BOLIVAR 



795 



BOLIVIA 



Henry denied his supremacy over the Church 

 in England and forced Archbishop Cranmer to 

 pronounce a divorce legal (see CRANMER). 



M e a n while, 

 however, he mar- 

 ried Anne in Jan- 

 uary, 1533, and in 

 the following 

 May she was 

 crowned at West- 

 minster with great 

 splendor. In Sep- 

 tember she be- 

 came the mother 

 of Elizabeth, who 

 was later one of 

 England's great 

 rulers. Henry soon 



tired of Anne, and 



The second of the six wives 

 to make possible of King Henry VIII of Eng- 



his marriage with an ' 



Jane Seymour, he had her thrown into prison 

 on a charge of infidelity. Though she vigorously 

 protested her innocence and prayed for 

 release, she was condemned to death and on 

 May 19, 1536, was beheaded. Historians have 

 never settled to their own satisfaction the ques- 

 tion of her guilt or innocence, but all agree 

 that she was at times indiscreet. See HENRY 

 VIII ; CATHARINE OF ARAGON ; SEYMOUR, JANE. 



BOLIVAR, bol'ivahr, SIMON (1783-1830), a 

 South American patriot whose services in 

 behalf of the struggling republics of the 

 southern American continent won for him the 

 title of "Liberator." He completed his edu- 

 cation by law studies in Madrid and exten- 

 sive traveling on the continent of Europe, 

 returning to South America just before the 

 revolutionary uprising of 1810 in his native 

 country of Venezuela. For years he led his 



people in a heroic struggle against the mother 

 country, Spain, and when, in 1819, New Gra- 

 nada and Venezuela were consolidated into the 

 republic of Colombia, Bolivar was chosen its 

 President. By 1822 the Spanish troops were 

 completely driven out of Colombia, and in 

 that year Bolivar was called upon to help the 

 revolutionists of Peru. In 1824 he was made 

 dictator of that country, resigning his office 

 a year later when independence had been 

 secured. 



The southern provinces of Peru joined 

 together in a separate state in 1825, which was 

 named Bolivia in honor of the great Liberator. 

 To him was entrusted the task of framing a 

 constitution for the new republic, which was 

 adopted by the Bolivians, but it gave such 

 power to the chief executive that Bolivar was 

 accused of desiring to make himself perpetual 

 dictator of a South American empire. The last 

 four years of his life were full of discord, and 

 though he was chosen President of Colombia in 

 1826 and 1828 he was forced to retire in 1829, 

 when Venezuela separated from the republic of 

 Colombia. / 



Bolivar is justly regarded as the "Washington 

 of South America." Necessity forced him to 

 use arbitrary methods, but he gave himself 

 with supreme devotion and courage to the great 

 object of his life to unite the South American 

 republics into a strong federation. Statues in 

 his honor have been erected in Caracas, Bogota 

 and Lima; in 1884 one was placed in Cen- 

 tral Park, N. Y., and this was replaced by a 

 new one in 1917. 



Related Subjects. The reader is referred, 

 for additional facts respecting the life of Bolivar, 

 to the following articles in these volumes : 

 Bolivia South America 



Colombia Venezuela 



Peru 



OLIVIA, boliv'ia, one of the two 

 South American countries which are entirely in- 

 land ; it lies south of the equator, from latitude 

 9 44' to 22 50'. It was named for Bolivar, 

 the Great Liberator, who helped it to become 



what it is to-day an independent republic 

 (see BOLIVAR, SIMON). Surrounded by Peru, 

 Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Chile, it comes 

 into contact with the leading states of the con- 

 tinent, and itself bids fair to become, with the 



