Henry VIII’s First Divorce Henry 8’s First Divorce Author Michaela Ferris Author Kate McPherson Supervising Editor Kate McPherson Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England Encyclopedia EMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a

 University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform

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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Michaela Ferris and Kate McPherson, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines

This document uses Canadian English spelling

 Document Types All documents in LEMDO are either born-digital documents or primary documents. Within those two general categories, LEMDO offers additional ways to categorize a file. Born-digital Born-digital documents are anything other than primary texts Critical Critical material, such as a general introduction or a textual introduction. Responsibilities Responsibilities Author A person, family, or organization responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content, regardless of media type (e.g., printed text, spoken word, electronic text, tactile text) or genre (e.g., poems, novels, screenplays, blogs). Use also for persons, etc., creating a new work by paraphrasing, rewriting, or adapting works by another creator such that the modification has substantially changed the nature and content of the original or changed the medium of expression. LEMDO uses the term author in two contexts: (1) to indicate the author of a primary work or document (such as Hamlet), and (2) to indicate the author of a secondary text (such as the Critical Introduction to <title level="m">Hamlet, by David Bevington). Editor A person, family, or organization contributing to a resource by revising or elucidating the content, e.g., adding an introduction, notes, or other critical matter. An editor may also prepare a resource for production, publication, or distribution. For major revisions, adaptations, etc., that substantially change the nature and content of the original work, resulting in a new work, see author. LEMDO uses the general term editor only in edition metadata and only to indicate when a person is responsible for editing all parts of an edition. Otherwise, use the more granular terms to describe the precise nature of the editorial role. Supervising Editor An editor who supervises the work of a student editor. Copy Editor LEMDO uses the term owner for the person who checks facts, quotations, and citations; may make formatting changes; may convert from one citation style to another; may suggest wording changes; and enforces conformity with the project style guide. Markup Editor A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. Gloss needed. Copyright Holder A person or organization to whom copy and legal rights have been granted or transferred for the intellectual content of a work. The copyright holder, although not necessarily the creator of the work, usually has the exclusive right to benefit financially from the sale and use of the work to which the associated copyright protection applies. Normally the editor is the copyright holder for an LEMDO edition. EMEE Keywords Culture Learn about the customs, beliefs, and daily lives of people in early modern England. Daily Life Adultery Incest Marriage Published file. Updated metadata proofed updated author respStmt. swapped the desc and figDescs to be correct. added figure and image source. Created File. Michael Best Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

 Mashaela Ferris Mashaela Ferris

Mashaela Ferris was a student at Utah Valley University

 Leah Hamby Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

 Navarra Houldin Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

 Kate McPherson Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

 LEMDO Team The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors. University of Victoria https://www.uvic.ca/
Painting depicting Catherine of Aragon kneeling in front of King Henry VIII, pleading him not to divorce her. Catherine of Aragon kneels in front of King Henry VIII, pleading him not to divorce her. c. 1846. Courtesy of Birmingham Art Museum and Wikimedia. Public Domain in the United States and Canada.
Henry’s Unconventional Marriage

Upon the untimely death of Henry VII’s 15-year-old son and heir Prince Arthur in 1502, his second son, Henry, became next in line for the throne. Arthur had been married to the 17-year-old Catherine of Aragon for only five months when he died. The young couple was assumed to have consummated the marriage and did live together immediately afterwards. Henry VII himself suggested the marriage of Arthur’s widow Catherine to England’s next king, likely seeking diplomatic and financial advantage from keeping Catherine in England.

In 1503, the future Henry VIII and Catherine were betrothed, but as Prince Henry was still too young to consummate the marriage (he was only 12), Catherine could not officially take her place as his wife. At the age of 14, Henry rejected the marriage. Only when Henry VII died in 1509 did the new King Henry VIII agreed to honor the wishes of his father and marry Catherine, who had remained in England.

