Henry VIII

He was very interesting to read about. If you haven’t read Hilary Mantel’s trilogy I recommend it highly.

He was hung.

By your own description, OP, he was fascinating and eccentric.

[quote] How come history is so kind to him?

White Male Privilege, basically.

Maybe because the sitting royalty (Queen Elizabeth) is a descendant.

It was crazy that, with all those wives, he could not produce a male descendant to take the throne.

Let's face it; he was obese. He also had some type of gaping infection in one of his legs.

R5 actually she's not. None of Henry's kids had children. Every monarch since is a descendant of his sister. He's QEII's great X 15? uncle.

[quote] he could not produce a male descendant to take the throne.

He finally did, but the new king didn't last long.

He was supposedly quite handsome and fit and sunny when young. One theory I heard is that a blow to the head may have changed his personality.

Henry the 8th divorced his Catholic wife who was slavishly devoted to the Pope and her Nephew, the King of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor, Defender of the Catholic Church at a very turbulent time. First of all, the Church was extremely political and had its own army, always fucking around in Europe. Secondly, the Church was corrupt. He closed down abbeys and monasteries that were dens of iniquity and the fuckong monks were theives and degenerates. They were also doing a pay for play number from the Vatican all the way down to the most obscure monks, you had to pay for "indulgences" and literally buy your way into heaven. Catherine, his first wife, was drunk on religion. A very devout woman who believed in the infallibility of the Pope who was a corrupt bastard. Whatever. He had two wives beheaded. Anne Boleyn, and the young girl who cheated on him all the time. He didn't kill Catherine, or Catherine Parr or Ann of Cleves or Jane Seymour who had his only male heir then died. He has been smeared IMO because he asserted his authority over the Catholic Church. He was, after all, King of England. WTF.

Who did he think he was?

Guy was a cunt and no mistake.

Unfortunately, egomaniacal sickos make good reading for the many people who wish they could be egomaniacal sickos but just can't bring themselves to go there.

His legacy is of a capricious tyrant. Finding him interesting is not the same as thinking he was a good man.

[quote] He closed down abbeys and monasteries that were dens of iniquity and the fuckong monks were theives and degenerates.

The Fuckong Delta

You beat me to it R10, I was going to say because Herman's Hermits did a song about him.

I don't think history is kind to him at all. A man remembered for murdering several wives is not remembered kindly. The fact that he's remembered at all is not surprising. People love reading about Hitler too. It's morbid fascination.

He was an absolute Monarch - absolute! Think of the Pope as being President and CEO, and all the Kings of Europe being VPs. Henry severed his country from the control of the Pope/Catholic Church in an age when the church was everything. We can't grasp the context so we can't gauge what an extraordinary, brazen, fearless thing it was to do. Six wives?!! Killed at will and whim? Dude was all powerful.

R9 he was a mixed bag, but he could definitely be a bastard. He murdered his second wife because he could and kept Mary from her mother for four years and wouldn't even let her attend her funeral.

Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.

“I mean he killed off half of his wives. He butchered and terrorized and decimated the church, just so he could divorce one of them. He was a greedy fat pig. He rejected his daughters because they had vaginas. I mean he wasn't Hitler, but not far off.”

That’s what dictators do. That’s what got Jhamal Khashoggi dismembered, his screams recorded while he was cut up in a Saudi embassy to please the crown prince. It’s what Kim Jong Un does. And it is the pathology the Trump family has demonstrated.

Britain stripped its monarchs of the power to do these sorts of things for good reasons, and here in the US we are thisclose to allowing someone like this to take control and keep it in his family. And I am sure a lot of people would say this is crazy, but I guarantee as awful and inhumane as Trump is, Ivanka and Jared on a throne would be 25 times more ruthless. And Melania should be terrified and do everything she can to keep it from happening.

OP; The Catholic Church cult needed to be retrained.

R1 Is the Hilary Mantel trilogy of interest for its history or is it proper literature?

R2 I'm still shocked at Henry's Penis Codpiece.

R20, both. It’s already won two Booker Prizes.

[quote]OP; The Catholic Church cult needed to be retrained.

And ever since then England's had a half-assed religion no one really cares about.

R10 And now for a musical interlude.

He was definitely a white supremacist looking at his behavior.

Typical of most white men it seems. Always fearful of the future and clinging to the guns.

He was pretty damn "far off" from Hitler, who was psychotic and created murder factories to eliminate all the Jews of Europe and eventually the world. Also anyone who opposed him in any way. If you were heard saying an unkind word about Hitler you could end up in prison or dead. Henry VIII had his faults but he was not in Hitler's league.

Excuse me, r22??

Elizabeth the Second by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Queen, Defender of the Faith

[quote] He was pretty damn "far off" from Hitler

But he wasn't! He wasn't!

Mid to late 30s

Queen Elizabeth is damn money Gruber. Her and her useless family.

It's all going to come to an end one day.

Stankiest stank sleeve that ever stank!

I will start this by saying that Anne Boleyn is my girl, I love that bitch and she got the last laugh. But as for 8, fucking over the Catholic church makes him a winner in my eyes. Even though he made his own religion, he was still pretty freaking Catholic.

Looks like Prince Harry @ R28

R22 First of all, I'm of English descent so I use the word 'arse' or 'donkey'.

So I guess you're African American or a Catholic or Islamic or a donkey-lover if you hanker for a 'full-ass' religion while condemning a 'half-assed religion'.

That whore Anne Boleyn, r31???

Looked just like him and Had her own Tudor mean streak

R33 Is a racist nazi sympathizer.

The great irony of Henry’s obsession with having a son, was that the two he had (one illegitimate) were weak and sickly and died young, and yet the daughter he had hoped and believed would be a boy, and whose being female had bitterly disappointed him and was one reason he started to change his mind about Anne Boleyn, turned out to be one of the country’s most impactful monarchs (Elizabeth I).

Henry’s personal life was fairly scandalous, he liked to bump off his enemies, but also, a lot of political and societal changes occurred during his rule, some of which he directly brought about; hence the enduring fascination.

R24 What do you mean "White men always fearful of the future" and "clinging to the guns"?.

R31 I've read a lot of the Tudor history and I believe the consensus is that he basically wanted the Church of England to be Catholicism but with him as Pope. In his heart, he was conservative, he just wanted the big hat.

If Catherine had consented to a divorce, or died, he never would've broken away.

He had six wives, he killed two. One of them, his fifth wife Katherine Howard, arguably deserved it for the crime of adultery against the King. Anne Boleyn is usually considered innocent of the charges against her.

As a young man Henry VIII was learned, handsome, tall, devout, incredibly strong physically, musical, artistic, considered the epitome of princely virtues. As he got older and more powerful, or understood the extremes of his power better, he became a vicious, murderous tyrant. The Tudors make good reading, movies and mini-series. They are very dramatic from beginning to end.

He liked to fuck different women and he considered them disposable when they didn’t produce the kids he wanted. He was power hungry and wanted to wield the power over the people’s minds and hearts that Rome had claimed throughout Christian history. He was an utter megalomaniacal narcissist. He didn’t make reforms for the good of the people, for God’s sake. He was a big fat glutton.

R38 I guess that one hit a nerve did it?

No he didn’t make reforms for the good of the people R41, but still the country changed a lot while he was in power, for good or bad.

I am R20. I wrote 'The Catholic Church cult needed to be retrained' but meant to say it needed to be RESTRAINED.

So did Russia under Catherine the Great, except she abolished serfdom, introduced vaccines, promoted science and literature. I dunno, call me crazy, but I prefer people who use their absolute power to change things for others and not only themselves.

R34 = Mary Tudor

I didn’t say I liked him, R45, or admired him, I don’t at all. Just that people are interested in his reign for a number of understandable reasons.

My staunchly Catholic grandmother had a history book with the names of all the British monarchs in It. Next to Henry’s name she had written, in capitals and double underlined: BAD BUGGER.

Can’t say I disagree.

