Henry VIII - The Legacy of Henry and his Wives. - free Suite101 course

Lesson 1: Setting the Tudor Stage.

Lesson 2: Loyal Heart: Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.

Lesson 3: Without Male Heir. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn

Lesson 4: Entirely Beloved. Henry VIII and Jane Seymour

Lesson 5: My Sister, My Wife. Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves.

Lesson 6: The Blushing Rose Without a Thorn. Henry VIII and Katherine Howard.

Lesson 7: Surviving Henry. Henry VIII and Katherine Parr.

Lesson 8: The Legacy of Henry and his Wives.
- The lion's cubs
- The wives surviving Henry.
- Bibliography

Lesson 8: The Legacy of Henry and his Wives.

Final conclusions about the legacy of Henry and his six queens, and additional resources for further research.

The lion's cubs

Henry VIII and his wives shaped three more Tudor monarchs. The first Monarch, Edward VI, Henry VIII’s much desired son, reigned for only five years. Brought up a staunch Protestant, he was – as were all Henry VIII’s children – very intelligent. But Edward was, alike to his much older sister Mary – inflexible in his beliefs. Dying a terrible death just before his sixteenth birthday, it is difficult to gauge whether history would have deemed him a successful Tudor King if he had lived to reign in his own right. The capabilities were there – but he lacked the ‘common touch,’ which his father and sister Elizabeth had in plenty; nor did Edward have Elizabeth’s ability to know the ‘middle ground.’

Henry VIII's two daughters had many, many uneasy periods with their father. But Mary Tudor probably suffered more than her much younger sister Elizabeth. Yes - Henry VIII did set in motion the judicial murder of Elizabeth's mother before Elizabeth’s third birthday - but it is more than likely that Mary - at close to twenty - placed her own mother's death at her father's door too.

Mary Tudor's transition to womanhood damaged her emotionally, leaving the wings to her spirit broken- broken perhaps beyond repair. Possessing a close relationship with her mother, the first eleven years of Mary's life saw her often by her mother's side, learning the same lessons from Catherine of Aragon that Catherine had learned from her own mother Isabella, the great Queen of Castile.

But by Mary's twelfth year the winds of change were already blowing hard, making a lot of people close to the English crown very uncomfortable. In love with Anne Boleyn, the king had convinced himself that his marriage to Mary's mother was unclean, incestuous. Catherine had been married to his brother and so Henry's own subsequent relationship with her was accursed. It is doubtful that Mary ever forgot her younger sister was the offspring of her enemy, the woman who had taken, in her eyes, her father from her mother. Sometimes Mary even expressed doubts that Elizabeth was in fact her sister and the daughter of Henry VIII .

After Edward’s death, and the rejection of Lady Jane Grey as Queen, the English people welcomed Mary to the throne with much rejoicing, but the rejoicing soon ended. People realised not only did Mary want to return England to the Catholic faith, but she also desired to marry Philip of Spain.

Within a year of Mary's reign, Sir Thomas Wyatt (son of the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt) led a rebellion to place Elizabeth and Edward Courtenay, great-great-grandson of Edward IV, on the throne. The rebellion only succeeded in achieving the deaths of most of the ringleaders, making Mary also sign the death warrants of her sixteen-year-old cousin, Lady Jane Grey, and her husband Guildford Dudley, as well as order the arrest of Elizabeth.

Despite her kind heart, Mary’s time as Queen saw the burning of hundreds of Protestants; England came to hate her, calling her ‘Bloody Mary.’ Mary probably grew to hate herself too. Desperate for a child, even her own body mocked her when it gave her an illusion of pregnancy, when all her ‘big belly’ really showed was a symptom of her impending death. She died knowing herself a failure, after a life of disappointments.

Elizabeth's journey to the throne was indeed one that could have defeated a lesser spirit. Unwanted daughter. Mother executed by her father before Elizabeth is three. Neglected and forgotten while her father sires his prince on his new Queen.

Until she was ten, and her father's marriage with Catherine Parr, her life was marked with a constant change of stepmothers. Watching her father's relationships with the women in his life probably taught her many things. One hard lesson she learnt at eight: what her father professed to love one day he could simply destroy the next. What damage it did to her, to be aware that her perhaps nineteen-year-old cousin, the fifth wife of the King, was executed by her father's command, we can only guess. But it's not surprising that Elizabeth said, not long after Katherine Howard's execution, 'I shall never marry. '

Elizabeth's relationship with her father had its share of grim moments. At twelve, Elizabeth said or did something that displeased the King, so much so, he banished her from his presence for a year. Perchance, Elizabeth simply lifted her gaze and he realised she had her mother's eyes. Even so, only three months after her thirteenth birthday, her father's death still hit her hard.

Henry VIII was not much of a father, but he was the King, and a strong one at that. His death left her to face her teenage years not only without a father's protection but also a King's. Thomas Seymour soon made use of this opportunity, and began his journey to the block and his death; he almost took Elizabeth with him.

The last years of her brother's reign saw a very circumspect Elizabeth. But with his death came the new dangers of her sister’s reign. Within only a short time of Mary’s ascension, Elizabeth found herself imprisoned in the Tower. Elizabeth's time in the Tower of London was probably the worst period of her life. Years later, Elizabeth told the French ambassador she had wondered if she should beg for the mercy of a sword rather than an axe. (iii) When Bedingfield came to take her into his care, she asked in panic whether her cousin's scaffold had been taken down, thinking he was taking her to her death. (iv).

But the tide of threat to Elizabeth's young life was now drawing back. After a period of close confinement, she resumed her position as her sister's heir. With the passing of three more years, men found her, sitting underneath an oak tree, reading, and there they told her she was Queen. The men watched as the twenty-five-year-old Elizabeth knelt, and heard her say: