Over 450 years after his reign, Henry VIII is still the most famous and recognizable King of England, but it's for all the wrong reasons. Though well regarded by contemporaries as a learned king and "one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne", he is best remembered today for his gluttony and multiple marriages, particularly the gruesome way in which he was widowed on more than one occasion. Naturally, that was the focus of the popular Showtime drama series centered around his life, The Tudors.
Henry VIII will probably continue to be best known for beheading some of his wives, most notably Anne Boleyn, so it is somewhat fitting that his most decisive act came as a result of a marital mishap. Sharply at odds with the Catholic Church over his attempt to dissolve his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII ultimately broke with the Church and established the Church of England, which forever both the religious history of England and the social hierarchy of the nation and its empire.
Though the popular perception of his reign has taken hold, King Henry VIII did not start life in any of those ways. In fact, he did not even start life as heir to the English throne. And when he did come to the throne at the age of 18, King Henry VIII's earliest monarchical years showed his promise as a quintessential renaissance, polymath Prince. Even on the religious front, Henry VIII started out believing in the essential Catholic theology, even after the Pope and the Vatican excommunicated Henry from the Catholic Church (until then, the undisputed political as well as theological leader of Christendom, from which monarchs often needed various forms of legitimacy).
Of Henry's wives, none is more famous than his second, Anne Boleyn, who even today remains both famous and infamous for her personal and political life nearly 400 years after her death. Anne was a vixen and ultimately a victim, but she was also an astute politician, foolish lover and wise woman who could never decide whether to listen to her heart or her head. She was also both an adulteress and religious reformer, and these two qualities would come together to change the face of English Christianity forever.
Anne came into the court with a better idea of what she was getting herself into than any other of Henry's queens, but even she could not see foresee how fickle fate would cost her both her love and her life. Like Catherine of Aragon before her, she would be unable to hold on to her wandering husband. However, she would, ironically, be the last of his queens that he'd ever cheat on. Early female mortality and his own failing health would keep him faithful to the women who would follow her as queen, in a way that the teachings of the Church and common decency never would.
Elizabeth was the last Tudor sovereign, the daughter of the cruel and magnificent King Henry VIII and a granddaughter of the Tudor House's founder, the shrewd Henry VII. Elizabeth, hailed as "Good Queen Bess," "Gloriana" and "The Virgin Queen" to this day in the public firmament, would improve upon Henry VIII's successes and mitigate his failures, and despite her own failings would turn out to "have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England too". Indeed, that was the phrase she would utter in describing herself while exhorting her troops to fight for England against the Spanish Armada.
Elizabeth often has been featured in biographies that were more like hagiographies, glossing over her fits of temper, impatience and other frailties. It is fair to say, however, that she had also inherited her grandfather's political acumen and her father's magnificence, thus creating not just one of the most colourful courts in Europe but also one of the most effective governments in English history.