The Tudors were awful. So many people were slaughtered because of religion. It’s amazing Henry wasn’t assassinated

[quote]He liked to fuck different women and he considered them disposable when they didn’t produce the kids he wanted. He was power hungry and wanted to wield the power over the people’s minds and hearts that Rome had claimed throughout Christian history. He was an utter megalomaniacal narcissist. He didn’t make reforms for the good of the people, for God’s sake. He was a big fat glutton.

I think this is way too simplistic a view of complex man. Especially one who was a King.

R48 it's kind of a common theme throughout world history. What...90% of major conflicts boil down to religion.

His royal life and surrounding court was the first car-crash can’t look away reality show, just shown in 16th century formats: Holbein portraits, scraps of letters and tomb engravings. He started out a handsome, romantic prince and ended up a drooling misogynist. Oh, and the daughter he discounted ended up being the best king England ever had, nicely bringing the whole Tudor soap opera to a close in season 1603, passing the torch to her gay cousin James Stuart.

[quote] He was an utter megalomaniacal narcissist.

Who does that remind us of right now? .. And they've both got an orange thing goin' on. .. Although, I suspect Henry's was more a bad case of rosacea.

It was Henry's advisors, some courtiers, and two wives (Anne Boleyn and Catherine Parr) who either had Protestant leanings or were interested in The Reformation, not Henry. When the Pope refused to grant him an annulment from Catherine of Aragon, he used religious reform as an expedient excuse to get his annulment by making himself head of his own religion. Taking the lands and property of the corrupt Catholic Church was icing on the cake. According to many historians, he was always a Catholic in his heart and in his habits. As R41 pointed out, he didn't care about the spiritual welfare of his people. He only cared for himself.

Very, very interesting

R40, I have a hard time believing that adultery is a deserving reason for execution of one's wife, even by the standards of Tudor England.

IIRC, Dickens referred to him as "that contemptible grease-spot on the national history" and the current Queen evidently had a portrait of Henry removed from a state room in Buckingham Palace when she ascended the throne as she found him disgusting.

He was Stalin without the state apparatus and technology to get the job of real murdering done. But he murdered enough, including monks and government ministers who didn't succeed at getting him what he wanted. The reason he's admired is like Stalin he created a modern centralized state. He made England modern. When James I came down from Scotland that modern state apparatus could be, more or less, extended to the whole island. The Scots remained a problem however until the Pretenders were put down. They're still a problem for England if truth be told.

[quote] [R40], I have a hard time believing that adultery is a deserving reason for execution of one's wife, even by the standards of Tudor England.

Yes, well what you believe is totally irrelevant, R55. The law was very clear on this matter in England and in every other kingdom in Europe (and elsewhere). The role of any Queen in Tudor England was to provide a legitimate heir to the throne, preferably male, preferably more than one. Committing adultery against the King was not only adultery, it was treason against Crown and Country and treated as such.

Let's say Katherine Howard, young and pretty Queen, becomes pregnant and has a son. She's been fucking hot young Thomas Culpepper the whole time she was occasionally fucking King Henry VIII. Whose son is it? Is this child a rightful heir, a member of the royal family, a Tudor, or a bastard usurper? And what of the cuckholded King? He is an absolute monarch who has been humiliated and shamed in his own bed. Does he still hold God's favor? Will his Dukes and lords respect him? Will they raise armies and fight when he calls them?

These matters were of great legal and religious importance in those times. They had serious consequences at home and abroad. By today's standards, the death penalty for adultery would be ridiculous and we have DNA to determine true paternity. In Tudor times it was a completely different reality. Read some history and perhaps it will become clearer to you.

In a most interesting thread, my favorite was “fuckong”.

Men determine the sex of their offspring.

My poor grandfather produced five girls and stopped trying.

"That mountain of lard and stinking sores."

R57 I bet you talk filth in bed.

I don't believe Katherine deserved to die (she was approx 15 after all) but it's baffling to me that her relatives didn't see what an obviously terrible choice she was for a queen. A mistress, sure. But for a King's wife, especially a king like Henry who wanted things his way or you die, she was wrong in every way.

I really wanted him to be the writer of "Greensleeves". He did write this shit here:

R57, I am aware of the legal implications of adultery. Your tone in your first comment seemed inappropriate nevertheless.

As much as a glutton and despot Henry VIII was, it pales in comparison to Bill Barr.

R40 Anne Boleyn was a protestant and had a great impact on Henry's views on the Catholic Church. Thomas Cranmer , Archbishop of Canterbury was a great influence on Anne and her reformist views of the Catholic Church. Cranmer himself went on to write the Book of Common Prayer, a mainstay of the Anglican faith. He was eventually burned to death by Mary Tudor.

Henry went after all the remaining Plantagenets. He had Margaret Pole, the niece of Edward IV, butchered at the Tower at the age of 67 on trumped up charges of treason. Henry had already had Margaret Pole's son executed some years prior.

Henry was a sociopath. In addition to Anne's murder, he had her teenaged cousin murdered as well (Catherine Howard). She was just a silly girl, really.

Current thinking is that Anne Boleyn could has saved herself by allowing Henry to divorce her, declaring Elizabeth a Bastard (illegitimate) and retiring to a Nunnery (Convent). Lots of contemporary accounts support that theory.

She wasn't prepared to do any of it, which unfortunately also sealed the fate of Catherine Howard when she was also convicted of Treason (Adultery).

[quote] [R57], I am aware of the legal implications of adultery. Your tone in your first comment seemed inappropriate nevertheless.

Yes, dear, but "seeming inappropriate" to your personal feelings isn't the same thing as actually "being inappropriate" in terms of Tudor history in 1542. You were, and are, in the wrong.

Katherine Howard was, indeed, guilty of Treason against King and Country. She received the appropriate sentence at the time which was execution. Treason still carries the Death Penalty on the books in many countries that have otherwise banned it.

R 67 Anne Boleyn tried to get sent to a convent, but Henry insisted on her execution. She did not want to die and considered all options to save her life. This is discussed in the exhaustive biography of AB written by Eric Ives.

[quote] I mean he killed off half of his wives.

Two out of six is still pretty terrible. But it is not "half."

[quote]She received the appropriate sentence at the time which was execution.

R68 >

[quote] Henry went after all the remaining Plantagenets. He had Margaret Pole, the niece of Edward IV, butchered

Did she have a Plantagenet face?

R68. The tragedy of Kat Howard is that EVEN if she had been faithful to Henry, she would have still been killed as Henry changed the law to include any premarital sexual activity. Kat had been Culpepper's lover prior to marrying Henry. Cruel, indeed.

Princess Diana should have had her head chopped off due to her infidelity. Same with the half-dead Prince Phillip.

R70 well Jane did die in childbirth so his penis killed her.

And Catherine of Aragon's health couldn't have been helped by all the stress he put her under.

Yes, Margaret Pole seemed to have a long face. Edward IV was incredibly handsome. Most Plantagenets were, as they were descended from Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was considered the most beautiful woman in Europe at the time. She was able to marry the King of France, then dump him for the King of England. No other woman in European History has been able to achieve such a feat.

Catherine Howard was offered a way out (banishment and disgrace) if she admitted to being "technically married" to Francis Dereham. But she insisted he had forced her, which was almost certainly a lie.

For r74:

R73, the law pertains to adultery by the queen-consort or the Princess of Wales; when it was written, many centuries ago, no one imagined there could be a queen-regnant with a prince-consort, so it doesn't pertain to Prince Philip. R74, Catherine of Aragon had had many pregnancies that affected her health but you are right that he was put under enormous strain by Henry to renounce her marriage to him and to say that she had had intercourse with his older brother, Arthur. Instead, she asserted that she came to Henry as a virgin because her earlier marriage to Arthur had not been consummated due to his youth and health. Despite offers to go to a nunnery, Catherine held to her beliefs. I think she's the most admirable of Henry's wives. Katherine Parr is a close second; she, too, risked much for her beliefs. Ironically, Katherine Parr survived Henry by only a year, dying in childbirth after marrying her subsequent (and fourth) husband.

R70. He had signed a death warrant for his final wife, Katherine Parr. She was warned and was able to convince him (temporarily) to not kill her. Lucky for her, he croaked before he could have her executed.

She was a reformist/protestant and an influence on Edward Tudor, as well as the young Elizabeth I. The catholic leaning courtiers wanted her gone.

Sadly for her, she died in childbirth after marrying the love of her life, Thomas Seymour, who cheated on her and tried to seduce Elizabeth. Thomas was executed by Edward Tudor.

The Catholic Church is the one and only true Christian church. Any of the other Protestant religions started as some form protest are simply not legitimate and never will be!

R78. Anne Boleyn had the most profound impact on the history of England for two reasons.

Firstly, she greatly influenced Henry to reform the Catholic Church, leading to the establishment of the Church of England.

Secondly, she produced Elizabeth I.

None of Henry's other wives had much impact on the future of England. Although Seymour gave birth to a son, he was sickly and died at 16,

Anne of Cleves got off easy—he dumped her for not being as attractive in person as her official portrait, painted by Hans Holbein.

R82 Anne of Cleves won the jackpot. She got houses, money, and royal favor all for agreeing to the divorce.

Anne of Cleves played the game brilliantly. She did not want to return to living under the control of her abusive brother and agreed to accept the title of "sister" to Henry. He gifted her a castle and a generous pension. She loved to hold feasts and wear elaborate and expensive gowns/jewelry, all bought by Henry's money.

Most rulers of that era were pretty awful.

[quote]How come history is so kind to him?

Possibly because he knew better than to use "how come" when "why" is preferred.

How do we even know that any of these people even actually existed? They didn't even have photography back then. Where is the proof?

This is DL - we tend to prefer to write in "spoken" English, Miss Brooks.

[quote]They didn't even have photography back then

They had portraits, moron.

R87 The Tudors were a literate group and left exhaustive records/documents/letters.

Similar to how we know about the ancient Egyptians - no photographs, but plenty of edifices and hieroglyphs from which we can learn of their history.

R88 I'm not Miss Brooks but I abhor the four-letter words scattered everywhere on DL now and I particularly abhor the new misuse of that four-letter word for excrement.

That word now seems to equate to the noun 'stuff'.

[quote]R68 Katherine Howard was, indeed, guilty of Treason against King and Country. She received the appropriate sentence at the time which was execution.

Tamzin Merchant was so wonderful playing her.

[quote]This is DL - we tend to prefer to write in "spoken" English, Miss Brooks.

r88, DL or not, why would you want to type two words instead of one? The fewer words used to make one's point, whether writing or speaking, greatly increases the chance that communication will be achieved. If communication is not your goal, and you are just typing to exercise your fingers, might I suggest ombromanie, the art of performing a story or show using images made by hand shadows.

How come you're still ranting?

[quote]Anne of Cleves played the game brilliantly.

Even more impressive in that she did so without being able to speak English!

My favorite is Reginald Cardinal Pole because of the hipster beard.

He was a total Welsh pig.

Pole was the son Margaret Pole whom Henry murdered. He was a Plantagenet and had a claim to the throne himself. I get gay vibes.

The only hero of the debacle which was HVIII's reign was Nan Bullen, thanks to whom I am a WASP.

[quote] I get gay vibes.

Your gaydar is centuries-old like you no doubt.

Reginald Pole was outside of England. Henry went after Margaret and her other children as payback for Reginald backing the Pope. Reginald came back when Mary came to the throne. They died the same day.

Tamzin Merchant was in the original pilot of Game of Thrones, but was fired and replaced by Emilia Clarke.

Yes! It makes you wonder.

She was probably too wispy in spirit.

I liked her on SALEM and CARNIVAL ROW, too.

She’s like a nastier Mia Farrow.

Henry would have never had Anne of Cleves executed even if she had given him a hard time. She was a foreign princess and as such an equal to him. The two wives he had executed had been his subjects and even tho he " raised" them up to his rank, the mentality of that era was that a King could decide on his subjects.

R105 while he didnt kill Catherine of Aragon, he sure made her last years unpleasant. Anne could've had a hard time if she hadn't been smart.

Yes hard time for sure, but wouldn't dare have her executed.

R105 Ironically he had a pretty good relationship with Anne of Cleves after the dust had settled. She stayed in England, was able to live independently and sometimes even came to court to visit her “brother” Henry. Catherine of Aragon was a truly sad figure. It think she and Henry really did have, in the early days, the kind of romantic love that most arranged marriages did not. Does anyone know if the reasons for her inability to deliver a living child was even determined? She seemed to be able to get pregnant just couldn’t carry them to term or even live much beyond birth. I read somewhere it may have been an incompatibility of blood types.

There's a theory (impossible to prove at this point) that Henry had a blood disorder that affected his fertility.

But it's certainly interesting to see how his family got less and less fertile. His mother had 7 children, 3 who died as babies. Her mother had 12 children, lost 2 as babies. And HER mother had 14, losing only 1 as a baby.

[quote] Her mother had 12 children, lost 2 as babies. And HER mother had 14, losing only 1 as a baby.

I can't imagine what it would be like to spend so many years of one's life pregnant especially in those days. It must've been hellish.

It would be gross. And no pain meds!!

Still, that Duggar broad spewed out 20, or something... so some still get into it.

Parents having 12 children was not uncommon up until a century ago at the time of The Great War.

R110 it sounds like HEAVEN!

Yeah, at the time, having that many children wasn't the weird part. Having that many survive was the shocker.

[quote]R112 Parents having 12 children was not uncommon up until a century ago at the time of The Great War.

For dirty Catholics, maybe. Not for everyone.

Families with 12 children were more common then because it was assumed 2 or 3 would die in the first 2 years.

Families with 12 children were more common then in pioneer societies like Australia and Canada because they had to farm the land and improve the economy.

R51 There are obviously some knowledgeable people here who know more about Tudor times than me.

I wonder what they think about R51's suggestion that Henry started out a handsome, romantic prince and ended up a drooling misogynist".

I imagine Henry was very much occupied with affairs of state rather than women in his latter years.

[quote] I imagine Henry was very much occupied with affairs of state rather than women in his latter years.

As well as pain and discomfort.

Henry was the ultimate Renaissance prince when he was young, unfortunately he nearly died in a jousting accident. He was never the same afterwards, and suffered from unhealed ulcers on his leg, which would have caused constant excruciating pain.

Henry would have been always conscious of how tenuous the Tudor grasp on power was, his father had only become king through battle, it was absolutely crucial that he have a male heir to carry on the Tudor dynasty.

Henry’s motives can be judged by these two realities.

He was the Trump of his era.

Weird history trolling from R87 as though a photograph of some guy presented as” the king” without other context would prove what a myriad of contemporaneous historical sources from multiple countries could not. Still, it’s not often you get to see history trolling.

Those Tutor men were sick all the time, died early and couldn't father sons. Lovers! Not like me, R120.

Henry VIII is remembered for breaking the power of the church. He did it for self-serving reasons, and gave himself an exalted place as Defender of the new church of England, but he showed that it was possible to break with Rome, and still flourish.

He also did so in a way which was relatively humane compared to the wars of religion which took place elsewhere in Europe. Although catholics were taxed punitively and suppressed, and priests banned during some Tudor reigns, there was comparatively little bloodshed compared to the European mainland, where religious battles dragged on for centuries. Henry destroyed the catholic church in England in a few decades, expropriated its wealth and pensioned of England’s catholic nuns and priests who were free to live out their days in peace, as long as they accepted his authority.

He clearly did not much believe in religious freedom, but I’ve always thought he unintentionally brought us much closer to democratic values. Once the Princes of the Church in the Vatican were shown to be irrelevant in England, and that their power could be removed, it became more possible to question the divine rights of kings. In essence, Henry tried to combine the role of King and Pope in himself, which is why he kept some catholic rites in his new church and tried to keep the bible in Latin so that it could only be read and preached by an educated privileged elite.

He started off a process of questioning the legitimacy of power which led the court to assume the right to decide who had the right to inherit the throne (as it did when James VI and I succeeded Elizabeth), which in turn emboldened parliament to depose Charles I (who truly believed in his Divine Right to rule). A line can be drawn from those events onwards to parliament then deposing James VII and II in exchange for the Bill of Rights, and then to some of the citizens of British North America rebelling against another king who seemed to be imposing intolerable laws upon them

[quote]Henry VIII is remembered for breaking the power of the church. He did it for self-serving reasons, and gave himself an exalted place as Defender of the new church of England, but he showed that it was possible to break with Rome, and still flourish.

