Henry VIII's six wives — the rhyme and the real stories

The famous rhyme: “Divorced, beheaded, died…”

The standard mnemonic taught in British schools is a six-word poem about Henry VIII's wives:

Divorced, beheaded, died;
Divorced, beheaded, survived.

Each word stands for one queen, in the order Henry married them — Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr. It is one of the most efficient pieces of history teaching ever written: in six syllables you have the fates of six queens and the structure of an entire reign.

Historians sometimes point out that the rhyme is a little misleading. Three of the marriages were technically annulled by church courts rather than ended by what we would now call divorce — Henry's lawyers argued they had never been valid marriages in the first place. The Royal Museums Greenwich notes that a more precise version would read annulled, annulled, died; annulled, beheaded, survived. The schoolroom version stuck because “divorced” scans better and is close enough for the broad pattern: two marriages ended on paper, two ended on the scaffold, one ended in childbirth, and one ended only with Henry's own death.

Henry VIII's six wives at a glance

The table below lists Henry VIII's wives in order, with verified marriage dates, outcomes, and the children they bore who later became monarchs of England.

Henry himself reigned for 38 years, from 1509 to 1547, and is one of the most important monarchs on the British monarchs timeline. The rest of this article tells the story behind each row.

1. Catherine of Aragon (1509–1533, divorced)

Catherine of Aragon was a Spanish princess — the youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. She first came to England in 1501 to marry Henry VIII's elder brother, Prince Arthur. Arthur died less than five months after the wedding, and after years of diplomatic limbo Catherine married Henry instead on 11 June 1509, only weeks after he became king.

They were married for almost 24 years — longer than all of his other wives combined. Catherine bore Henry several children, but only one survived infancy: the future Queen Mary I, born in 1516. By the late 1520s Henry was increasingly anxious that he would die without a male heir, and he had also fallen in love with Anne Boleyn. He asked the Pope to annul his marriage to Catherine on the grounds that she had been his brother's widow.

The Pope refused. Henry responded by breaking with Rome and pushing through his own annulment in May 1533, in front of his own English archbishop. This quarrel was the trigger for the creation of the Church of England a few years later — the most consequential constitutional change of his reign. Catherine refused to accept the annulment, called herself queen until the end, and died of natural causes at Kimbolton Castle in January 1536. She is buried at Peterborough Cathedral.

2. Anne Boleyn (1533–1536, beheaded)

Anne Boleyn was an English noblewoman who had served as a maid of honour to Catherine of Aragon. Henry pursued her for years; she refused to become his mistress and held out for marriage. They married in secret in early 1533, while Catherine was still technically queen, and the union was made public after the annulment that May.

In September 1533 Anne gave birth to a healthy daughter — the future Queen Elizabeth I. But Henry desperately wanted a son, and when Anne miscarried in January 1536 the marriage was effectively finished. Within months she was arrested on charges of adultery, incest with her brother, and conspiring against the king. Most historians today regard the evidence as flimsy at best.

Anne was beheaded at the Tower of London on 19 May 1536, with a French swordsman brought over specially for the execution. Two days earlier her marriage to Henry had been declared invalid. She is one of two of Henry's queens buried in unmarked graves at the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula inside the Tower.

3. Jane Seymour (1536–1537, died)

Henry married Jane Seymour just eleven days after Anne Boleyn's execution. Jane had also served as a lady-in-waiting at court — to both Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn — and she was, by all accounts, quiet, modest and politically careful.

On 12 October 1537 Jane gave birth to the long-awaited male heir: the future King Edward VI. The court celebrated for days. But Jane never recovered from the birth. She died of complications — almost certainly puerperal fever — on 24 October 1537, twelve days after her son was born. Henry would later be buried beside her at St George's Chapel, Windsor; of all his wives, Jane is the one he appears to have mourned most deeply.

4. Anne of Cleves (1540, divorced)

With Edward VI born but still an infant, Henry waited more than two years before marrying again. His chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, arranged a diplomatic match with Anne, a German princess from the duchy of Cleves, to shore up an alliance with Protestant powers on the continent. Henry was shown a flattering portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger and agreed to the marriage sight unseen.

They married on 6 January 1540. Famously, Henry was unimpressed when he met her in person and reportedly said the marriage could not be consummated. By 12 July 1540, only six months later, the marriage had been annulled by mutual agreement on grounds of non-consummation and her earlier engagement to another nobleman. It was the shortest of all six marriages.

Anne accepted the annulment quietly and was rewarded with generous settlements, several houses including Hever Castle, and the honorary title of “the King's Beloved Sister”. She lived comfortably in England for another 17 years, outliving Henry and all the other wives. She died in 1557 and is the only one of Henry's queens buried in Westminster Abbey.

5. Catherine Howard (1540–1542, beheaded)

Catherine Howard was a cousin of Anne Boleyn and a young maid of honour at court — probably no more than seventeen or eighteen when Henry, then in his late forties and in declining health, married her on 28 July 1540, just sixteen days after annulling his marriage to Anne of Cleves.

