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.)

There were definitely real protests when he married Anne Boleyn. And people wrote things against him/his wives from a Catholic/Protestant POV, who weren't people who knew him personally (if that counts as ordinary).

Anne Askew - who was relatively ordinary - got cross-examined to see if she'd drop Catherine Parr or anyone else more high-born than her in it, but she refused. Which in itself says something, I guess.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Askew

Margery it was Margaret Pole, or Margaret of Salisbury that made a run for it, I understand she could have had a strong claim for the throne if she'd tried as she was Richard III's daughter (I think ... ) (unless she was also known as Margaret Beuford?)

margerykemp it was Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, who was supposed to have run away during her execution, which took something like 10 goes . She was in her 70s, and her only crime was being the mother of a man who had opposed Henry then fled abroad out of his reach. Utter, utter bastard. Margaret Beaufort was his Grandmother (I think).

Xpost penelope!

Oooops, sorry, Margaret was George's daughter, Richard III's brother

One thing I do find fascinating about the Pilgrimage of Grace is how ready they were to believe he was a good man who had been led astray by bad advisers.
If they really believed that and weren't just clinging to it because it was the only thing they were allowed to think given the divinely anointed monarchy plus the treason laws.

Of course, that fits with the idea of him undergoing a sudden personality change. You know how it is when someone (on Mumsnet) who you have previously liked suddenly starts being a twat. You think 'are they drunk? are they ok? have they been talking to someone offboard who's been spreading lies?' In Tudor times I guess the natural thing would be 'Has he been bewitched? Is he being badly influenced?'

Oh, livia, that is horrible.

I think Henry was basically a psycopath. Women weren't treated particularly well in general in the 16th century but executing 2 of your wives because one of them didn't give u a son and the other had decided that sex with a revolting smelly bloke old enough to be your grandfather is particularly evil. I think Anne must've been ecstatic when he married her and she got pregnant. Not so much when she had a girl and then couldn't carry to term again. By convincing henry to get rid of catherine she'd really just given henry the means to get rid of her if he'd got rid of one wife, well, why not do it again? She should have just been his mistress .

Anne rocks, henry, not so much ....

Oooo a History Club, goody! I shall return...

I thought it would just be me and one or two weirdos

you calling me a weirdo?

you won't be the first

I didn't know there was a history club either. Must investigate more...

Oooooh! not to say about Henry, but delighed to discover their is a history club - thank you Mumsnet!!

there is a history club

Ive posted this before, but I heard somewhere that Anne boleyn was rhesus negative. (is that the right one?) Which meant that she would have given birth to her first child, but subsequent babies would have died. How awful that her blood type made her fate inevitable! {sad}

Katherine Howard is a good example of how poorly educated women could be in the 16th century. E.g. because Henry was head of the church, she got confused and thought he actually WAS God and could hear all her thoughts, which is why she thought he already knew about her past. Killing Katherine Howard was a complete male pride thing - there wasn't any need to execute her, whereas you could argue that Anne B might have been a threat if she'd been allowed to live.

How would she have been a threat? Do u mean a rival court? I think anne thought she would be banished to a convent as punishment, she couldn't have done much harm there could she? Although would be nice to think that her daughter would have helped her when sha became queen and anne could finally given the finger to henry the serial killer!

I do want to know how poorly educated she actually was.

I think if she thought Henry was God and could hear her thoughts she was, in modern terms, mentally ill. Not poorly educated.

She can't have been massively under-educated, she writes perfectly decent, syntactically-fluent English and quite a lot of men and women couldn't read and write at all.

Sorry about typing u instaed of you, am on blackberry, tis shite

On the face of it he appears an extremely cruel and ruthless man. But I think he was a product of his times. In his position he had to be ruthless or else he would have been walked over. I've never heard that Ann Boleyn was rhesus negative but that it was Henry's diseases that caused the babies to die or to be miscarried. Anne Boleyn was a trouble maker there is no doubt about it.

'no doubt'.

Well, fuck me, I best get out of this history business and go straight back to studying literature where we have good old-fashioned uncertainties again!

to digress though - over the years I have met quite ordinary English (and West Indian) people with surnames such as Seymour, Howard, Fitzroy, among others, could we assume they are descended from these illustrious Tudor families?

In my hunt for the programme I watched about AB being R-, Im watching Royal Deaths and Diseases. In terms of blood sealing your fate, they talk about the Romanovs. Alexandra carried Haemophilia. Her some had it. She was so guilt stricken apparently, that she turned to religion. Where she became involved with Rasputin....

my question is though, if the Romanovs carried haemophilia, why do none of the present royal family appear to be stricken with it?

I thought KH could hardly write? They had a letter she wrote to one of her lovers and it was all over the place.
She'd had no real formal education at all - I suppose in that situation it could be easy to get confused about things like religion, God and politics. All this stuff about the king only being one down from God - maybe she'd been told that and concluded that as God knows everyone's thoughts so did the king. I don't think it necessarily means she was mentally ill.