thumb|220px|Henry VIII, in a portrait made c. 1520, during his nearly 24 year marriage to Catherine of Aragon.The
wives of Henry VIII were the six
queen consorts married to
Henry VIII of England between 1509 and 1547.
The six wives (queens consort) of King Henry VIII were, in order:
Catherine of Aragon (annulled),
Anne Boleyn (annulled then beheaded),
Jane Seymour (died, childbirth fever),
Anne of Cleves (annulled),
Kathryn Howard (annulled then beheaded), and
Katherine Parr. Because
annulment legally voids a marriage, technically speaking Henry would have said he had only 2 "wives", but his marriage to Queen Catherine of Aragon was declared legal and valid during the reign of his daughter Queen Mary I. It is often noted that Catherine Parr "survived him"; in fact Anne of Cleves
also survived the king and was the last of his queens to die. Of the six queens, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour each gave Henry one child who survived infancy—two daughters and one son, all three of whom would eventually accede to the throne. They were
Queen Mary I,
Queen Elizabeth I, and
King Edward VI.
A mnemonic for the fates of Henry's wives is "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived". An alternate version is "King Henry the Eighth, to six wives he was wedded: One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded." Some have dubbed these as misleading
doggerel, noting that Henry was never technically
divorced from any of his wives, rather that his marriages to them were annulled. Likewise, it can be said that, four marriages—not two—"ended" in annulments, but this depends on the definition of annulment used. However, wether or not Henry annulled his marriage to Catherine Howard is under dispute.
Catherine Howard and Anne Boleyn, Henry's two queens that were beheaded, were first cousins. Several of his wives worked in at least one of his other wives' service. Anne Boleyn worked in Catherine of Aragon's service; Jane Seymour worked in Catherine of Aragon's and Anne Boleyn's service; and Catherine Howard worked in Anne of Cleves's.
List of wives
Catherine Howard
Catherine Howard was King Henrys 4th wife. She was also known to henry as "the rose without a thorn" they married on the 9th of july 1540 on a private ceromony. they were married for 2 years then she was execyted for Adultury on the 13th of febuary 1542.
Catherine of Aragon
150px|right|thumb|Catherine of AragonCatherine of Aragon (16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536; ) was Henry's first wife. After the death of
Arthur, her first husband and Henry's brother, a
papal dispensation was obtained to enable her to marry Henry, though the marriage did not take place until after he came to the throne in 1509. Catherine bore him a daughter in 1516,
Mary I, but no sons survived past infancy due to miscarriages and stillbirths.
Henry, at the time a
Roman Catholic, sought the Pope's approval for an
annulment on the grounds that his marriage was invalid because Catherine had first been his brother's wife. Henry had begun an affair with Anne Boleyn, who is said to have refused to become his mistress (Henry had already consummated an affair with and then dismissed Anne's sister,
Mary Boleyn, and Anne wanted to avoid the same treatment). Despite the pope's refusal, Henry separated from Catherine in 1531. In the face of the Pope's continuing refusal to annul his marriage to Catherine, Henry ordered the highest church official in England,
Thomas Cranmer,
Archbishop of Canterbury to convene a court to rule on the status of his marriage to Catherine. On 23 May 1533 Cranmer ruled the marriage to Catherine null and void. On 28 May 1533 he pronounced the King legally married to Anne Boleyn (with whom Henry had already secretly exchanged wedding vows, probably in late January 1533). This led to the break from the Roman Catholic Church and the later establishment of the
Church of England.
Anne Boleyn
135px|left|thumb|Anne BoleynAnne Boleyn (1501/1507–19 May 1536) was the second wife of Henry VIII of England and the mother of
Elizabeth I of England. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the
English Reformation. The daughter of Sir
Thomas Boleyn and his wife,
Lady Elizabeth Boleyn (born Lady Elizabeth Howard), Anne was of nobler birth than either
Jane Seymour or
Catherine Parr, two of Henry's later wives. She was educated in Europe, largely as a
lady-in-waiting to
Queen Claude of France. She returned to England in 1522.
Anne resisted the King's attempts to seduce her and she refused to become his mistress, as her sister,
Mary Boleyn, had done. It soon became the one absorbing object of the King's desires to secure a divorce from his wife, Catherine of Aragon, so he could marry Anne. When it became clear that
Pope Clement VII was unlikely to give the king an annulment, the breaking of the power of the
Roman Catholic Church in England began.
Henry had
Thomas Wolsey dismissed from public office and later had the Boleyn family's chaplain,
Thomas Cranmer, appointed
archbishop of Canterbury. In 1533, Henry and Anne went through a secret wedding service . She soon became pregnant and there was a second wedding service, which took place in London on 25 January 1533. On 23 May 1533, Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Catherine null and void. Five days later, Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Anne to be good and valid. Soon after, the pope launched sentences of
excommunication against the King and the Archbishop. As a result of Anne's marriage to the King, the Church of England was forced to break with Rome and was brought under the king's control .
Anne was crowned
Queen Consort of England on 1 June 1533. Later that year, on 7 September, Anne gave birth to a baby girl who would one day reign as Queen Elizabeth. When Anne failed to quickly produce a male heir, her only son being stillborn, the King grew tired of her and a plot was hatched by
Thomas Cromwell to do away with her.
Although the evidence against her was unconvincing, Anne was beheaded on charges of
adultery,
incest, and
high treason on 19 May 1536. Following the coronation of her daughter Elizabeth as queen, Anne was venerated as a martyr and heroine of the English Reformation, particularly through the works of
John Foxe. Over the centuries, Anne has inspired or been mentioned in numerous
artistic and cultural works. Due to this fact, she has remained in the popular memory and Anne has been called "the most influential and important queen consort England has ever had.She was the 2nd wife of henry viii.