Henry VIII: England’s Larger Than Life Monarch #sponsored

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Hello and welcome to another episode of Biographics. I’m your interim host, Carl Smallwood, and today we’re talking about King Henry VIII, England’s larger-than-life monarch. As with all of the videos here at Biographics, this one is based on a script submitted to us by a member of our writing team, Ben Adelman, whose social links you can find below.

Of all the kings that have ever ruled over England, perhaps the most famous is King Henry VIII, remembered in posterity as a highly sought-after attribute in a monarch. However, Henry would most likely not be pleased with the way he is remembered—as a tyrant who went through wives quickly and was overly fond of executing people. He cuts an almost comedic figure today, particularly for having six different wives, which is quite a lot even in the modern era.

Henry’s personal marital troubles spilled over into the English Reformation and the transition of his country from Catholicism to Protestantism, which had a profound impact on Europe and later the entire world. In his time, Henry was beloved by the common people; any faults in his character were overlooked and blamed instead on evil counselors. This explains why many courtiers who jockeyed for power underneath him ended up on the chopping block alongside his wives.

To those who knew him, Henry could be a generous and loyal friend, but everyone quickly learned to fear his explosive temper, which could be triggered by the slightest provocation. When he was angry, it didn’t matter how close you were to him; you were in serious danger, as several of his wives would attest.

Probably his biggest character flaw was that at some point, he began to earnestly believe his own hype—that he truly was a perfect monarch, anointed by God to rule his realm, and one who didn’t really need the guidance or advice of anyone beneath him. Under his rule, the kingdom reached the heights of absolute monarchy, as Henry leaned more on fear than love to keep his subjects in line. This granted him almost unparalleled levels of power and wealth, but it also had consequences that his descendants would grapple with for centuries after he passed away.

Let’s start with the beginning: Prince Henry was born on June 28, 1491, in Greenwich Palace, to the west of Central London. His father, King Henry VII, had come to power just six years earlier when he defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field, winning the War of the Roses and founding the Tudor Dynasty. Initially, he wasn’t supposed to become king; that honor belonged to his older brother, Arthur, the Prince of Wales. Everything changed in April 1502 when Arthur suddenly became ill and died at the age of 15, leaving the 11-year-old Henry as the heir apparent to the throne.

Henry VII died in 1509, and after a short regency, his son was crowned King Henry VIII on his 18th birthday. As a young man, Henry was largely uninterested in the day-to-day running of his realm, leaving the business to his advisers, principally Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York. Instead, Henry spent much of his time at play. The early parts of his reign were filled with feasts, dances, tournaments, and behind-the-scenes exploits. Contrary to the idea we have of him today, he was a pretty active outdoorsman in his youth, participating in jousting tournaments with other young nobles—a dangerous pastime that could have easily led to his demise.

As for appearances, Henry VIII was about 6’2″ tall, towering over most of his contemporaries, and was considered quite handsome and muscular. He had a 50-inch chest, and his armor, which still stands at the Tower of London, is among the largest they have on display. Henry was also exceptionally well-read, as this was the start of the Renaissance, and many works of ancient Greece and Rome were being rediscovered.

Henry considered himself a humanist, routinely reading ancient history and contemporary works in philosophy, astronomy, and history, among other subjects. He had a colossal ego and was a firm believer in the divine right of kings. He was the first English monarch to be addressed as “Your Majesty” instead of “Your Highness.” He spent vast sums of money projecting his power and splendor as propaganda to showcase his majesty to a culture that was still mostly illiterate.

Henry’s expenditures included clothing, jewelry, massive quantities of food and alcohol, and his magnificent palaces and estates, which he renovated throughout his reign. He actually owned more houses than any British monarch ever has or since.

For most of the first 15 years of his reign, things continued pretty much the same way as they had since he was 18. Cardinal Wolsey ran the country in the king’s name, acquiring vast amounts of wealth for himself while Henry and his courtiers spent even more to show off and have fun. However, the good times weren’t destined to last forever, as trouble would soon arise, particularly surrounding the king’s wife.

Moving back to 1501, Henry’s father had made a contract to marry his heir, Prince Arthur, to Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. When Arthur died, Henry hoped to keep the alliance with Spain by marrying Catherine himself. This required a dispensation from the Pope since canon law usually forbade a man from marrying his brother’s widow. Henry and Catherine eventually married in 1509, right around the same time they were crowned King and Queen. By all accounts, their marriage was a happy one, with Catherine devoted to the king, although Henry’s wandering eye led him to take many mistresses over the course of their marriage, particularly when the queen was pregnant.

The problem with their marriage was the couple’s marked lack of success in producing offspring, particularly a male heir. Despite at least six pregnancies, they only produced one child who survived infancy: their daughter, Princess Mary. This posed serious dynastic problems for Henry, as it was considered a king’s foremost duty to ensure a peaceful succession by producing heirs.

In 1536, Henry became infatuated with one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn, an intelligent and ambitious young woman who was at least 15 years younger than Catherine. Unlike the other women who had caught Henry’s eye, Anne insisted that she would only give up her virginity to her lawful husband. By this point, Henry had become convinced that his marriage to Catherine had been cursed by God himself, as he believed he was being punished for marrying his brother’s widow by being denied male children.

Determined to end his marriage to Catherine and marry Anne, Henry began what became known as the King’s Great Matter, a six-year saga stretching from 1526 to 1532. His advisers did everything they could to sever the bonds of holy matrimony between the king and queen within the bounds of established canon law. The official position that Henry and his lawyers took was that Catherine had lied when she swore that Prince Arthur had died before the couple had consummated their marriage.

