Vivat Rex!: 500th Anniversary of Henry VIII's Accession to the Throne

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This article is about an exhibition about the historical figure Henry VIII. For other uses, see Henry VIII (disambiguation).


Vivat Rex!: 500th Anniversary of Henry VIII's Accession to the Throne, one of the Exhibitions at the Folger, opened on September 24, 2010 and closed December 30, 2010 and was first seen at The Grolier Club in New York. The exhibition was curated by Arthur L. Schwarz. The catalog can be purchased from the Folger Shop.

Contents of the exhibition

Prince Henry, King Henry

The first of the Tudor monarchs, King Henry VII, gained his throne at the Battle of Bosworth, on August 22, 1485. He married Elizabeth of York, uniting the royal houses of Lancaster and York, and they had four children who survived infancy. Their elder son, Prince Arthur, married Catherine of Aragon, but he died without an heir at the age of fifteen. Henry VII himself died on April 21, 1509, and two days later his second son, not yet eighteen, was proclaimed King Henry VIII. Within two months, the new king married his brother’s widow, having received papal dispensation to do so some five years earlier. What they wanted most was a son and heir, but this was not to be: a son, named Henry for his father, was born on New Year’s Day, 1511, but he died seven weeks later.

Pictured here is Henry VIII's birthplace—Greenwich Palace (earlier named Placentia, “the palace of courtesy”). The palace was demolished in the seventeenth century, and the Old Royal Navy College now stands on the same site.

Items included

  • (LOAN courtesy of The Royal Collection, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Photograph of Laughing child, possibly Henry VIII. Painted and gilded terracotta bust, ca. 1498, attributed to Guido Mazzoni. RCIN 73197.)
  • James Basire. A view of the antient royal palace called Placentia. Print, 1767, in William Macready. Macready's Reminiscences. London: Macmillan & Co., 1875. Call number: ART Vol. a60 Vol.3 and LUNA Digital Image.

Educating a Young King

The early years of Henry’s reign were occupied with warfare against France and Scotland, worry about a possible invasion of Europe by Muslim forces, and concern for his throne, which was always vulnerable to possible usurpers. Meanwhile, Henry studied the arts of leadership and kingship, drawing inspiration from books by Thomas More, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Desiderius Erasmus.

The volume pictured here, whose title translates as “Familiar Commentary on the ‘Duties’ of Cicero,” is Henry’s own schoolboy text, inscribed “Thys Boke Is Myne Prynce Henry.” In addition to Henry’s assertive ownership claim, the volume contains numerous glosses, annotations, notes, and aphorisms in the hand of Henry and what is thought to be that of his tutor, the poet John Skelton. It is one of the earliest surviving examples of a book containing Henry’s annotations.

In a woodcut image of the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513, Scotland's James IV stands outside his tent before battle. Henry and James were rivals; the Scottish king was killed in the battle. This case also included Henry VIII as a young man from the Trevelyon Miscellany, and an image of his rival, James IV, from Henry Holland's Book of Kings.

Listen to curator Arthur L. Schwarz discuss Henry's copy of Cicero.

Items included

  • Marcus Tullius Cicero. Commentú familiare in Ciceronis officia. Lyon: Etienne Gueynard, 1502. Call number: PA 6295 .A3 1502 Cage and LUNA Digital Image.
  • LOAN courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum from the collections of Frances Mary Richardson Currer and A. W. Griswold. Richard Faques. Hereafter ensue the trewe encountre or batayle lately don betwene Englande and Scotlande: in whiche batayle the Scottsshe kynge was slayne. London, 1809. Morgan call number: 006828
  • Thomas Trevelyon. Trevelyon Miscellany [formerly called Commonplace book]. Manuscript, 1608. Call number: V.b.232; displayed Leaf 217, image of Henry VIII.
  • LOAN courtesy of the Houghton Library of the Harvard College Library; Gift of Christian A. Zabriskie in memory of Edward Powis Jones. Henry Holland. Baziliōlogia = A Booke of kings: beeing the true and lively effigies of all our English kings from the Conquest untill this present, with their severall coats of armes, impreses and devises, and a briefe chronologie of their lives and deaths. London, 1618. Harvard call number: Houghton f STC 13581.

