Robert Hutchinson: Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII

by Hutchinson, Robert

ISBN: 9780297859529

Published: 2011

Henry VIII always had problems with women. Born on 28 June 1491, he lived in the shadow of his elder brother Arthur and his dour and autocratic father, Henry VII. Elizabeth of York, Henry's mother, died when he was twelve and thereafter he lived under the thumb of his formidable grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, who beneath a pious exterior was the arch-conspirator of the last days of the Wars of the Roses. Everything changed when Arthur died of tuberculosis at Ludlow Castle in 1502, less than six months after his marriage to the Spanish princess, Catherine of Aragon. Henry VII died in April 1509 when his sole heir was nine weeks away from his eighteenth birthday. His grandmother acted as regent until his birthday and he married his brother's widow, Catherine on 11 June, two weeks before their joint coronation. Henry quickly swept away the musty cobwebs of his father's court. He loved magnificence, merriment and the hunting field, and could fire an arrow further than most of his...