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Henry VIII is known as the king who changed the direction of the Chruch of England, because of not being able to divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon. Everyone who has the smallest interest in history will know who this man is, and he keeps fascinating us until this day. How are his motives to the reformation and the divorce portrayed in literature during the last 100 years? Was the divorce the only reason for the start of the English reformation? These topics will be examined in this essay written at a bachelor level.

This degree project is a study investigating how the historiography of king Henry VIII of England has changed between 1887-1995. The aim of the study was to gain insight into how the historiography of Henry VIII and the most important aspects of his reign were viewed at different periods of the 19th and 20th centuries and how it has changed over that period. To achieve this aim, Karlsson’s and Zander’s theory about the uses of history was used along with a qualitative method of analysis. The results show that a change did occur in the historiography around Henry VIII at the beginning of the 20th century when the traditional Whig-school of writing history was surpassed by the modernist school of writing. Henry VIII went from being represented as a great ruler with his peoples’ best at heart to a flawed individual whose decisions were often motivated by selfish reasons. Overall, the historiography of Henry VIII has changed from glorifying the king’s personality to showing a more factual picture of the king and the advisors at his court.