Henry VIII

 

Henry VIII is best known for his six marriages--one of which ended in divorce, two in beheadings, one in annulment, and one in death by natural causes. His last wife, Catherine Parr, outlived King Henry. When Henry's son by Jane Seymour, Edward I, became king, Catherine's brother became the young king's "Lord Protector."

Henry's reign produced great changes in England, setting the stage for England's conversion to Protestantism. While Martin Luther was protesting papal abuses in Germany, Calvin was spreading reformist doctrine in Geneva, and John Knox was preaching fiery sermons against the Catholic Church in Scotland, Henry VIII was systematically dissolving England's ties to the Church in Rome so that he could divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.

Although Henry's "reforms" were the result of his obsession with finding a wife who would bear him a male heir, the effect of his break with Rome was profound. By the end of the reign of his last heir, Queen Elizabeth I, England was firmly established as a Protestant country with its own state-governed church. Quite by accident, Henry VIII became England's great Protestant reformer and first head of the Church of England.