Catherine of Aragon and King Henry VIII’s Children

Once the couple was married, Catherine began to regularly bear children, although, like many mothers of the time, she was sadly and frequently bereaved. 1510: Catherine gave birth to a stillborn daughter. 1511: Catherine gave birth to a son, Henry, Duke of Cornwall, who died two months afterwards. 1513: Catherine and Henry’s unnamed son died minutes after his birth. 1515: Catherine birthed another stillborn son. 1516: Catherine gave birth to Mary, her only surviving child; Mary would become Queen in 1553.

Affairs

During the early years of their marriage, Henry VIII began an affair with Catherine’s lady-in-waiting, Mary Boleyn. As he became more irritable towards Catherine’s inability to produce a male heir, by 1525 he began to romantically pursue Mary’s sister, Anne Boleyn. At the age of 34, Henry VIII longed to annul his marriage with Catherine, who was now 40 and presumably unlikely to bear children, and pursue Anne as his wife.

As Catherine could not produce a male heir, Henry VIII came to believe his marriage to be unlawful in the eyes of God. He believed that because he had married his brother’s wife, God was punishing her by not granting them a healthy son. The urge for an annulment became the king’s Great Matter as he focused almost entirely on it.

Papal Authority

By 1527, Henry VIII was convinced that his union with Catherine was immoral and unnatural due to the biblical text from Leviticus 20:21: If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an impurity. He hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless. Henry VIII beseeched Pope Clement VII for an annulment of the marriage but was rejected. Pope Clement VII did not wish to override Pope Julius II’s decision in confirming the union between Henry and Catherine that was permitted only by special dispensation in 1509.

Catherine claimed her marriage to Henry VIII was valid because she and Prince Arthur had not consummated their marriage prior to his death in 1502. At the time of her marriage to Henry in 1509, her chief lady-in-waiting and King Ferdinand of Spain both attested to Catherine being a virgin.

Historians believe Henry VIII also wished for the monetary gains that parting from the Church of Rome would allow, particularly the income and lands from the monasteries. When Parliament passed the first Act of Succession in 1533, Henry VIII claimed Papal Authority for himself and no longer recognized the authority of Pope Clement. The Act annulled his marriage to Catherine, allowing him to marry Anne Boleyn immediately in 1533. This Act confirmed England’s separation from the Church of Rome and the founding of the Church of England.

Shakespeare and the King’s Great Matter

Shakespeare’s late play, All Is True, more commonly known as Henry VIII, was co-authored with John Fletcher and performed at the Globe in 1613. During a performance on June 29, a cannon fired to mark the King’s entrance accidentally misfired and set the thatched roof of the Globe alight. The theater burned to the ground, although no actors or audience members were injured.

Shakespeare and Fletcher compress historical events to focus on the fall of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who fell from favor in part due to his failure to convince Pope Clement to grant the divorce from Catherine that Henry so desperately wanted. The play offers Catherine an extensive speech in which she defends herself and the validity of her marriage at a trial in Act 2, Scene 4. In addition to the fall of Wolsey and Catherine, the play features Anne Boleyn’s coronation and the birth and baptism of Princess Elizabeth, carefully omitting Anne’s imminent fall.

Key Print Sources Davies, Anthony. All is True (Henry VIII) in The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. Edited by Stanley Wells and Michael Dobson. Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 6–8. Loades, David. The Tudors: The History of a Dynasty. Bloomsbury, 2013. Goodman, Ruth. How to Be a Tudor a Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life. Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2016. Streissguth, Tom. Tudor Dynasty. The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of The Renaissance, edited by Konrad Eisenbichler, Greenhaven Press, 2008, pp. 308–309. Tudor Dynasty. Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, edited by Paul F. Grendler, Charles Scribner and Sons, 2000.
Key Online Sources Best, Michael. The Divorce. Shakespeare’s Life and Times.Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/history/henry%20VIII/divorce.html. Accessed 10 Oct. 2018. Morrill, John S. and Elton, Geoffrey R.. Henry VIII. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-VIII-king-of-England. Accessed 10 Oct. 2018.
Image Source O’Neil, Henry Nelson. Catherine of Aragon Pleads her Case Against Divorce from Henry VIII. C. 1846. Birmingham Art Museum. Wikimedia. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Catherine_Aragon_Henri_VIII_by_Henry_Nelson_ONeil.jpg.