Henry VIII, eh? What a bastard.

[TunipTheVegemal]

I just feel there should be an ongoing thread on what a vile piece of work Henry VIII was where people can leave their opinions on the complete and utter appallingness of Henry VIII.

Of course, this being Mumsnet someone will probably come along and say IABVU and he was actually very nice.

(What sparked this off, btw, was me discovering that the Pilgrimage of Grace marched past where my house is, having mustered troops a mile away. Now every time I have to go into the garden at night I will imagine rotting corpses swinging from the trees - he had some of the rebels hanged in their own back gardens and some women got into trouble for cutting down their husband's bodies when they were supposed to leave them there to rot as a warning. What a bastard.)

[RustyBear]

I have a very useful book - Britain's Royal families - the Complete Genealogy by Alison Weir. It apparently took her 22 years to research and is very detailed.

One fascinating fact which I discovered by trawling through it is that, out of 41 monarchs since the Norman conquest, only 11 were the first-born son of their predecessor (and that number includes Charles II, who had Oliver Cromwell between him and his dad, as well as Edward V and Edward VIII, neither of whom were crowned)

[Chubfuddler]

I want that book. I love stuff like this.

[Vagaceratops]

It is a great book.

[noblegiraffe]

Mary Boleyn had a daughter, Catherine Carey, supposedly with William Carey but rumoured to be by Henry VIII. Catherine Carey then had a daughter, Lettice Knollys who married Elizabeth I's beloved Robert Dudley.

What struck me when reading about this was that I looked up pictures of Lettice Knollys and Elizabeth I and you could mistake one portrait for that of the other. Elizabeth and for comparison Lettice. I'm sure that's partly because of them wearing the same fashions, but surely that's Henry's genes!

Elizabeth must have been absolutely spitting when she married Dudley, no wonder she banished her from court!

[RustyBear]

If you've got £6.99, you can have it, chub

[DilysPrice]

Thomas More, for example, was a twat.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I read somewhere that the chances of a single family producing a steady line of first-born sons who survive to adulthood for more than a few generations is actually pretty tiny. The author strongly hinted that the Capetian dynasty was either a massive anomaly or a bit of a warming-pan job.

noble that is fascinating! But, couldn't the picture painter have just made them look alike because that was 'the pretty look'?

[Moln]

I think we should dig them all up and genetic test them.

Would that be wrong? We could do it in the middle of the night, less noticable.

[RustyBear]

But Lettice was Elizabeth's cousin ( her aunt Mary's grand-daughter, so first cousin once removed) even if Henry wasn't her dad, so the resemblance could be due to Boleyn, rather than Tudor genes.

[LineRunner]

Moln, Mumsnet Exhumations Inc.

[BurlingtonBertieFromBow]

Didn't the Victorians go through a phase of digging all the Tudors and Stuarts up then reburying them? I seem to remember that when they got into Henry VIII's vault the coffin had burst - but he was just a skellington by then so it wasn't too gross. If you go into the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula at the Tower, Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard and Jane Grey have nice little Victorian gravestones. (apparently there are over 1000 people buried in that chapel). And Katherine Parr has a very Victorian tomb at Sudeley Castle - apparently the chapel fell into complete disrepair so some Victorians did it up. When they found Katherine's coffin, she was completely intact inside it and looked like she'd just died.

Why do I know all this crap...?

[Fuchzia]

PMSL at Thomas Moore having an 'emo rant'. The dude did keep a couple of heretics chained up at the bottom of his garden for tourturing purposes. Not a saint, although confusingly actually a saint.

Moore was right about Henry being a lion who should never know his own strength. I imagine even a completely sane person would find it hard to deal with essentially being God's reresentative on earth. It would basically follow that everything he did was right because if he thought something it must be the voice of god. Although in a way I've also always though there was something oddly passive about him. He was an extremely devout man yet happy to let Cromwell get on with destroying the monasteries. Perhaps the money helped.

I think with a much more secular mindset it's hard to understand how religious belief worked as a driving force in them days. I think it is what motivated AB far more than anything else.

[BurlingtonBertieFromBow]

Reading between the lines of his writing, More had sexual issues too

(nb: could be that I have sexual issues and am projecting)

[laptopcomputer]

I'm always amazed that someone so awful could father someone as fab as Elizabeth 1, who was a truly amazng woman

[Whisky4Tea]

Well, I am not sure that Henry VIII was the worst king by far: Edward I was forever sowing the Scottish lowlands with salt (meaning no crops could be grown). He also had a thing for keeping his political enemies' wives and daughters in cages hanging outside castle walls.

I once had a surreal conversation in Mexico with a man schooled by the Catholic Church. He basically argued that Mary Queen of Scots had been the only legitimate heir after Mary Tudor since all Henry's other children were illegitimate and heretics. It was like going back to France of the 16th century. He wouldn't be told that his "history" was a few centuries out of date. I may have been rude and ma a thing about me having a phd in history and him being an accountant. Obviously I didn't mention my qualifications were not in British history.

