the TUDOR TUTOR
Your cheeky guide to the dynastyArchive for Henry VIII
♥ A Very Tudor Valentine’s Day ♥
Out of Henry VIII’s six wives, who do you think was his true love? Get a quick rundown of all the Real Housewives of Tudor Court here, and cast your vote below!
Maybe He Had Big Feet, Too?
A bit of fun for Friday: This Holbein portrait of Henry VIII suggested that Henry was a virile guy, despite his lack of sons. Can you find the hint in the portrait before scrolling down?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Yes, it’s that obnoxious codpiece peeking out to say “I’m the king of England, damn it, and I’m as fertile as the next guy!” At the end of the day, Henry’s genes never made it past 1603. A lot of good all that artistic boasting did.
Double Whammy Tudor Date!
Welcome to the 28th of January, a significant date in Tudor history for two reasons:
- On this date in 1457, Henry VII was born
- On this date in 1547, Henry VIII breathed his last
Tidy how that works out, isn’t it, with the same date, and the transposed digits in the middle?
When the founder of the Tudor legacy was born, his father had already been dead for a few months, and his mother was barely old enough to stay up late. She was only 13, but that wasn’t unusual for that time, of course. Unlike his much-married son, he wasn’t born into royalty right away, he had to go out and grab his reign by the reins.
When Henry Junior made his mark on this date, he was an even worse mess than you’d imagine. He was gray-haired, morbidly obese, and covered in nasty boils. (Good thing he wasn’t in the market for a new wife at the time!) He was often carried from place to place in velvet-covered chairs because his gout made it hard for him to walk.
His last words were “Monks! Monks! Monks!” so it seems that religion, a hot topic during his time as king, was on his mind to the very end. He was only 55; the day would have been his father’s 90th birthday.
Shhh…No One Will Notice the Bump, Nor My Mad Desire for Apples
Image via Wikipedia
Happy (?) Anniversary to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn! On this day in 1533, Anne became the blushing bride of the fickle monarch in a secret ceremony in his private chapel at Whitehall Palace. Only a handful of people were present but they had to promise to stay mum about the newlyweds.
Speaking of “mum,” Anne was already a few months pregnant with the future Elizabeth I at the time. What some historians (including David Starkey, and I’m not about to argue with him) have suggested may have been true: Anne and Henry were first secretly married the previous November. She’d gotten pregnant almost immediately.
Either way, their union wasn’t considered valid until Henry’s marriage to poor Catherine of Aragon was officially labeled “kaput” in May. Anne, not known for her discretion, let it be known way earlier that she was craving apples like no one’s business. And Henry got himself so drunk at a banquet that he was laughing and slurring all about his new wife. Klassy.
It turned out badly, but no one can deny that the few years these two kids were together created a soap opera worthy of TMZ or Hello Magazine. A delicious secret, for sure.
Viva les Tudors!
I just love this fan-made video, combining an excellent song (Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida”) with well-edited scenes from “The Tudors.” The lyrics really nail the essence of our favorite dysfunctional family. Enjoy!
Gives New Meaning to “Henry VIII’s Pompous Mug”
How great is this mug?? When you pour a hot beverage into it, the wives disappear but Henry stays!
Target is selling it, as is Amazon and a few other online places. I just could not resist posting this, as you may want to gift a fellow Tudor fanatic this Christmas or ask for one for yourself. Or you may just want to look at it here and crack up, which is what I’m doing!
(Note: If you do snag one of these babies, do not put it in the dishwasher! Apparently they are not dishwasher-safe, according to one source of mine.)
Eenie Meenie Miney Mo
With six wives to choose from, surely Henry VIII had a favorite, no? The demure and tactful Jane Seymour usually gets credit for being the favorite, but that sounds too easy to me. Sure, compared to his previous wife (Anne Boleyn, that cheeky and marvellous icon of girl power), Jane knew when to keep her trap shut and didn’t stir the pot. And her uterus nurtured the elusive XY chromosome that Henry was obsessed with.
And then she dropped dead, and really could do no wrong after that, could she? It’s called “bowing out at the top of your game,” and an unwittingly wise move on her part, as history paints her as the Golden Wife. She didn’t live long enough to have miscarriages or dreaded baby girls, or to enter middle age, or to be grossed out by his oozing leg sore or mid-life obesity.
Let’s take a look at Henry’s other girls. Catherine of Aragon was a thorn in his side toward the end of their marriage, for sure, and only gave him one daughter. But she was a dutiful and loving wife for nearly 20 years, not to mention a popular Spanish princess and a devout Catholic (he was too, for the most part). Wife #2, the sassy (to put it mildly) Anne Boleyn was such an effective flirt that the king was convinced she was flitting around with others, although it’s never been proven. She certainly tapped into his saucy side and I think he definitely admired her moxie and intelligence.
After the dearly-departed Jane, Anne of Cleves (we’re at number 4, now) was a bit of a dull dishrag, but the poor girl couldn’t speak a lick of English and communication is so important, isn’t it? Plus, there was her not-quite-supermodel appearance and the fact that she was surely repulsed by this jiggling mass of conceit and rage. Just assuming. After their divorce, Henry viewed Anne of Cleves as a sister, gave her a lovely settlement, and invited her to court quite a bit. The favorite, no, but not the outcast, either.
