Amid this lack of clarity, here are 10 facts we do know about Stonehenge

1. It is really, really old

The site went through various transformations and didn’t begin as a ring of stones. The circular earth bank and ditch that surrounds the stones can be dated back to about 3100 BC, while the first stones are believed to have been raised at the site between 2400 and 2200 BC.

Over the next few hundred years, the stones were rearranged and new ones added, with the formation we know today being created between 1930 and 1600 BC.

2. It was created by a people who left no written records

This, of course, is the main reason why so many questions persist around the site.

3. It could have been a burial ground

In 2013, a team of archaeologists excavated the cremated remains of 50,000 bones at the site, belonging to 63 men, women and children. These bones date back as early as 3000 BC, though some are only dated back to 2500 BC. This suggests that Stonehenge may have been a burial ground at the start of its history, though it is not clear if that was the site’s primary purpose.

4. Some of the stones were brought from nearly 200 miles away

The sun rises over Stonehenge on the summer solstice in 2005.

Image Credit: Andrew Dunn / Commons

They were quarried at a town near the Welsh town of Maenclochog and somehow transported to Wiltshire – a feat that would have been a major technical accomplishment at the time.

5. They are known as “ringing rocks”

The monument’s stones possess unusual acoustic properties – when struck they produce a loud clanging sound – which likely explains why someone bothered to transport them over such a long distance. In certain ancient cultures, such rocks are believed to contain healing powers. In fact, Maenclochog mean “ringing rock”.

6. There is an Arthurian legend about Stonehenge

According to this legend, the wizard Merlin removed Stonehenge from Ireland, where it had been erected by giants, and rebuilt it in Wiltshire as a memorial to 3,000 nobles slain in battle with the Saxons.

7. The body of a decapitated man was excavated from the site

The 7th century Saxon man was found in 1923.

8. The earliest known realistic painting of Stonehenge was produced in the 16th century

Flemish artist Lucas de Heere painted the watercolour artwork on site, sometime between 1573 and 1575.

9. It was the cause of a battle in 1985

The Battle of the Beanfield was a clash between a convoy of approximately 600 New Age travellers and around 1,300 police that took place over the course of several hours on 1 June 1985. The battle erupted when the travellers, who were en route to Stonehenge to set up the Stonehenge Free Festival, were stopped at a police roadblock seven miles from the landmark.

The confrontation turned violent, with eight police and 16 travellers being hospitalised and 537 of the travellers arrested in one of the biggest mass arrests of civilians in English history.

10. It attracts more than a million visitors a year

The enduring myths surrounding Stonehenge make the UNESCO World Heritage Site hugely popular. When it first opened to the public as a tourist attraction in the 20th century, visitors were able to walk among the stones and even climb on them. However, due to serious erosion of the stones, the monument has been roped off since 1997, and visitors only allowed to view the stones from a distance.

Exceptions are made during the summer and winter solstices, and the spring and autumn equinoxes, however.

But before Queen Elizabeth there were King Edward VI and Queen Mary I of England, her younger brother and older sister. And the three monarchs were only Henry VIII’s legitimate children who survived beyond a few weeks. The Tudor king also had one illegitimate child who he acknowledged, Henry Fitzroy, and is suspected of having fathered several other illegitimate children too.

Mary Tudor

Henry VIII’s oldest daughter earned herself the unfortunate nickname “Bloody Mary”

Image Credit: Hans Eworth, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (left) / Antonis Mor, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (right)

Mary, the oldest of Henry VIII’s legitimate children, was born to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, in February 1516. Henry was affectionate towards his daughter but increasingly less so towards her mother who had not born him a male heir.

Henry sought for the marriage to be annulled — a pursuit that ultimately led to the Church of England breaking away from the authority of the Roman Catholic Church which had denied him an annulment. The king finally got his wish in May 1533 when Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant archbishop of Canterbury, declared Henry’s marriage to Catherine void.

Five days later, Cranmer also declared Henry’s marriage to another woman valid. That woman’s name was Anne Boleyn and, adding insult to injury, she was Catherine’s lady in waiting.

In September of that year, Anne gave birth to Henry’s second legitimate child, Elizabeth.

Mary, whose place in the line of succession was replaced by her new half-sister, refused to acknowledge that Anne had superseded her mother as queen or that Elizabeth was a princess. But both girls soon found themselves in similar positions when, in May 1536, Queen Anne was beheaded.

Edward Tudor

Edward was Henry VIII’s only legitimate son.

Henry then married Jane Seymour, regarded by many as the favourite of his six wives and the only one to bear him a son who survived: Edward. Jane gave birth to Edward in October 1537, dying of postnatal complications shortly after.

When Henry died in January 1547 it was Edward who succeeded him, aged just nine. The king was England’s first monarch to be raised Protestant and, despite his young age, he took a great interest in religious matters, overseeing the establishment of Protestantism in the country.

Edward’s reign, which was plagued by economic problems and social unrest, came to an abrupt end in July 1553 when he died following months of illness.

The unmarried king left no children as heirs. In an effort to prevent Mary, a Catholic, from succeeding him and reversing his religious reformation, Edward named his first cousin once removed Lady Jane Grey as his heir. But Jane only lasted nine days as the de facto queen before most of her supporters abandoned her and she was deposed in favour of Mary.

