Individual work. Choose the story of one of Henry VIII’s 6 wives and make a report in group.

Exercise 3.36

Pair work. Read and entitle the text.

The precise nature of the disease or diseases from which the king suffered in his last years cannot now be determined from the rather imprecise medical evidence available, but it is clear that his latter-day obesity was abnormal and almost totally incapacitating, and that from about 1537 onwards he suffered agonies from an ulcerated leg. On 28 January 1547 death came at last to Henry VIII who, during the course of his long reign, had sent so many others to the scaf­fold. Long after his doctors had despaired of his recovery his courtiers were unable to bring themselves to tell him to prepare for death, so mortally afraid of his anger were they to the very end. Consequently Cranmer, whom alone of all men the king really trusted because of his patent lack of ambition and all-embracing charity, was almost too late to administer comfort to his dying sovereign. Henry was past speech when the archbishop came to him, and could only press his hand in token of his faith. He left his kingdom, the kingdom for whose external security and internal peace he believed he had exerted himself to the utmost of his ability all of his days, to a boy of nine.

The great achievement of Henry’s reign, view it how you will, was the cementing together of his kingdom under the unchallenged and all-embracing power of the crown. All else had been ancillary to this. The rejection of the papal supremacy had followed on, as we have seen, from the king’s concern with his marriage and the succession, but a showdown between the king and the pope was probably inevitable in any case, and might well have arisen out of some other matter. Henry could not abide any rival in his realm. The Church in England would have to acknowledge his authority as effectively as did the parliament and other institutions of the state. Those who presumed to set themselves up as rivals to the king, be they native peers or alien bishops, were all struck down with equal vigour. The crown alone emerged triumphant, but by the time the process was at an end it was often impossible to distinguish the interest of the crown from the selfish will of a bloated tyrant.

Exercise 3.37

Group work. Read the text of exercise 3.36 again and tell about Henry VIII’s achievements as a king.

PART IV. Follow-up activities.

Exercise 3.38

Individual work. Match the dates with the events in King Henry’s life and restore his biography.

1491	Princess Mary born
1501	Birth of Prince Edward. Death of Jane Seymour.
1502	Death of Arthur. Henry becomes Heir to the throne
1509	Henry marries and divorces Anne of Cleves; Henry marries Catherine Howard
1516	Anne Boleyn divorced by Henry and beheaded. Henry marries Jane Seymour.
1533	Death of King Henry VIII
1536	Henry marries Catherine Parr.
1537	Birth of Henry, second son of King Henry VII
1540	Catherine Howard beheaded
1542	Henry divorces Catherine of Aragon; Henry marries Anne Boleyn. Birth of Princess Elizabeth.
1543	Marriage of Arthur, Prince of Wales, to Catherine of Aragon
1547	Death of King Henry VII. Henry accedes to the throne and marries Catherine of Aragon, his elder brother’s widow.

Exercise 3.39

Group work. Read the texts in the left column and match them with the names in the right column.

1) (1507-36) Second wife of Henry VIII and mother of Elizabeth I. She lived at Henry’s court and drew many admirers. The king himself fell in love with her. They were secretly married in January 1533 when Henry’s marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, had not been annulled. The new queen gave birth to a daughter, the

a) Thomas More

b) Edward VI

c) Lady Jane Grey

d) Mary I

e) Thomas Cranmer

future Queen Elizabeth I. Soon Henry lost interest in his young wife and in May 1536 she was committed to the Tower of London on a charge of adultery. She was tried and beheaded.

2) (1475-1530) Roman Catholic ecclesiastic and statesman who dominated the government of England from 1515 to 1529. He had a rapid advancement under.

f)Thomas Wolsey

g)Anne Boleyn

Henry VIII who made him Archbishop of York in 1514 and a year later the statesman received the post of Lord Chancellor. He was unable to secure papal sanction for the king’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and it led to his downfall. In 1530 he was arrested and charged with high treason. He died while in custody.

3) (1537-54) Titular queen of England for 9 days in 1553. Edward VI designated her successor to the throne and she was proclaimed queen after Edward’s death. Edward’s half-sister, Mary Tudor, had the support of the populace and she deposed the young lady who together with her husband were accused of high treason and sentenced to death.

4) (1478-1535), a writer and statesman, was favoured by Henry VIII. In 523, he became Speaker of the House of Commons and in 1529 he succeeded Wolsey as Lord Chancellor. A devout Catholic, he refused to recognize Henry VIII as Head of the Church and the king had him imprisoned in the Tower of London and executed. His “Utopia”, written in Latin in 1516, describes an ideal state. He was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church

5) (1489-1556) First Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, adviser to Henry VIII. In 1533, he declared Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon null and void, and crowned Anne Boleyn queen. He supported the movement to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne. When Mary became queen, Cranmer was tried for heresy, found guilty and burned at the stake.

6) (1535-53) Son of King Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, he succeeded his father in 1547 at the age of 10. The youth was a strong Protestant and a supporter of the Reformation. When dying, he named Lady Jane Grey his successor so as to prevent his Roman Catholic sister Mary from becoming queen.

7) (1516-58) Daughter of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, she secured the crown in 1553 after deposing Lady Jane Grey. A Roman Catholic, she reversed the religious changes of her father. She married Philip II of

Spain, restored the Catholic creed and revived the laws against heresy. During the three years of her reign about 300 Protestants were burned at the stake. These persecutions won her the nickname of Bloody Mary.

Exercise 3.40

Individual work. Choose any topic from those given below and make a report in group. Use additional information from http://www.refseek.com/search?q=Henry+VIII

1) Role of a personality in history.

2) “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” (Lord Acton, 1834-1902)

3) The phenomenon of the Church of England: the result of European reformation or a king’s caprice?

4) Henry VIII: “the bloody stain” on human history or a victim of circumstances?

5) Henry VIII and Reformation.

7) England after the death of Henry VIII.

8) Henry VIII and his contemporaries.