It was the Brexit of its day.

The six wives thing overshadows everything else. While he wasn't an attractive personality by any means and was (or became after the accident and blackout) paranoid and cruel, the body count wasn't that spectacular by 16th century monarchical standards. There were basically two reigns, the Katherine of Aragon years (longer than the rest put together), when he was a pretty standard Renaissance king, and then the shorter, tumultuous period of five wives, dissolution of the monasteries, coinage debasement etc.

Catherine of Aragon had a daughter, bloody Queen Mary. Defender of the Faith was a distinction bestowed on Henry by the Pope.

Fat and ginger. The worst combination ever.

Welsh, fat and ginge. Prince Henry of Wales.

People were crazy religious back then. Unhealthily obsessed with the church. I can't imagine having to live like that.

[quote]There's a theory (impossible to prove at this point) that Henry had a blood disorder that affected his fertility.

Also, the theory has been floated that it may have been caused by syphillis.

eye'm henery the eighfh eye yam

I often think that back then the church was like television, R129. It was everywhere, and it offered ordinary people entertainment options that they never would have had otherwise. The church offered music, art, ceremonies, festivals, mystery plays, etc. People were obsessed because that's what was there to obsess about.

Henry also gave us the Buggery Act 1533.

If it wasn't for Henry, there would be a lot more Americans who sucked the Pope's cock. He saved us from that madness. Be grateful, bitches.

History isn't as kind to him as you seem to believe. Read more books.

i like that this is a thread for DLers to trot out the little facts they've learned about Henry VIII.

R129 touches on an excellent point - ignorance and unreasonable beliefs of the time. This should have it's own thread. They believed that the "night air" was evil and could cause all sorts of harmful things. Likewise, left-handed people were considered to be touched by the devil and made to use the right hand. "Crazy religious" - that's a good term.

R129 People are still crazy-religious. Look at all the COVID-Christians.

What the "Mad King" would have looked like today.

It's kinda true r129. The average person was a homicidal religious maniac by modern, or at least Enlightenment standards in Europe and North America. It wasn't just kings and bishops. Pretty much everyone would say that there was one true religion, anyone who disagreed was an enemy of God and humanity, and if they were stubborn about it, they deserved the death penalty. They started disagreeing about what the True Religion was, but pretty much everyone accepted that there could be only one, and you should suffer if you disagreed. Martin Luther and Calvin loved killing heretics as much as any Inquisitor.

Looks to me that Henry tweezed his eyebrows?!! Go on, girl

Henry VIII is still burning in hell today for breaking with the one and only true Christian Church.

[quote]touches on an excellent point - ignorance and unreasonable beliefs of the time. This should have it's own thread.

What about the people who slept sitting up because they didn't want to imitate death by lying down? Their necks must have hurt their entire lives.

"In 1521, pursuant to a grant from Pope Leo X rewarding Henry for his Defence of the Seven Sacraments, the royal style became "Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of God, King of England and France, Defender of the Faith and Lord of Ireland". Following Henry's excommunication, Pope Paul III rescinded the grant of the title "Defender of the Faith", but an Act of Parliament (35 Hen 8 c 3) declared that it remained valid; and it continues in royal usage to the present day, as evidenced by the letters FID DEF or F.D. on all British coinage."

He only killed two of his wives.

I picture r134 surrounded by pamphlets like "Fight the Papist Menace!" and "Don't Let Your Daughter Marry an Irishman!"

The other problem Henry had was that in those days, the king married to make political alliances. Need help from the Prussians? Marry 300 pound Helga so that the Prussians would come to your aid during conflict.

I don't think he's treated that kindly by history. But his reign was certainly dramatic, and historical.

And the great maligned Anne Boleyn is probably the most influential woman in English history. It's she, (in Henry's desire for her), who really brought the English Reformation.

[quote]I often think that back then the church was like television, [R129]. It was everywhere, and it offered ordinary people entertainment options that they never would have had otherwise. The church offered music, art, ceremonies, festivals, mystery plays, etc. People were obsessed because that's what was there to obsess about.

If you mean actually at the church - a catholic church would never have been used for entertainment purposes. Still, to this day in England, not, ever.

Protestant churches on the other hand are used for all sorts of things. Which I think is wrong. They should be houses of prayer only. But I don't care. I'm not protestant.

Queen Elizabeth II is not a descendant of Henry VIII. There are no descendants of Henry VIII. All his children died childless. The present queen is a direct descendant of Henry VII.

You cannot compare 16th century monarchs like Henry VIII or Ivan IV whose rules were bloody with 20th century mass murderers like Hitler, Stalin, or Mao. The 16th century state did not have the apparatus of the 20th century state to commit mass murder.

Henry VIII is significant because of the break with Rome, which led to the development of the modern, secular state. He recreated authority in England.

Well, Henry sort of didn't play that, r147. He did marry Catherine of Aragon but that was something he did himself after his father kept dicking around for years about the dowry. When he became king, Henry could have said No but chose to marry her for both personal and political reasons. Afterwards, he definitely chose wives for personal reasons, and the one time he married for political reasons, Anne of Cleves, he shut that down in a hurry when he decided he didn't like her.

R144, Title granted by Pope, break with Pope, title rescinded, keep it anyway.

Anglicans are consistent in their lack of logic.

A very big problem was the English language Bible. Literacy was common but reading Latin was not. Once the Bible was published in English, every Tom, Dick and Harry had his own view of what it all meant. Given the King couldn't decide whether he was Roman Catholic or a reformer, there was a lot of confusion over religion at all levels of society.

His horned helmet, part of a suit of armor gifted to him by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, is pretty amazing.

The English Reformation was bloody enough. There were state sanctioned murders on both sides of the coin.

Well you can compare personalities r150. By the end, Henry VIII was pretty Stalinesque, paranoid, vicious, and cruel, with everyone around wondering who was going to get the axe next. The Duke of Norfolk, his longest lasting minister, came very close, and only survived because Henry died before Norfolk could be executed, and his successor, or really his successor's ministers, thought it was too dangerous a step to take.

F.D. on a 1977 coin.

And there was an actual rebellion, the Pilgramage of Grace, that was pretty brutally suppressed.

But I do agree overall, France and Germany were much worse.

Old Hank had trouble getting wives amongst the royal princesses after awhile. One was known to have said something like "I like my head where it's at" when he sent a delegation to propose a match. Plus, he was old, morbidly obese and ugly at that time. And smelled bad from the oozing wound. I also heard he was so fat he couldn't really "mount" a woman by that time.

[quote]I mean he killed off half of his wives.

Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.

Sorry, R156, I don't agree with you. You certainly can compare dictators like Stalin and Hitler to each other, where one had a very hands on style and the other spoke in generalities and then those under him put those wishes into action.

But you cannot compare a sixteenth century person with a twentieth century one. Was Henry VIII mercurial and murderous -- yes. Was Stalin -- yes. Were they similar in personalities? No.

And the Duke of Norfolk was not a "minister" of Henry VIII. He was Lord Treasurer. His fall had to do with shifting factions at the Tudor Court.

I don't see why Lord Treasurer can't be described as a minister by Henry VIII's time.

It's one of those great ironies of history. Pretty much everyone agrees Anne Boleyn was executed for crimes she didn't commit, but it's hard to really find her blameless. Pretty much everyone agrees Katherine Howard was guilty of exactly what she was executed for, but it's hard not to feel sorry for her. She was an innocent set up by her scheming relatives.

Henry was an Absolute Ruler, chosen by God ,ruling by Divine Right just like Our Dear Leader and Guardian, the Righteous and Venerable Donald Trump!

Catherine Howard was a very young girl with raging hormones who was naturally going to fall in lust with pretty young men and not her gross fat husband. Henry should have just had the marriage annulled and let her go her merry way but being a vindictive, narcissistic pig he ordered her death instead of having some compassion for her age.

