How many wives did Henry VIII have?
We make it two. Or four if you’re a Catholic. Henry’s fourth marriage to Anne of Cleves was annulled. This is very different from divorce. Legally, it means the marriage never took place. There were two grounds for the annulment. Anne and Henry never consummated the marriage; that is, they never had intercourse. Refusal or inability to consummate a marriage is still grounds for annulment today. In addition, Anne was already betrothed to Francis, Duke of Lorraine when she married Henry. At that time, the formal act of betrothal was a legal bar to marrying someone else. All parties agreed no legal marriage had taken place. So that leaves five. The Pope declared Henry’s second marriage to Anne Boleyn illegal, because the King was still married to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Henry, as head of the new Church of England, declared in turn that his first marriage was invalid on the legal ground that a man could not sleep with his brother’s widow. The King cited the Old Testament, whic...