Summary
The peaceful succession of Prince Edward was Henry VIII's
primary concern in his last years. In 1543, the same year Henry
married Katherine Parr, Parliament passed the Succession Act which
named Edward, Princess Mary, and Princess Elizabeth, in that order,
the heirs to the throne. Along with the succession, however, came
the problem of faction among the king's ministers, the most prominent of
which, at Henry's death, would jockey for influence over young Edward.
In the early 1540s, the Privy Council was divided into two main
factions: a conservative one led by the Duke of Norfolk and the
Bishop of Winchester, Stephen Gardiner, and another more sympathetic
to Protestantism, headed by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, Charles
Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, and Edward Seymour, Prince Edward's
uncle.
Although Henry was very cruel toward Protestants, he remained close
to Archbishop Cranmer. Three times between 1543 and 1545, the king
personally intervened in attempts by the Norfolk-Gardiner faction
to charge Cranmer with heresy. At the close of 1546, the tables
turned on Norfolk and his son, the Earl of Surrey, when they were
accused of plotting to make Norfolk the young Edward's regent upon
Henry's death. Norfolk and Surrey were charged with treason and
imprisoned in the Tower of London in December. Surrey was executed
in January 1547. Norfolk escaped execution, however, with the king's
death.
Throughout the 1540s, Henry's health was in steady decline.
He suffered chronic headaches and an ulcer on his leg which kept
him in great pain. He grew enormously fat, and he was peevish and unpredictable
in his behavior. By the summer of 1546, the king could not walk
or stand up by himself. His mind remained very sharp, however.
It was said that during his last years the king often engaged in
rigorous theological debates with his wife, Katherine Parr, who
was known to be Protestant in her convictions. Strangely, in August
1546, Henry began to entertain Protestant views on the sacraments,
but also entered into secret negotiations with a Papal envoy to
discuss the possibility of submitting England once more to the
supremacy of the Roman pontiff.
King Henry VIII passed away in his bed at Whitehall palace
January 28, 1547. He was fifty-five years of age, physically a
very old man. His hand was in Archbishop Cranmer's hand when death came
upon him. His passing was not announced for several days, and it
was not until January 31 that his nine-year- old son was proclaimed
King Edward VI. All three of his children would reign as monarchs:
Edward was sickly and died at fifteen, succeeded by his half-sister
Mary in 1553. Queen Mary I died only five years later, succeeded
by the iron- willed, fiery tempered Elizabeth, who reigned over
England until 1603.
Analysis
Henry VIII began his reign as a handsome young king beloved
by his people, and ended it as a grotesquely fat tyrant who was
feared by all who knew him. His legacy has been a subject of great
debate for centuries. His six marriages, his executions of ministers
such as Sir Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, his religious persecutions, and
his showy but mediocre diplomatic and military successes gained
him a singular fame, if not respect, throughout Europe. Loved and
hated, Henry VIII remains a most well-known and intriguing personality,
and one which may only be paralleled among English monarchs, remarkably,
by his own daughter Elizabeth I.
Above everything, even his tyranny, it is Henry's break
with Rome which has given him his prominent place in the chronicles
of English history. While the nature of that break may not even
have been entirely understood by Henry himself, it marked a most
significant turning point for his island nation. The fact that
the break came about by Henry's desire to remarry and secure a male
heir for the succession shows not only how personal affairs were
very political in the sixteenth century, but also that personal
affairs bore implications of the greatest and most profound political
and historical signficance. Each person in Henry's drama–Catherine
of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, the princesses Mary and Elizabeth, not
to mention Thomas Wolsey, Cromwell, and so many others–was crucial
to the unfolding of events. A birth of a healthy son, or the birth and
succession of a daughter such as Elizabeth, involved the fate of Church
and State in Henry's England, as did the personal relations between
the king and his various ministers.
