On This Day in History: King Henry VIII Born (1491)

Happy birthday to the biggest cheese of all big cheeses in English royal history: King Henry VIII.  Sure others may have reigned longer, and many others surely reigned better, but when you break an entire country away from the Catholic church and marry so many wives that schoolchildren need a mnemonic to help remember how you killed them, we think you get the prize for most infamous English king, hands down.

The truth of the matter is that King Henry’s birth was feted much less than lots of other royal babies.  He was the Prince Harry of his generation; his mother and father had already produced an heir to the throne, the mythically named Prince Arthur, and a princess destined for political-marriage brokering, Margaret Tudor.  Because he was the proverbial spare, Henry didn’t get a lot of public attention in childhood.  We know that he was born at Greenwich Palace on June 28, 1491, and that he was made Duke of York in 1494.  We also know that he apparently got the same sort of fancy classical education that his brother had: he could speak Latin, French, and Spanish — necessary tools for the Renaissance Man.  Beyond that, he’s not mentioned much until he shows up at the wedding of his brother and Princess Catherine of Aragon — she becomes important later.

When Arthur unexpectedly kicks it in 1502 from the surely uncomfortable “sweating sickness,” Henry suddenly becomes way, way more important in the annals of English history.  When his father also bought the farm seven years later, Henry took the reins, wasting no time in marrying his brother’s widow and having the two of them crowned at Westminster Abbey.

And that’s when the big show began.  You all know the rest: no living sons, Princess Mary, Anne Boleyn — and her sister, problems with the Pope, Cardinal Wolsey, annulment, remarriage, Thomas More, Anglicanism, Princess Elizabeth, annulment, beheading, Jane Seymour, Prince Edward, Hans Holbein, the unfortunate-looking Anne of Cleves, annulment, horrendous weight gain, horny teenager Katherine Howard, annulment, beheading, monasteries sacked, Catherine Parr, gout, death.  Toss in a few more beheadings and some jousting tournaments, and you’ve pretty much got it.  He’s unique in that way; he’s one of the only monarchs who has so infiltrated popular culture and marketable biography that almost everyone in the Western world knows his story.  Except the writers of The Tudors — but we’re planning a whole series about how wrong that show is later on, so watch this space if you’re interested.

And happy birthday, Henry — thanks, as always, for making history more fun than soap operas.