King at Court

Henry VIII was heavily influenced by the writings of Erasmus, More, Machiavelli, and Thomas Elyot, which provided him with advice and suggested appropriate standards of royal behavior. But Henry and his court had much more fun and pleasure than these treatises on morality may suggest. Ruler and courtiers outfitted themselves richly, according to their station, and Henry’s jester, Will Sommers, provided merriment in the court, much to the annoyance of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who detested him. He might well have done so, as one of Sommers’s favorite pastimes was lampooning the cardinal.

This view of Nonsuch, near Epsom, in Surrey, was engraved some thirty-five years after Henry’s death but nevertheless provides an excellent impression of one of his royal palaces that is long gone. Arguably the greatest of Henry VIII’s building projects, Nonsuch was begun in 1538 but remained incomplete at the king’s death, almost nine years later. It was built to demonstrate the grandeur and power of the Tudor monarchy and to compete with the palace of Chambord, built by Henry’s great rival, Francis I, king of France.

Pictured here is Henry's jester, Will Sommers, wearing an elaborate coat with the letters “HR”—“Henricus Rex”—embroidered on the chest and jester’s cap tucked into his belt. Sommers was Henry's jester for over twenty years. He amused the king with foolish riddles and by playing practical jokes on Cardinal Wolsey, who could never abide him.

Items included

  • Franz Hogenberg after Georg Hoefnagel.Palatium regium in Angliae regno appellatum Nonciutz. Engraved by Franz Hogenberg, Hand-colored engraving from Braun and Hogenberg's Civitates Orbis Terrarum. Germany, 1582. Call number: ART Box H716 no.1 (size L) and LUNA Digital Image.
  • Francis Delaram. Will Sommers, King Heneryes Jester. What though thou thinkst mee clad in strange attire... Print, ca. 1618-27. Call number: ART 256- 916 (size S) and LUNA Digital Image.

Power and Pageantry; Magnificence and Munificence

Henry was the father of the English navy and, by the time of his death in 1547, the fleet had grown to fifty-eight ships. The extravagant ship “Great Harry” conveyed him and part of his retinue to France for his meeting with Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. In England, Henry also made a point of putting on display his vast wealth and his indulgent lifestyle. In 1546, Henry combined Cambridge’s King’s Hall and Michaelhouse Colleges to found Trinity College with the goal of producing future leaders of the Church of England. He also completed the hugely expensive construction of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, which was begun a century earlier. Despite these grand gestures, one might conclude that his goal was less to further education than to demonstrate his wealth and power.

This painting depicts The Field of the Cloth of Gold—the name given to the site of a meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I of France. Henry and Francis tried to impress and outshine each other, and neither spared any expense. Huge temporary pavilions were erected to serve as halls and chapels, and great silken tents were decorated with gems and cloth of gold. Organized jousts and tilts, other competitions of skill and strength, masked balls, and lavish banquets filled the days and evenings. Henry challenged the French king to a wrestling match. Francis won.

Two items of further shows of power and wealth are King's College and a manuscript listing the gifts given by Henry for New Years Day, 1539.

King’s College was first founded by Henry VI in 1441, but it was only under the first two Tudor kings, Henry VII and Henry VIII, that its spectacular chapel was completed. The majority of construction and glazing of the windows was completed during the reign of Henry VIII, who was also responsible for the chancel screen, which bears the carved initials of Henry and Anne Boleyn, and much of the chapel woodwork. When Henry died in 1547, King’s College Chapel was recognized as one of Europe’s finest buildings.

The New Year's gift roll is eight and one-half feet long and signed on both sides by the king. It lists the gifts given by Henry to various recipients, arranged in descending order of precedence. Listed are “the Lorde Prince (Edward),” “the Lady Mariee,” “the Lady Elizabeth,” and “the Lady Margret Doughtles,” followed by “Bisshops,” “Dukes and Erles,” and lesser “Lordes.” The value of each gift is listed in the right-hand column. On the back of the document are some of the gifts received by the king, also in descending order of precedence. In the section headed “Gentelmen,” the gifts presented to Henry include “a brase of greyhoundes” from the marquis of Dorset, “a boke covered with grene velvet” from Lord Morley, “a night cap with cheynes & buttons of golde” from the Countess of Hampton, and “a shirte of camericke wrought in silke” from Lord Richard Grey.

Learn more about the gift roll by listening to the curator's audio tour remarks.

