England, 1485.
Henry 7’s just won the Wars of the Roses, which is, shall we say… a story for another
time, and he gets busy making heirs.
And thus is born his pride and joy, Henry VII…’s older brother Arthur.
Arthur is betrothed to Catherine of Aragon and ready to inherit the kingdom until he
sweats himself to death.
HENRY 7 Arright then Henry, you’ll have to do
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So Henry’s engaged to Catherine, but he refuses to marry her.
He does not like her in a dress, he will not wed that wench princess.
He would not could not well unless maybe his dad died and she was better than the alternative.
You’ll be shocked to hear their marriage got off to a rough start, particularly after
the loss of their first child, but soon Catherine gives birth to a beautiful baby boy, named
Henry after his father, and they throw him a huge birthday party.
Also his only birthday party because he died in a few weeks.
Then Henry gets a friend request.
It’s France!
They want to make sure Henry 8 is as cool with them as Henry 7 was.
*Ping!*
*angry war noises*
And with France fighting a war on all sides, it looks like England might just take all
of it, like the Pope said it was totally cool.
Unfortunately that Pope died and the new Pope said God didn’t hate France anymore and
now England’s gotta focus on Scotland making a whole scene and the fact that they spent
all their money.
So rather than conquering all of France, Henry gives his sister to the French King instead,
and then France and the HRE get new kings and everybody’s even steven again.
Meanwhile, Henry and Catherine keep trying for a son, and they end up with half a dozen
dead babies and a girl, which is nice and all but there’s no way she’s ever gonna
rule anything.
Until finally he has another beautiful baby boy, named Henry after his father, and that’s…
that’s not Catherine.
Welp, time for Henry to skidaddle on out of England for a little while to throw a party
to show everyone what good friends he is with France now.
Henry and King Francis even bond over a friendly wrestling match where they tell each other
Haha, it’s so good to be friends again
So good!
So good.
SO...
GOOD.
We’re going to war with France!
That one ended up pretty much like the last one and more or less sums up Henry’s entire
military career.
A few years and mistresses later, Henry’s given up on this whole marriage thing.
At this point he’s got 3 options:
Marry Mary to somebody as fast as possible and hope for a grandson
Ask the Pope to legitimize his current son Break up with Catherine and marry his mistress’s
hotter sister
Henry picks option 3.
It may seem ludicrous, but Henry was a devout Catholic, he knew the Bible in and out found
the verse that could get him out of his predicament scott free.
Plus he was already in good with the Papacy.
One Pope was about to name him King of France, the next one named him Defender of the Faith,
it was about time to call in a favor.
No.
What?
No, you can’t do that
What, but I -
Just pick another option, dude
Nope, that’s it, I’m done.
I’m making my own church where I’m in charge.
Are you kidding me?
You WROTE THE BOOK ON PAPAL SUPREMACY!
Yeah well not anymore!
You seriously said that?
I seriously said that.
And you seriously think the whole country will go for it?
Honey, three popes ago we were fighting France because they helped the Pope too much in Italy.
I bet you my Church will be the norm in no time.
And I bet you in 150 years Catholics will be so reviled the people of England will invite
a Dutch Prince to invade their country rather than settle for a Catholic monarch.
That’s… oddly specific.
What about Ireland?
Eh, I’m sure it’ll sort itself out
Speaking of Ireland, Henry’s now calling himself King of Ireland instead of Lord and
there’s a major rebellion every 5 years or so.
Business as usual really.
Not that things were doing great in England either.
Henry’s looting the monarchies, which people aren’t too happy about.
Some 20-40 thousand people rose up against him, so Henry goes “Oh, gosh, I didn’t
realize you were so upset, thank you for bringing this to my attention I’ll fix this right
away” and then he killed them when they went home.
Henry’s top advisors Thomas and Thomas are executed and Mary’s been retroactively disinherited
in favor of Anne Boleyn’s kid Elizabeth.
Anne was having a good time, that is until she got too big for her boots and Henry decided
her head was getting too big for her shoulders.
Don’t feel too bad for him because literally the next day he proposes to his mistress Jane
Seymour and he finally gets that son he always wanted.
Now they’re all one big happy family - Henry, his son, his *cough* “other” son, two
disowned daughters, and his wife who’s closer to their age than his.
And also dead.
In an effort to cheer him up and maybe have some actual royalty as the queen, Henry’s
third most trusted adviser… also named Thomas, gives him a picture of a pretty German girl.
Yes.
And then she showed up in court and he said:
Eh, nevermind, not feeling it anymore
Yeah, no, that’s cool, I’m gonna leave now, bye
Instead he marries a teenager and gives her a crap ton of land.
Only then she does something unforgivable… she cheats on him.
And adultery does not stand in the royal court.
Then he marries his daughter’s friend Catherine Parr, who…
My God.
She married a guy who arrested and executed his best friends for not doing religion right
and proceeds to daily argue with him about religion.
She got this close to being arrested for being too Protestant.
And she got Henry to re-legitimize Mary and Elizabeth, and create some formal rules for
inheritance for once.
They were only together for four years, so maybe he would’ve killed her eventually
but lucky for her he got obese and ulcer-y and died!
And that’s pretty much everything!
Well, not everything.
There are so many good details I found while writing this script, I wanted to talk more
about the war with the creepiest name I’ve ever heard, the drama with the Thomases, what
happened to his son, but sadly I don’t have the resources to make a 5-hour course on Tudor
England.
Thankfully, this video is sponsored by the Great Courses Plus, who have a 10-hour course
on Tudor England, plus the Stuarts, and over 11,000 other video lectures from world-class
experts - imagine college but you get to audit every class at the same time and instead of
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And that’s all from me.
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Cheers.