King Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York - daughter of Edward IV, had seven children, four of whom reached adulthood:
Arthur, Margaret, Henry and Mary. In November 1501 Arthur Prince of Wales, Henry VII was married to Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, in an attempt to forge an alliance with Spain. Arthur was fifteen years old and Catherine was about to turn sixteen. The marriage between them was brief, since Arthur died in April 1502.Enrique VII wished to maintain the alliance with the kings of Spain, so I suggested, to save time, that Catherine remarried, this time with Henry, brother of her deceased husband. In the eyes of the Church, such a marriage would have been incestuous, because legally Henry and Catherine were brothers. However, for the time Henry VII had lost interest in the alliance with Spain, so "drawers" the realization of marriage. It seems that in any case, Prince Henry wanted to Catherine as a wife. So when Henry VII died in April 1509, Henry became king under the name of Henry VIII was not yet eighteen. Henry and Catherine had four children, of whom only one daughter, Mary, reached adulthood. In 1525, Henry, thirty-four, he met Anne Boleyn, one of Catherine's ladies in waiting, who was twenty. At first, Henry tried to make Anne his mistress, but Anne refused. Henry had had many lovers, including his own older sister Ana Maria, who had finished leaving soon. Ana did not want to go forward, and refused to surrender to the king unless the become his wife. Henry's obsession by Anne and her desire for a male heir led him to ask the Pope Clement VII to annul his marriage to Catherine in 1527. The argument was diametrically opposed to that he had used for years before getting married, that Arthur and Catherine had consummated their marriage, as Catherine's second marriage to Henry was zero. So for several years refused to respond to the request of Henry. Henry VIII separated from Catherine in July 1531 and married Anne secretly in January 1533. Tired of waiting, made the Archbishop of Canterbury to annul the marriage to Catherine in May of that year. With this, the Anglican Church was born,. Anne was crowned Queen of England in June 1533 and in September gave birth to daughter Isabel. Fearing that Mary, the daughter of Henry and Catherine, eventually snatched the throne, made it disinherited. Mary, 17, hated his stepmother, whom he called "my father's mistress," while Ana was called "the bastard child of my husband." As for Catherine, was deprived of her title of queen and officially, the widow of Arthur, retaining only the title of Princess of Wales. She retreated to several castles distant from seeing his beloved daughter Mary, Henry did not do this for sadism, but to force it to recognize the nullity of their marriage. But Catherine always refused to do so, calling herself in all her letters and documents, "Katharine Queen of England." He died in January 1536, at the time suspected that Anne had poisoned. Henry and she did not attend the funeral nor allowed Mary was present. Ana gave to the English court and a touch of magnificence, "was a sort of Jacqueline Kennedy absent sixteenth century with the former queen. Anne spent huge sums on jewelry, clothing and remodeling of their castles. The Boleyn family was wealthy and powerful. But Anne Catherine was so incompetent as to give Henry a male heir. In 1536, the day of the funeral of Catherine, Anne gave birth prematurely to a dead child and, according to rumor, deformed. It was the beginning of the end for Henry firmly convinced that his marriage to Anne was ungodly. In April 1536 a musician in the service of Anne named Mark Smeaton was arrested by Thomas Cromwell, the most powerful minister of Henry. He and Anna had been allies (Cromwell was a Protestant and England wanted to free the yoke of the papacy, he supported Henry's second marriage), but later became enemies. Under torture, Smeaton confessed to loving queen, and gave four names, among which was Anne's own brother, George; all ended detention. On May 2, self Ana was arrested. The trials were very rapid. He said it would now be known as La Reine sans tête (The headless queen). Ana faced death calmly enough. His death was announced to Henry with a gun, because he refused to be present at the execution. On 30 May 1536, only eleven days after the death of Anne, Henry, forty-five, he married Jane Seymour, twenty. Juana was bridesmaid and Anna Catherine, and had attracted the attention of the king by her beauty and good character. The marriage of the two was short, but happy.