On June 28, 1491, at Greenwich Palace on the banks of the Thames, a chubby red-haired baby was born to King Henry VII of England and his queen, Elizabeth of York. He was named Henry, after his father, and as the second son nobody expected he would ever wear the crown. He was raised to maybe become a churchman. He learned five languages, played the lute, sang, wrote songs, hunted, and could fire an arrow better than almost anyone in the country. Then in 1502, his older brother Arthur died of a sudden illness, and Henry became the next king-in-waiting.
When he took the throne in 1509 at age 17, Henry VIII was a golden boy. He was tall, athletic, and friendly. But over the next 38 years, he would marry six different women - Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anne, Catherine, and Catherine. Two were divorced, two had their marriages canceled, and two died. When the Pope refused to let Henry divorce his first wife, Henry simply broke England away from the Catholic Church and made himself the head of a brand-new Church of England. Hundreds of monasteries were closed. Their treasures filled Henry's pockets. Out of this very personal argument grew the whole English Reformation, which changed the country forever.
Henry kept building palaces, jousting (until a bad fall ended that), and writing music. He may have composed the still-famous song Greensleeves, though nobody is sure. By the end of his life he was huge - too heavy to walk without help - and grumpy. He died in 1547 and was buried at Windsor Castle. His daughter Elizabeth I would later become one of England's greatest queens, sitting on a throne her father had reshaped with six weddings and one giant act of stubbornness.
