Henry VIII
Henry VIII
Henry VIII (1491–1547) was King of England from 1509 until his death and the second monarch of the Tudor dynasty. Well educated and gifted in music, languages and sport, he was admired early in his reign as a model Renaissance prince, and in 1521 Pope Leo X named him "Defender of the Faith" for a treatise defending the seven sacraments. The turning point came when the Pope declined to annul his first marriage; under the Act of Supremacy of 1534 he became supreme head of the Church of England, separating it from papal authority and beginning the English Reformation. He greatly expanded the Royal Navy, founded Trinity College, Cambridge, and authorized the Great Bible of 1539, the first official English Bible. Married six times, he was the father of three monarchs: Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. British monarchs still bear the title "Defender of the Faith."
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The Tudor Age
Thomas More served Henry VIII as Lord Chancellor but refused, for reasons of conscience, to accept the king as head of the English church. Henry's daughter Elizabeth I presided over a flourishing of English culture and seafaring: Sir Francis Drake sailed around the world, Edmund Spenser dedicated The Faerie Queene to her, and William Shakespeare's first plays reached the London stage.
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