King Henry VIII

Henry VIII succeeded Henry VII, his father, from 1509 as king; after divorce from Catherine of Aragon as the first of his six wives compelled him to break from the Catholics, the act of supremacy of 1534 established the Church of England.

Catherine of Aragon served as the first wife of Henry, whose insistence on a divorce in 1533 caused his break with Rome and the beginning of the Reformation.

Anne Boleyn served as queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII.

Anne of Cleves served as queen of England from January 1540 to July 1540 as the fourth wife of Henry VIII.

Elizabeth of York at Greenwich Palace bore Henry as the second son. Arthur, Prince of Wales and older brother of Henry, predeceased his father. He enjoyed Margaret and Mary, his two sisters. Arthur died, making Henry next in line for the throne. Henry married widow of Arthur. People credit this talented composer and author. Orders of famously unpredictable and temperamental Henry VIII, however, executed many of his subjects.

This perhaps most famous monarch and Thomas Cromwell, the archbishop of Canterbury, split from the Roman pope, and he married six times.

His physical decline and huge obesity dominated his later reign. Henry lay dying in 1547 with last words, reportedly, "monks monks monks", with certain historians consider as a reference to eviction during the dissolution of the monasteries.