During her five-year reign, Queen Mary gained a reputation for ruthlessness and violence, ordering hundreds of religious dissenters burnt at the stake in her pursuit of the restoration of Roman Catholicism in England. This reputation was so great that her Protestant opponents denounced her “Bloody Mary”, a name by which she is still commonly referred today.

Mary married Prince Philip of Spain in July 1554 but bore no children, ultimately failing in her quest to prevent her Protestant sister, Elizabeth, from becoming her successor. After Mary fell ill and died in November 1558, aged 42, Elizabeth was named queen.

Elizabeth Tudor

The Rainbow Portrait is one of the most enduring images of Elizabeth I. Attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger or Isaac Oliver.

Image Credit: Hatfield House via Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

Elizabeth, who ruled for nearly 50 years and died in March 1603, was the last monarch of the House of Tudor. Like her brother and sister, she too bore no children. Even more surprisingly for the time, she never married (though stories of her many suitors are well documented).

Elizabeth’s long reign is remembered for many things, not least England’s historic defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, seen as one of the country’s greatest military victories.

Drama also flourished under the queen’s rule and she successfully reversed her sister’s own reversal of the establishment of Protestantism in England. Indeed, Elizabeth’s legacy is so great that her reign has a name all of its own — the “Elizabethan era”.

1. Sword

Merovingian sword, 6th century; Carolingian sword, 8th century; Knightly Sword, probably French, from early 15th century.

Image Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

There were three main types of swords used in the European medieval period. The first, the Merovingian sword, was popular among the Germanic peoples in the 4th to 7th centuries and derived from the Roman-era spatha – a straight and long sword used in wars and gladiatorial fights.

The blades of Merovingian swords had very little taper and, unlike the weapons we would recognise as swords today, were usually rounded at the ends. They also often had sections that had been pattern-welded, a process whereby metal pieces of varying composition were forge-welded together.

Merovingian swords developed into the Carolingian or “Viking” variety in the 8th century when sword smiths increasingly gained access to high quality steel imported from Central Asia. This meant that pattern-welding was no longer necessary and that blades could be narrower and more tapered. These weapons combined both weight and maneuverability.

The 11th to 12th centuries gave rise to the so-called “knightly” sword, the variety that best fits our image of a sword today. The most obvious development is the appearance of a crossguard – the bar of metal that sits at right angles to the blade, separating it from the hilt – though these were also seen in late versions of the Carolingian sword.

2. Axe

Battles axes are most commonly associated today with the Vikings but they were in fact used throughout the medieval era. They even feature on the Bayeux Tapestry depicting the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

At the start of the medieval era, battle axes were made of wrought iron with a carbon steel edge. Like swords, however, they gradually came to be made of steel as the metal alloy became more accessible.

With the advent of steel plate armour, additional weapons for penetration were sometimes added to battle axes, including sharp picks on the rear of the blades.

3. Pike

Swiss and Landsknecht pikemen fight during the Italian Wars.

Image Credit: Public Domain

These pole weapons were incredibly long, ranging from 3 to 7.5 metres in length, and consisted of a wooden shaft with a metal spearhead attached at one end.

Pikes were used by foot soldiers in close formation from the early medieval period until the turn of the 18th century. Though popular, their length made them unwieldy, especially in close combat. As a result, pikemen usually carried an additional shorter weapon with them, such as a sword or mace.

With pikemen all moving forward in a single direction, their formations were vulnerable to enemy attack at the rear, leading to catastrophes for some forces. Swiss mercenaries solved this problem in the 15th century, however, employing more discipline and aggression to overcome this vulnerability.

4. Mace

Italian mace, circa 1550–1600.

Image Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Maces – blunt weapons with heavy heads on the end of a handle – were developed in the Upper Paleolithic area but really came into their own during the medieval era when knights wore metal armour that was difficult to pierce.

Not only were solid metal maces capable of inflicting damage on fighters without needing to penetrate their armour, but one variety – the flanged mace – was even capable of denting or piercing thick armour. The flanged mace, which was developed in the 12th century, had vertical metal sections called “flanges” protruding from the head of the weapon.

These qualities, combined with the fact that maces were cheap and easy to make, meant they were quite common weapons at this time.

5. Halberd

Consisting of an axe blade topped with a spike and mounted on a long pole, this two-handed weapon came into common use in the latter part of the medieval period.

It was both cheap to produce and versatile, with the spike useful for pushing back approaching horsemen and dealing with other pole weapons such as spears and pikes, while a hook on the back of the axe blade could be used for pulling cavalry from their horses.

Some accounts of the Battle of Bosworth Field suggest that Richard III was killed with a halberd, the blows proving so heavy that his helmet was driven into his skull.

A mad despot

In 64 AD, Rome was the imperial capital of an immense empire, stuffed full of the spoils and ornaments of victory and with Nero, the last of the descendants of Julius Caesar, on the throne.

A mad despot in the classic tradition of Roman emperors, Nero was in the midst of planning the building of an immense new palace in the city when, on that hot July night, a devastating fire broke out in a shop selling flammable goods.

The breeze coming off the river Tiber carried the fire through the city quickly and, soon, much of lower Rome was ablaze.

These mainly civilian parts of the city were an unplanned rabbit warren of hastily-constructed apartment blocks and narrow winding streets, and there were no open spaces to halt the fire’s spread – the wide temple complexes and impressive marble buildings that the city was famous for all being located on the central hills, where the rich and powerful lived.

Only four of Rome’s 17 districts were unaffected when the fire was finally quenched after six days, and the fields outside the city became home to hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Was Nero to blame?

