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Inventors
of the Modern World
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— FIFTH OF A SERIES —
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ENGLAND'S STRONG MONARCH CREATES
A MODERN NATION. BUT, AFTER THREE
MORE WIVES, HENRY
VIII FAILS TO
ENSURE SECURITY FOR
HIS REALM. |

HENRY VIII at about the
age of 49 in 1540.
Portrait by Hans Holbein.
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n the
year 1537 England’s King Henry VIII was 46
years old and already in the 28th year of his reign. He was England’s
national champion: a strong, willful, ambitious ruler who wished to
establish England as a major European power. It was the height of the
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Renaissance, a time when
nations were coalescing from small, local city-states, |
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Portrait by Corneille de Lyon (?) |
sclerotic fiefdoms, and
fetid, isolated backwaters of the Middle Ages.
Henry VIII was not the only strong leader touched by the
nationalist dreams of the Renaissance. His nephew,
King James V of Scotland,
attempted—and failed—to reestablish a Scotland independent of England.
In 1537 James V married the daughter of
King Francis I of France,
re-strengthening the bonds between Scotland and France (the
Auld Alliance) to the consternation of
England.
King James V of Scotland at about 1536. James was the nephew
of Henry VIII, son-in-law of Francis I of France, father of Mary
Queen of Scots, and grandfather of King James I of England.
He died of fever shortly after his army suffered a devastating
loss to Henry's English army at Solway Moss in 1542.
He was thirty years old at the time of his death. |
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In Paris, King
Francis I—often friend and always rival of Henry VIII—was establishing
France as one of Europe’s two great powers, largely due to shrewd
political maneuvering, including several wars of various lengths. On
some occasions, England fought against France. On others England fought
alongside France and sometimes Henry VIII kept England on the sidelines,
thinking neutrality offered England the best advantage.
King Francis I of France, close contemporary, friend, and rival of Henry
VIII. Born less than 3 years after Henry, Francis became King of France
six years after Henry took the throne of England. Like Henry, Francis
was a Renaissance man with strong interests in athletic, scholarship,
literature, science, and the arts. He probably had at least one mistress
(Mary Boleyn) in common with Henry. And, like Henry, Francis was unable
to firmly establish religious
peace in his country. He died in March 1547, two months after Henry.
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Portrait
c. 1530 by the Italian
Renaissance master Titian. |
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CHARLES V, Holy Roman
Emperor,
on horseback in Mühlberg. Eight
years younger than Henry VIII,
he became Emperor of the Holy
Roman Emperor in 1519, ten
years after Henry had ascended
the throne of England. Charles
ruled the Hapsburg's Holy Roman
Empire during its greatest size
and influence. He was the first
king of a united Spain and
sponsored Magellan's world circumnavigation and Spanish conquests in the
New World. He
became the defender of Roman Catholicism, waging wars against
Protestants and Muslims until his
abdication (for health reasons) in
1556. He died in 1558, 11 years
after the death of Henry VIII.
Detail
of portrait by the Italian
Renaissance master Titian, 1548. |
Principal opposition to France came from
the Holy Roman Empire
of Charles V: Spain + the Austro-Hungarian Empire + Holland + Belgium +
Luxembourg + large portions of Italy + small portions of France.
Emperor Charles V
was the nephew of
Queen Catherine of Aragon, first wife
of Henry VIII, and eventual father-in-law of Henry & Catherine’s
daughter, Queen
(Bloody) Mary I. Charles V had been
elected Emperor (over his principal rival Francis I of France) in 1519,
and spent the next twenty-seven years expanding and solidifying his
empire, and fighting the enemies of
Roman Catholicism
(including European Protestants and Turkish Muslims). Through
Pizarro
and Cortez
he established Spain’s empire in the New World (while crushing the great
Inca and Aztec empires), and he sponsored
Magellan’s
around the world expedition which expanded Spain’s influence in the
Pacific. He vigorously opposed Henry VIII’s divorce of his aunt,
Catherine of Aragon, and used his influence over
Pope Clement VII
to deny Henry’s request for annulment from Catherine. Charles’s
opposition, therefore, directly resulted in Henry’s
English Reformation.
