Editing Henry VIII (section)

== Wives, mistresses, and children ==
{{See also|Wives of Henry VIII|Children of Henry VIII|Mistresses of Henry VIII}}

English historian and [[House of Tudor]] expert [[David Starkey]] describes Henry VIII as follows:

{{Blockquote|What is extraordinary is that Henry was usually a very good husband. And he liked women{{Snd}}that's why he married so many of them! He was very tender to them, we know that he addressed them as "sweetheart". He was a good lover, he was very generous: the wives were given huge settlements of land and jewels{{Snd}}they were loaded with jewels. He was immensely considerate when they were pregnant. But, once he had fallen out of love ... he just cut them off. He just withdrew. He abandoned them. They didn't even know he'd left them.<ref name="StarkeyWives"/>}}

{| class="wikitable"
|+Known children of Henry VIII of England

|-
! Name
! Birth
! Death
! Notes

|-
! colspan=4 | '''''By [[Catherine of Aragon]]''''' (married [[Palace of Placentia]] 11 June 1509; annulled 23 May 1533)

|-
| Unnamed daughter
| colspan=2 style="text-align: center" | 31 January 1510
| stillborn

|-
| [[Henry, Duke of Cornwall]]
| 1 January 1511
| 22 February 1511
| died aged almost two months

|-
| Unnamed son
| colspan=2 style="text-align: center" | 17 September 1513
| died shortly after birth

|-
| Unnamed son
| colspan=2 style="text-align: center" | November 1514<ref>According to [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1139382/?page=4 John Dewhurst in The alleged miscarriages of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn: 1984, p. 52], the Venetian ambassador wrote to his senate in November that "The queen has been delivered of a stillborn male child of eight months to the very great grief of the whole court", Holinshed, the chronicler, reported that "in November the queen was delivered of a prince which lived not long after", and John Stow wrote "in the meantime, to Whit, the month of November, the queen was delivered of a prince which lived not long after".</ref>
| died shortly after birth

|-
| Queen [[Mary I]]
| 18 February 1516
| 17 November 1558
| married [[Philip II of Spain]] in 1554; no issue

|-
| Unnamed daughter
| colspan=2 style="text-align: center" | 10 November 1518
| stillborn in the 8th month of pregnancy{{Sfn|Starkey|2003|p=160}} or lived at least one week

|-
! colspan=4 | '''''By [[Elizabeth Blount]]''''' (mistress; bore the only illegitimate child Henry VIII acknowledged as his son)

|-
| [[Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset]]
| 15 June 1519
| 23 July 1536
| illegitimate; acknowledged by Henry VIII in 1525; no issue

|-
! colspan=4 | '''''By [[Anne Boleyn]]''''' (married [[Westminster Abbey]] 25 January 1533; annulled 17 May 1536) beheaded 19 May 1536

|-
| Queen [[Elizabeth I]]
| 7 September 1533
| 24 March 1603
| never married; no issue

|-
| Unnamed child
| colspan=2 style="text-align: center" | Summer 1534{{Sfn|Porter|2007|p=337}}
| miscarriage or false pregnancy{{Efn|Eustace Chapuys wrote to Charles V on 28 January reporting that Anne was pregnant. A letter from George Taylor to Lady Lisle dated 27 April 1534 says "The queen hath a goodly belly, praying our Lord to send us a prince". In July, Anne's brother, Lord Rochford, was sent on a diplomatic mission to France to ask for the postponement of a meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I because of Anne's condition: "being so far gone with child she could not cross the sea with the king". Chapuys backs this up in a letter dated 27 July, where he refers to Anne's pregnancy. We do not know what happened with this pregnancy as there is no evidence of the outcome. Dewhurst writes of how the pregnancy could have resulted in a miscarriage or stillbirth, but there is no evidence to support this, he therefore wonders if it was a case of pseudocyesis, a false pregnancy, caused by the stress that Anne was under – the pressure to provide a son. Chapuys wrote on 27 September 1534 "Since the king began to doubt whether his lady was enceinte or not, he has renewed and increased the love he formerly had for a beautiful damsel of the court". Muriel St Clair Byrne, editor of the Lisle Letters, believes that this was a false pregnancy too.}}

|-
| Unnamed child
| colspan=2 style="text-align: center" | 1535
| Possible miscarriage{{Efn|The only evidence for a miscarriage in 1535 is a sentence from a letter from William Kingston to Lord Lisle on 24 June 1535 when Kingston says "Her Grace has as fair a belly as I have ever seen". However, Dewhurst thinks that there is an error in the dating of this letter as the editor of the Lisle Letters states that this letter is actually from 1533 or 1534 because it also refers to Christopher Garneys, a man who died in October 1534.}}

|-
| Unnamed son
| colspan=2 style="text-align: center" | 29 January 1536
| miscarriage of a child, believed male,{{Efn|Chapuys reported to Charles V on 10 February 1536 that Anne Boleyn had miscarried on the day of Catherine of Aragon's funeral: "On the day of the interment [of Catherine of Aragon] the concubine [Anne] had an abortion which seemed to be a male child which she had not borne 3 1/2 months".}} in the fourth month of pregnancy{{Sfn|Starkey|2003|p=553}}

|-
! colspan=4 | '''''By [[Jane Seymour]]''''' (married [[Palace of Whitehall]] 30 May 1536) died 24 October 1537

|-
| King [[Edward VI]]
| 12 October 1537
| 6 July 1553
| died unmarried, age 15; no issue

|-
! colspan=4 | '''''By [[Anne of Cleves]]''''' (married [[Palace of Placentia]] 6 January 1540) annulled 9 July 1540

|-
| colspan=4 style="text-align: center" | no issue

|-
! colspan=4 | '''''By [[Catherine Howard]]''''' (married [[Oatlands Palace]] 28 July 1540; annulled 23 November 1541) beheaded 13 February 1542

|-
| colspan=4 style="text-align: center" | no issue

|-
! colspan=4 | '''''By [[Catherine Parr]]''''' (married [[Hampton Court Palace]] 12 July 1543) Henry VIII died 28 January 1547

|-
| colspan=4 style="text-align: center" | no issue

|}