If the real Culpeper looked anything like this Culpeper, you couldn't blame her.

R162, maybe I'm being pedantic, but I'd describe Thomas More or Thomas Cromwell as "ministers" of Henry VIII. Norfolk was a nobleman and a courtier who held office, i.e. Lord Treasurer. All three held their positions due to the favor of the king, but Norfolk 's interests were more linked to the promotion of his family's interests than either More's or certainly Cromwell's whose rise to favor with the king was due to their abilities rather than noble status.

Catherine of Aragon was Catholic and Spain was catholic - astonishing, considering Spain was under occupation by Muslims from North Africa until 1492. So it’s more than a little understandable that Catherine was attached to her religion, since her people held onto it for 900 years of occupation and Spain had only become a christian nation again when she was 7 years old.

Catherine believed she was fated by God. God gave Spain back the church because the people believed in him. God had made her the queen of England and a queen was equally compelled by duty as was a king. So Catherine felt it was her duty to remain with her church, to believe in her God & to continue to be the queen of England. As far as she was concerned, she had no choice. God put her there.

The podcast Noble Blood did an interesting piece on Catherine of Aragon. Apparently, after Henry's brother died she pretty much was held almost prisoner in England with no money, her dowry taken over by the King who did not want to return it. She was in limbo until it was decided that she would marry Henry.

Y’all believe the stories that Catherine Howard was a whore? I guess you believe Anne Boleyn slept with her brother, too....

Henry VIII was Trump - fat, vain, misogynistic, entitled, prejudiced, egomaniacal, raging, vengeful, greedy. He burned the monasteries for their gold. Monasteries were the hospitals, orphanages & homeless shelters of medieval England. Nothing took their place after he smashed them & the people in the countryside suffered for lack of them. They were later replaced by workhouses & filthy asylums. Henry spread his own brand of fake news about.

After he chopped off Anne Boleyn’s head do you think some teenaged girl was going to cheat on Henry even once, let alone repeatedly? Henry was a paranoid, lying lunatic. He wanted a new wife, so he got people to testify that Catherine Howard was unfaithful to him.

Henry treated women like animals. They were for fun & procreation and once a woman offered him neither, he got rid of her one way or another. Catherine Howard came thisclose to being murdered by Henry.

Sorry meant Catherine Parr came thisclose to being murdered by Henry.

R167 Lord Treasurer was a ministerial position. The Norfolks were slumming it by taking it on, but it was lucrative.

A recent (and fair) biography on Catherine Howard.

Review: Of the six wives of Henry VIII, Catherine Howard is usually the least enviable and least admired of the lot. Portrayed by contemporary and modern writers as a vixen, temptress, whore, idiot, pawn, simpleton, innocent and thought of as empty-headed, frivolous, lewd, lascivious, faithless, deceptive, ignorant, only in Gareth Russell's extremely engaging and readable biography do we finally achieve a comprehensive picture of the elusive fifth consort of Henry. Throughout Russell weighs various theories about her (from her actual year of birth, to whether or not she and Culpeper consummated their relationship), then uses multiple pieces of historical evidence to show the weaknesses of each and advances what he considers the most likely theory from the available evidence. But there's no agenda here: Russell neither seeks to restore Catherine's good name at the expense of the various men who abused and exploited her, nor does he slander hers and dismiss her on account of her actions at Lambeth and later at court. Instead Russell truly seeks to consider Catherine objectively and carefully and come to understand her, and that he does so means we do so as well, and all the better than I was consistently entertained and informed throughout.

Russell is able to situate Catherine's circumstances and character against the larger backdrop of daily life and expectations for the aristocrats and courtiers of Tudor England, and brings forth a fully imagined world with its rules and laws, writ and unspoken and revised, made by God, man, and sometimes both, and how and why Catherine's eventual downfall could only come to pass from a particular set of political and social circumstances of Henry VIII's court. And as good as his early chapters are, tracing Catherine's early childhood and coming of age and early predilections for lightly bending or bucking the established codes of conduct, his reconstruction of the whirlwind of activity and investigation is absolutely fantastic. While Catherine shared the fate of her cousin, Anne Boleyn, and the downfalls of both queens cost men their lives, Russell shows just how diligently and thoroughly and carefully the king's counsellors proceeded with the inquest into Catherine's relations with Dereham, and later with Culpeper, in stark contrast to the Boleyn proceedings in which by some contemporary and most modern sources show just how politically engineered Anne's downfall was. And even then, without a retroactively applying attainder that applied to Catherine's actions and more insidiously her intentions, Catherine may never have been executed.

2/2.

We also get fascinating insights into Catherine's character, something rarely introduced beyond the broad biographical strokes in many other popular histories of the period or Tudor fiction. We see Catherine's extreme aversion to being slighted, her preferred role as pursued and then empowered to end her own affairs. We see Catherine's insecurities about performing the role and duties as queen to perfection, especially since Henry's fourth wife Anne of Cleves still lives and somewhat intimidates and threatens her, and her devotion to ensuring all her public displays are executed flawlessly and gracefully. We see how a girl of little personal means (though with a good family name) immediately pays back Dereham as soon as she begins to advance at court, wishing to no longer be in debt and release ties to him and move forward to her new place in the world. We see a bit of her stubborn and cruel side in her interactions with Lady Mary, Henry's daughter, and Catherine has two of Mary's maids dismissed (again a bit outside prevailing social codes of conduct). And we also see her wish to be liked and well-regarded, and the eventual fragile truce and exchange of presents between Catherine and Mary nod to that as well.

Catherine Howard is fully realized in Russell's hands: a woman in a difficult age, a woman of an important aristocratic family but neither a willing tool nor an innocent pawn of their plots for power, and her downfall a thing of circumstance, bad luck, and poor decision making in one: Russell neither blames nor absolves her, but shows perfectly how truly tragic Catherine's tale is, and how difficult it was to thrive and survive some of the schizophrenic political winds of the time (and political and personal will of the king) for a flawed human like Catherine. I'd love to read future biographies by Russell, whether Tudor centric or otherwise, and heartily recommend this book to Tudor enthusiasts looking for something new, authoritative and truly objective, in a time where so many books come with preconceived notions and evidence is outlined to reinforce existing prejudices or stacked to support one theory above all: instead take the journey with Russell and come to know Catherine Howard in life and death.

I don't think Henry VIII had a fertility problem as such. Katherine of Aragon was pregnant multiple times, Anne and Jane were pregnant about as often as time allowed and there was at least one acknowledged bastard, the Duke of Richmond, and other probable ones. He could easily have ended up with five or six living heirs and did in fact have three anyway when he died. It was issues during pregnancy and child mortality that caused the problems. It was a pure lottery. Look at contemporary France: Charles VIII and Louis XII in turn had no sons to inherit; Francis I went from three sons to just one left when he died. This son, Henri II (Henry VIII's godson) left four sons but not one of them produced an heir in turn.

R175 Scientific paper on the theory. Of course it's impossible to prove now, but interesting. And fertility isn't just getting pregnant, it's staying pregnant and having a healthy baby. His record was definitely higher than average on that regard.

Anne Boleyn's mother was a Howard.

You are being a little pedantic r167, but I get it. I do think Henry VIII was still Stalinesque at the end, and everyone around him had to wonder who he'd lash out at next for being too Catholic or not Catholic enough. I don't Elizabeth I ever got to that stage. She obviously killed some people, but you almost had to ask for it, like Mary Queen of Scots or the Earl of Essex.

and yeah, r170, Catherine Howard was a slutty mcslutterson. Anne Boleyn almost certainly didn't sleep with her brother, but yeah the Howard girl was a slut from slutsville.

Catherine Howard admitted having sex with some tutor or something when she was still a schoolgirl in the country and later had another affair with someone else. Like I said, hormonal teen.

St John Fisher, pray for us.