For millennia, the fire has been blamed on Nero. Historians have claimed that the timing was a little too coincidental with his desire to clear space for a new palace, and the enduring legend of him watching the blaze and playing the lyre from a place of safety on the hills of Rome has become iconic.

Did Nero really play the lyre as he watched Rome burn as the legend would have us believe?

Recently, though, this account has finally begun to be questioned. Tacitus, one of ancient Rome’s most famous and reliable historians, claimed that the emperor was not even in the city at the time, and that when he returned he was committed and energetic in organising accommodation and relief for the refugees.

This would certainly help explain Nero’s great and enduring popularity amongst the ordinary people of the empire – for all that he was detested and feared by the ruling elites.

More evidence also supports this idea. Aside from Tacitus’ claims, the fire started a considerable distance from where Nero wanted his palace to be built and it actually damaged the emperor’s existing palace, from which he tried to salvage expensive art and decorations.

The night of 17-18 July was also one of a very full moon, making it a poor choice for arsonists. Sadly, it seems that the legend of Nero fiddling as Rome burned is probably just that – a legend.

One thing that is certain, however, is that the Great Fire of 64 had important and even era-defining consequences. When Nero looked for a scapegoat, his eyes came to rest on the new and distrusted secretive sect of the Christians.

Nero’s resulting persecution of the Christians put them on the pages of mainstream history for the first time and the subsequent suffering of thousands of Christian martyrs thrust the new religion into a spotlight that saw it gain millions more devotees over the following centuries.

The turning point came on 8 June of that year when the Vikings launched an attack on the wealthy and unprotected monastery-island of Lindisfarne. Though it was not technically the first raid on the British Isles (that had taken place in 787), it marked the first time the northmen had sent shivers of fear throughout the Kingdom of Northumbria, England and wider Europe.

A punishment from God?

The Lindisfarne raid took place during the time normally known as the “Dark Ages” but Europe was already well into the process of emerging from the ashes of Rome. Charlemagne’s powerful and enlightened rule covered much of continental Europe, and he respected and shared contact with the formidable English King Offa of Mercia.

The Vikings’ sudden attack on Lindisfarne was not, therefore, just another spasm of violence in a barbaric and lawless era, but a genuinely shocking and unexpected event.

The raid did not actually strike England but the northern Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria, which stretched from the Humber river to the lowlands of modern Scotland. With unfriendly neighbours to the north and a new power centre to the south, Northumbria was a tough place to control where the rulers had to be capable warriors.

The king of Northumbria at that time, Aethelred I, had just returned from exile to forcibly retake the throne and, after the Viking attack, Charlemagne’s favourite scholar and theologian – Alcuin of York – wrote a stern letter to Aethelred blaming him and the depravities of his court for this divine punishment from the north.

The emergence of the Vikings

While Christianity gradually tempered the population of western Europe, the inhabitants of Sweden, Norway and Denmark were still fierce pagan warriors and raiders, who, up until 793, had largely expended their energy fighting each other.

Several factors have been suggested for the Vikings’ sudden emergence from obscurity in the late 8th century, including overpopulation on the barren Danish mainland, growing horizons as the new and international Islamic world expanded and took trade to the farthest corners of the earth, and new technology that allowed them to cross large bodies of water safely.

In all likelihood it was a combination of many of these factors, but some advance in technology was certainly required to make it possible. All sea travel in the ancient world had been confined to coastal waters and the relatively calm Mediterranean, and crossing and navigating large bodies of water such as the North Sea would have previously been too dangerous to attempt.

Despite their reputation as primitive and savage raiders, the Vikings enjoyed superior naval technology to anyone else at the time, giving them a permanent edge at sea and an ability to strike wherever they liked without warning.

Rich and easy pickings

How Lindisfarne looks today. Credit: Agnete

In 793, however, none of this was known to the inhabitants of Lindisfarne Island, where a priory founded by the Irish Saint Aiden had existed peacefully since 634. By the time of the raid, it was the centre of Christianity in Northumbria, and a rich and widely-visited site.

The fact that the Vikings chose to attack Lindisfarne demonstrates either extraordinary luck or surprisingly good information and careful planning. Not only was it stuffed with riches used in the religious ceremonies, but it was almost completely undefended and far enough off the coast to ensure that it would be easy prey for seaborne attackers before any help could arrive.

Even if the Vikings had enjoyed prior information about Lindisfarne, the raiders must have been amazed at such rich and easy pickings.

What happened next is predictable and probably best-described by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle – a collection of annals created in the late 9th century that chronicled the history of the Anglo-Saxons:

“793 AD. This year came dreadful fore-warnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons flying across the firmament. These tremendous tokens were soon followed by a great famine: and not long after, on the sixth day before the ides of January in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter.” 

A very gloomy picture indeed.

The outcome of the raid

A map of Europe showing areas of major Viking incursions and the dates of famous Vikings raids. Credit: Adhavoc

Presumably some of the monks tried to resist, or to prevent the seizure of their books and treasure, for Alcuin confirms that they met a grisly end:

“Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race … The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets.”

We know less today about the fate of the Vikings but it is unlikely that the thin, cold and untrained monks could have caused them much harm. For the Northmen, the raid was most significant in that it set a precedent, showing them and their eager companions back home that wealth, slaves and glory were to be found across the sea.

