Henry VIII and his many wives

One of the perks of teaching Form 4 History is to be able to teach European History. One chapter ie Chapter 9 is devoted to it. Unfortunately it is only the tip of the iceberg. When the History text was changed to the present one; I was much dismayed because all my favourite topics were removed....the various political revolutions, (French Revolution was my favourite), slavery in America, Boston Tea Party, the American Civil War, how England became a republic (for a short while) etc etc.

In the present text, this chapter is the second last chapter in the whole text book. Of course, it would be close to year end before I enter this topic. By then I would be desperate to complete my syllabus and prepare the students for exam. Hence; not much time left to tell stories.

Anyway when I visited the Royal Mews last year, I managed to buy a set of coasters with the face of all the six wives of Henry VIII and a deck of cards with all the kings and queens of England plus their brief history. Today, I managed to print out a brief history on each of the wife http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/sixwives.htm and pasted it to the back of the coaster. I wrapped them up in plastic and will have them passed around when this topic comes about end of the year.



This is Catherine of Aragon (from Spain) who was married to Henry's older brother, when Henry was 10. Unfortunately the husband died not long after and she married Henry when he became king at the age of 18. She must be older than him by quite a few years.

Anne Boleyn; young and beautiful. Unfortunately her beauty brought her more harm than good. She was beheaded for treason and unfaithfulness. There is even a movie 'The Other Boleyn Girl' about her sister's relationship with the king. I missed visiting the Tower to see the place where she was imprisoned and later executed; much to my disappointment.

Jane Seymour who gave the king a son; Edward but she died after giving birth. This King is cursed or what? To show his love to Jane Seymour, he didn't remarry for quite a while.

Finally when he did take a bride; he was introduced to Anne of Cleves. He was first shown a portrait of this girl. When the girl was brought to him, he didn't find her as good looking as the portrait so he divorced her and put her some where in the country with allowances of course. She must be the luckiest of all...to be a free woman and wealthy.

The king being a womanizer would not be able to live his life without a woman. So he married a young girl; 17 while he was already into his 40s I believe. Catherine Howard was young and lively and she had a few scandals with some men in the court as the king was rather old and obese by then. She was beheaded for her foolishness. Poor woman. It doesn't pay to be a queen.


Finally at his old age, the king married Katherine Parr. She was said to have a lover but gave him up for the king. An intelligent woman, she was able to hold intellectual conversations with the king and those in the court. Eventually the king died and she married her lover.

All the pictures above are from the coasters. The pictures below are selected from the deck of cards.


King Henry VIII when he was much older and fatter. He was a total obese. Interestingly many kings and queens of England turned obese after a while. Too much to eat and not much to do probably. For eg, Queen Victoria. She was real pretty and sweet when she first became queen but as we know in her later years she was totally obese. The lingerie shop; Victoria Secret should be selling oversized lingerie; not dainty little things.

This is the king's only surviving son; Edward. He became the king after HenryVIII died. He became king at the age of 10 and died at the age of 16 due to tuberculosis. How sad.

This is the king's eldest child from his union with Catherine of Aragon. She became Mary I. She was a devout Catholic. It was recorded that 300 protestants died during her reign and she was labelled Bloody Mary.



The virgin queen or Queen Elizabeth I. She was the daughter of Henry VIII with Anne Boleyn. Many books, movies http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/elizafilms.htm have been made about her. What is fact and fiction can be quite gray. She is one of the more popular monarchs and did a lot for her country. As she remained single, the House of Tudor ended with her death.

Well, that is history and putting these into words will help reinforce them in my memory. Our history book does not have any of these juicy stories nor pictures. That is why getting these pictures as teaching aids are pretty good. But of course if I tell too much of these stories, the weaker students will get distracted and remember only the stories and not the facts in the text.