Henry VIII

Henry VIII - Reign: 21 April 1509 – 28 January 1547

My page on Henry VIII has been left rather late in my general history pages as much of his story has been told by others in many places. Of course, the Tudors had a major influence on the history of Belchamp Walter and the surrounding area and much of the movement of families of the region can be explained.

An irony is that Belchamp Walter has the actor of Wolf Hall having a home in the village.

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Henry had a great influence on the church and state and the recording of the history of the country and also of the church and general population.

Thomas Cromwell

Thomas Cromwell (/ˈkrɒmwəl, -wɛl/;[1][a] c. 1485 – 28 July 1540), briefly Earl of Essex, was an English statesman and lawyer who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king, who later blamed false charges for the execution.

Sir Richard Rich

Sir Richard Rich Henry's Lord Chancellor whose tomb can be found in Felsted church, was Henry VIII's man to implement the Dissolution of the Monasteries

Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich (July 1496 – 12 June 1567), was Lord Chancellor during King Edward VI of England's reign, from 1547 until January 1552. He was the founder of Felsted School with its associated almshouses in Essex in 1564. He was a beneficiary of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and persecuted perceived opponents of the king and their policies. He played a role in the trials of Catholic martyrs Thomas More and John Fisher as well as that of Protestant martyr Anne Askew.

From the Wikipedia page on Leez Priory:

In 1220, Sir Ralph Gernon decided that the hamlet of Leez, in a dip by the banks of the River Ter, would provide the perfect location on which to found a house of Augustinian canons. The priory of St. Mary and St. John the Evangelist thrived for over 300 years. King Henry VIII sent Sir Richard Rich to dismiss the monastery, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536-1541). When Sir Richard Rich, 3rd Baron Rich became the Earl of Warwick, he built his own great house on the site that is now known as Leez Priory. The remains of the Augustinian Priory are very much in evidence within the grounds to the south of the existing buildings, including extensive underground drainage conduits. Known as "Delicious Leez", both the site and the rose-brick buildings are breathtaking, with old garden walls and fish ponds indicative of life and times past.

Boleyn

Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, 1st Earl of Ormond,[1] 1st Viscount Rochford KG[2] KB (c. 1477 – 12 March 1539), of Hever Castle in Kent, was an English diplomat and politician who was the father of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII, and was thus the maternal grandfather of Queen Elizabeth I. By Henry VIII he was made a knight of the Garter in 1523 and was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Rochford in 1525 and in 1529 was further ennobled as Earl of Wiltshire and Earl of Ormond.

Howard

Lady Catherine Howard of Tendring Hall - Stoke by Nayland

Catherine Howard[b] (c. 1523 – 13 February 1542) was Queen of England from July 1540 until November 1541 as the fifth wife of King Henry VIII. She was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper, a cousin to Anne Boleyn (the second wife of Henry VIII), and the niece of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Thomas Howard was a prominent politician at Henry's court. He secured her a place in the household of Henry's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, where Howard caught the King's interest. She married him on 28 July 1540 at Oatlands Palace in Surrey, just 19 days after the annulment of his marriage to Anne. He was 49, and it is widely accepted that she was about 17 at the time of her marriage to Henry VIII.

Henry VIII - Reign: 21 April 1509 – 28 January 1547

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