English monarch Henry VIII of England was BOTD in 1491. Born in London, he was the second son of King Henry VII of England, whose reign unified the formerly warring houses of York and Lancaster. In 1502, aged 10, he became heir to the throne after the death of his elder brother Arthur. Six feet tall, handsome, athletic and intelligent, he distinguished himself in fencing, music and poetry writing. He became king in 1509, and was granted a papal dispensation to marry Arthur’s widow Catherine of Aragon, on the basis that the marriage had been unconsummated. His early reign was highly influenced by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, a man of humble birth who rose to become archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor. By 1527, Wolsey’s policies had reduced England’s political influence and nearly bankrupted the country. Henry was also desperate to divorce Catherine, who had given him a daughter, Princess Mary, but not a son and heir, and marry Catherine’s former chambermaid Anne Boleyn. Wolsey’s inability to secure a divorce led to Henry stripping him of his lands and titles in 1530; a heartbroken Wolsey died weeks later, to Henry’s lasting regret. Now advised by Wolsey’s protégé Thomas Cromwell, Henry divorced Catherine in 1533, married Anne and broke from the Catholic Church, establishing himself as head of a new Protestant Church of England. Cromwell set about stripping Catholic monasteries of their power and abolished the ecclesiastical courts. In 1533, Cromwell passed the Buggery Act, the country’s first civil law to criminalise anal sex and bestiality, punishable by death. The law proved effective in consolidating the Crown’s power over the church, and was used to execute and imprison clergy and seize their lands and property. Henry’s marriage to Anne produced another daughter, Princess Elizabeth, and a stillborn son. Concerned that he would never produce a living male heir, Henry instructed Cromwell to try Anne for heresy and incest. Despite protesting her innocence, Anne was found guilty and executed in 1536. The following day, Henry married Anne’s former lady-in-waiting Jane Seymour, who later died while giving birth to a longed-for son, Prince Edward. Encouraged by Cromwell, who was keen to make an alliance with Protestant Germany, Henry contacted to marry Anne of Cleves in 1540. The marriage was unconsummated after Henry complained she was “nothing so fair as she hath been reported” and annulled six months later. Angry at Cromwell’s blunder, Henry had him tried and executed for heresy, regretting his decision only weeks later when he realised how ably Cromwell had managed his affairs. Henry quickly married Catherine Howard, though she was executed the following year following claims of adultery. His final marriage to Catherine Parr in 1543 provided a degree of stability in the Royal household, including Henry’s reconciliation with the estranged Mary and Elizabeth. In later years, Henry became grossly obese, partially lame from an untreated leg infection and ill from the effects of syphilis. He died in 1547, aged 55, leaving his kingdom to the nine year-old Prince Edward. The young king’s death in 1553 led to Mary being crowned England’s first Queen regnant. A ferociously devout Catholic, Mary re-established Roman Catholicism as the state religion and ordered the torture and mass execution of Protestant “heretics”. As part of a significant legal overhaul, the Buggery Act was repealed, and the crime of sodomy returned to the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts. Mary died in 1558, succeeded by Elizabeth, who returned England to Protestantism and ruled successfully for over 40 years. Elizabeth ordered the reinstatement of legislation repealed under Mary’s reign, including the Buggery Act, which again became a state crime. The law remained in place until 1828, when it was incorporated into the Offences against the Person Act. The death penalty for buggery was abolished in 1861, replaced by imprisonment and hard labour. In 1885, the Labouchere amendments to the Offences against the Person Act created a new crime of “gross indecency”, covering all sexual contact between men, removing the need for witnesses and including sex in private. The Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised consensual sex between men aged 21 or older in private, though the gross indecency laws were not repealed until 2003.