Henry VIII had six wives, which means he also had six weddings. But none of them resembled the grand public spectacles we associate with royal marriage today. Every single ceremony was secretive, private, and deliberately hidden from the eyes of his subjects. Yet that secrecy never meant the weddings lacked scandal or drama.
The most extravagant wedding in Tudor history actually belonged to Catherine of Aragon’s first marriage, not to Henry VIII, but to his older brother, Prince Arthur. In 1501, the couple married at Old St. Paul’s Cathedral before the eyes of all London, and the celebrations stretched on for two full weeks. The cost would equal roughly $1.
2 million in today’s money. Catherine had arrived in England as a Spanish princess destined for the throne, but her world collapsed when Arthur died in 1502, leaving her future painfully uncertain. For seven years, negotiations over her fate dragged on, with plans constantly changing. She was supposed to marry Henry VIII in 1505, but just one day before the ceremony, Henry’s father convinced the young prince to back out for political reasons.
Catherine became a rejected bride, her hopes shattered once again. But fate had other plans. After Henry VII’s death, the new king finally made Catherine his wife on June 11, 1509. The contrast was stark.
There was no magnificent celebration at Greenwich Palace, only a small private ceremony with just two witnesses besides the couple and the priest. The Archbishop of Canterbury asked whether the couple willed to fulfill the marriage treaty concluded by their fathers and the King and Queen of Spain, taking the princess as a lawful wife. Both answered, “I will. ” That was it.
No long speeches, no elaborate vows. They simply went to mass. Catherine wore white for both of her weddings, long before Queen Victoria made the tradition mainstream. Her first dress was white satin in the Spanish style, with farthingales beneath the skirt and a white veil.
Her second was simpler, with a golden circlet on her head and her hair worn loose as a symbol of innocence. She always insisted her marriage to Arthur had never been consummated, that she came to Henry a virgin. The simplicity of the wedding itself was deliberate, because all the money and effort had been reserved for the magnificent coronation that followed two weeks later. Catherine finally became Queen of England, fulfilling what she believed was her destiny.
She held that position for 24 years, until Henry found another woman. Anne Boleyn married her future husband and future executioner not once, but twice. The first ceremony most likely took place on November 14, 1532, after the couple returned from their trip to meet Francis I of France in Calais. The secrecy was so complete that the existence of this marriage is confirmed only through the words of the chronicler Edward Hall, who wrote that the King, after his return, married Anne Boleyn privately on St.
Erkenwald’s Day, and that the marriage was kept so secret. The strongest evidence it happened is that Anne became pregnant soon after. Both at that first wedding and at the second, which took place on January 25, 1533, at Whitehall Palace, Henry was still officially married to Catherine of Aragon and had not received papal permission for an annulment. Technically, the King was a bigamist.
The ceremony was performed by Rowland Lee, a priest loyal to the King, with only a handful of witnesses. Among them were Henry Norris, who would later be executed for allegedly sleeping with Anne, and Anne Savage, Lady Berkeley, Anne’s close friend, who carried the train of her gown. Even Eustace Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador who constantly spied on everything at court, only learned about the marriage a month later. Anne’s marriage and pregnancy remained a tightly guarded secret until Easter Sunday 1533, when she was finally publicly announced as queen.
Her coronation on June 1st was magnificent. By then, Henry had established his pattern: the wedding stays simple and secret, while all the money goes into the coronation. Anne’s marriage lasted only three years. On May 19, 1536, she was executed on charges of adultery, and the marriage she had fought for so desperately was officially annulled.
Within 24 hours of her execution, Henry was already engaged to Jane Seymour, and just 11 days later they were married. Even subjects accustomed to the King’s outrageous behavior were shocked by the timing. The private ceremony took place at Whitehall Palace in the Queen’s closet, the same palace where Henry had married Anne Boleyn. Anne’s presence was still everywhere.
Her intertwined initials with Henry were carved into the walls, windows, and ceilings, and servants were desperately trying to replace them with new ones. The wedding vows would have sounded familiar: the promise to have and to hold, for better or worse, till death do us part, with Jane adding the pledge to be bonny and buxom in bed and board. After the ceremony, a reception was held where Jane sat beneath a great canopy like a queen. She was officially proclaimed queen on the feast of Pentecost, the very same religious holiday on which Anne Boleyn’s coronation had taken place three years earlier.