In the coming centuries, the Vikings would raid as far as Kiev, Constantinople, Paris and most coastal places in between. But England and Northumbria would suffer in particular.

The latter ceased to exist in 866 when it fell to an army of Danes, and many place names along the north-east coast of England (such as York and Skegness) still show the marked effect of their rule, which lasted in York until 957.

Norse rule of the islands of Scotland would continue for much longer, with native speakers of Norwegian in Scotland lasting well into the 18th century. The attack on Lindisfarne started an era that played an immense role in shaping the culture of the British Isles and much of mainland Europe.

Although he would go on to become the most infamous monarch in English history, Henry was never actually supposed to be king. Only the second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth, it was his elder brother, Arthur, who was first in line to the throne.

This difference in the brother’s statuses meant that they did not grow up together — while Arthur was learning to be king, Henry was spending much of his childhood with his mother and sisters. It seems that Henry was very close to his mother, who, unusually for the time, appears to have been the one who taught him to write.

But when Arthur died at the age of 15 in 1502, Henry’s life would change for ever. The 10-year-old prince became the next in line to the throne and all of Arthur’s duties were transferred onto him.

Fortunately for Henry, it would be a few more years before he would have to step into his father’s shoes.

Henry becomes King of England

Henry’s time came on 21 April 1509 when his father died of tuberculosis. Henry became king more or less immediately in what was the first bloodless transfer of power in England for nearly a century (though his coronation didn’t take place until 24 June 1509).

The eighth Henry’s accession to the throne was met with much rejoicing by the people of England. His father had been unpopular with a reputation for meanness and the new Henry was seen as a breath of fresh air.

And although Henry’s father had been of the House of Lancaster, his mother was from the rival House of York, and the new king was seen by Yorkists who had been unhappy during his father’s reign as one of them. This meant that the war between the two houses — known as the “War of the Roses” — was finally over.

King Henry’s transformation

Henry would go on to reign for 38 long years, during which time his reputation — and his appearance — would change drastically. Over the years Henry would transform from a handsome, athletic and optimistic man into a much larger figure known for his cruelty.

Both Henry’s appearance and personality seemed to transform during his reign.

By the time of his death on 28 January 1547, Henry would have gone through six wives, two of whom he killed. He would have also strung up hundreds of Catholic rebels in his quest to break away from the authority of the pope and the Roman Catholic Church – a goal that began, in the first place, with his desire for a new wife.

It is not quite clear what the 55-year-old Henry died of though he seems to have been in a bad way, both mentally and physically, for several years before his death.

Obese, covered in painful boils and suffering from severe mood swings, as well as a festering wound he sustained in a jousting accident more than a decade before, his last years cannot have been happy ones. And the legacy he left behind was not a happy one either.

This timeline of the Armada foregoes the preparation stage and gets more or less right into the action. The dates used are in the so-called “Old Style”, which follows the Julian calendar, and have not been adjusted to fit the new style of dating.

25 April Old Style (4 May New Style) 1588

Pope Sixtus V blessed the Armada’s banner (flag) in a sign of his support for the campaign to invade Protestant England, overthrow Queen Elizabeth I and reinstate Catholicism.

Pope Sixtus V saw the planned invasion of England as a crusade against the Protestant country.

28 May

The Armada set sail from Lisbon and headed for the English Channel, its intention being to meet up with a Spanish army coming from the Netherlands. This army was headed by the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, the Italian Duke of Parma. It took the 130-ship Armada two days to leave port.

In the Spanish Netherlands, meanwhile, Elizabeth’s representative there, Valentine Dale, held peace negotiations with representatives of the Duke of Parma.

6 July

The negotiations between Dale and the duke’s representatives collapsed.

19 July

The Armada entered the English Channel and was was sighted for the first time by the English, off a peninsula in southern Cornwall called “The Lizard”.

Later that day, the Armada caught a fleet of 66 English ships unawares at Plymouth, but the Spanish commander, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, declined to attack them. Instead, the Armada sailed east, towards the Isle of Wight.

21 July

An English fleet of around 55 ships soon gave chase to the Armada, engaging the Spaniards at daybreak on 21 July near a rock grouping known as Eddystone Rocks. But by the end of the day, neither side had gained much of an upper hand.

After nightfall, however, English Vice Admiral Francis Drake made the mistake of snuffing out a lantern he had been using to guide the English fleet, in order to slip away from the Spanish. The unintended consequence was that his fleet was scattered and the Armada was given a day’s reprieve.

The commander of the English fleet, Lord Howard of Effingham, ceded some of his control to Vice Admiral Francis Drake (pictured) due to his battle experience.

23 July

The two sides engaged again, this time off the Isle of Portland. As the English launched a full-scale attack, the Duke of Medina Sidonia ordered the Armada out of the Channel to avoid the Owers, a group of ledges and rocks.

27 July

The Armada anchored in open seas, off the port of Calais in the north of modern-day France. At that point, it looked as though the goal of joining up with the Duke of Parma’s army could be within sight.

But it had previously been difficult for the Armada to stay in touch with the Duke of Parma’s army, and it was only at this point that the Duke of Medina Sidonia became aware that the army was not yet assembled at the nearby port of Dunkirk as expected. Furthermore, boats belonging to Dutch rebels had blockaded Dunkirk.

Waiting in open seas, the Armada was vulnerable to attack.

