When presenting History in a public setting, there’s a delicate line between putting famous
figures on blast for the irresponsible, immoral, or just downright meme-able,
and falling into the trap of rewarding bad behavior with attention. In this regard,
researching a notorious King becomes much like watching over a toddler – No hitting! Hands to
yourself please! Do Not Put That In Your Mouth! Negotiating for basic manners with a baby is
hopeless, and so is expecting any better from a Monarch, because they’re both playing by a
completely different rule-set, and you can see it in their eyes that they know it too. And this is
why I spend so few videos recounting the lives of big boy kings and their Tonka Truck wars,
it’s just exhausting, and I always feel like I’m rewarding that bad behavior. But today,
in the spirit of the Valentine’s season, I’m going to talk about Love… or, rather, whatever the hell
Henry VIII was doing. There is some overlap, but boy is it slight. So, to learn the story of
England’s most notorious Lady Killer as an object lesson what never to do, Let’s do some History.
We begin in England in the 15-oughts,
as young prince Hal was an extremely captivating figure. Admired in his day for his athleticism,
charm, and good looks, eh, sure, he’s at once better and worse than we’re liable to give him
credit for. A multilingual and multitalented king, he was an artistic patron and participant
in the Renaissance tradition. He was also full of a royally insatiable appetite, for food and
women alike. Those traits were only matched by his impulsiveness, arrogance, and self-obsession. He
got bored easily, and was as distrustful as he was covetous. Henry’s paranoia led to the death
of queens, officials, religious dissenters, and nearly every advisor who ever served him.
Yet, for the first two decades of his reign, he
was popular in his court and among the subjects, in large part because he played the Royal Jock
while his father’s advisors and one notoriously corrupt Cardinal Wosley ran the kingdom. But even
early on, he couldn’t leave well enough alone. Bored of being merely a celebrity, Henry wanted
to get the blood rushing by winning glory, so, as ever, the clearest option was in France. Yet,
as ever, it did not work, costing the entire treasury in one go and only proving that poor
tiny England absolutely could not compete with the great powers of Europe. So with great frustration,
he turned his focus back to England.
And this would prove especially bad news for his wife, Catherine of Aragon, as it’s here where
Henry’s reign surpasses the generically-inept and ascends into the true hallmark of his career:
religion-shattering horniness. Now, before we progress, it is my Historian’s responsibility
to remind you that People Are Complicated, and Memes Are Not, so we’re on the receiving end of
a 500 year gossip-circle that we ourselves perpetuate every time we laugh at Old King
SixWives instead of thinking through what that history meant for the actual human
people who lived it. Henry certainly belongs in Horny-Jail, but we can’t pat ourselves on
the back if we reduce an extremely consequential chapter of English history to the joke answer.
So let’s consider: What did Henry
Want? In a word, a son. Henry grew up in the wake of the War of the Roses and was acutely aware of
how catastrophic the line of succession would get without a clear male heir – his Tudor dynasty was
new and it was not guaranteed to stay in power. Henry was married to the stately queen Catherine
of Aragon, but after two decades of marriage, no son. Lots of infant mortality and one daughter
Mary who survived to adulthood, but Henry figured that wouldn’t cut it in a fiercely patriarchal
society like medieval Europe. Catherine had been a good queen and a good wife, but once she was past
child-bearing years, Henry had no use for her. He had plenty of mistresses, but illegitimate sons
would do him no good either. What he needed was a brand new wife. And people had done this before.