Items included

  • LOAN courtesy of The Royal Collection, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Unknown Artist. The Field of the Cloth of Gold. Painting, ca. 1545. RCIN 405794.
  • LOAN courtesy of Arthur L. Schwarz. Rudolph Ackerman. A History of the University of Cambridge. London, 1815.
  • Henry VIII. New Year’s gift roll of Henry VIII, King of England. Manuscript, 1 January 1538/9. Call number: Z.d.11 and LUNA Digital Image.

Defender of the Faith

When Martin Luther published his ninety-five Theses (1518) and his On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520), he ignited a controversy far greater than any he intended or imagined. While many agreed with his desire for a reformation of the Church’s excesses, others leapt to defend the papacy and its teachings. For his Assertion (Defense) of the Seven Sacraments against Martin Luther (1521), Pope Leo X named Henry VIII “Defender of the Faith,” a title still held today by British monarchs.

Prominent churchmen on the Continent and in England wrote spirited defenses of the Church against Luther’s “heresies.” People stood for hours inside churches and outdoors in churchyards to listen to sermons like this one by John Fisher. These sermons would have been delivered with enthusiasm and fervor. Copies of Fisher’s attack on Luther are very rare, this being one of only two complete survivors.

The battle between Martin Luther and the Roman Catholic Church continued with polemical writings emanating from both camps. Attack followed attack, and others like John Fisher and Thomas More joined Henry in defense of the Church and the papacy against Lutheran heresies.

With hindsight, the irony is clear: within a dozen years, Henry VIII would break from Rome and establish himself as head of the Church of England.

Listen to curator Arthur Schwarz talk about Henry's new title, "Defender of the Faith."

Hear the curator discuss a purple vellum gift thought to have been given to him by Pope Leo X.

Items included

  • LOAN courtesy of Arthur L. Schwarz. Henry VIII. Assertio septem sacramentorum: or, a defence of the seven sacraments, against Martin Luther. London, 1687.
  • John Fisher. The sermon of Johan the bysshop of Rochester made agayn the pernicious doctryn of Martin luther within the octaves of the ascensyon by the assingement of the most reverend fader in god th] lord Thomas Cardinal of Yorke and legate ex latere from our holy father the pope. London: Wynkyn de Worde, 1521?. Call number: STC 10894 and LUNA Digital Image.
  • Henry VIII, King of England. Assertio septem sacramentorum adversus Martin. Lutherum, ædita ab invictissimo Angliæ et Franciæ rege, et do. Hyberniæ Henrico eius nominis octavo. London, 1521. Call number: STC 13078 and LUNA Digital Image.
  • LOAN courtesy of the Morgan Library and Museum. The Golden Gospels of Henry VIII. Manuscript, ca. 977-993. Morgan call number: MS M.23.

The King's Great Matter: Catherine of Aragon

Having no male heir to succeed him, the King sought a divorce from Catherine of Aragon—in twenty-first-century terminology, an “annulment”—citing the Biblical prohibition of marriage to one’s brother’s wife. The “king’s great matter” was further complicated by his infatuation with Anne Boleyn, who refused his amorous advances; for her, it was marriage or nothing.

With Cardinal Wolsey in charge, Henry petitioned Rome to grant the divorce, but the pope was under the thumb of the Emperor, Charles V, who was also Catherine’s nephew. A court was convened, opinions were sought from theological experts across Europe, but all was in vain. It was Henry VIII vs. the Roman Catholic Church, with no softening of position on either side.

William Tyndale penned The Practyse of Prelates as a treatise on the excesses and abuses of Church power and the matter of the king’s proposed divorce. Tyndale, best known for his translation of the Bible into English, sharply attacked the English prelacy, antagonizing both Church and important government leaders. In the second part of the book are Tyndale’s aggressive objections to Henry VIII’s proposed divorce of Catherine of Aragon.

In Henry's answer to Practyse of Prelates, Henry argues that the pope cannot dispense with the law of God and cannot, therefore, waive the biblical stricture against marrying one’s brother’s wife. He repeatedly declares that the pope has no power to override the law of Scripture nor the power to revoke to Rome a case that should, by both Church and English law, be heard in England. This is the first hint of Henry’s coming attack on the supremacy of the pope in the English Church.

Learn more about Catherine's defense of her position by listening to the curator's audio comments on the letter she wrote to her nephew, Emperor Charles V.