29 July

In the early hours, the English sent eight so-called “fireships” to attack the Armada. These sacrificial ships were filled with combustible material before being set alight and sent towards the enemy fleet in order to cause destruction and chaos. In this case, none of the Spanish ships were burnt, but the fireships were successful in causing the fleet to break formation and scatter.

The route taken by the Armada.

The Duke of Medina Sidonia tried to reform near the small port of Gravelines, further up the coast. But the English soon attacked, with the ensuing clash becoming known as the Battle of Gravelines.

The English fleet had learned something of the Armada’s strengths and weaknesses during its previous engagements with the Spanish fleet. This, coupled with its superior manoeuvrability, meant it was able to provoke the Armada’s front line ships into using up much of their ammunition, while many Spanish gunners were killed.

By late afternoon, however, the weather was worsening, and the English were out of ammunition. So they chose to withdraw.

When the winds shifted to blow northwards, the Armada was able to escape into the North Sea.

30 July

The Duke of Medina Sidonia held a council of war to decide whether to return to the Channel or travel home to Spain via a route that would take them around the top of Scotland. Strong south-westerly winds ultimately made the decision for the Spanish, however, pushing the Armada even further north.

Despite being out of ammunition, the English fleet still pursued the Armada up the east coast of England, not wanting it to return to meet up with the Duke of Parma’s army.

2 August

The commander of the English fleet, Lord Howard of Effingham, called off the pursuit of the Armada in the Firth of Forth, off Scotland’s east coast.

9 August

Elizabeth visited English troops at Tilbury, Essex, giving her famous battle speech. By this point, the  Armada had already rounded Scotland on its journey home but there was still the potential for the Spanish army led by the Duke of Parma to attack from the port of Dunkirk in modern-day France. Meanwhile, as long as the Armada was still in waters close to the British Isles, it still posed a threat.

Ultimately, the feared Spanish invasion never came and troops at Tilbury were discharged shortly after Elizabeth’s visit. But her appearance on the north bank of the River Thames would go down as a defining moment, not just of her reign but of British history as a whole.

Elizabeth’s public presence among commoners was in itself remarkable, but the stirring speech she gave to the troops was particularly extraordinary and included the lines:

“I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too”

11 August

The troops were discharged from Tilbury. Meanwhile, the Armada was still doing okay. It may not have pulled off joining up with the Duke of Parma’s army but it had escaped the English fleet relatively unscathed and was on its way home. But this situation was not to last.

1-14 September

A depiction of one of the Armada ships, wrecked in a storm.

During this time, the Armada experienced some of the worst weather to ever hit the region and the result for the fleet was catastrophic. Nearly a third of its ships were wrecked on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, while the vessels that survived would return to Spain severely damaged by the storms.

Some 5,000 men are believed to have died in the wake of storms, some at the hands of English forces after their ships were driven ashore in Ireland. And many of the survivors were in a bad state – lacking food and water and suffering from diseases.

October

The Armada returned home, with the Duke of Medina Sidonia declaring that he would rather lose his head than return to sea. Once back in Spain, many more of the fleet’s crew members died.

Henry enacted radical changes to the English constitution, expanded royal power and broke with the Catholic Church in the English Reformation.

But he is perhaps most famous for having six wives. Though married to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, for nearly 25 years, Henry’s next five marriages lasted less than that combined.

Best remembered in rhyme form; ‘divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived’; two of Henry VIII’s marriages were declared annulled, two of his wives were beheaded and another of them died after giving birth to his only son. But his final wife, Catherine Parr, outlived him and their marriage.

Here are Henry VIII’s six wives in order.

1. Catherine of Aragon

Catherine is best known today for her role in sparking the King’s excommunication from the Catholic Church and the Reformation. Married to Henry for a quarter of a century, however, there is much more to her.

The daughter of Spanish monarchs Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, Catherine was a political catch.

Betrothed at the age of three to Arthur, Henry’s older brother and the heir apparent to the English throne, her position became uncertain when, in 1502, her husband died just five months into their marriage.

Half of Catherine’s dowry had already been paid to Arthur’s father, Henry VII, so the English king faced the dilemma of how to pay it back.

Catherine was effectively held a prisoner with little money to her name while the issue was debated. But in 1507, six years after Arthur’s death, she became the ambassador of the Aragonese Crown to England.

In doing so, she also became the first female European ambassador in history.

Catherine of Aragon

Image Credit: Attributed to Joannes Corvus, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Two years later, Catherine married Henry VIII – who was five years her junior – shortly after he had ascended the throne. This marriage between a man and his brother’s widow required, and was granted, dispensation by the Catholic Church.

The couple’s marriage was eventful for Catherine. In 1513, she served as regent for six months while Henry was away in France. During this time she oversaw an English victory against Scotland at the Battle of Flodden, but she also gave birth to a stillborn child.

Catherine suffered multiple miscarriages and stillbirths. She bore the king’s first child, a boy, only to see him die 52 days later. Her only child to survive to adulthood was a daughter born in 1516, Mary; who went on to become queen.

Catherine suffered another miscarriage in 1518, but one year later Henry had a son by a mistress named Elizabeth Blount. The boy was named Henry Fitzroy, and is Henry’s only confirmed illegitimate child. Blount was not, however, Henry’s only mistress during his marriage to Catherine.

It was his infatuation with Anne Boleyn, one of Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting, from 1526, which set into motion a chain of events that would not only see the end of Catherine and Henry’s marriage, but also lead to England’s Protestantisation.

