Wide World of Quotes > King Henry VIII Quotes


King Henry VIII
King of England
(1491-1547)



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That man hath the sow by the right ear.
-- Speaking of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cramner, in June 1529 (quoted in Acts and Monuments of John Foxe [Foxe's Book of Martyrs]

Let him [i.e. the Pope] not suppose that either the King or his nobles will allow the fixed laws of his kingdom to be set aside.
-- Letter to Pope Clement VII, 1530

The King, our sovereign Lord... shall be taken, accepted, and reputed as the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia... and that our said Lord... shall have full power and authority from time to time to visit, repress, redress, redeem... all such errors, heresies, abuses... which by any manner spiritual authority or jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed... any usage, foreign laws, foreign authority... to the authority notwithstanding.
-- Supremacy Act (1534) which made Henry VIII head of the English church in place of the pope

The King found her so different from her picture... that... he swore that they had brought him a Flanders mare.
-- Thomas Smollett, A Complete History of England, writing of Anne of Cleves, the fourth wife of King Henry VIII and as such Queen of England from 6 January to 9 July 1540

We at no time stand so highly in our estate royal as in the time of Parliament, wherein we as head, and you as members, are conjoined and knit together into one body politic, so as whatsoever offence or injury is offered to the meanest member of the House is to be judged as done against our person and the whole court of Parliament.
-- Address to a deputation from the House of Commons in 1543

Although you be permitted to read Holy Scriptures and to have the Word of God in your mother tongue, you must understand it is licensed so to do only to inform your conscience and inform your children and families, not to make Scripture a railing and taunting stock against priests and preachers. I am very sorry to know and hear how irreverently that precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed, rimed, sung, and jangled in every alehouse and tavern.
-- Speech, 1545


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The selection of the above quotes and the writing of the accompanying notes was performed by the author David Paul Wagner.

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