Regardless, Henry VIII sometimes sided with Charles V in opposition to
Francis I.
Henry, Francis, and Charles were not the only great leaders
reigning in 1537.
King Gustav I Vasa established Sweden
as a unified nation separate from Denmark, installed
Lutherism
as the state religion, and founded the Vasa dynasty which created the
Swedish Empire
a century later.
In
Russia, Ivan, Grand Prince of Moscow,
was equally ambitious. The brilliant, impulsive absolutist
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Russian leadership style while building the Russian nation and sowing
the seeds of empire. In a decade he would be crowned
first Tsar of Russia, and ultimately known as
Ivan the Terrible. |
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At the same moment that the
Renaissance
was in full flower in Western Europe a similar golden age was occurring
in neighboring lands to the east and south. Under Sultan Suleiman I,
known in the West as
Suleiman the Magnificent,
the
Ottoman Empire
expanded to its greatest size and cultural glory. During the 1530s and
1540s Suleiman’s armies conquered much of Eastern Europe, reaching as
far as Vienna. The Ottoman advances ceased only when Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V agreed to an embarrassing treaty that ceded Suleiman Hungary
and the Balkans and left Western Europe nervous. French King Francis I
saw an alliance with Suleiman an opportunity to finally rid himself of
Charles V. In 1537 Suleiman’s Ottomans joined the French in an unholy
alliance against the Holy Roman Emperor. A series of sea battles in the
Mediterranean ended the Holy Roman Empire’s naval domination of the
region and forced Charles V to focus on the eastern and southern
extremes of his empire, for the moment leaving the north and west free
to pursue the
Protestant Reformation
uncontested. |

Suleiman the Magnificent
sultan of the Ottoman Empire
during its greatest expansion.
Portrait by Italian Renaissance
master Titian c. 1530. |
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Niccolo Machiavelli -
1500.
The Florentine political philosopher
was born a generation before Henry
VIII during the height of the Italian
Renaissance. His practical experience
as a military leader and diplomat
with missions to the courts of Spain
and France led to intellectual insights
that have become pillars of political
science. His most influential book,
"The Prince", published in 1532,
could have been a coda of the
contemporary reigns of Henry,
Francis, Charles, James,
Gustav, Ivan, and Suleiman.
Detail
from a portrait by Santi di Tito. |
The Western World was undergoing major changes during the
first half of the 16th century. Nations were forming. New empires were
emerging. Old orders were weakening. Alliances were shifting. Across
Europe several strong leaders were becoming great leaders—perhaps more
at one time than ever before or since. It was a propitious time to
consider the qualities of despots and dictators. In Italy
Niccolo Machiavelli’s
“The Prince” first appeared in 1532. A study of the power of dictators
and monarchs, “The Prince” was the most important non-fiction book of
the century, a virtual handbook for the rulers of the time (and for all
time). “The Prince” was written in 1515, but not published until
Machiavelli had been dead for five year. Less important was
Thomas
More’s
“Utopia”, written in 1516, an allegorical novel about the benefits of
republican societies—and, by extension—the disadvantages of existing
monarchical forms of governance. More succeeded
Cardinal Wolsey
as Chancellor of England—top advisor to Henry VIII—in 1529. When More
took the principled but suicidal position that Henry VIII should not
disobey the Vatican in the matter of ending the king’s marriage to
Catherine of Aragon, Sir Thomas lost his job and then his head in the
Tower of London
in 1535. “Utopia”—published on the Continent but not welcomed in
Britain—was not published in England only in 1551, sixteen years after
More’s execution, and fours years after the death of King Henry VIII. |
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n the year 1537
an heir to the throne of England was born healthy and strong. Young
Edward was a vigorous boy, and Henry VIII could focus his attention to
issues other than royal succession. But child mortality was high in the
Middle Ages, and Henry knew the value of a second son in line for the
crown. After all, Henry had been a second son, becoming king only when
sudden illness took his older brother Arthur at age 15. But
Jane
Seymour, Henry’s third queen, had
died shortly after giving birth to Edward, leaving Henry a widower at
46. Clearly, if Henry were to secure the insurance of a second male
heir, the king would need to find a new wife.