Henry tried to have his marriage to Catherine annulled to marry Anne. He argued that their marriage had been invalid because of Catherine’s marriage to his brother. Devout Catherine rejected this, saying that she and Arthur’s relationship had never been consummated.

Possibly pressured somewhat by Catherine’s nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, the Pope refused. In response the king assumed supremacy over religious matters and turned his back on the Catholic Church.

Henry’s marriage to Catherine was eventually annulled on 1533 and Catherine was banished from court as Dowager Princess of Wales. She lived out the rest of her days at Kimbolton Castle in Cambridgeshire where she died in 1536. Her daughter Mary was forbidden for visiting her or to attending her funeral at Peterborough Cathedral.

Catherine never accepted the end of her marriage to Henry as legitimate, always seeing herself as England’s rightful Queen and Henry’s wife.

2. Anne Boleyn

With the extraordinary events of her life unparalleled in British history, Anne Boleyn is undoubtedly the most famous of Henry’s wives.

Henry may have endured a seven-year courtship and far-reaching political and religious upheavals in order to marry his second wife, but that didn’t stop him having her executed less than three years later.

Anne was born c.1501 to Sir Thomas Boleyn and Lady Elizabeth Howard, and spent much of her youth in France, returning in 1522. She was reported to be fluent in french, a talented musician and to dress in line with French fashions.

Anne was previously betrothed to Henry Percy, but this engagement had been broken off when it did not gain the support of his father, the fifth Earl of Northumberland. Henry VIII, himself, had formerly taken Anne’s sister, Mary, as a mistress.

Anne refused to become the King’s mistress, forcing him to wait through the seven years of courtship until they could marry. In 1532, Henry made Anne the Marquessate of Pembroke, and the pair married formally in January 1533, after a secret ceremony two months earlier.

After going through so much to secure the marriage, the King’s change of heart was likely due to the fact that, like Catherine, Anne seemed unable to bear him a son. After giving birth to Elizabeth I in September 1533, she suffered several miscarriages.

Henry began to look elsewhere for a woman to bear him a son – and he found this woman in Jane Seymour. Anne was less able to accept Henry’s infidelities than her predecessor, and reportedly became enraged and jealous when confronted with evidence of her husband’s affairs.

A month after Henry began courting Jane, he ordered Anne to be investigated for high treason and she was sent to the Tower of London.

After being tried on charges of adultery, incest and treason, Anne was found guilty (most likely wrongly) by a jury which included her once fiancee, Henry Percy. The treason charge alludes to alleged plots to kill the King, but also likely the risk to succession that would be created by a Queen having an affair.

Five men were found guilty of adultery. Among them was Anne’s brother, George, hence the charge of incest. All were executed on Tower Hill.

She was beheaded four days later, on 19 May, on Tower Green. In her final speech she did not admit guilt but instead alluded to her innocence and, perhaps to keep her daughter in Henry’s favour, prayed ‘God save the King, and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never.’

3. Jane Seymour

Henry’s love for – or at least infatuation with – Anne may have sparked the Reformation, but Jane is commonly thought to have been his favourite wife. This is most likely because Jane gave him what none of of his other wives could: a son who lived.

Like Anne, Jane had served as a lady-in-waiting to the queen she would replace. They also shared a great-grandmother. As did Henry’s future wife Catherine Howard.

Portrait by Hans Holbein, Kunsthistorisches Museum

Image Credit: Hans Holbein the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Jane was not as highly educated as either of her predecessors. Her peaceful and gentle personality, starkly contrasting with that of her predecessors, reportedly lent itself to peacemaking efforts at court – ironic given the circumstances that surrounded her marriage to Henry.

She married the Tudor King in May 1533, just days after Anne had been beheaded.

Her marriage to Henry was overshadowed by the need to give birth to an heir, with some suggesting that this was a factor in the delay of her coronation.

Jane gave birth to a son in October 1534. He would grow up to be King Edward VI, but she would not live to see this. After developing post-natal complications, she died less than two weeks after his birth, aged 29.

Jane is attributed with reconciling her husband to his first daughter, Mary, during their short marriage. Her connection to her step daughter was such that Mary acted as chief mourner at her funeral.

Jane was the only one of Henry’s wives to be given a queen’s funeral, despite never having had a coronation, and was the wife who Henry chose to be buried with upon his own death in January 1547.

4. Anne of Cleves

Henry’s last three wives are less famous than his first three, a matter not helped by the fact that each shares their name with a predecessor.

Not only this but Henry’s last three marriages were far less dramatic than his first three (though this is certainly relative given that his fifth wife was beheaded). None of these final three marriages resulted in any children.

In the case of Anne of Cleves this last point is hardly surprising given that her marriage with Henry went unconsummated. The King proved far less enamoured with his fourth wife than he had with her predecessors.

Henry married Anne in January 1540, though negotiations for the marriage are believed to have begun shortly after Jane’s death in 1534.

The daughter of the Duke of Cleves and Count of Mark, Anne was considered a politically expedient match by Henry’s advisers. She was only just older than Henry’s oldest child, Mary, and had no formal education.

After marrying Anne in January 1540, Henry had their marriage annulled just six months later, citing its lack of consummation as well as his wife’s previous engagement to another man, Francis, Duke of Barr and later Lorraine. Henry blamed the marriage going unconsummated on Anne’s appearance but this slight didn’t stop the pair later becoming close friends.