In sashays Wife #5, Katherine Howard. Katherine seemed to be low on brain cells but high on the vixen-factor. Henry appreciated the coquette angle, sure, but I really feel he wanted more than just glossy paintwork. And her cheating on him didn’t help matters any. Finally we have Wife #6, Catherine Parr, who was really just the king’s companion and caregiver during his last years.
Out of that cast of characters, do you think Henry VIII really had a favorite? Who do you think he held most near and dear? Or do you feel that his greatest love was actually the one he saw in the looking glass, the whole time?
Serial Dater of the 16th Century Meets the Internet Age
Who knew that Henry VIII was as addicted to the Internet as the rest of us? BBC and Brian Blessed bring us some fantastic new sketches about the king involved in such things as Internet dating and online shopping. Bloody brilliant; take a look!
He Said, She Said
Mention Henry VIII and most people think either (1) robust ginger guy, gnawing on a turkey leg, or (2) ABC’s “The Bachelor” 500 years ago. His appetite for food, drink, and women is well-known, but the fact that he was married to his first wife for 20 years is not. What went wrong? When and how did he go from settled-down to serial groom?
We have to remember that, while Catherine of Aragon was married to the king for two decades, this was actually her second marriage. Before she married Henry, she was married to his brother, Arthur. This is starting to sound creepy, isn’t it?
The “ick” factor isn’t as bad as it may seem. Arthur, Henry’s older brother, was the heir to the throne and a newlywed at just age 15. And then, dead – possibly of a sweating sickness. His Spanish princess, Catherine, was also sick but recovered to find herself a 16-year-old widow in a country far from home.
Arthur’s dad, Henry VII, wasn’t that eager to ship his daughter-in-law back to Spain since her father (Ferdinand, the king of Aragon) had handed over quite a wad of cash as her dowry. Instead, Henry Senior pocketed the money and simply matched her up with his next available son, the tall and handsome Henry Junior.
This next part is important: She was able to marry Henry only because she swore to the pope that her marriage to The Other Tudor Boy was never consummated. This, for the church, meant that they weren’t actually “married” to begin with and that she was free to marry Henry without being seen as an adultress or trollop of some sort.
Fast-forward a few decades into the marriage and ginger-haired Mr. Turkey Leg still had no boys to carry on the family business, so he figured he’d just divorce Catherine and remarry. A devout Catholic, he looked to the Bible to guide his decision and found his “ah-ha!” moment in Leviticus 20:21.
This passage states that a man who marries his brother’s wife will be childless (and for Henry VIII, “childless” and “no sons” were practically synonymous). Therefore, Henry believed that God was punishing him for having married his brother’s wife. Even Arthur’s servants had claimed that, the morning after his wedding, he asked for wine, stating that (TMI alert!) he had “been in Spain, and it was thirsty work.”
However, Catherine continued to deny that they ever had relations, even though onlookers claimed they were a fun and loving young couple for the short time they were married. Catherine was very popular, and her reputation is still very good to this day. Did she lie? Why would she? But at the same time, why wouldn’t a young couple who seemed to be happy and in love not consummate their marriage?
Do we believe what he said? Or what she said?
Losing His Religion?
Our young Henry VIII was considered a devout Catholic: attending Mass three times a day, being buddy-buddy with the pope, and strongly defending the idea of transubstantiation (the changing of the bread and wine into the body of blood of Christ). Let’s just skip over the part about his spending “quality time” with young ladies of the court, shall we?
At that time, all Christians in England were Catholics, period. However, over in Germany in 1526 (when Henry was 35 years old), Martin Luther was busy organizing his new church after rejecting the Catholic Church, which was very corrupt at that time. Luther was especially riled up about indulgences, the Church’s way of saying “pay up at Mass and your soul will be saved.” His work sparked the Protestant Reformation, and Christianity was then split in two: Catholics and Protestants.
Around this same time, Henry was getting tired of his wife, Catherine of Aragon, failing to produce a male heir. He’d stayed married to this lady for nearly 20 years, and for what? One measly daughter? This had to end.
He ranted and raved and stomped his feet a bit when the pope wouldn’t grant him a divorce from this Spanish princess, but in the end he said, “Fine, the Catholic Church won’t let me divorce so I’ll take my ball and go home.” He declared himself the head of the brand-new Church of England, dumped Catherine, and married a certain court vixen named Anne Boleyn, as if she’d had “can produce male babies” stamped on her forehead. He embraced blossoming Protestant ideals such as married priests, no confession, and no transubstantiation.
Like a petulant child, he destroyed a ton of monasteries in England and cut off the heads of important Catholics in the country. That oughta teach ‘em. But it didn’t help the new Queen Anne give birth to any healthy boys, nor did it keep his next wife, Jane Seymour, alive long enough to have more than one male heir. He couldn’t even stomach staying in the same room with Anne of Cleves (Wife #4), let alone try to have children with her.
And in 1539 (right between Wives 4 and 5), Henry convinced Parliament to pass the Act of Six Articles, which basically said:
- Transubstantiation is A-OK once again
- Communion is to be bread only, not wine
- No married priests
- Pay-per-view Mass was fine
- No remarried widows
- Confess to a priest
During the next several decades, his Catholic daughter Mary and his Protestant daughter Elizabeth would duke it out and the country would remain divided by religion. But for all intents and purposes, Henry — in his heart – was still a Catholic.