Interesting paper, R176, but ultimately resting on foundations about as steady as Birnam Wood, as there is no actual evidence for it. You could apply the same analysis to pretty much any early modern monarch with an heir shortage but no one is interested enough. Henry left three living heirs when he died - which was pretty good for his time: better than James IV and James V of Scotland, Louis XII and Francis I of France, etc. The only ones who really bucked the trend were the Habsburgs and they actually benefitted from the dynastic failure of several other lines: Burgundy, the Spanish kingdoms (people forget how close Katherine of Aragon was for a while to becoming heiress of Spain and its empire), Hungary, Bohemia....

I saw some show once claiming that guards working at the Tower now will sometimes hear Catherine's ghost running down a hall screaming for Henry to forgive her and begging for mercy. I think that actually happened too.

Yeah, the Habsburgs hit the genetic lottery. It would blow up in their faces in the late 1600s when everyone started to be a congenital idiot, but for about a hundred years a whole lot of good stuff fell into their laps, including Spain and the entire New World (for awhile).

R183 the guards working at the Tower are friendly drunks retired from the army. That haunting is supposed to be at Hampton Court.

I thought Hampton Court was more Anne Boleyn. Wasn't it given to her, by force, by Cardinal Wolsey?

The Catholic Church has always been a corrupt, fraudulent organization and it's glorious that someone stood up to it.

Currently watching this on ok.ru from 1970 - The BBC really turned out some great miniseries during the 70s - this is a great one

After Anne Boleyn the king took Hampton Court for himself.

I enjoy visiting Hampton Court. They have actors dressed up like Henry and other notables of his court wandering around, acting out scenes.

Although Henry ordered the removal of the HA monograms that were placed everywhere there, many remain and can be seen.

England was a sinkhole of disease back then. Malaria weakened people (though usually didn't kill them because it was a different type of malaria than the tropical kind), tuberculosis, typhus, puerperal fever, diphtheria, measles, smallpox, scarlet fever, the mysterious sweating fever, cameo appearances of bubonic plague all waited to infect people. Not to mention if you got appendicitis or a bad hernia you were done for. Childbirth didn’t just offer puerperal fever, but any abnormality could kill the mother - eclampsia, hyperemesis gravidarum, breech birth, hemorrhage when the fundus didn’t return to its place, large babies from gestational diabetes that could rip a woman apart.

No way would I have wanted to be a woman back in those days. Childbirth was a very possible death sentence.

Funny they called Mary Tudor Bloody Mary. She killed 200-300 while Henry & Elizabeth killed thousands.

Mary's reign was short but she had a lot killed on the block or at the stake.

What is an HA monogram?

Oh c'mon R195. It's not that hard to figure out.

Hank Aaron

Henry's former best buddy Thomas More was quite fond of burning people alive. Henry ended up having his head chopped off, as he wouldn't break with the Pope. Despite More's brutal past, he was made a Catholic saint.

"Bloody Mary" is a myth. By some historical accounts, Henry ordered the deaths of over 10.000 people. Mary was not a ruthless tyrant like her father. In fact, Mary did not want to order the execution of her relative, Lady Jane Grey. It was only after Prince Phillip demanded it as necessary for their marriage to proceed, was Gray executed.

Link for above...

Ha-ha!

If King Henry was alive today, he would be the "Fat whores rejoice" DL queen.

I guess life meant very little in those days. Maybe because death was ever present in the form of disease. For someone like Henry to actually go out of his way to kill unwanted wives when he could, as head of his own church, divorce their ass and banish them to the country seems particularly evil. Not even just kill but in gruesome ways too. They came up with particularly creative ways to kill and torture. What was it about burning and beheading?

[quote] Henry's former best buddy Thomas More was quite fond of burning people alive.

Everybody was. The auto de fè cleansed the palate across Europe from prehistoric times past the days of witch hunts. In fact, all cultures sooner or later burned people as punishment or offerings to various gods.

Mary burned 280 in 5 years. Henry 81 and Eliz 2 over much linger reigns. Mary's victims were often VIPs which also attracted attention.

^longer

R202 from what we know of Anne B, would she really have quietly retired to the countryside? I don't think so. And as one bit of mercy, Henry did pay to have an expert swordsman come from France to do the deed cleanly.

As for Margaret Pole (cousin and dear friend to his beloved mother, nurse to his daughter), to call her beheading botched would be an understatement.

R204. Henry had far more people drawn and quartered, hacked to death and beheaded than Mary. He killed far more people than Mary. Mary's focus was on heretics. Henry's was much broader.

Margaret Pole was hacked to death on the Tower Green as she refused to put her head on the block.

Not burnings, hon, killings. You’re just as dead if Henry sliced your head off as if he burned you. Henry killed thousands just in the priesthood alone. Tens of thousands of people were arrested & killed by Henry for not being sufficiently pro-Henry.

Some fitting, topic related mood music

Henry also prescribed boiling alive & death by pressing.

[quote] from what we know of Anne B, would she really have quietly retired to the countryside?

Considering Catherine of Aragon was sent to “live in the countryside” I’d rather be beheaded.

Its too bad Queen Mary died after such a short reign. She would have killed many more of the anti Catholics and rightly so!

Perhaps banishment to the Continent?

Philip II of Spain was King of England and Ireland when Mary was queen and I don't mean like a prince/king consort. That stuff is never taught in UK schools.

jure uxoris King of England and Ireland - only came to it by his wife - still just the consort - had he been true King then Elizabeth would not have inherited

No R215 look it up.

Philip was more than a consort. Look at his Wikipedia article. Parliament called in both names, documents signed by both, coins had both images.

How different things would have been if they'd had a baby.

If only he looked like the movie version I could understand.

HAWT!

I would recommend to read this book about Catherine Howard, it’s fascinating!

Portraits done back then make it very difficult to tell what they really looked like. Very few reveal any beauty. The only truly gorgeous portrait I ever saw was that of Emma, Lady Hamilton. She would have fit right in now and been a beauty.

Damian Lewis was probably best film/tv version. Henry’s armour had a 32” waist when he was a young king, so not always a beast. Those 16th century portraits always looked terrible for everyone.

[quote] All official documents, including Acts of Parliament, were to be dated with both their names (with Philip's preceding Mary's as deemed proper for husband and wife), and Parliament was to be called under the joint authority of the couple.

- Act for the Marriage of Queen Mary to Philip of Spain 1554

Henry was an idiot for not marrying off both of his daughters. Mary should have been married off and having babies before she was 20. He thought he was so smart for always keeping her as a huge negotiating tool, but he never used this to his advantage and by the time she finally got married, it was really too late.

Elizabeth should have also been married off before Henry died, she was young, but they did marry that young back then. Just from a strategic point of view, not saying it's ok to marry off your 14 year old daughter, lol.

Mary actually wanted to get married, but old Henry just cut off his nose to spite his face there.

Plus he screwed himself over by not letting any Catholics in the line of succession, which inevitably led to someone so far removed from him receiving the crown. Hindsight is 20/20.

R225. Princess Mary became a real threat to Henry. Mary was supported by powerful Catholics in England as well as Spain and other Catholic countries. She was kept under watch by aristo allies of Henry in a household away from London. All her letters were scrutinized and she was spied upon. She came near to losing her life (yes, Henry would have killed her) but Thomas Cromwell intervened and helped save her, as a Catholic plot was developing but Mary was not a part of that.

Until she became queen, her life was full of anxiety and fear. She knew her father would not hesitate to kill her if powerful Catholics tried to put her on the throne.

R225 while I agree with you about Mary, Elizabeth became "legally" a bastard at 3. She wasn't exactly a prime offer.

I'm the nine days queen. No one remembers me.

Henry VIII was horrible, but he didn't kill thousands of priests (it was a few dozen) and ten thousands of others. These figures are just ridiculous.

[quote]People were crazy religious back then. Unhealthily obsessed with the church. I can't imagine having to live like that.

I think of this too. As a modern person it just seems unbearable. You do have to remember, though, that people back then really had nothing else. No sports, no entertainment, travel was out of reach for many. The church was one of the few things people had in life for social outlets, education, etc.

By the time he hooked up with Catherine Howard he was a smelly fat old fart and needy. Any pretty young girl could have manipulated him...temporarily. And ept a side piece. But Little Cathy was not very discreet. He also had the ulcerated sore on his leg that stunk and had to be dressed and was pussy and running sores. I wish someone would talk about the state of his health. From every description I've read those ulcers and sores that never healed it sounded like he had the Diabetes.

