Descendants: the Wives of Henry VIII

Just as many Scots claim and can sometimes prove, a descent from Robert the Bruce, many people in England or former English-owned countries can also trace their descent from the various Kings of England between 1154-1485.  That's because most of these kings had several children who did manage to survive childhood, grow up and have children of their own, who married into the great families of the realm.  Plantagenet descendants spread throughout Europe, and down the social scale.  One of the odd results of this phenomenon was that all of King Henry VIII's famed 6 wives, including two foreign princesses and four women often described as commoners had royal blood and were in fact distantly related to him.

Katherine of Aragon.  The English and Castilian royal families formed several alliances over the years the Plantagenets ruled England.  Long before Henry VIII's Mary Rose, English kings were interested in shipping and sea power and contracted alliance with like-minded countries, which Castile was.  Eleanor of Castile was the first wife of Edward I.  John of Gaunt married as his second wife a Castilian princess, Constance.  In return, the English sent Eleanor of England, daughter of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine and Catherine of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt and his wife Constance.  The result of the Lancastrian connection was that Catherine of Aragon, who was named for her great-grandmother, was twice descended of John of Gaunt. 

Anne Boleyn.  One of the slights thrown at Anne was her family's obscure and common birth.  While she may not have been royalty like Catherine of Aragon, Anne had no less than 5 ties to Edward I.  Her father's mother had Anglo-Irish connections to the Butler Earls of Ormond, an earldom Thomas Boleyn tried unsuccessfully, even during his daughter's reign, to clinch as his own.  The Butlers of Ormond descended twice over from one of Edward's daughter, Elizabeth of Rhuddlan.  Anne also had another important English family, the Montacute Earls of Salisbury, who descended from another of Edward's daughters, Joan of Acre.  The Howard family gave Anne two more points of Plantagenet connection, to Elizabeth of Rhuddlan, again and Thomas of Brotherton, an early holder of the Duchy of Norfolk. 

Jane Seymour.  The Seymours were an old Wiltshire family but it was Lady Margaret, wife of Sir John Seymour, who brought the royal genes to her daughter Jane and grandson Edward VI.  She carried descent from the Cliffords, who also descended from Edward I's daughter Joan of Acre.  There was also a Percy connection which led to Lionel of Antwerp, son of Edward III and brother of John of Gaunt.

Anne of Cleves.  How did a German princess from the middle of nowhere wind up with Plantagenet heritage?  Edward I and Eleanor of Castile had a daughter Margaret, who became Duchess Consort of Brabant, now part of Belgium.  Her great-granddaughter Margaret de Dampierre, Countess of Flanders, was the great granddaughter of both of Anne's parents, John III of Cleves and Marie von Julich, both from very old German princely families.

Katherine Howard carried the same ancestry on her father's side as did Anne Boleyn, which meant that she could hark back to Elizabeth of Rhuddlan and Thomas of Brotherton, Duke of Norfolk.  But her mother, Joyce or Jocasta Culpepper also had a drop of lion's blood.  Again, Princess Joan of Acre via the de Clare family.

Katherine Parr.  This lady had so much Plantagenet blood it's a wonder she didn't end up in the Tower with Margaret of Salisbury.  She had a descent from John of Gaunt and his third wife Katherine Swynford via the Neville family, a grandmother was a sister of Warwick the Kingmaker himself.  Katherine's Paternal grandmother was a Montacute, leading back to Joan of Acre and Edmund of Woodstock, a son of Edward I by his second wife Marguerite of France.  A maternal grandmother had descent once from Elizabeth of Rhuddlan and twice from Joan of Acre.