How many wives did Henry VIII, King of England have? What were there names and backgrounds?
He had 6 wives (David Starkey’s book Six Wives is a highly recommended read as is Alison Weir’s The Six Wives of Henry VIII) Divorced, beheaded, died Divorced, beheaded, survived ——— The first was Catherine of Aragon (spelling varied by source) who had been married to Henry’s brother Arthur. Upon Arthur’s death, Henry married her. Mother of “Bloody Mary”. From Englishhistory.net The youngest surviving child of the ‘Catholic Kings’ of Spain, Katharine was born on 16 December 1485, the same year that Henry VII established the Tudor dynasty. At the age of three, she was betrothed to his infant son, Prince Arthur. Her marriage to Arthur lasted less than six months and was supposedly never consummated. Katharine was then betrothed to Arthur’s younger brother, Prince Henry. When he became king in 1509, at the age of eighteen, he promptly married Katharine and they lived together happily for many years. But their marriage produced just one living child, a daughter called Mary, and Henry
