Henry VIII’s Six Wives

King Henry VIII is such an overwhelming character in British culture that his six wives tend to be reduced to a footnote of history. A new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London puts the women in the spotlight.

Henry VIII had a famously tumultuous love life. In fact most British schoolchildren learn the following rhyme to remember the fate of his spouses Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr:

Divorced, beheaded and died
Divorced, beheaded, survived.

All of Henry’s marriages were political in some way, whether of the British state, Henry himself or his queens’ families, searching for power.

1509 Henry accedes to the throne and marries Catherine of Aragon, the youngest daughter of the Spanish rulers Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. The couple have six children but only a girl, the future Queen Mary I survives.

1533 Henry has his marriage to Catherine annulled and marries Anne Boleyn. This leads to England breaking with the Catholic Church and Henry becomes the leader of the Anglican Church. Anne and Henry have a daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth I, and a stillborn son.

1536 Henry has Anne beheaded for adultery and marries Jane Seymour, one of Anne’s ladies in waiting. In 1537, Jane dies shortly after giving birth to a son, the future King Edward IV.

1540 Marries Anne of Cleves. This was a purely political alliance, seeking the support of her brother and other Protestant leaders from Germany against an expected attack of England by France and the Holy Roman Empire. Henry didn’t like Anne and when the attack didn’t transpire, he had the marriage annulled after barely six months.

1540 Marries Catherine Howard, one of Anne’s maids of honour, three weeks after his marriage to Anne was annulled. But he had her beheaded for adultery and treason in 1542, citing an affair she had before the marriage.

1543 Marries Catherine Parr, the twice-widowed daughter of a royal official. She is known for her tact and accompanies Henry in his final years of ill health.

1547 Henry dies at Whitehall Palace and is buried with Jane Seymour

Fascination
The exhibition pieces together clues about the women's lives from letters, jewellery, clothing, books and other items that belonged to them and portraits that can more or less confidently be said to be them, or true likenesses of them. (For his foreign marriages, Henry was sent miniatures and portraits of his future brides, which often flattered the sitters.)

But it also examines the fascination popular culture has had with these women, from biographies and hagiographies to early films or waxworks, as photographed by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto.

There is an entire room dedicated to costumes and other artefacts from Six, a musical about Henry's wives, that has been running in London and New York for seven years.

Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens
National Portrait Gallery, London
Till 8 September 2024