text: have just seen a snippit from qi that says henry viii didn't have six wives.? this was news to me so thought i'd ask, how many wives did he actually have? catherine of aragon was married to his brother prince arthur. when arthur died aged 16, henry's father, henry vii, didn't want to have to return catherine's dowry to her father, king frederick of spain, so he simply "transferred" her to henry, who was only a child at the time (i think he was about 11 but am not sure).  later, catherine argued that her marriage to henry had been valid because she and arthur had never consummated their marriage, however, it's a matter of historical record that she and arthur shared a bed for at least six months and what teenage boy of 15 or 16 would sleep in the same bed with a reasonably attractive young woman and not have sex with her?  her marriage to henry was only allowed by the pope on political grounds.  had they not been royals, and paid money for the dispensation, their marriage would have been regarded by the catholic church as illegal and immoral.  plenty of people were telling henry viii this long before he himself grew dissatisfied with the outcome of the marriage and he used to punish them.  the fact that his motives for changing his mind about his marriage were not genuine does not make the marriage to catherine any more legal.  the marriage was not made in good faith, it was made for cynical, political reasons - if henry vii could have sent catherine back to spain after arthur's death, without having to refund her dowry, that is probably what would have happened.  henry is generally accepted as having had six wives though.  if you accept that his marriage to catherine was legal, then it seems to me that you accept the pope's ability to make it legal and therefore his ability to refuse to dissolve it (on equally political grounds - the pope at the time was afraid of catherine's nephew charles, the holy roman emperor, who'd threatened to invade if his aunt catherine's marriage was dissolved) and therefore you accept that his marriage to anne boleyn was invalid. if you accept that his marriage to catherine was illegal, then he was free to marry anne and that marriage was valid. he murdered anne to marry jane seymour; jane seymour died giving birth to his son, and his marriage to anne of cleves was dissolved on the grounds of a supposed precontract she had with another man - i.e. she was supposed to have agreed to marry someone else.  this was all very convenient.  katherine howard was executed after being caught cheating with two other men and she was known to have been very promiscuous from her early teens.  katharine parr had buried two husbands and there was no doubt both she and henry were free to marry.