possessed 'whole and entire' authority within the realm, and that no judgements or excommunications from Rome were valid.
An Act of Submission of the Clergy and an Act of Succession followed, together with an Act of Supremacy (1534) which recognized that the king was 'the only supreme head of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia'.
The breach between the king and the Pope forced clergy, office-holders and others to choose their allegiance - the most famous being Sir Thomas More, who was executed for treason in 1535.

The other effect of the English Protestant Reformation was the Dissolution of Monasteries, under which monastic lands and possessions were broken up and sold off. In the 1520s, Wolsey had closed down some of the small monastic communities to pay for his new foundations (he had colleges built at Oxford and Ipswich).
In 1535-6, another 200 smaller monasteries were dissolved by statute, followed by the remaining greater houses in 1538-40; as a result, Crown revenues doubled for a few years.
Henry's second marriage had raised hopes for a male heir. Anne Boleyn, however, produced another daughter, Princess Elizabeth, and failed to produce a male child. Henry got rid of Anne on charges of treason (presided over by Thomas Cromwell) which were almost certainly false, and she was executed in 1536. In 1537 her replacement, Henry's third wife Jane Seymour, finally bore him a son, who was later to become Edward VI. Jane died in childbed, 12 days after the birth in 1537.

Although Cromwell had proved an effective minister in bringing about the royal divorce and the English Reformation, his position was insecure. The Pilgrimage of Grace, an insurrection in 1536, called for Cromwell's dismissal (the rebels were put down) but it was Henry's fourth, abortive and short-lived marriage to Anne of Cleves that led to Cromwell's downfall. Despite being made Earl of Essex in 1540, three months later he was arrested and executed.
Henry made two more marriages, to Katherine Howard (executed on grounds of adultery in 1542) and Catherine Parr (who survived Henry to die in 1548).
None produced any children. Henry made sure that his sole male heir, Edward, was educated by people who believed in Protestantism rather than Catholicism because he wanted the anti-papal nature of his reformation and his dynasty to become more firmly established.
After Cromwell's execution, no leading minister emerged in the last seven years of Henry's reign. Overweight, irascible and in failing health, Henry turned his attention to France once more.
Despite assembling an army of 40,000 men, only the town of Boulogne was captured and the French campaign failed. Although more than half the monastic properties had been sold off, forced loans and currency depreciation also had to be used to pay for the war, which contributed to increased inflation. Henry died in London on 28 January 1547.

To some, Henry VIII was a strong and ruthless ruler, forcing through changes to the Church-State relationship which excluded the papacy and brought the clergy under control, thus strengthening the Crown's position and acquiring the monasteries' wealth.
However, Henry's reformation had produced dangerous Protestant-Roman Catholic differences in the kingdom. The monasteries' wealth had been spent on wars and had also built up the economic strength of the aristocracy and other families in the counties, which in turn was to encourage ambitious Tudor court factions.
Significantly, Parliament's involvement in making religious and dynastic changes had been firmly established. For all his concern over establishing his dynasty and the resulting religious upheaval, Henry's six marriages had produced one sickly son and an insecure succession with two princesses (Mary and Elizabeth) who at one stage had been declared illegitimate - none of whom were to have children.

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Biography of Bloody Mary Tudor

Biography of Bloody Mary Tudor
The Tudors encompass one of the most exciting periods in English History. The dynasty of the Tudors include Kings and Queens such as King Henry VIII and his daughters

Short Biography, Facts and Information about the Life of Bloody Mary Tudor
This short biography and information about Bloody Mary Tudor provides basic facts about her life:

• Nationality: English
• Nickname: Bloody Mary
• Role and Position: Tudor Queen of England - Queen Mary I or Queen Mary Tudor
• Lifespan: 1516 - 1558
• Date of Birth: Mary Tudor was born on 18 February 1516
• Proclaimed Queen of England: July 1553
• Married: King Philip II of Spain
• Family connections: Mary Tudor was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon and King Henry VIII of England. Bloody Mary was the half sister to Edward VI and Elizabeth I
• Bloody Mary Tudor was also the cousin, once removed, of Mary Queen of Scots
• Religion:Catholic
• Death of Bloody Mary: Mary Tudor died on 17 November 1558
• Buried in Westminster Abbey and later entombed with her sister Elizabeth I
• Character of Mary Tudor - Bloody Mary: Bitter, fanatical and obsessive

Marriage Overview: The reason for the marriage of Bloody Mary Tudor to Phillip of Spain was primarily a political alliance which united Spain and England. It was important for Mary Tudor to gain a religious ally in order to restore the Catholic faith to England.

Description of Bloody Mary Tudor
The character of Bloody Mary Tudor : Bloody Mary Tudor was a princess of royal blood from both her mother and father's ancestors. Mary was born to be a Queen and had a noble bearing. In her youth she was considered to be pretty and had a love for fine clothes and jewels. The bitter divorce between her mother, Catharine of Aragon and King Henry VIII changed the character of Mary. The treatment of her mother and the threat to herself if she failed to acknowledge the new status of her beloved mother and her own status turned her into a bitter woman. The establishment of the Church of England was deemed as heretical by the ardent Catholic Mary Tudor - her mission was to return England to the Catholic faith and turned her into a fanatical and obsessive woman. All of these events took their toll on her looks and her health.

