Unit 6 Speech: The Life of King Henry VIII

Thesis - King Henry VIII is one of the most misunderstood persons of all times. Many people think he had eight wives and he killed them all, in reality he only had six wives and he only had two of them killed.
i. Henry had one brother and two sisters. His brother, Arthur, was the eldest therefore; he would be king when their father died. Arthur married Catherine of Aragon, when they were both young, because his father wanted to ally England with Spain, and her dowry was large. They were only married a week when he died. Now Henry was to be King. Within three years, Henry’s father died and Henry became King Henry VIII.
ii. Henry decided to marry his brother’s widow, Catherine of Aragon. She told him that Arthur and she did not consummate their marriage before he died. Catherine only gave Henry one daughter, Mary. Henry desperately wanted a male, so when he died England would have a King. Once he found out that she could not have any more children, he decided to marry Anne Boleyn, because she was pregnant with his child and their was a good chance it would be a boy. First he had to divorce himself from Catherine. In order to do so, he had to break with the Roman Church, and create the Church of England, where he could grant himself a divorce, because the Pope refused to grant it to him. He broke with the Roman Church, and married Anne Boleyn.
iii. All of Catherine’s supporters called Anne a witch, and she would have mud thrown at her whenever she went into the public. She gave birth to a girl, Elizabeth, a year later she miscarried a son. Henry then was told that she cheated on him with several of people, including her brother. Henry put her on trial and it was decided that she would be beheaded. Within two weeks of her death Henry married Jane Seymour. Henry waited to give her a coronation until she gave him a son. Within a year she did indeed give him a son, Edward. However, due to exhaustion she died within two weeks of giving birth to him.
iv. Two years after Jane’s death, Henry decided to get another foreign bride, Anne of Cleaves. He consented to marry her and make her Queen, without even seeing her. She turned out to be very ugly, and they did not consummate their marriage. Henry was already fond of his next wife, Katherine Howard, and Anne gave consent to annul the marriage on the grounds of them never consummating it. Henry married Katherine Howard. Less than a year into their marriage, rumors of her infidelity began. Henry seeing that it would be possible for her to want someone more her age, which was 20 at the time. Her downfall was that she appointed one of her admirers as her personal secretary. This was enough evidence for Henry. She was sent to the Tower of London, and found guilty, she was executed and laid to rest were Anne Boleyn was, who happened to be her cousin.
v. At this time in his life, Henry was very sickly, he had an ulcerated leg, and he was very heavy. He married Katherine Parr, who was a widow at the time. Henry’s health began to fail, and his court conservatives were worried about Katherine’s interest in reformed faith. They set out to find evidence against her. Before this was brought to Henry, he died on January 1547. Only a few months after his death Katherine married Thomas Seymour, and later died after giving birth to a daughter.
vi. King Henry VIII successor was his 9 year old son, Edward, son of Jane Seymour. He was sickly like his father and died at age 15. Mary, Catherine of Aragon’s daughter, took the throne for several months, and then was sent to the Tower of London for treason. Finally Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn’s daughter took the throne. She reigned over England for 45 years.
vii. Henry VIII was not viscous as everyone thinks, he just wanted a son, and when a wife stopped having children he would find a way to get a new one. Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard were the only two he actually had put to death, but there was evidence that proved that they cheated on him. He went through all these wives and his daughter Elizabeth is the one who is most widely known.

(I tried to post my video of my speech, but it would not load, sorry)