Henry VIII and his Six Wives

King Henry was known by several names during his long reign; Henry the Younger, Henry the Fabulous, Henry the Hippo, Henry the Fat Old Git and finally plain old Henry VIII. Henry was born at Greenwich in 1491 with a new time zone being established in his honour.

He became king in 1509 and quickly signed England up for membership of the Holy League, narrowly avoiding relegation in the 09/10 season thanks to a superior goal difference to Spain. Needing to strengthen his squad, Henry persuaded the relegated Spanish to let him marry their star princess, Catherine of Aragon. Enjoying the experience enormously, he swiftly acquired a further 5 wives, in defiance of tradition.

Although popular in England the 'many wiffe policy,' as it is dubbed in contemporary documents, brought Henry into conflict with the Roman Catholic Church which insisted that one wife was enough for anyone or, at the very least, one at a time. The Pope, who wasn't allowed to have any wives at all, refused to endorse the new arrangement and so, in retaliation, Henry started the Reformation. This began 400 years of conflict between people who support Glasgow Rangers and people who support Glasgow Celtic.*

As he got old, fat, bald and sick, however, six wives became a bit much for Henry to handle and he decided to get rid of some of them. His marriage to Catherine of Aragon was annulled on grounds of incest as she had previously been married to his brother. His marriage to Anne of Cleves was annulled after she agreed that they had never actually rocked the Kasbah. She was given the title of 'The King's Sister' (more incest) and given a castle of her own to live in. His marriages to his two sexiest wives, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, were also annulled with the queens being executed after Henry realized that he couldn't afford all these divorce settlements. Jane Seymour avoided the same fate by cleverly dying from an infection. This left Catherine Parr who, as the cheapest wife, was kept on to cook the meals, look after the children and nurse the now senile old king.

The King died in 1547 and the country was plunged into mourning, not least Catherine Parr, who is described in the chronicles as 'doing cartwheels of grief.'

*A measure of human progress is that only people who live in Scotland and Northern Ireland will know what this means.