1. It’s a miracle that he ever became king
Henry VIII was the second son of his father Henry VII, the spare rather than the heir. His older brother Arthur should have been king, but he died suddenly at the age of 15. Had Arthur lived Henry was destined for a career in the church…which might have rather scuppered his later matrimonial adventures!
On top of this the whole Tudor dynasty had a pretty shaky claim to throne of England. His father Henry VII was the son of a minor Welsh nobleman. His mother had royal blood, being descended from Edward III, but hers was an illegitimate line meaning she should have been barred from the succession. Henry VII seized the throne after the Battle of Bosworth and then married the daughter of Edward IV to sure up his position, but there were still a great many of nobles who had a much better claim to the throne than the Tudors.
All of this made Henry VIII touchy and determined to rid his realm of anyone that may pose a threat. He ruthlessly ordered the executions of anyone who could have been a rival to him. One of the most brutal of these executions was the frail 67-year-old Margaret, Countess of Salisbury who was his second cousin. The poor woman, who was entirely innocent, lost her marbles when taken to the scaffold and refused to lay her head on the block. The amateur executioner ended up chasing her around the scaffold and hacking her to death, eventually severing her head after the eleventh blow. Proving that if you even had the tiniest bit of royal blood in their veins during Henry’s VIII your best bet was to get as far away as possible!
2. He wasn’t all that into sex
Far from the randy monarch chasing buxom maids of honour around Hampton Court, Henry was pretty prudish by the standards of his day. In fact, it’s likely that he had more wives than he had mistresses. Henry married six times (or did he, more on that later!) but there are only three women who are definitely known to have been his mistress, (other than those whom he subsequently married): Bessie Blount, Mary Boleyn and Madge Shelton.
Henry was actually a romantic rather than a serial shagger. He waited six years to bed his second wife Anne Boleyn and there’s no evidence that in that time he was sleeping with anyone else. Henry was looking for true love not just a quick bunk up.
Monarchs or nobles marrying for love in the 16th century was virtually unheard of. Royal and aristocratic marriages were arranged for purely dynastic reasons right up until the beginning of the 20th century. But Henry married at least four out of his six wives because he was in love with them. In fact, the one time he did what monarchs were supposed to do and married for diplomatic reasons it ended disastrously with Henry claiming he disliked the hapless bride on sight and then immediately falling head over heels in love with one of her maids of honour, who became wife number five!
3. He only had three wives
The six wives of Henry VIII is the bit of British history we all know. There’s even a rhyme so that we can remember them all: Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived. And while it’s true that Henry took six different women down the aisle, he would have claimed that he was only married three times, and he may have had a point!
This is because Henry had three of his marriages – to Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Anne of Cleves - annulled. Unlike a divorce where the couple choose to end their marriage, annulments essentially declare that the marriage never took place. So in legal terms, Henry VIII did only have three wives.
Of course, it really all depended on who you spoke to. His first wife Catherine of Aragon and her supporters maintained that her marriage was legal and that she was still married to the king up until her death, despite him repudiating her and marrying another woman. But Henry’s wives didn’t get a say in whether their marriages were null and void. In the Tudor court the only opinion that mattered was Henry’s, and if he claimed he’d only had three wives you’d probably be best agreeing with him if you wanted to keep your head on your shoulders!
4. He was a Catholic
After the six wives the other important part of Henry’s reign that we learn about in history class is how he broke away from Rome and turned England into a Protestant country. Except that Henry VIII still thought of himself as a Catholic.
Up until he decided that he wanted out of his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry had been a staunch Catholic. In 1521 he’d written a book condemning the new Protestant teachings of Martin Luther and been rewarded with the title Defender of the Faith by the Pope. But that all changed in the 1530’s.
Henry wanted the Pope to declare his marriage to Catherine null and void but when the Pope refused he decided to take matters into his own hands. He passed an act stating that he, Henry was now the Head of the Church of England and declared that the Pope no longer had any authority in England.
But even while he was picking a fight with Rome and stripping the Catholic monasteries of all their land and valuables Henry held very conservative views on religion. He didn’t want England turning into a Protestant country and in 1539 he passed the Sixth Articles which said that Catholic beliefs and services were to be followed in church. This included confession, priests remaining celibate and holy communion. Three unlucky protestants who denied Catholic beliefs were burned at the stake.
All of which makes you wonder whether if Henry had got his own way over his annulment then would England still be a Catholic country?
5. He may have been impotent
As we discovered above Henry was never really a hit as a Casanova, much preferring romantic courtly love to a saucy romp, but this could also be due to him having problems in the bedroom department.
Anne Boleyn his second wife (in a remark that would return to haunt her) told her sister-in-law that the King could not satisfy a woman as he had neither ‘vertu’ [skill] nor ‘puissance’ [vigour].
In a later marriage to Anne of Cleves he was again unable to perform. Henry of course claimed that it was her fault, that her body was repulsive to him and that: ‘he could never …be provoked and steered to know her carnally’. There were various other excuses but they all added up to the same thing: Henry was unable to consummate his marriage.
There may have been medical reasons for his failure to perform. In 1536, age 44 he took a fall from his horse and was unconscious for two hours. This could have caused a brain injury which would have had a detrimental effect on his sex life. His increasing weight gain was also a problem. After the accident his waist expanded from 32in to 52in! So even if he could have raised his flagpole, he was hardly every girl’s fantasy!
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