We associate Henry VIII today with being a notorious King who was also rather brutal.
During his reign, over 70,000 people were executed many in public and terrifying spectacles
being beheaded, hanged drawn and quartered and much more.
However when the King came onto the throne, he was a sign of virtue, and a sign of Tudor
strength and power.
He was described at the start of his reign as a tall, handsome and atheltic man who was
known for being very sporty.
However as his final moments approached in January 1547, he was a departure from his
former self.
He was a large and grotesque figure, with a waist measuring 52 inches, and a chest around
53 inches.
Henry VIII declined heavily in his final days, and his physical health it’s believed is
linked to his temper, and temperament.
Today we look at the final moments and death of Henry VIII, England’s most famous King.
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Henry VIII is mostly associate today for having 6 wives, but during his life he did face a
number of serious bouts of illness and disease.
When he was 23, he contracted smallpox a deadly disease which was incredibly seriously.
However he managed to recover over time, and then at the age of 30 he then contracted Malaria
which made him sick for a while.
It was 3 years later that one of the most worrying parts of Henry VIII’s life came,
when he was involved in a very famous and hard hitting jousting accident that caused
him great discomfort and pain throughout the rest of his life.
It’s believed by some historians that this accident changed the King completely, and
that his former self as a happy and positive King transformed into a very depressed, short
tempered and bitter King.
During a jousting match with the Duke of Suffolk, Henry was hit on his head above his right
eye by a lance, forcing him off his horse and onto the floor.
After this he suffered badly with migraines, and at the age of 45 he was involved in yet
another serious jousting accident.
He fell from his horse, and after this was trapped by the animal, and was squashed by
the horse and also the weight of his armour.
This particular incident left him unconscious for at least two hours, and made many incredibly
worried.
When he came around, it was said later that the King had changed further.
It’s believed this also caused his mood swings, and that he possibly on the tiltyard
suffered from a severe traumatic brain injury.
Today he would have been diagnosed with this, but following this the King’s health declined
further.
In his final few years, Henry began to shun exercise and he also began to overeat to a
huge extent, that cause his infamous weight gain.
It’s considered that he may also have had diabetes, and high blood pressure.
The King also possibly had Varicose Ulcers and the ulcers in his legs would force him
to give up sport and exercise, and in his final days servants had to carry him around
on a chair as he suffered with movement so much.
Obesity also quickened his death, with his overeating a major cause of him dying at the
age of 55.
Henry VIII passed away on the 28th January 1547 at the Palace of Whitehall.
On the day before his passing, he saw his confessor and priest and was given Holy Communion.
Those people who attended on the King and visited him knew that death was soon on the
horizon for the monarch, and the royal doctors knowing his feared reputation refused to tell
this to Henry.
Telling the King he was about to die was treason, and predicting that he would die soon was
also treason, meaning that in one last act of brutality from his deathbed, the King could
have sentenced even one of his doctors to their deaths.
They knew his reputation and refused to be honest with the King of England.
It was a gentleman of the Privy Chamber, and a well liked attendant of the King, Sir Anthony
Denny who was left to tell the King of his impending fate.
On the 27th January, a day before his death he told the King that, ‘In mans judgement,
you are not like to live, and that the King should remember his sins as every good Christian
man should do.
Henry seemingly accepted his fate, and said ‘the mercy of Christ is able to pardon me
all my sins, yes though they were greater than they be.’
Whilst on his deathbed, it’s thought that Henry had his realisation that he had committed
a great number of sins during his lifetime.
He was a man who had ordered the executions of some of his closest friends, and even two
of his own wives.
Anne Boleyn for example today is seen as a victim of the barbaric King and his close
advisor and friend Thomas Cromwell.
Because of Henry’s frustration at Anne’s inability to give him the son he wanted, his
attention switched to another woman Jane Seymour.
But Henry needed a way out of his marriage, and he ordered Cromwell to find him one, and
he orchestrated an intricate web of lies that placed the Queen accused of treason, incest
and adultery.
These today are all considered false charges, and with this scheming the King and Cromwell
had in a sense an innocent woman’s head struck from her body, having Anne Boleyn executed.