Anne’s acceptance of the annulment seemed to win her favour with Henry and she subsequently became an honorary member of his family, known as “the King’s Beloved Sister”. Her generous settlement included Richmond Palace and also the home of Henry’s former in-laws, the Boleyns, Hever Castle.

Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1539. Oil and tempera on parchment mounted on canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris

Like Jane, Anne had a good relationship with Henry’s eldest daughter. In 1553 she accompanied her former step daughter to Whitehall, Mary’s new residence as Queen. Anne also reverted back to her former religion, Roman Catholicism, in line with the new Queen.

Anne died in 1557, outliving all of the other five wives and Henry himself. She is the only one of Henry’s queens to be buried in Westminster Abbey.

The political adviser who arranged the marriage did not fare so well, however; Thomas Cromwell was executed on 28 July 1540, the same day that Henry married his next wife.

5. Catherine Howard

Henry’s marriage to Catherine Howard came close to matching the drama of his earlier partnerships – perhaps unsurprising given that his teenage bride was a first cousin of Anne Boleyn.

Catherine’s life had been turbulent even before Henry came on the scene. As one of the many wards of her father’s stepmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, she began at the age of 13 to be involved in repeated sexual contact with her music teacher, Henry Mannox.

Later, Catherine had become embroiled in an extramarital affair with the Dowager’s secretary Francis Dereham.

After the Dowager Duchess found out, Catherine was sent to court to serve as a lady-in-waiting to Anne of Cleves. This position had been secured for her by her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, who saw an opportunity in Henry’s lack of interest in Anne. The King was certainly attracted to Catherine’s youth, looks and vivacity.

The pair were married in 1540. In the spring of the following year, however, Catherine is alleged to have begun an affair with a favoured courtier of Henry’s named Thomas Culpeper. Their meetings were reportedly organised by Jane Boleyn, the widow of Anne Boleyn’s executed brother George.

By autumn, rumours about Catherine’s conduct were abundant and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, learned of her alleged affair with Culpeper, as well as her previous relationship with the Dowager Duchess’s secretary, Dereham.

Cranmer saw this as his chance to reduce the influence of his political rival, the Roman Catholic house of Norfolk. He launched an investigation into Catherine’s alleged affairs and she was detained and questioned in November 1541.

Rather than admitting to the earlier affair and possible precontract with Dereham, which would have allowed for her annulment and banishment, Catherine maintained that the relationship was not consensual.

Charged with high treason, both Culpeper and Dereham were executed in December 1541.

In order to find Catherine guilty of a crime, the Royal Assent by Commission Act 1541 was passed. It became treasonous to fail to disclose premarital sexual relations to the monarch within twenty days of marriage, or to incite a person to engage in adultery as the Queen consort.

Within months, Catherine had gone the same way as her cousin Anne, executed for high treason. On her route by barge to the Tower of London she likely have passed under the impaled heads of her reported lovers, Culpeper and Dereham, on London Bridge.

Catherine was probably about nineteen years old.

Jane Boleyn was also executed and both were buried in unmarked graves at the Tower’s parish chapel alongside Catherine’s cousins, and Jane’s sister-in-law and husband: Anne and George Boleyn.

6. Catherine Parr

Henry’s sixth and final wife – and his third named Catherine – was perhaps his luckiest. She married Henry in July 1543, just four months after Catherine Howard was beheaded, and went on to outlive him – though only by a year.

Catherine Parr had been married twice before, being titled Lady Burgh and then Lady Latimer, and married again around six months after Henry died, making her the most married English queen.

This is not Catherine’s only claim to fame: she was also the first queen of both England and Ireland.

A portrait of Catherine Parr (1512–1548)

Image Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The third Catherine had begun a romantic relationship with Jane Seymour’s brother, Thomas, when she caught the eye of Henry. But she considered it her duty to marry the King instead.

In 1546, Catherine, who held strong Protestant sympathies, faced a plot to get rid of her by anti-Protestant officials.

These officials tried to turn Henry against Catherine and even drew up a warrant for her arrest. But Catherine outwitted them and successfully reconciled with her husband, avoiding the same fate as her unlucky predecessors.

She also differed from her predecessors being 30 years old, and a scholar. She became the first English queen to write and publish a book under her own name in 1545, with Prayers and Meditations.

When Henry died in 1547, he left provisions of £7,000 a year for Catherine to support herself, and for Catherine to be treated as Queen Dowager, still in possession of her courtly clothes, jewels and such.

Catherine’s final husband was her previous interest and the uncle of the new king, Thomas Seymour. Seymour is reported to have also had interests in the future queen, Lady Elizabeth, who lived with the married couple.

This rumour was included in evidence which resulted in Seymour’s execution in 1549 for treason This came after his wife’s death, for in August 1548, Catherine had given birth to her only child and died several days later from suspected childbed fever.

1. It was sparked by a German offensive to capture Stalingrad

The Nazis launched their campaign to capture the south-west Russian city – which bore the name of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin – on 23 August 1942. It was part of a wider German campaign that summer to destroy what was left of the Soviet Army and to ultimately gain control of the Caucasus oilfields.

2. Hitler personally added the capture of Stalingrad to the summer campaign’s objectives

Exactly a month before the Germans launched the Stalingrad offensive, the Nazi leader rewrote the objectives of the summer campaign, expanding them to include the occupation of Stalin’s namesake city. The Germans wanted to destroy the city’s industrial capacity and also disrupt the Volga river on which it sat.