The Early Life of Bloody Mary Tudor
The early life of Bloody Mary Tudor (1516 - 1558) started when she was born in Greenwich. Bloody Mary Tudor was the daughter of Queen Catherine of Aragon and King Henry VIII. During her early life Princess Mary Tudor was revered as the much loved, only daughter, of the King and Queen of England. She was given the best of care as the daughter of the King and Queen of England. She was well educated and brought up as a devout Catholic. But all of this changed when her father cast aside her loyal and devoted mother for another woman. Her name was Anne Boleyn. Her Father, King Henry VIII, like most monarchs of the era had taken mistresses before - but only two were notable. Their names were Elizabeth ( Bessie ) Blount and a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon named Mary Boleyn. In 1526, when Mary Tudor was 10 years old, King Henry VIII became totally obsessed with Catherine's lady-in-waiting, and the sister of his previous mistress, Anne Boleyn with whom he fell madly in love. Mary Tudor, like her mother, had to endure the humiliation of their 6 year romance.

The bitter divorce of her mother and father
Her father wanted a divorce, her royal mother refused to agree. King Henry VIII became obsessed with the text in Leviticus 'If a man shall take his brother's wife it is an unclean thing... they shall be childless.' (Leviticus, XX, 21). Mary's mother had been briefly married to King Henry's older brother Arthur. Prince Arthur died when he was 15 after six months of marriage. Catherine of Aragon then became betrothed to Prince Henry. Prince Henry then became King of England when he was 18 years old and married 23 year old Catherine of Aragon. Their early years of marriage were happy but Queen Catherine of Aragon suffered repeated miscarriages, two still births and bore and christened a prince who only survived 52 days. Only one child survived produced by Queen Catherine of Aragon and King Henry VIII - Mary Tudor. The daughter who would become Queen Mary I of England also known as Bloody Mary. England had never been successfully ruled by a woman. Henry feared a civil war, similar to the War of the Roses, if he did not produce a male heir. Her father wanted a divorce, her royal mother refused to agree. King Henry VIII became obsessed with the text in Leviticus

'If a man shall take his brother's wife it is an unclean thing... they shall be childless.' (Leviticus, XX, 21)

Bloody Mary Tudor is declared a bastard
Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury granted the annulment of the marriage between Catherine of Aragon and King Henry VIII - Mary Tudor was devastated by these terrible events in her life. In 1533 King Henry married Anne Boleyn and was excommunicated by Pope Clement VII. Her parents marriage was over and the Catholic religion was now in question. The royal Catherine of Aragon, mother of Bloody Mary Tudor, was given the title of the Princess Dowager of Wales (which she refused to acknowledge to the end of her life)In 1533 Elizabeth , the daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was born. The position of Mary Tudor is usurped by the new baby Princess. In 1534 the Act of Supremacy was passed. King Henry VIII broke with the Catholic church in Rome and was declared supreme head of the Church of England. On 23 March 1534 the English Parliament passed the Act of Succession. Only the children of King Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn were deemed to be his lawful heirs. The title of Princess Mary was reduced to the Lady Mary. And Bloody Mary Tudor was declared a bastard.

Bloody Mary Tudor and her mother Catherine of Aragon
Following her bitter divorce Catherine of Aragon, mother of Bloody Mary Tudor, was given the title of the Princess Dowager of Wales (which she refused to acknowledge to the end of her life). Catherine of Aragon was moved around different castles in England and separated from her daughter Bloody Mary Tudor, due to her obstinate refusal to accept the annulment of her marriage. Mary Tudor was not allowed to see her mother.Thedeath of Catherine of Aragon took place at Kimbolton Castle inHuntingdon on 7 January 1536. Catherine of Aragon had lived at Kimbolton since May 1534 as a semi-prisoner in her rooms, attended by a few of her loyal servants. It was rumoured that she had been poisoned. Mary Tudor had been refused permission to see her mother when she was dying. Mary Tudor never forgave Anne Boleyn, or her daughter, for this cruel treatment.

Bloody Mary Tudorand the wives of Henry VIII
The marriage of her father to Anne Boleyn failed and she was executed. Her father's third marriage to Jane Seymour produced the long-for male heir called Edward. It was the turn of Princess Elizabeth to also be declared a bastard. Her fathers next three marriages to Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr provided Mary Tudor with a series of stepmothers but they were all childless.

Bloody Mary Tudordeclared Queen of England
The father of Bloody Mary Tudor, the great King Henry VIII, died in 1547. Mary Tudor's brother was crowned King Edward VI. The new young king was sickly andKingEdward VI diedof tuberculosis but he left the throne to 'the Lady Jane Grey and her heirs male.' Not to Mary Tudor who was the rightful heir.On 10th July 1553 Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen of England. The tragic Lady Jane was Queen for just nine days and was deposed on 19th July 1553. Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon was at last proclaimed Queen of England.