King Henry VIII (jan 1, 1491 – jan 1, 1547)

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King of England who was chiefly responsible for the reformation in England. It was as much a political as a religious commotion. It began as a quarrel between King Henry and Pope Clement VII. The pope refused to grant an annulment of Henry's marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, after she failed to produce a mail heir. When Henry divorced Catherine in defiance of the church, the pope excommunicated him. Henry retaliated in 1524 with the Act of Supremacy, by which he made himself the head of the Church of England.

Henry's decision to break from the Catholic Church polarized England and led to violence. English monasteries, loyal to Rome, were dissolved. This would inevitably have an impact on religious music, although it was not an immediate one.

Henry was a great music lover who played various insturments and even composed in a modest way.

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