In 1537 the political stars of Europe were aligned
strangely: Catholic France and the Holy Roman Empire were united against
the newly Anglican Henry VIII. England, still a minor player in Europe,
needed to enlist the support of
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Anne of Cleves
from a
miniature portrait by
Hans Holbein the Younger. |
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new friends to convince
Western Europe’s two major powers that attacking England would not be
without serious consequences.
Henry’s new allies could be either the Ottoman Empire or the
Reformation states of Northern Europe. Henry had no liking for the
Islamic empire in the east. But the Lutheran states of Germany, Holland,
were neighbors and, although Henry’s England was Protestant out of
political necessity rather than by theological argument, the king
understood Anglican England shared a common bond with the Lutheran
states of Europe in the eyes of Catholic France and the Holy Roman
Empire. |
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HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER
At the suggestion of Henry VIII's
chief advisor, Thomas Cromwell,
the king's official court painter,
Hans Holbein the Younger (shown
here in a self-portrait made in
1542) was sent to Holland to
paint a politically-connected bridal
candidate. Holbein's flattering
portrait of Anne of Cleves
convinced Henry VIII that she
was marriage-worthy. When the
live version of Anne turned out
repugnant to the English king,
Cromwell lost his head, but
Holbein kept his. Death, it seems,
was rarely kind in the late Middle Ages, as Holbein died within six
years, probably of the plague. |
When Henry’s
chief minister and advisor
Thomas Cromwell
suggested Henry consider marrying the 25-year-old sister of William,
Duke of Cleves, from the German-Dutch border region and Sybille, wife of
John Frederick I, the Elector of Saxony and “Champion of the
Reformation.” A marriage to young Anne promised two advantages: a union
with a healthy young woman of prime childbearing age, and an alliance
with strong Reformation states in opposition to France and the Holy
Roman Empire. Henry was not one for blind dating, apparently. In 1538 or
early in 1539 he sent England’s official court artist (“King’s
Painter”), Hans
Holbein the Younger — who happened to
be German-born, German-speaking, and Protestant — to paint the portrait
of Anne of Cleves.
In the days before photography, subjective portraiture would have to do.
Holbein’s two portraits of Anne (now found in the Louvre and in London’s
Victoria & Albert Museum) evidently influenced Henry to pursue an
arranged marriage to Anne of Cleves.
Late in 1539 Anne of Cleves arrived in England. With
some excitement Henry hurried to meet her, but was sorely disappointed
with her appearance. (There is no record of Anne’s first impression of
the portly, hulking 48-year-old monarch.) But, with wedding plans
already set, Henry could not stop the marriage without causing an
international incident and risking his new alliance with the Lutheran
Protestant states. In early January, 1540, Henry and Anne were married.
Following the wedding night Henry was reported to have confided to a
very interested Thomas Cromwell, “I liked her before not
well, but now I like her much worse.” Once again, there is no record of
Anne’s |
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wedding
night impressions. It now seemed that Anne of Cleves—Henry called her
his “Flanders Mare” — would not become a brood mare for the English
royal succession.
When at the same time the unlikely alliance of Francis I of
France and Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire disintegrated, Henry VIII
suddenly had no reason to stay married to Anne. The marriage was
conveniently annulled (reasons: no marital consummation between Henry
and Anne occurred, plus a previous engagement by Anne came to light)
within six months, and Anne was rewarded substantially for agreeing to
go quietly.
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nne of Cleves went quietly and quickly, but Henry was quicker. By the
time of Anne’s official annulment in early July, 1540, rumors openly
circulated through the royal court about Henry’s latest parvenu
princess, nineteen-year-old Kathryn Howard. Her rich, powerful uncle,
Sir
Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk,
had arranged for his teenaged niece to be appointed a lady-in-waiting to
Anne of Cleves, much as he had used his considerable influence to help
another niece,
Anne Boleyn,
then lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon, and a grand-niece,
Jane Seymour, lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne Boleyn. Most of the court’s
rumors proved well-founded, for before July ended Henry VIII had taken
Kathryn Howard as his
fifth wife. The wedding date was July 28, 1540. That same date Thomas
Cromwell, Henry’s chief advisor who had gained favor by helping rid him
of Anne Boleyn, lost his head at the Tower for his treasonous promoting
of the mismatch with Anne of Cleves. Young Kathryn may not have been
paying attention.