[quote] No sports, no entertainment,

They had jousting, soccer and the theater.

One important thing that came out of England breaking with the Catholic Church was that there was no more tithing to Rome. That money stayed in England and a lot of it was used to build ships to sail to the New World, and hire crews to man the ships. Protestantism allowed England to colonize North America.

The church was fighting a losing battle. Henry broke off. There was the Knox contingent. There was Calvinists, HUgeunots, Lutherans, and all manner of shite. The Pop had to go to the new world. Ferdinand and Isabella sent Chris columbus bewcause the Church had a vested interest too.

"Elizabeth should have also been married off before Henry died"

Elizabeth was 13 and officially a bastard when Henry died, and as a lifelong master of delaying tactics, she probably could have put off any unwelcome arranged marriages until they fell through or she otherwise got her way. Mary was the one Henry should have married off, if only for her sake, by all accounts she wanted a husband and kids and hated being an old maid. But she was 11 when her parents divorced and she was officially labeled a bastard, Henry seems to have neglected her, and didn't trouble with getting her an education or a husband.

Elizabeth was also basically left to fend for herself, living out in the country with various guardians, but the fact is... Elizabeth COULD fend for herself. She spent her years in the country developing her mind, something nobody expected, and which proved to be an excellent foundation for monarchical rule.

Face it, Katherine Howard's real crime was failing to get Henry's scepter to rise to the occasion. Which wasn't her fault, Henry was old and sick and evil and even his own dick was disgusted with him by that point in his life, but Henry punished Katherine for his own inadequacy. Even if she'd been completely faithful, and maybe she was, he'd have found a way to get rid of her so that nobody alive would have seen him fail to get it up.

Apparently his last marriage to Katherine Parr was chaste, and wasn't that fairly well known at the time? He married her to have a companion and caretaker, he was old and ill and hopefully crushed by guilt over what he'd done to his last wife. Her first two husbands had also been old and sick... there's a possibility that she was a virgin when she married her 4th husband, the one who was her own age and whom she loved. Certainly she got pregnant quickly enough, after three childless marriages, even though she was in her late 30s by then.

For you, R231 - Inside the Body of Henry VIII

On the day of Henry VIII's death, 28 January 1547, the line of succession was governed by the Third Succession Act: Prince Edward, Princess Mary, followed by Elizabeth.

All 3 of his kids were in line for the throne on the day Henry died. If any of them would have had kids, they would have been included.

People also seems to forget the treachery of those times. There were always plots going on. Henry was no victim, but I bet anything he was constantly being "manipulated" by various factions. Look at the whole Anne thing. There were plots against Anne from day 1. He just conveniently ignored them until they became beneficial to him.

I watched THE TUDORS so I know all about it. Henry wasn't that bad and Catherine Howard was a whore. I'm still trying to figure out why all the history books mention Henry's second sister who never existed because there was only one in the tv series.

The Tudors was a fun and sometimes sexy TV show, but they just messed up the history. But I've forgiven them, because it was enjoyable.

Yeah The Tudors took a lot of artistic license with the history.

R130, they had sports! Bear baiting was big! Dog fighting! Dogs versus Bulls! Cock fighting!

Lovely people.

They played a lot of Tennis - In fact, Henry had an indoor court built at Hampton Court

Catherine Howard suspected she was pregnant at least once and told the king. She wouldn't have done that if he wasn't at least occasionally taking his marital rights. It was fully expected that she would give Henry the needed spare in time.

R229. You clearly no little of Tudor history. Henry and his allies killed thousands of people during his reign.

Read up!

[quote]I enjoy visiting Hampton Court. They have actors dressed up like Henry and other notables of his court wandering around, acting out scenes.

You're kidding me! Didn't have them the last time I went.

[quote] He also had the ulcerated sore on his leg that stunk and had to be dressed and was pussy and running sores.

His leg did not have a vagina on it.

The word is “pus.” There is no “pussy” from a running sore. There is ir isn’t pus. If there is pus, then you say “there is pus from the wound,” or “the blister appears to be pus-filled.”

You only get “pussy drainage” from a vagina.

I, for one, love it when pedants like R248 correct stupidity.

I only encounter our current generation on Reddit Public Freak-Out and they worship ignorance and violence.

I could already see that my own daughter was turning out like that tart Catherine Howard, so I did something about it.

It’s agreed Henry killed between 50-72,000 people. Probably around 50k.

r248 everybody knew what that poster meant. This is an internet forum for fuck's sake, not a doctoral dissertation review.

Just making sure none of the nurses or nurses aides on this board writes “Patient has pussy drainage” in a patient chart. I will find you. No nursing school, no medical school ever taught you to write “pussy” drainage. “Pus-like” drainage is ok.

When in doubt, use “purulent drainage.”

No one cares r253.

Everyone who reads “pussy drainage” in a medical chart cares. It is Trumpian level ignorance

DL is not a hospital.

R246 No it's not. First off that number you are quoting is off a crappy website using another crappy website as a source, which is using an outdated and generally considered unreliable book as their source. It's estimated to be "hundreds", not tens of thousands and Henry's reign of 38 years was a lot longer than Mary's reign of 5 years. Even if he killed a thousand people it's less than Mary proportional to the length of his reign.

I care.

No one believes Mary would have gone on killing at the same rate throughout her reign if it had lasted longer. I mean once the Protestant leaders had been burned and the country was thoroughly returned to the True Church.

But she did seem a bit Spanish in her eagerness to burn people.

Tell me more about this pussy discharge.

Even so, Mary would have to have ruled decades and not killed anyone else at all for Henry to overtake her death-rate, R259.

No man or woman and no matter how high their station in life, sanctions, commands, or commits the willing murder of other people. Especially one true believer over another. Many will come and insist with extraordinary vigor that they worship the One True God. However, if their action is not in line with their claim, then they should be cast aside. They're liars. They are FRAUDS! They could not possibly love and respect God if they do not love and respect their fellow man - UNCONDITIONALLY.

It seems that funerals exist for the dead, yet funerals are all about the living left behind. Many people will go through their entire life thinking that whenever they pressed the accelerator of their motor vehicle with their foot that the were always giving the motor fuel - that's not true - they are giving the motor AIR by pressing the accelerator. Likewise, many will go through life thinking that they had perpetuated the God Head by faithfully attending church. In my opinion, however, the church and organized religion as a whole have much, much more to do with mankind than with God.

When you see God in all things, then you tend to recognize the importance of all things - especially those things living - especially your fellow man.

LIARS AND FRAUDS!

Take no shit - yet do no harm.

Here's an interesting bit of trivia. How many people do you think were executed at London Tower?

Only 7, it turns out.

William Hastings, Baron d'Hasting (June 13, 1483). Performed by decapitation, William Hastings struggled to secure the throne of Edward IV by supporting his sons, the two Little Princes. Anne Boleyn, queen consort (May 19, 1536). Executed by decapitation, she was the second wife of King Henry VIII and was wrongly convicted of adultery, incest and treason. Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury (27 May 1541). Executed by decapitation. The Countess of Salisbury was accused of treason at the age of 68 by King Henry VIII. He reproached him for having supported his first wife Catherine of Aragon, fervent Catholic. Jane Boleyn, Viscountess of Rochford (1542). Executed by decapitation. Jane Rochford helped provoke the murder of the two queens and their cousins, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. Catherine Howard, queen consort (13 February 1542). Performed by the decapitation, Catherine Howard was a crazy and disinterested girl who was killed for adultery at the age of 18 only. Jane Gray, Queen (February 13, 1554). Executed by the decapitation, Lady Jane Gray was a queen manipulated by her family, particularly ambitious. She suffers the consequences in their places. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (1601). Executed by the decapitation, the Earl of Essex was the favorite of Queen Elizabeth I, but he rebelled against her and was imprisoned, then executed.

R263, you are excluding Tower Hill and including only Tower Green. Reasonable but a little misleading. Many more were executed on Tower Hill which lays outside the Tower proper.

