Summary
When the future King Henry VIII was born at the royal
palace at Greenwich, England, on June 28, 1491, his elder brother
Arthur was the Prince of Wales, and heir to the throne of England.
The boys' father was King Henry VII, who had wrested the throne
from King Richard III in 1485 in a famous battle at Bosworth Field, which
ended the War of the Roses. Their mother was Elizabeth of York,
the daughter of King Edward IV, and the lawful heiress to the throne.
Her marriage to Henry Tudor in 1485 helped solidify his shaky claim
to the Crown, and the births of their sons were major steps in
securing the Tudor dynasty in the future. Arthur married the young
Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon in November 1501, but he died
very suddenly of consumption six months later. This unexpected
event affected the young Henry's future dramatically: in January
of the following year, Henry was named Prince of Wales, heir to
his father's throne.
On December 26, 1503, Pope Julius II issued a dispensation
for the young Prince to marry the widowed Catherine of Aragon,
who was six years the boy's senior. Henry VII had desired this
dispensation for his heir, since he wished to preserve the marriage
alliance with Spain. The dispensation was necessary because it
was questionable according to the laws of the Roman Catholic Church
whether a man could marry his brother's widow. Young Henry initially
rejected the idea of the marriage, however, formally protesting it
in June 1505. He would later change his mind and marry Catherine
after he acceded to the throne, in part because it was his father's dying
wish that he would do so, and also because he, too, eventually saw
the political benefits of marrying the daughter of the Spanish monarchs,
King Ferdinand I of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile.
As long as Henry VII lived, however, the marriage did
not take place. During his teenage years, Henry was essentially
waiting for his father to die. For uncertain reasons, the Prince
was kept away from learning the administrative duties of English
kingship. Instead, Henry occupied himself with his studies and
with the princely sports of hunting, hawking, jousting, wrestling,
and archery. In sports Henry proved quite the athlete: historian
Jasper Ridley writes that Henry "could compete with the best archers
of the King's guard." Henry's intellectual gifts were exceptional,
as well. Under the tutelage of the famous poet John Skelton, Henry excelled
in his studies, showing himself particularly fond of theology,
and adept with languages. He became fluent in Latin and French
and also spoke Spanish and Italian. Furthermore, Henry was a capable
musician and composer of songs with the organ, the virginals, and
the harp.
The young Prince, affectionately called by the name Harry,
grew to be six feet tall – an exceptional height in the sixteenth
century – as well as very handsome, with a fair complexion, red
hair, and a powerful build. With his good humor, limitless self-confidence,
and intellectual and athletic prowess, Henry in many ways embodied the
fondest hopes of his future subjects, who were growing tired of his
father's miserly reputation and dour personality. When Henry VII
died on April twenty-one, 1509, the new King Henry VIII, not quite
eighteen years of age, was received with the open arms of the English
people. After a gloriously arrayed procession on June twenty-three
through the streets of London, which were lined with cheering crowds,
Henry was crowned in Westmisnter Abbey along with his new bride,
Catherine of Aragon.
Analysis
The period of Henry's boyhood is significant both for
the circumstances leading to his eventual coronation as king and
for the shaping of his character as one of the most famous of all
English monarchs. Henry's succession to the throne was in some
ways a matter of sheer historical accident. In the first place,
his brother Arthur's sudden death in 1501 had profound effects
on the course of English history. It is unclear how or whether
the English Reformation would have come about had Arthur lived
to be king and Henry followed his originally intended track away
from the throne. Henry owed his throne to his father's victory
at Bosworth Field in 1485. Henry VII had no claim to the throne
other than his military victory, a bit of royalty in his family
tree, and the acquiescence of Elizabeth of York and the Parliament
to his wearing the crown. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries, such claims were shaky at best. In late medieval times,
dynasties could be challenged and overturned on the basis of hereditary
right; in England this hereditary principle was particularly important,
hence the significance of Elizabeth's willingness to sit beside
Henry VII as his queen, and her choosing not to fight for her right
to rule.
Prince Henry's right to rule was more secure than his
father's because he was the direct heir of his mother Elizabeth's
hereditary right. At the same time, Henry grew up keenly aware
of the importance of securing that right over time and of bringing
dynastic stability to England. This formed the heart of his later
concern over having no male heir when he was married to Catherine
of Aragon. He knew the political disatisfaction and difficulties
that would attend a female sovereign in the future, with the potential
of male cousins squabbling for the right to wear the crown.