The marriage gave Henry the long-awaited son he had dreamed of, but it ended only 17 months after the wedding with Jane’s death. By the time Henry sought his fourth wife, he was already dreading the prospect. Looking at Anne of Cleves, he reportedly said he must needs, against his will, put his neck in the yoke. From the instant they met, it was obvious the union was doomed and that Henry was deeply disappointed.
But strangely, Anne of Cleves ended up having the most perfect royal wedding of all of Henry’s brides. Only five days after their first meeting, on January 6, 1540, Henry dressed in magnificent attire, a fur-trimmed robe of cloth of gold embroidered with large silver flowers, and made his way to the chapel. Anne appeared lavishly dressed in a gown of rich cloth of gold adorned with large flowers made of oriental pearls, in the rounded Dutch style. Her hair hung loose, and on her head rested a golden crown decorated with great precious stones.
Henry placed a ring on her finger engraved with her motto, “God send me well to keep,” a ring Anne would return to him only six months later. After the ceremony, the couple walked hand in hand to hear mass, then wine and spices were served, and the evening ended with the traditional bedding ceremony. The marital bed had an oak headboard carved with erotic images of pregnant cherubs, meant to remind the couple of their duties. They had little effect.
By the very next morning, Henry was already complaining to his courtiers about Anne’s appearance and searching for reasons to divorce her. The reasons were found, and in July 1540 the marriage was annulled. By that point, Henry was already planning a fifth wedding. His attention had been captured by the young Catherine Howard, whom he married only 19 days later on July 28, 1540.
As with his previous wives, the ceremony was extremely private, this time at Oatlands Palace, far from London. For nearly ten days, almost nobody knew the wedding had happened, because Henry wanted to enjoy his new marriage in peace. Only afterward was Catherine officially introduced to court as queen. But the same day that marked Catherine’s new beginning marked the end of Thomas Cromwell.
The disastrous marriage alliance with Anne of Cleves that Cromwell had arranged became the final blow to his relationship with the King. Henry discarded him the same way he had discarded so many others. Cromwell was beheaded on Tower Hill for corruption, heresy, and treason, dismissed by Henry as a ragged and beggarly wretch who had served him poorly. The young bride who celebrated so joyfully that day would meet her own death in that same place only a year and a half later, also accused of treason and adultery, a victim of her youthful infatuation with the King’s servant Thomas Culpepper.
After five marriages, one might think Henry would finally stop in the twilight years of his life. But he now searched not simply for a young bride, but for a companion for old age. His choice fell on Catherine Parr, an attractive and intelligent 30-year-old widow. Catherine did not want to marry the King.
She had been married twice before, first to a sickly young man, then to an elderly husband, and she finally wanted to marry the person she truly loved, Thomas Seymour, the brother of Queen Jane Seymour. Henry, sensing a rival, sent Seymour abroad and made Catherine an offer she could not refuse. Their wedding took place on July 12, 1543, in the Queen’s Closet, and this time around twenty guests attended, an enormous number for one of Henry’s weddings. Immediately after the ceremony, a breakfast reception was held during which everyone was officially informed that Catherine was now queen.
By old age, Henry had apparently lost his passion for hiding his weddings from the world. This marriage became the last of Henry’s life. At one point, a conspiracy arose accusing Catherine of heresy, and many at court already believed the King would once again execute his queen and move on to a seventh wife. But Catherine Parr escaped that fate and became the final wife of England’s infamous king.
For Catherine herself, this marriage was not the last one. Only four months after Henry’s death, she finally married her true love, Thomas Seymour, and it caused a huge scandal. She was the dowager queen, and the timing was considered far too fast. People believed she should still be mourning her husband, yet she entered a new marriage almost immediately.
Henry himself had never cared about timing when it came to marriage and always married exactly when he wanted to, so in a way, Catherine paid him back with the very same coin. A wedding day is supposed to mark the start of a happy new chapter. For Henry VIII’s wives, it marked the beginning of a life filled with fear, uncertainty, and survival beside one of the most unpredictable and dangerous kings in history.