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KATHRYN HOWARD
Probable portrait of the fifth wife of Henry VIII
from a miniature on a playing card circa 1541
by Hans Holbein the Younger. |
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Nineteen-year-old Kathryn Howard had not done the math. Henry VIII had
already been King of England for a dozen years when Kathryn was born.
Now Henry was 49 years old, 300 pounds stout, suffering from gout, and
with numerous boils oozing out. If Kathryn’s Prince Charming turned into
a grotesque toad on their wedding night, Kathryn soon showed that she
did not have the intelligence and fidelity of Catherine of Aragon, the
guile of Anne Boleyn, nor the submissive chastity of Jane Seymour.
Within the year rumors again circulated openly throughout the court—this
time hinting at the queen’s indiscretions and, yes, infidelities with
several dashing young courtiers. |
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After the fall (and
execution) of
Thomas Cromwell, Archbishop
of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer
became chief advisor to Henry
VIII. It was he who risked all
by informing the king of reports
of the infidelity of Queen
Consort Kathryn Howard.
Portrait of Cranmer in 1545
by Gerlach Flicke. |
Kathryn did not become pregnant — by Henry VIII or by any of
her rumored paramours. Worried advisors, and those jealous of the
powerful, Catholic Howard family, gathered incriminating evidence
against the young queen.
Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer
— since Cromwell’s downfall the king’s most prominent advisor —
presented the evidence to Henry. Kathryn was arrested along with two
alleged lovers. All three were convicted of treason. Henry’s marriage to
Kathryn was annulled on November 23, 1541. All three convicted
co-conspirators were executed. Kathryn lost her head at the Tower on
February 13, 1542. Several members of the Howard family had lands and
titles repossessed by the Crown. During this same time England completed
its radical
Dissolution of the Monasteries
program, as the property and power of the Catholic Church was taken by
the nation. Minor clergy could no longer serve in the House of Lords.
During the reign of Henry VIII, complications of Roman Catholic marriage
laws and the political attractiveness of Reformation theology had
changed the status of the Roman Catholic Church in England from one of
the two great non-royal powers (along with the nobility) to
insignificant and suspect. |
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enry
VIII at 51 was obese, ill, and tired. He had been King of England for 33
years — at the time the seventh longest reign of any English monarch
since the Norman invasion. But there remained work to do. Henry VIII had
established the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland as a European
power which, if not a threat to existence of the Holy Roman Empire or
the Kingdom of France, was a nation to be watched warily or courted
earnestly, depending upon the situation. Henry intended to leave the
nation secure when he died. His young son Edward was being prepared to
be his successor. He would be a Protestant king of a Protestant
England
and
Wales.
Both
Scotland
and
Ireland
were still Catholic, but Henry planned to convert their ruling nobles to
Protestantism. The influence of the Roman Catholic Church had been
quashed. Henry’s refitted navy and national military were ready to
defend Fortress Britain against all comers.
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The sixth wife of King
Henry VIII,
Queen Consort Kathryn Parr.
Portrait from 1545
attributed to William Scrots. |
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In Europe, old rivals France and the Holy Roman Empire continued to
battle over disputed territories in Italy, France, and elsewhere. Their
constant unrest kept other European nations in an uneasy peace. Afraid
to be alone and vulnerable, nations lined up on one side or the other.
France gained the support of the strong Ottoman Empire |
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Henry VIII at the age of
52
in 1543, the year he married
Catherine Parr. Detail of
major painting by Hans
Holbein the Younger, "Henry
VIII and the Barber Surgeons". Holbein died soon afterwards. |
that
controlled Eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. The Holy
Roman Empire, ignoring or forgiving past disagreements, formed alliances
with parts of Germany, the Low Countries, and, ironically, with Henry
VIII’s Protestant England. In 1542 Henry, now old, fat, and lame,
decided to personally lead the English army on an incursion into France.