However, European politics interfered. Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, was Catherine’s nephew and was not going to allow her to be cast aside. The legal case dragged on for years, with Catherine attracting sympathy across England and Europe. The bottom line was that the Pope wasn’t going to give Henry what he wanted, and since he was God’s appointed representative on Earth, he held absolute authority over doctrinal matters.

Henry was determined to have his way, even if he had to look outside the Catholic Church to do so. Such an open break with the Catholic Church would have been unthinkable just a few decades earlier. Henry himself had been a devoted Catholic all his life, but he was nowhere near as devout as Catherine.

In 1532, Henry publicly broke with the Catholic Church, announcing that his marriage to Catherine was invalid and marrying Anne. Catherine was banished from court, and anyone who opposed the new order risked being declared a traitor. John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, who served as Lord Chancellor after Wolsey’s fall, were among Catherine’s strongest supporters and suffered for it when they refused to swear an oath declaring Henry the head of the English Church.

Henry’s actions shocked the rest of Europe and outraged the Pope, who excommunicated him. Most people, however, blamed Anne for leading the king astray. After all the trouble he went through to marry his second queen, things weren’t going well in the bedroom department. Anne was not content to play the role of a submissive ceremonial queen and continued to be outspoken about political matters, which infuriated Henry.

Most unforgivable of all was the fact that the same childbearing issues that plagued Catherine’s marriage showed up again with Anne. Out of four pregnancies, only one produced a healthy baby, Elizabeth, another daughter. This did nothing to resolve Henry’s succession issues.

Henry’s popularity, which had never been that high to begin with, plummeted during his reign. After Catherine of Aragon died in January 1536, it was widely believed that she had been poisoned by Anne, even though it would later be determined she died of heart cancer. Anne made many enemies at court, including Henry’s new chief adviser, Thomas Cromwell, who eventually determined that the queen was a threat to his own position and that she had to go.

In April 1536, allegations were made that Queen Anne had been unfaithful to Henry, sleeping with various men at court, including her own brother. The case against her was a travesty of justice, as the only man who confessed to the adultery did so after being tortured. This didn’t stop Cromwell from arresting a group of courtiers and having them convicted of treason.

On May 19, Anne Boleyn was beheaded within the walls of the Tower of London. Less than two weeks later, Henry married Jane Seymour, a woman he’d been courting for months before the allegations against Anne were made.

Henry’s actions continued to shock Europe, and he pushed ahead with his reforms to the English Church, including the dissolution of the monasteries. Over 500 abbeys and monasteries throughout England and Wales were forcibly closed, with all their assets transferred to the crown. This was not only a religious matter; Henry acquired 20% of the entire kingdom’s land wealth, more than doubling the royal coffers.

In October 1537, Jane Seymour finally gave Henry the son he so desperately desired, Prince Edward. However, childbirth was risky, and Jane died 12 days later, probably of postpartum infection. Henry was grief-stricken; in less than two years, all three of his wives had died.

Eventually, Cromwell pushed Henry to marry again, not only for political reasons but because the kingdom needed a spare in case anything happened to the infant prince. Few women would look at Henry as an attractive match at this point. One potential bride joked that she would only marry the king if she had a head to spare.

Cromwell turned to the Protestant League, an alliance of German principalities that were sworn enemies of Charles V, and arranged for Henry to marry Anne of Cleves. However, when Anne arrived in England, Henry was less than impressed. He found her unattractive and apparently had little interest in consummating the marriage.

By this point, Henry was no longer the athletic young man he once was. He had suffered a leg injury in a jousting accident in 1536, which became infected and troubled him for the rest of his days. His injury kept him from exercising, and combined with his ravenous appetite, it caused him to gain significant weight.

In July 1540, Henry grew tired of Anne of Cleves and quickly found a replacement: 17-year-old Catherine Howard, a cousin of Anne Boleyn. The Howards used Henry’s attraction to Catherine to dispose of Cromwell, who had taken the heat for the marriage to Anne. Cromwell was arrested and beheaded the next month.

Henry married Catherine Howard shortly after, but another scandal erupted when it came to light that she had not been a virgin before marrying the king and had been carrying on an affair with one of the king’s chamber servants. Enraged, Henry stripped her of her title and imprisoned her. In February 1542, Catherine Howard was executed along with her lover and two other servants.

In July 1543, Henry married for the sixth time, this time to Catherine Parr, an experienced woman of the court who had already outlived two husbands. Henry’s last years were spent in increasing agony as he suffered from serious health conditions, including gout and pain from his leg wound. His great weight only made things worse, and on January 28, 1547, he died at the age of 55. He was buried at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle next to the body of Jane Seymour.

In conclusion, while Henry VIII is often ridiculed today for his many wives and his weight, he is undoubtedly one of the most important monarchs in English history. The Church of England, also known as the Anglican Church, is one of the largest Protestant denominations in the world, with the British monarch still serving as its titular head. The strife over religion would divide the country for more than a century after Henry’s death, leading to a civil war and the deposition of more than one monarch.

Even today, a law forbids Catholics from inheriting the crown. Until 2015, a royal who married a Catholic was ineligible to become king or queen. The British Empire spread its Protestant faith everywhere it went, leading to large Protestant populations in many former colonies, including the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.

It’s amazing to think about all the changes made to world history because one man really wanted to secure his legacy. I hope you found this video entertaining, informative, and educational. If you enjoyed it, consider following the writer, Ben Adelman, on social media, and check out my other channels for more casual content. Thank you for watching!