King Henry VIII is famous for his large size and his many wives, 1 for which he is popularly known. His most enduring legacy, however, was 2 his separation and division of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. Henry was never expected to be king. His older brother Arthur was 3 the heir and next in line to the throne, but when Henry was 11 years old, Arthur 4 perished fatally. Arthur had recently married Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of King Ferdinand of 5 Spain, a short time ago. Eager to
protect diplomatic relations with Spain, Henry’s father betrothed 6 his son Henry to marry Catherine when he came of age.

Henry became 7 king, ascending to the throne in 1509 at the young age of 17 upon his father’s death. Over the years, Catherine bore him six children 8 throughout their time together, but only one survived infancy, a daughter. Henry needed a male heir to ensure a peaceful succession of the throne after his death. As time passed, the absence of a son increasingly 9 worried and troubled Henry more and more, to the point that he began to fear that God was punishing him for marrying his brother ‘s wife.
At this time, 10 the Catholic Church had the sole authority to end a marriage, and even then only by 11 declaring in an announcement that the marriage had never truly existed in God’s sight. Henry sought such an annulment from the Pope. Unswayed by Henry’s arguments from the biblical book of Leviticus and pressured by Catherine’s nephew, King Charles V of Spain, Pope 12 was unconvinced and refused the annulment.

And so Henry took matters into his own hands to obtain the divorce he wanted 13 on his own. Having already begun an affair with a woman named Anne Boleyn, all he needed was a church that would marry him to 14 Anne and that would be sufficient. He maneuvered to get his own man appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1532, and then he got Parliament to declare him the Supreme Head of the Church of England 15 after that in 1534. Henry’s actions opened the door for the Protestant Reformation in 16 England, which led the way to forever altering the future of his country. Anne, however, did not bear him a son. In fact, only one of his six wives bore him a son, and this son, Edward, reigned for only 17 a few years, six as a matter of fact.