3. Stalin demanded that the city be defended at all costs

With the Volga river a key route from the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea to central Russia, Stalingrad (today named “Volgograd”) was strategically important and every available soldier and civilian was mobilised to defend it.

The fact that it was named after the Soviet leader himself also made the city important to both sides in terms of its propaganda value. Hitler even said that, if captured, all of Stalingrad’s men would be killed and its women and children deported.

4. Much of the city was reduced to rubble by Luftwaffe bombing

Smoke is seen over Stalingrad city centre following Luftwaffe bombing in August 1942. Credit: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-B22081 / CC-BY-SA 3.0

This bombing took place in the early stages of the battle, and was then followed by months of street fighting amid the city’s ruins.

5. It was the largest single battle of World War Two – and possibly in the history of warfare

Both sides poured reinforcements into the city, with nearly 2.2 million people taking part in total.

6. By October, most of the city was in German hands

German soldiers clear a street in Stalingrad in October 1942. Credit: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-B22478 / Rothkopf / CC-BY-SA 3.0

The Soviets kept control of areas along the Volga’s banks, however, which allowed them to transport supplies across. Meanwhile, Soviet General Georgi Zhukov was gathering new forces on either side of the city in preparation for an assault.

7. Zhukov’s assault proved a success

The general’s two-pronged attack, which launched on 23 November, overran the weaker Romanian and Hungarian Axis armies that were protecting the stronger German 6th Army. This cut the 6th Army off without protection, and left it encircled on all sides by the Soviets.

8. Hitler forbade the German army from breaking out

The 6th Army managed to hold out until February of the following year, at which point it surrendered. The German death toll stood at half a million by the end of the battle, with another 91,000 troops taken prisoner.

A Soviet soldier waves the Red Banner over the central plaza of Stalingrad in 1943. Credit: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-W0506-316 / Georgii Zelma [1] / CC-BY-SA 3.0

9. The German defeat had a knock-on effect on the Western Front

Due to the heavy German losses at Stalingrad, the Nazis withdrew large numbers of men from the Western Front in order to replenish its forces in the east.

10. It is thought to be the bloodiest battle of both World War Two and warfare in general

Between 1.8 and 2 million people are estimated to have been killed, wounded or captured.

The Viking mythology is primarily established in texts written in Old Norse, a North Germanic language in which modern Scandinavian languages have their roots. The majority of these texts were created in Iceland and include the famous sagas, stories written down by the Vikings that were mostly based on real people and events.

The Norse gods are central to Viking mythology but which are considered the most important?

Thor

Thor wades through a river while the Æsir ride across the bridge Bifröst, by Frølich (1895). Image credit: Lorenz Frølich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image Credit: Lorenz Frølich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The son of Odin and husband to the golden-haired goddess Sif, Thor was famous for relentlessly pursuing his foes. These foes were jötnar, ambiguous beings who in Norse mythology may be friends, enemies or even relatives of the gods. In Thor’s case, he also had a lover who was a jötunn, named Járnsaxa.

Thor’s hammer, named Mjölnir, was not his only weapon. He also possessed a magical belt, iron gloves and a staff, all — as was the Norse tradition —  with names of their own. And Thor himself was known by at least another 14 names.

Generally described as sporting a red beard and red hair, Thor was also portrayed as being fierce-eyed. It is perhaps unsurprising then that he was associated with thunder, lightning, oak trees, the protection of mankind and strength in general. What is surprising, however, is the fact that he was also associated with hallowing and fertility — concepts that seem at odds with some of the other parts of his reputation.

Odin

Odin, vintage engraved drawing illustration. Image credit: Morphart Creation / Shutterstock.com

Image Credit: Morphart Creation / Shutterstock.com

Although Odin may not have been quite as popular as his son with the Vikings, he was still widely revered and arguably more important. Not only did he father Thor, but he was considered the father of all the Norse gods, giving him the name “Allfather”.

Odin, associated with everything from wisdom, healing and death to poetry, sorcery and frenzy, was portrayed as a shaman-like figure or wanderer who wore a cloak and hat. Married to the goddess Frigg, he was also depicted as being long-bearded and one-eyed, having given away one of his eyes in exchange for wisdom.

Like his son, Odin also had a named weapon; in this case a spear called Gungnir. He was also known for being accompanied by animal companions and familiars, most famously a flying eight-legged horse named Sleipnir which he rode into the underworld (known in Norse mythology as “Hel”).

Loki

Loki, the god of mischief, trying to convince Idun that a crabapple tree’s fruit is better than her golden apples. Image credit: Morphart Creation / Shutterstock.com

Image Credit: Morphart Creation / Shutterstock.com

Loki was a god but a bad one, known for the many crimes he committed against his peers — among them, having wheedled his way into becoming Odin’s blood brother.

A shape-shifter, Loki fathered and mothered many different creatures and animals while in different forms, including Odin’s steed, Sleipnir. He is also known for fathering Hel, the being who presided over the realm of the same name. In one text, Hel is described as having being given the job by Odin himself.

Despite his bad reputation, Loki was sometimes described as assisting his fellow gods, depending on the Norse source. But this all ended with the role he played in the death of Baldr, the son of Odin and Frigg. In the crime considered his worst of all, Loki gave a spear to Baldr’s blind brother, Höðr, which he inadvertently used to kill his brother.

As punishment, Loki was forced to lay bound under a serpent that dripped venom on him.