Divorce, per se, was not recognized by the church, but you could get an annulment, where the Pope
says “oh, that marriage? yeah that never happened, you’ve actually been single the whole time”. In
fact, Catherine was first married to Henry’s brother, but after he died, the marriage was
annulled so she could marry Henry. But this time, the Pope was unmovable – diplomacy, bargaining,
saying Pretty Please, Rome would not budge. In Europe, Henry was powerless… but in England,
he was the one in charge…
In 1532, a decade and a half after Martin Luther woke up and chose mayhem, Henry broke with Rome,
and declared that the Church in England was answerable only to the King. Some of Henry’s
advisors objected, so naturally Henry had them killed, and some Catholics in the north rebelled,
so naturally Henry had them crushed as well. Everyone else carried on with their day for
fear of the harsh new anti-treason laws. And with that, Henry had his church, his annulment,
and his new wife Anne Boleyn. She had been a Court Lady to Catherine, and when Henry started making
kissy faces at her, she refused to be a mistress and insisted he marry her properly before any
slamming was to begin. Honestly, well played. A few very short months after their marriage,
Anne gave birth to the future queen Elizabeth… but that was it. Uh oh. In the midst of all that,
Henry was struggling to reconfigure his monarchy now that he was the head of the Church of England.
He became responsible for giving alms to the poor, and happily confiscated all of the old
church lands. However, he had neither time nor patience for another son-less wife. Blissfully
unaware of how chromosomal genetics actually works, he concluded that this marriage was
also cursed and had her annulled… and executed for adultery and treason. Zoinks. This kind
of frivolous cruelty also undermines the entire hoist of Doing Protestantism in the first place,
which frankly is typical Henry.
Henry’s subsequent betrothal to Jane Seymour THE NEXT DAY would finally net him the son he always
wanted. Nevermind what Edward VI was like as king because he would be succeeded 7 years later by
Mary and Elizabeth anyway so this whole exhausting ordeal is the result of one man’s paranoia, lust,
and enthusiasm for beheadings. But with the mission finally complete, do you know what
happened to Jane Seymour? She died of an infection two weeks later! I don’t know whether to be sad
for her awful luck or relieved that she didn’t live to see what it’s like when Henry got a whiff
of someone else’s perfume.
But with his beloved bloodline preserved, Henry turned back to foreign policy,
and failed just as badly as he did when he was a teenager. He wanted a German protestant wife
as a check against emperor Charles V, and chose Anne of Cleves in 1540, a mail-order
bride he picked from a portrait gallery. But Henry McSleepsAround suddenly got all choosy,
and annulled the marriage the same year because Anne didn’t look enough like her portrait. Rude.
That said, this ended a lot better than it very easily could have, so let’s take the win and move
on. He next married Catherine Howard – there was a religious strategy to this… I don’t care ­– and
he eventually had her executed for adultery as well. Restraint? In this kingdom? Speaking of,
he started some wars again. Didn’t super work, plus the treasury was back to empty. Ah well,
let’s meet the last wife. Catherine Parr was a protestant widow who served as regent while
Henry was at war in France, and made a point to formalize Mary and Elizabeth’s places in the royal
succession, thus making Catherine Parr the actual MVP of the Tudor dynasty. In any case, it was
good timing, because 4 years later, Henry died, leaving our last Catherine to live her best life.
Aaaaah,
what a mess. A king with his priorities so twisted in knots he wasn’t sure who he wanted to F*ck,
Marry, or Kill, so he did everything to everyone and called it a day. Henry’s 38 years on the
throne were some of England’s most consequential due to his sweeping reforms to church and state,
but that all sprang from the remarkable women whom he called Queen. These six stick in our
minds because of Henry’s distinct notoriety, but any prominence he has in English history is owed
quite thoroughly to the captivating effect that they had on him, and in turn, on us. And so, we’ve
come full circle to our starting comparison ­– like monarch like toddler, they want their mommy.
Thank you for
watching! Before I go wash my mouth out with soap for that mommy joke, god, I’ll give my Adaptation
Seal of Approval to Six the Musical. Because what it lacks in analysis of the geopolitical
and theological factors that contributed to the English Reformation, it more than makes
up for in raw Queenly vibes, and is well worth the watch for the characters and music alone. It
won’t teach you all the history, but it makes the past really come alive, and that is a rare treat.