By late 1541, evidence had emerged of Catherine's romantic relationships before marriage and rumours of an affair with one of Henry's courtiers, Thomas Culpeper, during the marriage itself. The relationships before her marriage to the king were exposed; Culpeper and another former associate were executed. Catherine was attainted by Parliament — found guilty by act of law rather than trial — and beheaded at the Tower of London on 13 February 1542. Like her cousin Anne Boleyn, she is buried in an unmarked grave at the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula.

6. Catherine Parr (1543–1547, survived)

Henry's sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr, was already twice widowed by the time they married on 12 July 1543. She was intelligent, well-read, and a committed Protestant reformer. She also became a stepmother figure to all three of Henry's surviving children, helping to reconcile him with his daughters Mary and Elizabeth and supervising the education of the young Prince Edward.

Catherine survived Henry's death on 28 January 1547. She is sometimes credited as the first English queen to write and publish a book under her own name. After Henry died she married — for the fourth time — Thomas Seymour, brother of Jane Seymour and uncle of the new boy king. She gave birth to her only child, a daughter, in August 1548 and died of childbirth complications a few days later, on 5 September 1548. She is buried at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire.

Why Henry VIII matters for the Life in the UK Test

Henry VIII is one of a small group of monarchs the official handbook — Life in the United Kingdom: A Guide for New Residents — singles out by name in Chapter 3. You are most likely to see a question on him framed around three big facts, not biographical detail about the wives themselves:

• He had six wives. The handbook lists them by name in order. Knowing the rhyme is the easiest way to memorise the sequence.
• He broke with the Pope and created the Church of England. The trigger was the Pope's refusal to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. The Reformation in England follows from this break.
• He left three children, all of whom became monarchs. Edward VI (by Jane Seymour), then Mary I (by Catherine of Aragon), then Elizabeth I (by Anne Boleyn). The Tudor dynasty ran out of heirs with Elizabeth's death in 1603.

Test questions tend to ask things like “How many wives did Henry VIII have?” or “Which church did Henry VIII establish?” or “Who was the mother of Elizabeth I?” — short, factual, unambiguous. For the wider Reformation context and the kings who came before and after Henry, see our timeline of British history and the Chapter 3 study guide.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Henry VIII have six wives?

Two reasons run through the whole story. First, Henry was determined to father a legitimate male heir to secure the Tudor dynasty after the long civil wars his father had ended. By the time he had a son (Edward VI in 1537), he had already discarded two wives. Second, the politics of the Reformation gave him both the legal machinery and the personal motive to end marriages that other Catholic kings would have been stuck with. The combination of dynastic anxiety, religious upheaval and personal temperament is why no other English monarch comes close to his six marriages.

Which wife did Henry VIII love the most?

There is no definitive answer, but historians often point to Jane Seymour. She is the only wife buried with him at St George's Chapel, Windsor, and contemporary accounts say he wore mourning for her longer than for any other wife. He also gave her the longest-lasting reward of any of them — she was the mother of his only legitimate son.

Were Henry VIII's wives all English?

No. Two were foreign-born royals: Catherine of Aragon from Spain and Anne of Cleves from a small German duchy. The other four — Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr — were all English noblewomen who had served as ladies-in-waiting at court before marrying him.

Where are Henry VIII's wives buried?

• Catherine of Aragon — Peterborough Cathedral.
• Anne Boleyn — unmarked grave, Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, Tower of London.
• Jane Seymour — St George's Chapel, Windsor (with Henry VIII).
• Anne of Cleves — Westminster Abbey.
• Catherine Howard — unmarked grave, Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, Tower of London.
• Catherine Parr — St Mary's Church, Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire.

Did any of Henry VIII's wives have children who became monarchs?

Three did. Catherine of Aragon was the mother of Mary I (ruled 1553–58). Anne Boleyn was the mother of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558–1603). Jane Seymour was the mother of Edward VI (ruled 1547–53). All three followed Henry on the throne in turn. With Elizabeth I's death the Tudor line ended and the crown passed to her Stuart cousin, James I of Scotland.

Is the “divorced, beheaded, died” rhyme historically accurate?

Broadly yes — but the word “divorced” is being used in its everyday sense rather than its technical one. Henry's marriages to Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves were both ended by annulment — a church court ruling that the marriage had never legally existed — not by divorce in the modern sense, which only became available in English civil law centuries later. The rhyme is a teaching aid, not a legal summary, and it gets the order and the broad shape of each fate exactly right.

Test yourself on Chapter 3

The Life in the UK Test draws a meaningful share of its 24 questions from Chapter 3 — the history chapter that covers Henry VIII, the Tudors, and the long arc from the Norman Conquest to modern Britain. The best way to prepare is to read the chapter once, then drill it. Our practice questions page lets you filter by chapter, see explanations after each answer, and track the topics you keep getting wrong. It is free to sign up — no card required for your first mock test.