Henry VIII of England had how many wives — and the schoolchild mnemonic for what happened to each is?
Catherine of Aragon (annulled 1533, died of natural causes 1536), Anne Boleyn (beheaded 1536), Jane Seymour (died in childbirth 1537), Anne of Cleves (annulled 1540 — Henry's substantial complaint was that her face did not match her marriage portrait), Catherine Howard (beheaded 1542 for adultery), Catherine Parr (survived Henry's 1547 death by one year and died of complications from childbirth in 1548 — by a subsequent husband). The two annulled wives are conventionally listed as 'divorced' in the mnemonic, though the technical Catholic-canonical term was annulment.
Read the full facts →Henry VIII (1491–1547) was King of England from 1509 to 1547, the second Tudor monarch, and one of the most consequential figures of 16th-century European history. His six marriages, his break with the Roman Catholic Church to obtain a divorce, and his consequent founding of the Church of England produced the English Reformation and the constitutional separation of church and state in England.
Related questions
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