During the reign of Henry VIII, thousands of people were executed for a number of different
reasons. We remember Henry for his brutal tyrannical reign in which he changed the face
of England forever, and also the fact he had 6 wives, two of which he executed inside the
walls of the Tower of London. Tudor England was a bloody time, in which executions and
capital punishment was common in an attempt to deter people from offending inside the
Kingdom. But as Henry reigned between 1509 and 1547, scores of people were killed and
many of these people were incredibly high profile, and some were even his closest friends.
Today we’re going to look at ‘how many people did Henry VIII execute,’ to investigate
whether his reputation as a brutal and feared ruler is deserved, or whether in fact it was
standard and normal at the time for this to happen. So join us today as we look at The
Killer King, Henry VIII and remember to support our channel please make sure to subscribe!
When King Henry VIII came onto the throne on the 22nd April 1509, there were great hopes
for his reign. His father Henry VII had defeated the Yorkists during the wars of the Roses
and united the two warring factions under the Tudor Rose. Much hope remained with Henry
VIII’s reign, and it was hoped for a peaceful and long reign for the new King, however that’s
far from what the country got. During Henry’s 36 years of rule its been estimated that around
57,000 people were executed across the country for a number of different reasons. Some historians
place the number of people killed at around 70,000 which is a colossal amount of people.
If we consider the number of total executions to have been around 70,000 this equates to
around 2.6% of the population of Henry’s Kingdom. This meant that almost 1 in 30 people
at the start of his reign would meet their bloody end in some form of execution. Which
itself is incredibly shocking! However why were these people killed? Why were so many
people executed at the behest of the King?
There were a number of reasons why these people were killed, and it wasn’t just high profile
people who were executed. However some of the first victims of the King were Edmund
Dudley and Robert Empson, killed in Henry’s first year of reign. These two men had been
rather unpopular officials and members of his father’s government and their execution
set a precedent for the young king’s reign, and he wished to be liked by court and country,
and by ridding the country of these two disliked men his popularity rose. Empson and Dudley
were seen as the ones responsible for the high taxes Henry VII placed on the country.
However things did get much more severe during Henry VIII’s reign.
There were a number of key reasons why Henry ordered executions, or why executions occured
across England at the time. Now the most famous executions were of those members of royalty
and even aristocracy who Henry saw as a threat. These were the executions that Henry himself
personally ordered, or had his friends such as Oliver Cromwell organise for him. One family
that would be decimated by Henry was the Boleyn’s, and although we consider the most famous Boleyn
to be Henry’s second wife Anne, he also ordered the executions of her brother, and
her brother’s wife later in life. It is also for the execution of Catherine
Howard, the King’s fifth wife that we remember Henry, with Catherine being just a teenage
girl, much younger than the grotesque King when she was beheaded inside the walls of
the Tower of London. Henry often used an act of attainder also to sentence people such
as Catherine Howard to death without any formal trial, this allowed him to execute anyone
with no opposition.
It wasn’t just wives that Henry killed, he also executed a number of his close friends
and allies, however both the fate of Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell is linked into the
King’s failed love life. Sir Thomas More and Cromwell were both very close to the King,
especially Cromwell who helped to organise the Dissolution of the Monasteries which made
the King incredibly rich with Cromwell’s agents seizing vast riches from the religious
buildings and orders. These were then transported straight into the royal coffers and because
of this, Cromwell was incredibly liked by the King. But even he would be executed and
was sentenced to death by an act of attainder having been accused of treason.
Treason was considered the most serious offence in Tudor England, and it was often a crime
that was met with the death penalty. Treason ranged from actively plotting to assassinate
the monarch, to quietly speaking ill against the King. It would be treason that many of
those remembered who were killed during his reign were found guilty of, for example Anne
Boleyn was found guilty of treason and was accused of plotting to kill Henry. Treason
varied in it’s definition and for this thousands were executed, even disagreeing with the King
on a matter of policy would result often in someone being brought to Tower Hill to be
executed. One of the biggest protests against the reign of Henry VIII was the Pilgrimage
of Grace, which was led by the lawyer Robert Aske. It rose up in Yorkshire and spread quickly
across the north to different counties, and there were mass protests against the King.
It was instigated by a poor harvest in 1535 and food prices rose, but also the rebels
were angry with Henry’s changes to the church and the fact that the poor were unable to
turn to the dissolved monasteries for food, shelter and support. The rebellion combined
religious and political issues and Robert Aske assembled a crowd of around 30,000 angry
people at York. The rebellion was eventually put down, however it resulted in a huge amount
of executions, many in bloody fashion such as Robert Aske who was hanged in chains from
the walls of Clifford’s Tower in York.
Another victim in a sense of the pilgrimage was Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury
who was 67 when she was beheaded inside the Tower of London, she was linked to the pilgrimage
through her son, however her execution was incredibly botched. Pole’s death was incredibly
brutal and it’s considered that when Henry ordered her execution, he killed a member
of the Plantagenet dynasty who was a legitimate rival to the King’s throne. One of the strangest
treason executions of Henry’s reign occured to Mabel Brigge, a woman accused of witchcraft
who was alleged to have performed a black fast predicting the death of Henry VIII and
his advisors.
One of the biggest causes of the thousands of executions however was caused by the English
Reformation, which began when Henry split from the Catholic Church to secure himself
a divorce from his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Henry was branded the ‘Supreme Head
of the Church of England,’ and passed the Act of Supremacy in which all members of the
clergy had to swear support and accept Henry in this position. Because of the sanctity
of many of those religious people, they refused to accept this and ultimately faced the ultimate
punishment.
n particular one group was the House of Carthusian Monks in London, and their Chaterhouse was
decimated when the Catholic order refused to accept the King as the Head of the Church,
preferring the Pope. The London Charterhouse had dozens of its monks hacked to peices being
hanged, drawn and quartered, beheaded and many were even starved to death inside London
prisons at the orders of Henry. Also Bishop John Fisher was a rather well celebrated Catholic
Bishop who refused to accept the King as the Head of the Church, and he even supported
Henry’s first wife Catherine of Aragon. Because of this, he was brutally executed
and was beheaded on Tower Hill, much to the dismay of many people across London.
Failing to accept the King’s religious reforms also plunged dozens of abbots and priests
in danger, and in particular the Abbots of Glastonbury Abbey and Woburn Abbey were executed
in horrific fashion. Religion was a big motivator in many of the King’s punishments, and it
was during his reign that Anne Askew. Protestant martyr was tortured inside the Tower of London
on the rack and was then burned to death being claimed to have been a heretic. A heretic
was a religious criminal, and following Henry’s religious changes thousands were accused of
being a heretic.
Now one of the other points to make is that many of the executions that occured during
the reign of Henry VIII were not in fact personally ordered by the King, they were more in keeping
with the laws on capital punishment at the time in Tudor England. For serious crimes
such as murder or arson, it was often likely that the defendant could find themselves taken
into a town centre for a public execution that would took place inside a town square.
These events were big spectacles too and would always attract a huge crowd.
So during the reign of Henry VIII, it was a dangerous time to live. The fact dozens
of thousands of people were executed in barbaric fashion during his reign shows us that Henry
does deserve his notorious reputation. It wasn’t just the executions of his wives
that we should remember, it’s all of those people who were executed in the name of religion
also. Henry VIII does deserve his horrific reputation and is remembered as the most brutal
King, England has ever had rule over it.
Once again thanks for watching.
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Once again thanks for watching.