In the time of Henry VII, two Royal Houses were
united and they were the Royal Houses of Lancaster
and York. this joining settled long standing
disputes of land and succession and enable England
to become a much more stable country both
politically and as far as the monarchy was
concerned.
King Henry’s reign was affected by three main
factors. - the influence of certain people, his
inability to produce a living male heir and
The roles of individuals and Henry VIII were all
about individuals. The general population did not
matter a great deal to Henry. Only three parts, of Henry’s life, did external
forces exert influence, and they were his
reign, his marriages and of course
religion.
The main cause that led Catherine of Aragon to
create great change in the religion of England
was that she was she could not produce a living male child.
That failure mean that King Henry had to negotiate with the Pope - to try to get
conditions favourable for an annulment. It
didn't work.
The changes made by Henry created as a result
gave him power and Supremacy in the Church, which became
the Church of England rather than the church of
Rome.
Anne Boleyn introduced the idea of
Lutheran religious interpretation to Henry VIII.
But these ideas, new to Henry, didn't just
happen on their own nor in isolation, there were
many other changes happening at the same time. The two things about Anne Boleyn which had the
greatest impact on Henry VIII were Anne herself and her religious ideas. They were
new ideas, and quite revolutionary.
When Henry VIII died, he was buried next to his
third wife, who was acknowledged to be the most
important and perhaps the most loved of his
wives - Jane Seymour. Jane was the only wife
able to produce a living male heir who became
the next King, Edward VI, although only for
short time. He died when he was about 16.
Anne of Cleves was the fourth wife of Henry
VIII. She came from the modern country of Germany. Upon sight of her, Henry was not
at all impressed, although later they became
close friends and Anne of Cleves was one of the
few people who Henry trusted.
Although Anne of Cleves had become a great
friend and trusted advisor, Henry at first had
not been at all attracted to her physically.
This was because although one of the best
portrait painters of the time had been sent to
make a likeness of her, the painter over-did the
beauty of his subject and reality and her
portrait differed.
It is well-known that the most
distinctive feature of King Henry’s reign was
his many marriages; which showed his people that
his courage in the face of being expelled by the
Pope from heaven could be something of value to
them. Divorce did not become frequent, however,
until hundreds of years later.
King Henry made changes not only to the
religion of England. Other changes he made to
the every-day life of Englishmen were to the succession and religious policy. We might
not think that who the next monarch will be, or
how the churches are run these days makes much
difference to the normal population, but in the
days of Henry, both were critically important
features of the lives of all people.
Henry had a long-lasting injury, which made his
become very grumpy, ill-tempered and unstable.
His leg had become injured in a jousting
tournament, and the wound never healed. In fact,
it became infected and it is said that you could
smell the king coming from a good few metres
way. Until the crippling effects of the injury,
Henry had been a keen and good athlete.
A game, still played in modern times, was invented
during the reign of Henry VII - playing cards. So popular was this game that for
at least 50o years, the King’s wife Elizabeth
appeared on the pack of cards eight times in
every pack.
After the death of Henry VIII, his son
was under-age to become monarch succeeding to
the throne, and so a ‘Regency’ is declared,
wherein a royal advisor runs the country until
coronation. But even during the very short reign
of Edward VI, important things were happening in
the Churches of the world. The Book of Common Prayer was by Thomas Cranmer
and in English. this meant that the 'common
people' had access to prayers written in their
own language or the first time.
Mind you, not many could read (or write) but
the creation of a Holy Book was an important
step forward.
After the early death of Edward VI, Lady
Jane Grey became Queen of England. her accession
to the throne was a process full of legal and
royal-prerogative issues, and after only 9 days,
she was removed, and executed. She was replaced
by the eldest daughter of King Henry VIII and
Catherine of Aragon - Mary.
Queen Mary known as ‘Bloody Mary’ because
she purged the Protestant, Church of England
clergy (priests) and burnt many of them - and
others - at the stake. Queen Mary definitely had
been brought up a Roman Catholic and wanted
England to return to the Church of Rome (Roman
Catholicism).
Again, Queen Mary did not live long. She died
of cancer, a horrible and painful death in those
days. After Mary came another Queen, known as
'the Virgin Queen' or even 'Good Queen Bess'.
This Queen was Elizabeth I - Elizabeth
Tudor.
Queen Elizabeth was noted for her game-playing and dancing skills, coupled
with political intelligence. Elizabeth was also
noted for being popular in the country but a poor selector
of advisors. She was often led astray by the
advice of good-hearted people whose advice had
bad results.
When the Spanish tried to invade England in their
armada (a fleet of ships), Elizabeth had been
advised that they were no real threat. In fact, they
were a great threat and had the weather in the
English Channel, coupled with the might of the
British Royal Navy not caused the armada to break
up, there would have been a major problem of a
Spanish invasion.
As a point of interest, a famous writer was
also doing his work at the time of Elizabeth I.
William Shakespeare was writing his best - and
worst - and most incomprehensible - plays,
sonnets (poems) at the time and has become known
as the greatest writer in the whole of British
history.
