Now, the king of England at this time, when Charles was king of Spain, was Henry VIII. His last name was Tudor. So many kings had first names which were alike that such names were numbered to tell which Charles or Henry was meant and how many of the same name there had been before. Henry VIII was at first also a strong Catholic, and the pope had called him Defender of the Faith. But Henry had a wife whom he wanted to get rid of because she had no son. In order to get rid of her so that he might marry again, he had to have what was called a divorce, and the pope was the only one who could give Henry a divorce. Now, the pope at Rome was head of the Christian Church of the whole world and said what Christians could do or could not do, no matter whether they were in Italy or Spain or England. So Henry asked the pope to grant him this divorce. The pope, however, told him he would not give him a divorce. Now, Henry thought it was neither right nor proper that a man in another country, even if he _were_ pope, should say what could be done in England. He himself was ruler, and he didn’t intend to let any foreigner meddle in his affairs or give him orders. [Illustration: Henry VIII and his second wife Anne Boleyn.] So then Henry said that he himself would be head of all the Christians in England; then he could do as he wished without the pope’s permission. So he made himself head, and then he divorced his wife. All the churches in England were now told by the king what they should do; the pope no longer had anything to say in the matter; the English churches obeyed the king, not the pope. This made the second big break in the Catholic Church. After this Henry VIII had five other wives, six in all; not of course all at one time, for Christians could only have one wife at a time. His first wife he divorced, the second he beheaded, the third died. The same thing happened to his last three wives: the first he divorced, the second he beheaded, and the third died--but Henry died before she did. Is this too difficult for you to understand? 64 King Elizabeth King Henry VIII had two daughters. One was named Mary, and one was named Elizabeth. Their last name was of course Tudor, the same as their father’s, although we do not usually think of kings and queens as having last names. King Henry had a son, also, and he was first to become king after his father died, for though he was younger than his sisters, a boy was supposed to be more fit to rule than a girl. But he didn’t live long, and then Mary was the first of the two sisters to become queen.