The King

[indianasmith]

T'was a good joke.

Don't lose your head!!!   

[ER]

I guess it comes down to whether it's better to be feared or loved. Kind of like how I alternate my behavior each semester toward the interns? (Yes, yes, I'm kidding.)

Who had a tighter grasp on his kingdom, Henry II, who terrified half the people who knew him, or his grandson "good" King Henry III, who was laughed at and more grudgingly obeyed? Would Henry VIII have died a natural death had he been less prone to signing death warrants?

I know some historians have looked at the violence of the (first two) Tudors toward would-be political rivals as having spared England a great deal more bloodshed, as they put a definitive end to a long century of intermittent civil wars. If you were someone with a viable claim on the throne (the Tudor claim was always weak) odds were you lost your head before you could gather up your forces in revolt.

The Stuarts came in softer and look where it got them: half the Stuarts were overthrown by civil war or coup. Henry VIII would've done-for Oliver Cromwell faster than he did the Cromwell of his time and it's doubtful Henry would have ended up on the block like Charles I did a century later.

As for Henry VIII killing off a third of his wives, yeah, monstrous behavior. That's what mistresses were for. Jeez, did the French kings teach him nothing?

An oft-forgotten fact about Henry VIII's formation of the Church of England is that before he decided to split from Rome entirely, he had been close to getting Papal permission to form an English Rite Church, with full Roman support.

What's maybe most fascinating to me about Henry VIII is that he came upon the world stage at exactly the right time to get away with achieving what he did, meaning society was still brutal enough to see him able to enact his near-absolutism and violence, yet primed enough by the time in which they dwelled that most of his people followed him placidly in the break from Rome. He had one foot in the Middle Ages and one solidly in the emerging intellectualism of the 16th century and was England's most interesting monarch.

[Alex]

I was watching a documentary a few months back where they were discussing how much of an impact on his life a severe head injury from jousting had, had. If I remember correctly they decided that much of his violent behaviour was down to it and his temperament had changed quite sharply before and after. He isn't someone I've studied enough myself to really have an opinion on this though myself.

[Allhallowsday]

T'was a good joke.
...

Not a "good joke". 

[ER]

...
Henry VIII was a man of his time, certainly, but within the context of that time he stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries and changed the lives of Englishmen for generations to come.  Much bad flowed from those changes, but so did much greater good.

He was NOT head and shoulders above SAINT SIR THOMAS MORE.  Henry VIII?  Fnck 'im.  

I have to say More is one of those figures whose overall prestige slips fast the harder his conduct is examined. He was not at all a bad man at heart, he was intelligent, honorable, not venal, he was dedicated to the point of placing values before life itself, he even saw his daughter received a fine education, but like many good men he was party to cruel misdeeds and those are not often reported. His response to Protestants.....well, just go look it up for yourself if you want. He had plenty of blood on his hands.

Spare us good men of unswerving principles and give us a pragmatist anytime.

[niccolom]

I was watching a documentary a few months back where they were discussing how much of an impact on his life a severe head injury from jousting had, had. If I remember correctly they decided that much of his violent behaviour was down to it and his temperament had changed quite sharply before and after. He isn't someone I've studied enough myself to really have an opinion on this though myself.

I've read articles that make the same point about the head injury and the subsequent change in his behaviour. In fact, I think even now, there is a consensus among medical professionals that head injuries may result in violent behaviour in later years.

[indianasmith]

One thing to remember about what drove Henry VIII to do the things he did:  He needed a son to secure the succession of his dynasty.  At that point in English history, only once had the crown been left to a woman, and the result was a 20 year civil war that killed thousands and ripped the kingdom apart.  Henry needed a son, preferably more than one, and as he aged, his focus on that goal got stronger and more desperate.  He would go through wives like a runner goes through shoes to get himself a male heir!

One of my professors used to say that if Henry had been clairvoyant, he would have known that Elizabeth was the son he always wanted . . .