Soon after Henry led his army into France, his sister’s son, King James
V of Scotland, saw an opportunity to invade northern England and strike
a blow for Scottish independence while simultaneously lending support
for Scotland’s Auld Alliance with France. In November an overwhelming
force of Scots met a relatively small English army contingent just north
of the city of Carlisle at the southwestern border of Scotland and
England. The Scots outnumbered the English six-to-one, but lacked
cohesive direction, and were themselves quickly overwhelmed in a rout.
Within two weeks King James V lay dead in Falkland Palace, and Scotland
no longer posed a significant invasion threat. Henry VIII, noting that
his nephew’s successor was a week-old daughter, had reason to believe
England had gained a respite from major Scottish troubles for a little
while at least. Nevertheless, on July 1, 1543 the terms of Henry’s
Treaty
of Greenwich proclaimed
peace between Scotland and England and tied that peace to the
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arranged marriage of Henry’s sole son and successor,
5-year-old Edward, to Scotland’s crown princess Mary not yet 7 months
old. The marriage would unite the crowns of Scotland and England, and
would re-united two branches of the Tudor family tree: Henry’s with that
of his older sister,
Margaret Tudor,
wife of
Scotland’s King James IV,
and grandmother of the baby princess Mary. |
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Henry sought peace with Scotland. He wished to replace Scotland’s
historic ties with France with its natural shared geographic ties to
England. Henry also saw a way of strengthening the line of Tudor
succession by joining the royal houses of England and Scotland through
the marriage of the two distant Tudor cousins.
Succession was evidently still very much on Henry’s mind.
Fifty-two years old in 1543, Henry VIII was chronically ill and more
despotic than ever. His lifelong quest for security and power for
England had taken a great toll on his physical and mental well being.
Securing Scotland through the marriage of his only son would be one way
to help secure England’s future. But, an insurance policy of a second
son would relieve Henry’s greatest anxieties. A new wife of childbearing
age could be the answer Henry sought. It was about this time that the
king noticed a member of inner circle of his daughter (from first wife
Catherine of Aragon), Princess Mary. The woman — already thirty years
old and already twice widowed, but childless — was from a wealthy, noble
family, and made wealthier by her two dead husbands. Her name was
Catherine Parr,
and two weeks following the issuance of the Treaty of Greenwich
arranging the marriage of the crown prince of England with the crown
princess of Scotland, King Henry VIII took her as his sixth — and final
— wife. |

Princess Mary, 1544.
Thanks to
the intercession of new queen
Catherine Parr, Princess Mary
appeared in her first portrait
since her mother, Catherine of
Aragon, was divorced by her
father, Henry VIII. The queen
also convinced the king to have
Mary and her half-sister,
Elizabeth, re-instated into the
line of royal succession.
Portrait attributed to "Master John",
possibly English. |
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Catherine — older than Henry’s other wives at the time of their
weddings, and intimately familiar with the ways of the Tudor court —
went right to work, helping raise Henry’s three legitimate children,
Mary, Elizabeth, and Edward, and helped Henry reconcile with his
daughters from whom he had distanced himself following the dissolved
marriage of Mary’s mother Queen Catherine of Aragon and the beheading of
Elizabeth’s mother Queen Anne Boleyn. |
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Queen Elizabeth I at her
coronation in 1559 aged 25.
Detail
of a painting by an
unknown artist c. 1600. |
Catherine Parr surrounded herself with wise, capable, and
trustworthy advisors, and — unlike every queen since Catherine of Aragon
— earned the trust of Henry VIII. When Henry departed England for his
last foreign adventure in France during 1544, the king left England in
the hands of his new queen, appointed royal regent — caretaker of the
realm — during his absence. Catherine proved worthy of the trust Henry
placed in her, making sure that his expeditionary force in France was
well financed and well supplied while overseeing the crown’s domestic
program and monitoring the fragile situation with Scotland carefully.
Catherine exhibited strength, wisdom, and confidence in her husband’s
absence, perhaps influencing the impressionable 11-year-old Princess
Elizabeth, who one day soon would lead England to its first golden age
as a strong, wise, and supremely confident monarch. Perhaps sensing the
capability of Henry’s daughters, Catherine Parr convinced Henry to
reinstate both
Princess Mary
and
Princess Elizabeth
as second and third in line to the throne following their younger
half-brother Edward. |
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– END OF PART V –
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