Items included

  • LOAN courtesy of The Royal Collection, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Unknown Artist. Caterina Prima Uxor Henrici Octavi. Oil on panel, ca. 1550–1699. RCIN 404746.
  • Henry VIII. A glass of the truthe. London: Thomas Berthelet, 1532?. Call number: STC 11919 and LUNA Digital Image.
  • LOAN Courtesy of the Morgan Library and Museum. Catherine of Aragon. Autograph letter signed to her nephew Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Manuscript, 22 February 1531. Morgan call number: Rulers of England Box 02, Henry VIII, no. 29.

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey

The influence of Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York and Henry’s confidante and closest advisor for almost twenty years, was far greater in secular matters than in ecclesiastical ones. Wolsey was ordained a priest in 1498, and, following a series of appointments, including one as chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, he was appointed chaplain to Henry VIII in 1507. In 1515, the pope named him cardinal, and later the same year, Henry named him lord chancellor, giving him the highest secular position in the land (save for the King). Although reviled by many as a self-aggrandizing, over-powerful butcher’s son, he was responsible for many good works, including the founding of Cardinal College, later renamed Christ Church.

Wolsey lost Henry’s confidence following his failure to obtain for the king a divorce from Catherine of Aragon. He fell from favor and was stripped of his government office and property, lamenting, “if I had served God as dyligently as I have don the Kyng, he wold not have gevyn me over in my gray heares.” He was arrested and accused of treason in his diocese of York. In great distress, he set out for London, but fell ill and died on the way, on November 29, 1530, around the age of sixty.

This painting depicts Wolsey’s downfall in Act 3, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII. The artist shows the cardinal being stripped of his power by the duke of Suffolk, Lord Surrey, the duke of Norfolk, and the lord chamberlain. His right hand rests on a bag containing the great seal. The figures’ faces are based on actual portraits of the men involved. This painting is one of four Henry VIII scenes Westall painted for the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery. The three smaller paintings, this one included, were engraved for the nine-volume edition of Shakespeare published by Boydell in 1802.

Listen to Arthur Schwarz discuss Cardinal Wolsey.

Items included

  • Richard Westall. Wolsey Disgraced. Oil on canvas, 1795. Call number: FPa84 and LUNA Digital Image.
  • LOAN courtesy of Arthur L. Schwarz. Rudolph Ackermann. A History of the University of Oxford. London, 1814.

The Break with Rome

Although opposed by Thomas More, John Fisher, and others, Henry solved the problem of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon by following a path designed by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and More’s successor as chancellor, Thomas Cromwell: he separated the English Catholic Church from the Roman, declared the “pope” to be merely the “bishop of Rome,” without rights or title superior to other bishops, and took for himself the title “Supreme Head of the Church of England.” It was Cromwell, Henry’s chief minister from 1532 to 1540, who suggested that Henry make himself head of the English Church and who was also responsible for drafting the legislation that formalized England’s break with Rome.

Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor of England, rather than champion Henry’s divorce, of which he disapproved on theological grounds. In 1534, the Act of Succession established the order in which Henry's heirs could inherit the crown, eliminating the now bastardized Mary and putting in children born to Anne Boleyn, whose marriage to Henry was now deemed proper. When it came time to swear to uphold this act, whose preamble offended his religious beliefs, More stood his ground and refused. He was executed on July 6, 1535. Four hundred years later, he and Bishop Fisher, who met a similar fate, were canonized as saints by the Roman Catholic Church. More and Fisher were not alone in their belief that Henry’s split from Rome was heretical. Evidence of the controversy can be found in passages variously canceled or honored in devotional books of hours.

The layman’s book of devotions shown at right was intended for private use. In this copy, many of the rubrics which are particularly offensive to anti-Roman Catholics have been lightly cancelled in ink, as required by royal injunctions, but they are still legible; in several cases the word “pope” has been scratched out. Other copies can be found with the rubrics intact and, in some cases, a number of the initials and images gilded as a show of devotion.

Listen to curator Arthur Schwarz discuss differences in personal devotional books.