Really just meant royalty and aristocracy. There were 400 people executed at London Tower over a thousand years, which is pretty small number.

Zombie Ian Paisley at R9.

I'm sorry, r93...I hadn't seen how funny your post was. Too busy defending myself or something.

Firstly, I think the UK monarch is of interest to Americans because we mostly speak English, and can understand things written about them. Secondly, see the above.

"They had jousting, soccer and the theater."

And dancing. And music. They had forms of recreation. But people took religion REALLY seriously back then. They were devout. They would die for their beliefs, horrible deaths. It seems so ridiculous now.

It was similar to what you see today with Muslims. Westerners moved on from that long ago.

Well, look at it this way. They put a lot of their crazies on ships and sent them over here. And we were burning witches in the 1600s, so you would have to imagine it was even more hardcore before that.

[quote]They put a lot of their crazies on ships and sent them over here.

True. The American Colonies were a dumping ground for Britain to ship out their lunatics and criminals. They later did the same with Australia, after the American Colonies were lost.

They had hunting and riding, too. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I used to go out and ride for hours, even all day and sometimes every day.

Britain had no use for putting lunatics on ships sailing across the Atlantic ocean. Everyone who went over there was paid for. Those who were indentured servants were paid for by their employers. No free passage for lunatics who were just going to be useless once they got over there.

Jamestown is way different than Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock was the Jesus crazies.

r274 mentally ill people and criminals were shipped over to the American colonies by the British.

The British used colonial North America as a penal colony through a system of indentured servitude. Merchants would transport the convicts and auction them off (for example) to plantation owners upon arrival in the colonies. It is estimated that some 50,000 British convicts were sent to colonial America and the majority landed in the Chesapeake Colonies of Maryland and Virginia. Transported convicts represented perhaps one-quarter of all British emigrants during the 18th century.[1] The colony of Georgia, for example, was first founded by James Edward Oglethorpe who originally intended to use prisoners taken largely from debtors' prison, creating a "Debtor's Colony," where the prisoners could learn trades and work off their debts. Even though this largely failed, the idea that the state began as a penal colony has persisted, both in popular history and local lore.

When that avenue closed after the outbreak of American Revolutionary War in 1776, prisons started to overcrowd. Since immediate stopgap measures proved themselves ineffective, in 1785 Britain decided to use parts of what is now known as Australia as penal settlements. So-called First Fleet soon transported first ~800 convicts and ~250 marines to Sydney Cove. Australian penal colonies in late 18th century included Norfolk Island and New South Wales, and in early 19th century also Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) and Moreton Bay (Queensland).

The idea of a penal colony sounds much better than a workhouse in that era.

People have such weird and silly ideas about history. Oh, life didn't much matter to anyone since people died younger. Oh, England had to become protestant so they could make it to the New World (wonder how the Spanish and Portuguese managed it). Oh Henry didn't realize he could marry off his daughters (um, he bastardized them, it made things awkward). Oh well, carry on with the weird little fantasies about life before everyone became a 20th century American.

[quote]DL is not a hospital.

Well, ok, it's technically a psych ward.

[quote]Oh, England had to become protestant so they could make it to the New World (wonder how the Spanish and Portuguese managed it).

That's not what was said. When England broke from the Catholic Church they no longer had to tithe to Rome. The money was used to build ships to sail to the New World. It wasn't the sole reason, but it was a big reason. England did not have the navy that Spain and Portugal had at the time. Remember, England was 100 years behind in colonizing the New World.

I've always considered the Kell antigen theory highly plausible for explaining Henry's bizarre and rapid decline and the exorbitant mortality rate among his children.

Before I heard of the Kell theory, I'd surmised that he might have been Rhesus positive and the mothers of his babies negative -- the mortality pattern would fit, but since more European women are Rhesus positive than negative (and I assume that was true even in the sixteenth century), that didn't seem statistically likely. Kell has a similar mortality pattern, and makes much more sense, since the Kell antigen is relatively rare.

That doesn't mean that syphilis wasn't at least partially responsible for Henry's declining health and sanity; frankly, given his promiscuity and the soaring prevalence of syphilis in sixteenth-century England, I'd be surprised if he didn't have it at least as a comorbidity.

There's a book called Blood Will Tell by Kyra Cornelius Kramer that overstates the case for Henry's Kell positivity, but it's an interesting read. Both Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon come off pretty well in that telling.

Good night, he’s Donald Drumpf

Did England have a catalog where you could pick out a cute indentured servant?

No, you had to show up to the sales in person. SO primitive!!

Look. All the re-settlement and establishing of colonies was about was making money. The East India Company, the West India Company, blah, blah, blah. refugees from religious prosecution were secondary.

yeah, it was a bit of both r286. The companies certainly wanted to make money, though the Virginia company ultimately failed, and I think others did too, but you had to get colonists from somewhere. Religious refugees were a decent source, though I do agree the whole "Nation founded by Puritans" thing is way overstated.

Some of them were POWs.

Did Mary ever execute anyone for genuine treason, or just over religious differences? If not, why the hell was there no genuine treason on her watch?

yes, there was of course actual treason against Mary. An actual uprising by some Protestants, and it was put down with the usual brutality of the times. Other times, there was certainly some, hey, you are Protestant, so of course you need to die, which again was pretty normal for the times, sadly.

The Duke of Northumberland, the Duke of Suffolk, Lady Jane Grey, Lord Guildford Dudley...

[quote] I always find it odd how Henry VIII is seen as some sort of great, fascinating, eccentric character.

Some people's" great, fascinating, eccentric" might be "predominant, engrossing, outrageous."

[quote] [R274] mentally ill people and criminals were shipped over to the American colonies by the British.

The British wouldn’t bother paying for the passage of mentally ill people to America. It was expensive and what were they going to do with them once they got to america? They were farming, fishing, fighting Indians. Mentally ill people would be in the way & totally useless. They were shut up in asylums in England. Imagine sending people who can’t do any kind of work to the Americas during colonial times,

King James I (1603-1625) instructed the court that 'lunatics be freely committed to their best and nearest friends, that can receive no benefit by their death.' The care of the mentally ill was essentially a domestic matter and on the whole, it seems that people were not exploited by the system.

The level of specialist institutional provision for the care and control of the insane remained extremely limited at the turn of the 18th century. [bold] Madness was seen principally as a domestic problem, [/bold] with families and parish authorities in Europe and England central to regimens of care. Various forms of outdoor relief were extended by the parish authorities to families in these circumstances, including financial support, the provision of parish nurses and, where family care was not possible, lunatics might be 'boarded out' to other members of the local community or committed to private madhouses. Exceptionally, if those deemed mad were judged to be particularly disturbing or violent, parish authorities might meet the not inconsiderable costs of their confinement in charitable asylums such as Bethlem, in Houses of Correction or in workhouses.

Due, perhaps, to the absence of a centralised state response to the social problem of madness until the 19th century, private madhouses proliferated in 18th century Britain on a scale unseen elsewhere. References to such institutions are limited for the 17th century but it is evident that by the start of the 18th century, the so-called 'trade in lunacy' was well established. Daniel Defoe, an ardent critic of private madhouses, estimated in 1724 that there were fifteen then operating in the London area.

When the ruling monarch of the United Kingdom George III, who suffered from a mental disorder, experienced a remission in 1789, mental illness came to be seen as something which could be treated and cured. The introduction of moral treatment was initiated independently by the French doctor Philippe Pinel and the English Quaker William Tuke.

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Britain only sent healthy people to America because they had a lot of work to do.

The Spanish got here first & gave shelter to slaves who escaped the British colonies. Though the Spanish had slaves, they treated them far better than the good Protestant Englishmen. British slaves escaping to Florida were freed by Carlos II's proclamation November 7, 1693 if the slaves were willing to convert to Catholicism

Speaking of Christians

The first known and recorded Christian marriage anywhere in the continental United States, an interracial union between a free black woman and a Spanish conquistador, happened in 1565 in the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine, Florida, between Luisa de Abrego, a free black domestic servant from Seville, and a Castillan soldier.

Smithsonian's recent article on 'Bloody Mary.'