Who was the first wife of King Henry VIII?

Catherine of Aragon was Henry VIII’s first wife, marrying him in 1509 soon after he became king. A Spanish princess and the widow of Henry’s older brother, Arthur, she wed Henry with a papal dispensation. Their marriage produced one surviving child, Mary (later Mary I), but no male heir, prompting Henry to seek an annulment. The dispute with the Pope led to England’s break with Rome and the start of the English Reformation. To remember the order of Henry’s wives—Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, (then Catherine Howard, Catherine Parr)—use the rhyme: “Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived.” Catherine of Aragon is the “divorced” who started it all.