Items included

  • LOAN courtesy of Arthur L. Schwarz. John Foxe. Acts and monuments of matters most special and memorable, happening in the church: with an universal history of the same. London, 1684.
  • LOAN courtesy of Arthur L. Schwarz. Francesco Bartolozzi after Hans Holbein the Younger. Tho. Moor Ld. Chancelour. Engraving, 1792-1800.
  • [Book of Hours (Salisbury)]. Hore Beatissime virginis marie ad legitimum Sarisburiensis Ecclesie ritum, cum quindecim orationibus beate Brigitte, ac multis alijs orationibus pulcherrimis, et indulgentijs, cum tabula aptissima iam ultimo adiectis. Paris, 1530. Call number: STC 15968 and LUNA Digital Image.

Reforming the Church

Henry, with Thomas Cromwell as his newly appointed vicegerent of spirituals, set about distancing his Church from the Roman Church and acquiring its vast wealth for the Crown. In addition, the 1530s saw the imposition of many new Church practices, required by the “Act of Ten Articles,” including the purchase of Bibles in English translation, requirements for education and moral conduct of the priesthood, and a recognition of three sacraments (baptism, penance, and the Eucharist) rather than the Roman Church’s seven. In two other critical areas the Articles differed from the Roman Church, as well as from emerging Protestant teachings: transubstantiation (the miraculous conversion of wine and bread into the blood and body of Christ) was not specifically mentioned; and the Lutheran “justification by faith alone” (the belief that God’s forgiveness of guilty sinners is granted and received solely through faith or belief, and not through any human efforts or works) was noted but not fully accepted.

Items included

  • Gilbert Burnet. The History of the Reformation of the Church of England. London: T.H. for Richard Chiswell, 1681. Call number: B5798 Vol.1 and LUNA Digital Image.

The Bible in English

One of the most important results of Henry’s reformation of the English Church was the production of Bibles translated into the vernacular. What earlier would have been a crime—possessing a Bible in English—became a requirement for all churches in the realm. Henry’s influence as Head of the Church of England can be seen in the images and iconography on the title pages of these early English bibles. Unlike medieval royalty, who received the symbols of royal power such as the orb and scepter from the clergy, the king is no longer separate from the church but has become an integral part of it. His developing power is exemplified by the location of his image on the title page: in the 1535 Coverdale Bible Henry’s image is at the foot of the title page; four years later, Henry sits almost at the top, immediately under a very small image of the risen Christ.

Henry's influence and writings as the Head of the Church of England were not without controversy. Pictured at right is the Index of Prohibited Books (1559), a list of books forbidden to Roman Catholics as dangerous to faith or morals. In it, the works of “Henricus viij Anglus” are listed among the Auctores quorum libri & scripta omnia prohibentur—authors all of whose books and writings are prohibited. Others afforded similar treatment include Coverdale, Cranmer, Erasmus, Luther, and Tyndale. The ban on all of Henry’s books also included Assertio Septem Sacramentorum—or the Defense of the Seven Sacraments—for which the pope had named him “Defender of the Faith.” Years later, the Inquisition tried to censor Shakespeare’s Henry VIII for making statements which the Church thought offensive.

Listen to Arthur Schwarz discuss the great Bible in English.

Items included

  • LOAN courtesy of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Byble in Englyshe: that is to saye the content of all the holy Scrypture, bothe of ye Olde and Newe testament, truly translated after the veryte of the Hebrue and Greke textes, by ye dylygent studye of dyuerse excellent learned men, expert in the forsayde tonges.. London: Rychard Grafton & Edward Whitchurch, 1539. U of Illinois call number: IUQ00027.
  • Index auctorum, et librorum qui ab Officio Sanctae Rom, et Universalis Inquisitionis caveri ab omnibus et singulis in uniuersa Christiana republica mandantur: sub censuris contra legentes, vel tenentes libros prohibitos in bulla, quae lecta est in Coena Domini expressis, & sub aliis poenis in decreto eiusdem Sacri Officii contentis. Genoa, 1559. Call number: Z1020 .I559 Cage and LUNA Digital Image.

Henry's Wives

The Final Years

Verdicts on the Reign

Supplemental materials

Vivat Rex! children's exhibition

Audio tour

Related Programs

Talks and Screenings at the Folger

  • Folger Friday: Henry VIII Discussion, October 15, 2010
  • Henry VIII: Art and Magnificence, November 5, 2010
  • A Reading by Margaret George, author of The Autobiography of Henry VIII, November 29, 2010

Folger Theatre

  • William Shakespeare's Henry VIII, October 12 – November 28, 2010

Folger Consort

Folger Institute