Catherine of Aragon was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 11 June 1509 until its annulment on 23 May 1533. She was Princess of Wales while married to Henry's elder brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales, for a short period before his death.
Thomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build the case for the annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which was one of the causes of the separation of the English Church from union with the Holy See. Along with Thomas Cromwell, he supported the principle of royal supremacy, in which the king was considered sovereign over the Church within his realm.
Anne Boleyn was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and execution by beheading for treason, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that marked the start of the English Reformation.
Catherine Parr was Queen of England and Ireland as the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 12 July 1543 until Henry's death on 28 January 1547. Catherine was the final queen consort of the House of Tudor, and outlived Henry by a year and eight months. With four husbands, she is the most-married English queen. She was the first woman to publish in print an original work under her own name, in English, in England.
The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, finalised in 1571, are the historically defining statements of doctrines and practices of the Church of England with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation. The Thirty-nine Articles form part of the Book of Common Prayer used by the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion, as well as by denominations outside of the Anglican Communion that identify with the Anglican tradition.
The Great Bible of 1539 was the first authorised edition of the Bible in English, authorised by King Henry VIII of England to be read aloud in the church services of the Church of England. The Great Bible was prepared by Myles Coverdale, working under commission of Thomas Cromwell, Secretary to Henry VIII and Vicar General. In 1538, Cromwell directed the clergy to provide "one book of the Bible of the largest volume in English, and the same set up in some convenient place within the said church that ye have care of, whereas your parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same and read it."
Stephen Gardiner was an English Catholic bishop and politician during the English Reformation period who served as Lord Chancellor during the reign of Queen Mary I and King Philip.
The Exhortation and Litany, published in 1544, is the earliest officially authorized vernacular service in English. The same rite survives, in modified form, in the Book of Common Prayer.
The Books of Homilies are two books together containing thirty-three sermons developing the authorized reformed doctrines of the Church of England in depth and detail, as appointed for use in the 35th Article of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. The longer title of the collection is Certain Sermons or Homilies Appointed to Be Read in Churches. They belong to the basic formularies of the Church of England.
In common parlance, the wives of Henry VIII were the six queens consort of King Henry VIII of England between 1509 and his death in 1547. In legal terms, Henry had only three wives, because three of his marriages were annulled by the Church of England. He was never granted an annulment by the Pope, as he desired, however, for Catherine of Aragon, his first wife. Annulments declare that a true marriage never took place, unlike a divorce, in which a married couple end their union. Along with his six wives, Henry took several mistresses.
Katherine Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, suo jure12th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby, was an English noblewoman living at the courts of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth I. She was the fourth wife of Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, who acted as her legal guardian during his third marriage to Henry VIII's sister Mary. Her second husband was Richard Bertie, a member of her household. Following Charles Brandon's death in 1545, it was rumoured that King Henry had considered marrying Katherine as his seventh wife, while he was still married to his sixth wife, Catherine Parr, who was Katherine's close friend.
Henry VIII and His Six Wives is a 1972 British historical 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.
Events from the 1530s in England.
Events from the 1540s in England.
The English Reformation took place in 16th-century England when the Church of England was forced by its monarchs and elites to break away from the authority of the pope and the Catholic Church. These events were part of the wider European Reformation, a religious and political movement that affected the practice of Christianity in Western and Central Europe.
The Lamentation of a Sinner is a three-part sequence of reflections published by the English queen Catherine Parr, the sixth wife and widow of Henry VIII, as well as the first woman to publish in English under her own name. It was written in the autumn of 1546 at the latest and published in November 1547, after her husband's death. Its publication was sponsored by the Duchess of Suffolk and the Marquess of Northampton, the Queen's closest friend and only brother respectively.
Elizabeth Tyrwhitt, was an English gentlewoman, courtier, and writer.
Psalms or Prayers was the first book published by Catherine Parr, queen consort of England. It is an English translation of the Latin Psalms, published by John Fisher around 1525.
The Shardlake series is a series of historical mystery novels by C. J. Sansom, set in 16th century Tudor England. The series features barrister Matthew Shardlake, who, while navigating the religious reforms of Henry VIII, solves crime and tries to avoid getting caught up in political intrigue.
Primer is the name for a variety of devotional prayer books that originated among educated medieval laity in the 14th century, particularly in England. While the contents of primers have varied dependent on edition, they often contained portions of the Psalms and Latin liturgical practices such as the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Medieval primers were often similar to and sometimes considered synonymous with the also popular book of hours ; typically, a medieval horae was referred to as a primer in Middle English.