The execution of Anne Boleyn was just one of many sins the brutal King had committed
and there was a long line of them.
The huge scores of those executed within his kingdom placed around 3% of the population
executed during Henry’s reign which is a colossal amount, showing the true scale of
his bloody reign.
He had ordered his last high profile execution just a week earlier, having Henry Howard the
Earl of Surrey killed for treason.
On his deathbed, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was summoned to hear the King’s last wishes
and to pray for him.
His close friend Anthony Denny was ordered to get Cranmer to be with him, and Henry then
went into a deep sleep.
Cranmer was sent and it took him hours to be by the King’s side due to the treacherous
and icy conditions, and he arrived around midnight on the 28th January.
He then went to the King’s bedside, but Henry was in his final hours of life, and
wasn’t talking and was struggling to stay conscious.
The final moments of Henry VIII have been stated as, ‘‘at the end there was no master
and servant, no prince and churchman, just a priest preparing a departing soul for eternity.
Cranmer begged Henry to give a sign that he trusted Christ for salvation, and in response
he felt a grip on his hand tighten slightly.
It was an evangelical departure, no anointing, no reading of latin prayers, just a simple
acknowledgement of the all-sufficient atoning work of Christ.
Cranmer would have been glad of that.’
Around 2am, the King passed away.
His exact cause of death isn’t completely clear, and it’s believed that it could have
been a pulmonary embolism or renal and liver failure that killed him.
The history books have been written stating that the King died from natural causes.
For two days after his death, his body laid in his chamber undisturbed and his death was
kept a secret, even to his household staff who were still preparing meals to be brought
to his chamber for two days.
On the morning of the 31st January 1547, the Lord Chancellor announced the King’s death
to Parliament in tears, and then Henry’s son Edward was proclaimed King Edward VI and
was taken to the Tower of London to await his coronation.
Over the next few days, Henry’s body was embalmed and encased in lead, and was surrounded
by burning tapers as it laid in state inside the presence chamber at Whitehall.
It was then moved to the chapel, and across the country the bells of the churches tolled
in memory for their dead King.
On the 14th February 1547, Henry VIII’s body was taken from Whitehall to Windsor Castle.
The coffin was rather large, and it was covered in blue velvet and cloth of gold was laid
down on a chariot.
This was drawn by black horses who took it along the roads that had been prepared for
the procession of the King’s final journey.
On the coffin was a wax effigy of the King and on the top was a crown and a night cap
of black satin filled with precious stones.
The procession stopped overnight at Syon Abbey before the next day heading to Windsor.
It was said here that the remains of the King exploded, but then the journey to Windsor
continued the next day.
It took 16 strong Yeoman of the Guard to carry Henry’s coffin into the church, and to lower
it into the vault of the Choir of St George’s Chapel, with the King laid to rest next to
Jane Seymour, his third wife and mother to Edward VI.
Following the funeral ceremony, the chief officers of the household broke their white
staves of office, and threw them into the vault after the coffin, showing that their
roles serving their master had come to an end.
It was planned for Henry to be buried in a huge renaissance coffin that he had taken
from Cardinal Wolsey following his death in Leicester, but the work was not completed.
His Sarchophagus does survive, however today it’s the base of Lord Nelson’s tomb in
the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral.
Henry VIII lies today under a simple and low key 19th century black marble floor slab that
reads, ‘In a vault beneath this marble slab are deposited the remains of Jane Seymour,
Queen of King Henry VIII 1537 and King Henry VIII 1547.’
He is interred in the same vault as Charles I’s remains, the King who was beheaded following
the English Civil War and also one of Queen Anne’s children who died in infancy.
King Henry VIII is considered to have been one of the most notorious monarchs in History,
with his bloodthirsty temper and brutal outbursts of anger that resulted in bloody acts.
However his death was met with relative peace and quiet, tended to by only a few close people
and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
His death did not echo the turbulent nature of his reign, for example the political changes,
marriages and religion reforms he brought to England.
He was a king who’s life was compelling, and today he’s become a legendary figure
of English History.
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