[Smellslikecatspee]

I've always quite admired both Anne and Catherine of A, though a little more Anne. In that time and in each of their individual circumstances pretty impressive that they both stood up to and defied a King.

Catherine, at least was a princess in her own right, and though had been very badly treated by her FIL she had all that upbringing that impressed on her her God given right to be a Princess and then Queen with a big P & Q. On the other hand for a religious woman back then she would have been encouraged to believe that her husbands word was next to God. So to defy Henry must have been hard, not to mention all the tragedies she went through, not to mention the flaunting of the mistresses, and Bessie Blounts little boy Henry Fitzroy.

Anne was, depending on what historian you go with was between 18-25 when Henry started stalking her, lets be honest he wasn't taking no for an answer whether or not you want to see her a pawn in her family's schemes or as a strong minded woman who was going for the big prize.

She would have known at that point if she did give in and had a child out of wedlock, he/she would be behind Henry Fizroy and when Henry tired of her be married off as spoiled goods.

I've also always found it difficult to believe that she could have committed adultery, people's lives were so lived in public back then even the average commoner would have had little privacy, and royalty / court members were virtually never alone. To have committed any adultery never mind 5 men would have been very very difficult.

I'd say the modern equlivant would be Catherine Middleton & William visiting an NHS Obstetrician coming out laughing smiling and holding an ultrasound picture and expecting it not to be front page news all over the world.

Anne of Cleves sounds like someone who realised that she'd had a lucky escape.

Poor little Katherine Howard, well by most accounts she was an abused child who then was unlucky enough to marry an abuser.
I can't remember if it was a history book or a work of fiction but I do remember reading something where KH didn't think she had done anything wrong as Henry as the King and head of the church 'must' have known about her past indisgresions.

Henry however. . .


I want to believe that he married Catherine of Aragon for love, though as it was exactly what his father had advised against always made me think he was a contrary bugger and this was a big 'sod you' to Dad particularly as Dad had the Papal dispensation from Pope Julius II for Prince Henry to marry C of A changed so that he could also marry C of A. . . How's that for a Tudor Jeremy Kyle moment. 'After my virgin marriage to A I got engaged to his younger brother H, but now my FIL is trying his luck, what should I do? ' can you imagine that in AIBU?

I do wonder if he got so far along the lines of believing his own hype by the time he met AB that he convinced himself he was doing nothing wrong. Or was there a medical reason for his behaviour?

Though to be honest I think he was a bully who had been indulged as a child/ teen/ young adult who morphed in to a full blown abuser.

And weren't most of the wives related in some way except for C of A. Or was that just a reflection of the times?

[Moln]

ME Inc. i like it, I'll get my spade.

Don't know much about Edward I, he sound like a delightful chap! Cn anyone suggest a book that's not too intense that I could start off with (only have a very small brain that is very easily overwhelmed)

I can say for all the wives, but AB and CH were cousins weren't they. I don't think AofC was related. I suppose it's possible with the other two, people in that circle were related somehow I think.

Now there's an idea for a new book/tv series a modern day version of it all, with Jeramy K appearances (give me time to figure out why royals would go on there, and how the beheadings would be got away with)

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

whiskey that is very, very funny. And kind of sweet, really, I think?

smells - oh, that's awful about CH. I am developing a soft spot for her.

I think Jane Seymour was related in, too, but I forget how. If you went back far enough there must be a connection between Henry and Catherine of Aragon, since Edward I's queen was Eleanor of Castile and Catherine's mum was queen of Castile.

BBB - do I want to know more about More's sexual issues?! It's like being told your slightly strict uncle was a bit of a pervert in his spare time.

[Badvoc]

Eustace chapuys was the Spanish ambassador during Henry's reign.
He was a very intelligent, decent man.
Henry hated him with a passion due to his loyalty to Catherine of Aragon and Mary.
I love this period of history!

[Badvoc]

Henry idolised his mother Elizabeth who died when he was 11.
He was then raised by his grandmother Margaret Beaufort who had some very odd ideas of how kids should be raised!
Then again she had Henry's father when she was only just 13....

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Elizabeth died after giving birth to Katharine, didn't she? It's sad.

What did MB do that was really odd?

[Moln]

It would be my opinon that just about all extreme religious people have sexual issues - to either extreme.

[Badvoc]

Elizabeth died after giving birth to a daughter who also died.
She and Henry needed another male child after Arthur died....

[Badvoc]

Thomas more wore a hair short and self flagellated.
He was a hard core catholic, and frankly would have made a better mink than statesman.
His one redeeming feature IMO was that he insisted his daughters were educated in the same way as his sons.
He treated his wife like crap though....

[CrikeyOHare]

This may be total balls (and is NOT intended as an excuse) but his character did seem to change rather dramatically after he fell off his horse and was unconscious for two hours.

It's Catherine Howard I've always felt most sorry for. A young, pretty girl married to a bloated, diseased tyrant. Apparently, his leg ulcer was so badly infected at this point that you could smell him coming from several corridors away. Nice, huh?