Catherine of Aragon was Queen of England from June 1509 until May 1533 as the first wife of King Henry VIII; she was previously Princess of Wales as the wife of Henry's elder brother Arthur.
Saint Catherine of Siena was a tertiary of the Dominican Order, a Scholastic philosopher, and theologian who had a great influence on the Catholic Church. She is declared a saint and a doctor of the Church.
Henry VIII was King of England from 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry was the second Tudor monarch, succeeding his father, Henry VII. Henry is best known for his six marriages, in particular his efforts to have his first marriage, to Catherine of Aragon, annulled. His disagreement with the Pope on the question of such an annulment led Henry to initiate the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from papal authority. He appointed himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England and dissolved convents and monasteries, for which he was excommunicated. Henry is also known as "the father of the Royal Navy"; he invested heavily in the Navy, increasing its size greatly from a few to more than 50 ships.
The House of Tudor was an English royal house of Welsh origin, descended in the male line from the Tudors of Penmynydd. Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and its realms, including their ancestral Wales and the Lordship of Ireland from 1485 until 1603, with five monarchs in that period. The Tudors succeeded the House of Plantagenet as rulers of the Kingdom of England, and were succeeded by the House of Stuart. The first Tudor monarch, Henry VII of England, descended through his mother from a legitimised branch of the English royal House of Lancaster. The Tudor family rose to power in the wake of the Wars of the Roses, which left the House of Lancaster, to which the Tudors were aligned, extinct.
Anne Boleyn was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of King Henry VIII. Henry's marriage to her, and her execution by beheading, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the English Reformation. Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, and was educated in the Netherlands and France, largely as a maid of honour to Queen Claude of France. Anne returned to England in early 1522, to marry her Irish cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; the marriage plans were broken off, and instead she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII's wife, Catherine of Aragon.
Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great, born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, was Empress of Russia from 1762 until 1796, the country's longest-ruling female leader. She came to power following a coup d'état which she organized—resulting in her husband, Peter III, being overthrown. Under her reign, Russia was revitalized; it grew larger and stronger and was recognized as one of the great powers of Europe. This said however, she was a usurper of the Russian throne because her son, Paul I, should have naturally been the Tsar following Peter III’s death.
Catherine Parr was Queen of England and Ireland (1543–47) as the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII, and the final queen consort of the House of Tudor. She married him on 12 July 1543, and outlived him by one year. With four husbands she is the most-married English queen.
Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, KG was the brother of the English queen Jane Seymour who was the third wife of King Henry VIII. With his brother, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector of England, he vied for control of their nephew, the young King Edward VI. Seymour was the fourth husband of Catherine Parr who was the sixth and last wife of Henry VIII. During his marriage to Catherine Parr, Seymour involved the future Queen Elizabeth I, who resided in his household, in flirtatious and possibly sexually abusive behaviour.
The Six Wives of Henry VIII is a series of six television plays produced by the BBC and first transmitted between 1 January and 5 February 1970. The series was later aired in the United States on CBS from 1 August to 5 September 1971 with narration added by Anthony Quayle. The series was rebroadcast in the United States without commercials on PBS as part of its Masterpiece Theatre series.
Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, styled Earl of Surrey from 1483 to 1485 and again from 1489 to 1514, was an English nobleman and politician. He was the eldest son of John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk, by his first wife, Catharina de Moleyns. The Duke was the grandfather of both Queen Anne Boleyn and Queen Catherine Howard and the great grandfather of Queen Elizabeth I. He served four monarchs as a soldier and statesman.
Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, was the First Lady of the United States from 1825 to 1829. Born in London, she was the first First Lady to be born outside the United States, or the preceding Thirteen Colonies—a distinction that would not be shared until 192 years later by Melania Trump.
Administratively, Jamaica is divided into fourteen parishes. They are grouped into three historic counties, which have no administrative relevance. Every parish has a coast; none is landlocked.
Thomas Culpeper was a courtier and close friend of Henry VIII, and related to two of his queens, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. He is known to have had many private meetings with Catherine after her marriage, though these may have involved political intrigue. A letter was found written by Queen Catherine and she signed it, "yours as long as life endures." He blamed the queen, saying he tried to end it, but she was, "dying of love for him". Under torture, he confessed to adultery, and both were beheaded for treason.
Catherine Carey, after her marriage Catherine Knollys and later known as both Lady Knollys and Dame Catherine Knollys,, was chief Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth I, who was her first cousin.
In legal terms, King Henry VIII of England had only three wives, because three of his putative marriages were annulled. Unlike a divorce, where a married couple chooses to end their union, annulments essentially declare that a true marriage never took place. However, in common parlance, the so-called wives of Henry VIII were the six queens consort wedded to Henry between 1509 and his death in 1547.
The Tudors is a historical fiction television series set primarily in the 16th-century Kingdom of England, created and entirely written by Michael Hirst and produced for the American premium cable television channel Showtime. The series was a collaboration between American, British, and Canadian producers, and was filmed mostly in Ireland. Although named after the Tudor dynasty as a whole, it is based specifically upon the reign of King Henry VIII.
Henry VIII and His Six Wives is a 1972 British film adaptation, directed by Waris Hussein, of the BBC 1970 six-part miniseries The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Keith Michell, who plays Henry VIII in the TV series, also portrays the king in the film. His six wives are portrayed by different actresses, among them Frances Cuka as Catherine of Aragon, and Jane Asher as Jane Seymour. Donald Pleasence portrays Thomas Cromwell and Bernard Hepton portrays Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, a role he had also played in the miniseries and briefly in its follow-up Elizabeth R.
Mary Boleyn, also known as Lady Mary, was the sister of English queen Anne Boleyn, whose family enjoyed considerable influence during the reign of King Henry VIII.
Catherine Howard was Queen of England from 1540 until 1541, as the fifth wife of Henry VIII. She married him on 28 July 1540, at Oatlands Palace, in Surrey, almost immediately after the annulment of his marriage to Anne of Cleves was arranged.
