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Actually, Henry VIII DID Divorce His Wives...

You've probably heard the famous rhyme about Henry VIII's six wives:

"Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived."

But mention it online, and you tend to get someone saying, "Actually, Henry didn't divorce ...Catherine of Aragon or Anne of Cleves. Their marriages were annulled."

But is that correction actually right?

In this video, I'm looking at what "divorce" meant in the sixteenth century, why Tudor terminology doesn't fit neatly with our modern distinction between divorce and annulment, and what contemporary sources actually say.

We'll look at medieval canon law, Henry VIII's sister Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII's relationship ends, and a legal document from 1540 which explicitly describes Anne of Cleves as "divorced" from Henry VIII.

So, was Henry VIII's marriage to Anne of Cleves annulled? Yes.

But is it historically inaccurate to say they were divorced?

Not at all.

So "Divorced, beheaded, died..." can definitely stay!

#HenryVIII #TudorHistory #AnneOfCleves #CatherineOfAragon #Tudors

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