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History > England under the Tudors > Henry VIII (1509–47) > Henry's last years
Photograph:Jane Seymour, portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1536; in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Jane Seymour, portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1536; in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Courtesy of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Henry was so securely seated upon his throne that the French ambassador announced that he was more an idol to be worshipped than a king to be obeyed. The king successfully survived four more matrimonial experiments, the enmity of every major power in Europe, and an international war. On May 19, 1536, Anne Boleyn's career was terminated by the executioner's ax. She had failed in her promise to produce further children to secure the succession. Her enemies poisoned the king's mind against her with accusations of multiple adulteries. The king's love turned to hatred, but what sealed the queen's fate was probably the death of her rival, Catherine of Aragon, on Jan. 8, 1536. From that moment it was clear that, should Henry again marry, whoever was his wife, the children she might bear would be legitimate in the eyes of Roman Catholics and Protestants alike. How much policy, how much revulsion for Anne, and how much attraction for Jane Seymour played in the final tragedy is beyond analysis, but 11 days after Anne's execution Henry married Jane. Sixteen months later the future Edward VI was born. Jane died as a consequence, but Henry finally had what it had taken a revolution to achieve—a legitimate male heir.

Photograph:Anne of Cleves, portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1539; in the …
Anne of Cleves, portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1539; in the …
© Giraudon/Art Resource, New York

Henry married thrice more, once for reasons of diplomacy, once for love, and once for peace and quiet. Anne of Cleves, his fourth wife, was the product of Reformation international politics. For a time in 1539 it looked as if Charles V and Francis would come to terms and unite against the schismatic king of England, and the only allies Henry possessed were the Lutheran princes of Germany. In something close to panic he was stampeded into marriage with Anne of Cleves. But the following year, the moment the diplomatic scene changed, he dropped both his wife and the man who had engineered the marriage, his vicar-general in matters spiritual, Thomas Cromwell. Anne was divorced July 12, Cromwell was executed July 28, and Henry married Catherine Howard the same day. The second Catherine did not do as well as her cousin, the first Anne; she lasted only 18 months. Catherine proved to be neither a virgin before her wedding nor a particularly faithful damsel after her marriage. With the execution of his fifth wife, Henry turned into a sick old man, and he took as his last spouse Catherine Parr, who was as much a nursemaid as a wife. During those final years the king's interests turned to international affairs. Henry's last wars (1543–46) were fought not to defend his church against resurgent European Catholicism but to renew much older policies of military conquest in France and Scotland. Though he enlarged the English Pale at Calais by seizing the small French port of Boulogne and though his armies crushed the Scots at the Battles of Solway Moss (1542) and Pinkie (1547) and ravaged much of Lowland Scotland during the “Rough Wooing,” the wars had no lasting diplomatic or international effects except to assure that the monastic lands would pass into the hands of the gentry.

Photograph:Thomas Cromwell, an engraving after a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1537.
Thomas Cromwell, an engraving after a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1537.
The Print Collector/Heritage-Images

By the time Henry died (Jan. 28, 1547), medievalism had nearly vanished. The crown stood at the pinnacle of its power, able to demand and receive a degree of obedience from both great and small that no medieval monarch had been able to achieve. The measure of that authority was threefold: (1) the extent to which Henry had been able to thrust a very unpopular annulment and supremacy legislation down the throat of Parliament, (2) his success in raising unprecedented sums of money through taxation, and (3) his ability to establish a new church on the ashes of the old. It is difficult to say whether these feats were the work of the king or his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell. The will was probably Henry's and the parliamentary means his minister's, but, whoever was responsible, by 1547 England had come a long way on the road of Reformation. The crown had assumed the authority of the papacy without as yet fundamentally changing the old creed, but the ancient structure was severely shaken. Throughout England men were arguing that because the pontiff had been proved false, the entire Roman Catholic creed was suspect, and the cry went up to “get rid of the poison with the author.” It was not long before every aspect of Roman Catholicism was under attack—the miracle of the mass whereby the bread and wine are transformed into the glorified body and blood of Christ (see transubstantiation), the doctrine of purgatory, the efficacy of saints and images, the concept of an ordained priesthood with the power to mediate grace through the sacraments, the discipline of priestly celibacy, and so on. The time had come for Parliament and the supreme head to decide what constituted the “true” faith for Englishmen.

Henry never worked out a consistent religious policy: the Ten Articles of 1536 and the Bishop's Book of the following year tended to be somewhat Lutheran in tone; the Six Articles of 1539, or the Act for Abolishing Diversity of Opinion, and the King's Book of 1543 were mildly Roman Catholic. Whatever the religious colouring, Henry's ecclesiastical via media was based on obedience to an authoritarian old king and on subjects who were expected to live “soberly, justly and devoutly.” Unfortunately for the religious, social, and political peace of the kingdom, both these conditions disappeared the moment Henry died and a nine-year-old boy sat upon the throne.

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