Henry VIII's Palace, Hampton Court

Portrait of King Henry VIII, Workshop of Hans Holbein the Younger

Hello all,

I've just watched an outstanding documentary on Hampton Court Palace, west of London which you can visit.  It was one of King Henry VIII's palaces (he had between 50 and 60!) and was the home of many events, people and scandal.  You can watch it below.

Enjoy!

Some questions for you:

1. Who were the Tudors?
2. How many wives did Henry VIII have?
3. Who were the Stuarts?
4. What was special about William III and Mary II?
5. Who were the Georgians? 
   
   
   

The answers are below... but don't look until you answer them!

Answers

1. Who were the Tudors?
   Royal Family -- and thus dynasty -- of England made up of 5 kings and queens and one would-be queen who met a very tragic end.
   • Henry VII (reign:  1485-1509), the first Tudor who is said to have usurped the throne after the death of King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth.
   • Henry VIII (reign:  1509-1547), the archetypal Tudor king who made his mark on British history in many aspects, not the least of which the founding of the Church of England.  More information below.
   • Edward VI (reign:  1547-1553), son of Henry VIII and his third wife Jane Seymour, Edward suffered from ill health and the overly intruding power of the Regency council, since he became king when he was only 9.  He named as his successor not his eldest sister Mary, but a slightly distant cousin...
   • Lady Jane Grey (reign, if you could call it that:  July 10-19, 1553.  She was an unfortunate pawn in the struggle for power of several Dukes against the Tudors and paid for it with her young life.  Mostly, she was named as monarch because she was Protestant and to avoid the return of Catholicism with...
   • Mary I (reign: 1553-1558), eldest daughter and child of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon.  Her short reign was plagued by religious tension and strife.  Never very healthy she was succeeded by her sister...
   • Elizabeth I (reign:  1558-1603), second child and daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife Anne Boleyn.  Elizabeth is also known as The Virgin Queen since she never married. 
   
   (source: www.royal.gov.uk)
2. How many wives did Henry VIII have?
   He had 6!!!
   • Catherine of Aragon, married from 1509-1533; originally married to Henry VIII's elder brother Prince Arthur.  Mother of Mary I.  Divorced.
   • Anne Boleyn, married from 1533-1536, she was accused of all sorts of nasty things including an incestuous relationship with her brother.  Mother of Elizabeth I. Beheaded.
   • Jane Seymour, married from 1536-1537.  Died 12 days after giving birth to her son, the future Edward VI.
   • Anne of Cleves, married from January to June 1540.  Henry took one look at her and disliked her immediately, but he didn't want to lose face by sending her back so he kept her around for 6 months for looks.  Divorced, but managed to get a really good divorce settlement -- became such close friends with Henry VIII that he called her his "sister."  She outlived him.
   • Kathryn Howard, married from 1540-1542.  Typifies the expression, "you choose your friends, not your family."  She was another political pawn (see Lady Jane Grey above) and was used by her scheming family to get closer to the king.  Quite the little vixen, she had affair after affair until Henry could no longer turn a blind eye to all her lovers.  They lost their lives first.  Beheaded.
   • Katharine Parr, married from 1543 until Henry's death in 1547.  She also outlived him.  More a nursemaid and confidante than a wife, she and the king nonetheless married because it wasn't considered "fitting" for a monarch to be divorced or a widower or single.  Survived Henry by 1 1/2 years.
     
     The underlined words are how British schoolchildren remember what happened to all six wives.
   
   (source:  www.tudorhistory.org)
3. Who were the Stuarts?
   The Stuarts were descended from Henry VII via his daughter, Margaret Tudor, and thus from Mary Stuart, also known as Mary, Queen of Scots.  They were:
   • James VI of Scotland who became James I of the United Kingdom (reign:  1603-1625).  James' main quality was that (1) he was Protestant, (2) he was the king that Guy Fawkes tried to blow up in the Gunpowder Plot -- celebrated still today in the U.K. on Bonfire Night each November -- and (3) he commissioned the first translation of the Bible into English.
   • Charles I (reign:  1625-1649).  Charles, I the son of James I, was the first and only British king to have been executed -- yes, long before Louis XVI of France -- by Cromwell and his Republicans.
   • Charles II (reign:  1660-1685).  Son of Charles I, he was supposedly Protestant without too much excess, and converted to Catholicism on his deathbed.
   • James II (reign:  1685-1688), brother of Charles II and son of Charles I, James II never really had an easy time of being king.  He had originally been a Protestant and had married his daughter Mary (future Mary II) to a cousin, William of Orange, of the Dutch royal house (see below).  James II lost all power and was exiled to France, where he died.  He is buried in the church of St. Germain en Laye.
   • Mary II (reign:  1689-1694) and William III (reign:  1689-1702), distant cousins, and husband and wife.  She was the elder daughter of James II and he was royal, her husband and had the armies behind him, a winning combination.  They are the monarchs responsible for the second renaissance of Hampton Court Palace.
   • Anne (reign:  1702-1714), younger sister of Mary II, succeeded to the throne over her Catholic brother James Stuart.  She died without any of her 17 (!) children surviving until adulthood.
   
   (source: www.royal.gov.uk)
4. What was special about William III and Mary II?
   They were co-king and queen, quite the original situation especially for Britain!
5. Who were the Georgians? 
   Actually, they were the Hanoverians, since they had been the King Electors of Hanover in Germany.  This dynasty will last until the 20th century, and Queen Elizabeth II's grandmother, Queen Mary, would have known the last Hanoverian monarch quite well since she was her daughter-in-law.
   • George I (reign:  1714-1727), George -- who never bothered to learn English and only spoke German -- became king through his mother, Princess Sophia, a granddaughter of James I.  He was only 52nd in line to the throne, but all of the other pretenders were Catholic and, since William and Mary, barred from the British throne.
   • George II (reign:  1727-1760).  Son of George I, he never quite learned English either, speaking German to everyone, and much preferred living in Germany.
   • George III (reign:  1760-1820).  Grandson of George II, poor king George III did not have an easy life, suffering from porphyria, a disease of the blood, which at the time was not recognized as such.  Symptoms of porphyria are mental changes, such as confusion, hallucinations (George III used to talk to trees), disorientation or paranoia (source:  Mayo Clinic); see the outstanding film The Madness of King George starring Nigel Hawthorne, Helen Mirren and Rupert Everett for a dramatization of his life.
     This is also the king who lost the American colonies in the new world and will be remembered as a tyrant, though he probably was not.
   • George IV (reign:  1820-1830), son of George III and notoriously lazy, married illegally and in secret to a Catholic despite the law, and a spendthrift, George IV really did make a mess of things, though he built up Buckingham Palace, the Queen's residence today.
   • William IV (reign:  1830-1837), brother of George IV and son of George III, William IV became king at quite an old age (he was 62) and lived long enough for his daughter to come of age.
   • Victoria (reign:  1837-1901), niece of William IV, granddaughter of George III, and one of Britain's greatest and longest serving monarchs. She is known as the grandmother of Europe, since her children and grandchildren became kings -- George V of Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Prussia and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia were first cousins and quite close -- and queens of most Protestant countries in Europe.  Queen Victoria deserves to have several posts on her own, her life was so rich.
   
   (source: www.royal.gov.uk)