During Henry VIII’s earliest days on the throne, Wolsey, above, became the king’s main adviser and sidelined the counsellors Henry inherited from his father. Wolsey gathered such power that he became known as the ‘other king’, especially after the pope made him a cardinal in the Catholic church. Wolsey oversaw many of England’s foreign policy successes, including the war with France and the Field of the Cloth of Gold, but ultimately he fell from grace when Henry broke with the Catholic church.
Although Henry’s long marriage to Catherine of Aragon did not result in a male heir, Henry did have a son, Henry FitzRoy. The problem was that he was illegitimate. Henry FitzRoy’s mother was Elizabeth Blount, one of his wife’s courtiers. When FitzRoy turned six, King Henry made him a duke and began grooming him to be the next king. But FitzRoy never had the chance to rule since he died at the age of 17. A year later, King Henry had another son — and this one was legitimate.
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