Which of his six wives was Henry VIII married to the longest?

The story behind the answer

Catherine of Aragon is correct: she was married to Henry VIII for about 24 years (1509–1533), far longer than Anne Boleyn (~3 years), Jane Seymour (~1 year), or Catherine Parr (~4 years). Their long marriage produced one surviving child, Mary (later Mary I), but no male heir—prompting Henry’s push for an annulment.

That “Great Matter” led Henry to break with the Pope and create the Church of England, a turning point in the English Reformation. To remember the wives and fates, use the rhyme “divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived”—Catherine of Aragon is the first “divorced” and the longest-held queen, a Spanish princess and daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella whose marriage shaped English and European politics.