History at key stages 1 and 2 (Year 3/4)

Unit 7: Why did Henry VIII marry six times?
Section 6: Why did the marriage to Anne of Cleves fail?

Objectives

Children should learn:

that building alliances through marriage was important in the Tudor period
to extract information from portraits and descriptions
about the various ways that the appearance and characteristics of Anne of Cleves and Henry VIII have been interpreted

Activities

Outcomes

Children:

Explain that friendships between countries were helped by marriages between members of important families from different countries.

Give the children information packs about Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. Ask half the class to use these to produce a picture and description of Anne of Cleves, and the other half to do the same for Henry.

Ask the children to read out their descriptions and show their pictures and decide whether Anne of Cleves is a good choice for Henry's next wife.

Tell the story of Henry's marriage to Anne of Cleves and discuss why it ended in divorce.

identify some of the countries in Europe that were Catholic and Protestant
select information to produce a detailed description and picture of either Anne of Cleves or Henry VIII
present accurate information to the class

Points to note

The information packs could be arranged into categories, eg age, religion, family, languages spoken and understood, interests, character, appearance.

As preparation for this activity the children could be asked to do drawings of each other that emphasise all the positive characteristics to make the point that portraits are not always accurate.

The discussion after the presentations is important. It needs to draw attention to the mismatch between Henry and Anne of Cleves, and to consider why the marriage took place.

This activity could be extended by discussing why different interpretations were made of this couple.

Sections in this unit

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This unit is divided into sections. Each section contains a sequence of activities with related objectives and outcomes. You can view this unit by moving through the sections or print/download the whole unit.


	1. How many times did Henry VIII marry?
	2. What was Henry VIII like as a person?
	3. What did Henry VIII do all day?
	4. Why did Henry divorce Catherine of Aragon?
	5. Did marrying Anne Boleyn or Jane Seymour solve Henry's problems?
	6. Why did the marriage to Anne of Cleves fail?
	7. Why did Henry marry Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr?
	8. Why did Henry marry six times?