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.
Henry VIII was King of England from 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and, in particular, his efforts to have his first marriage annulled. His disagreement with Pope Clement VII 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 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," as he invested heavily in the navy, increasing its size from a few to more than 50 ships, and established the Navy Board.
The House of Tudor was an English royal house of Welsh origin, descended 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 six monarchs in that period: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey, Mary I and Elizabeth I. 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, a cadet house of the Plantagenets. The Tudor family rose to power in the wake of the Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), which left the Tudor-aligned House of Lancaster, extinct in the male line.
Jane Seymour, also known as Jane Semel, was Queen of England from 1536 to 1537 as the third wife of King Henry VIII. She succeeded Anne Boleyn as queen consort following the latter's execution in May 1536. She died of postnatal complications less than two weeks after the birth of her only child, a son who became King Edward VI. She was the only wife of the King to receive a queen's funeral, and his only consort to be buried beside him in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
Elizabeth R is a BBC television drama serial of six 85-minute plays starring Glenda Jackson as Queen Elizabeth I of England. It was first broadcast on BBC2 from February to March 1971, through the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Australia and broadcast in America on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre. The series has been repeated several times, most recently from 17 February 2021, by BBC Four to celebrate the show's fiftieth anniversary.
Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, 1st Viscount Lisle, PC was an English military leader and courtier. Through his third wife, Mary Tudor, he was brother-in-law to King Henry VIII.
Una O'Connor was an Irish-American actress who worked extensively in theatre before becoming a character actress in film and in television. She often portrayed comical wives, housekeepers and servants. In 2020, she was listed at number 19 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
A heraldic badge, emblem, impresa, device, or personal device worn as a badge indicates allegiance to, or the property of, an individual or family. Medieval forms are usually called a livery badge, and also a cognizance. They are para-heraldic, not necessarily using elements from the coat of arms of the person or family they represent, though many do, often taking the crest or supporters. Their use was more flexible than that of arms proper.
In common parlance, the wives of Henry VIII were the six queens consort wedded to Henry between 1509 and his death in 1547. In legal terms, King Henry VIII of England had only three wives, because three of his marriages were annulled by the Church of England. However, he was never granted an annulment by the Pope, as he desired, 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.
Rosalie Sylvia Crutchley was a British actress. Trained at the Royal Academy of Music, Crutchley was perhaps best known for her television performances, but had a long and successful career in theatre and films, making her stage debut as early as 1932, and her screen debut in 1947.
Barbara Leigh-Hunt is a British actress. Her numerous theatre credits include Broadway productions of Hamlet (1958) and Sherlock Holmes (1974), and she won the 1993 Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress for the National Theatre production of An Inspector Calls. Her film appearances include Frenzy (1972), Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972), Bequest to the Nation (1973) and Billy Elliot (2000).
A Crown of the Rose is an extremely rare gold coin of the Kingdom of England introduced in 1526 during the reign of Henry VIII, in an attempt to compete with the French écu au soleil. The coin was not a success and just a few months later it was replaced by the Crown of the Double-Rose.
Henry VIII and his reign have been depicted in art, film, literature, music, opera, plays, and television
Mary Boleyn, also known as Lady Mary, was the sister of English queen consort 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 was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper, cousin to Anne Boleyn, and niece to Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Thomas Howard was a prominent politician at Henry's court, and he secured her a place in the household of Henry's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, where she caught the King's interest. She married him on 28 July 1540 at Oatlands Palace in Surrey, just 19 days after the annulment of his marriage to Anne. He was 49, and she was still a teenager, at about 17 years old.
Mabel Constanduros was an English actress and screenwriter. She gained public notice playing Mrs.Buggins on the radio programme The Buggins Family, which ran from 1928 to 1948. As well as writing the series, she started off playing the whole family as well.
Mary Hall was an English gentlewoman whose report of the 'light' behaviour in her youth of Henry VIII's fifth Queen, Catherine Howard, initiated the process which ended with Queen Catherine's execution.
A Rose without a Thorn is a 1958 Australian television play about King Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine Howard. It was directed by Alan Burke from a play by Clifford Bax. The play was shown live in Sydney, recorded, then shown in Melbourne.
The Queen Who Kept Her Head is a 1934 historical play by the British writer Winifred Carter. It is based on the life of Catherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of Henry VIII, who outlived him.
Catherine of Aragon was Queen of England from June 1509 until May 1533 as the first wife of King Henry VIII. She has been portrayed in film, television, plays, novels, songs, poems, and other creative forms many times, and as a result, she has stayed very much in popular memory.
