Think you know everything about Henry VIII?
Well, you probably do know quite a lot if you are a Tudor history nut, but I come across very strange ideas all the time on social media.
In this video, I bust some of the biggest misconceptions about Henry VIII and reveal the truth behind the legend. Was he really a monster? Did he write “Greensleeves”? And what’s the real story behind that “Flanders Mare” insult?
And here’s my video on Henry VIII and syphilis
Transcript:
Things you need to stop believing about Henry VIII:
- That he had 8 wives! Ha! I’ve seen this a few times on social media. He had six wives, and the 8 is because he was the eighth King Henry in English history and is nothing to do with the number of wives he had.
- That he was always a big bloke. The general public probably wouldn’t recognise Henry in his younger days when he was a strapping, slim, athletic young man who enjoyed hunting, jousting and tennis. Like his maternal grandfather, Edward IV, he put on weight as he aged and became less active due to accidents and illness.
- That he had syphilis. Nope, there’s no evidence that he did. I’ll give you a link to my video on this topic.
- That he had loads of mistresses. He wasn’t a bedhopper. We know he slept with Bessie Blount and Mary Boleyn, and he probably did have others, but we don’t know how many and he certainly doesn’t seem to have been promiscuous.
- He was nothing but a tyrant and monster. Well, ok, yes, he definitely had his tyrannical side, and he did some truly awful things, but like us all, he was multifaceted and could be incredibly charming and generous too. He was a patron of the arts, a composer, a keen sportsman, a man interested in theology, architecture etc. He wasn’t some kind of two-dimensional cartoon character, he was a real man who was loved by some, and I find it fascinating. He’s worth digging into, rather than just dismissing as a tyrant.
- He set up the Protestant Church of England. He broke with the authority of Rome and made himself supreme head of the church in England, but it was Catholic in flavour, just without the pope.
- All his marriages were short – Nope, his marriage to Catherine of Aragon lasted from 1509 until 1533, although sometime around 1524/1525 he was looking to replace her. So that marriage lasted nearly 24 years.
- He wrote Greensleeves. There’s absolutely no evidence that he wrote the song for Anne Boleyn or that he wrote it at all, it appears to date to Elizabeth I’s reign. However, he did compose music and a popular hit of his was Pastyme with Good Company.
- He called Anne of Cleves a “Flanders Mare”. There is no contemporary evidence for Henry VIII calling Anne of Cleves a “Flanders Mare”. Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, wrote in his 1679 book that Henry “swore they had brought over a Flanders mare to him”, but that is him saying that Henry VIII uttered those words and it is not backed up by evidence. Anne was not from Flanders anyway, something that Henry VIII was well aware of. Interestingly, after the annulment, Henry and Anne had a good relationship, so good that it was even rumoured at one point that she’d given birth to his son!
- He went through a dramatic personality change after his jousting accident in 1536. Whatever you believe about the jousting accident of 1536, there was no dramatic change in Henry VIII’s personality. He didn’t suddenly become more tyrannical. By that point, he’d already treated his wife and daughter abominably; he’d started his reign executing Empson and Dudley as scapegoats; he’d had the Duke of Buckingham executed without any good evidence against him; he’d seen his former friend and father figure, Sir Thomas More, executed; he’d executed his grandmother’s chaplain, Bishop Fisher; the Carthusian monks had been brutally killed, and so on and so on.
Can you add to my list? What myths and falsehoods about Henry VIII have you come across?
Got a new one for you. Thanks to the movie Firebrand. Katherine Parr did not murder Henry VIII. In fact neither Katherine nor his children were present when he died.
I have read also that some think he went mad because of his lack of mercy in his blood lust, but then many thought Hitler was mad, for the millions of Jews he murdered, but regarding Henry V111 this king was certainly a complex individual, yes he did suffer brain damage but he did not go from cheeky crappy to a raving psycho overnight, he did execute Epsom and Dudley at the start of his reign which shows a total disregard for mercy as soon as he took power, in that ruthless action maybe his peers the court and the realm had a glimpse into his character, of what he may become, but I doubt it, his grandfather Edward 1V was also capable of ruthless acts and we have to understand this was the 16th c, it was a fact though that as he aged his temper got worse and he became paranoid and suspicious, I believe his character changed a lot after the execution of Anne Boleyn, he had brought turbulence into his realm to make her his queen and she had failed to give him a son, I believe he felt used and cheated and a fool, not only in his kingdom but in Europe, but his jousting injury which tragically caused his second queen to miscarry was serious enough to render him unconscious for (and accounts differ on the amount of time) but, this did obviously have an effect on his personality, making him far worse but it was not an overnight transition, there had been an earlier injury when he had forgotten to lower his visor, so two major blows to the frontal lobe is hardly a recipe for a sunny personality, after his second queens death came more executions the Carthusian monks, the execution of Catherine Howard a young girl and her maid and the kings sister in law, her one time lover was executed in the most painful way devised to man, his own cousin and daughters old governess simply because her son had fled abroad, there were the hundreds of beggars who roamed the countryside destitute begging for food because the monasteries had been burnt to empty shells, but he did not care, as he sat at his table gorging himself he disregarded the pleas of the helpless, just like he was blind to the pleas for mercy from Cromwell, as he got ever fatter he became more disabled and cursed with ulcers on one leg he would bellow in rage as his doctors applied hot irons to cauterise the weeping sores, it is easy to feel pity for Henry V111 in his torment but what of the torment of the others he sent to their deaths ? There are many myths about this king and it’s true looking at Holbeins portrait that is the first image many of us have seen of Henry V111 and is the one that sticks, an obese old tyrant, one who sent thousands to their deaths, but that is the older Henry not the younger, who as a young man was slim muscled and athletic he was clean shaven and was described as having a face so pretty it would suit a woman, a heart shaped face smooth and rosy of complexion , sharp blue eyes like the sky on a summers day and bright coloured hair, yes he was cultured and his court became the centre point for many scholars and poets and in this he excelled also, he did write poetry and is said to have composed Greensleeves which is a ballad about a lover being cruelly rejected by his mistress, unfortunately we have no proof it was written by Henry but I like to think that the first verse has connotations with his ardent feelings for Anne Boleyn when he first began to pursue her, there is a myth to that he was promiscuous, many people exclaim what a dirty old man he was, but that to is a myth, he was no lecher, he was sentimental and believed himself in love with many of his wives, we only know a few of the women he had affairs with and these he conducted very discreetly, the myth of syphilis is like Marie Antionette and her ‘ let them eat cake’ tale, because of the myth he had many lovers so syphilis was added to the yarn, it is surprising how this still crops up time and again, people get it so wrong, no Henry V111 was not a dirty old man who had hundreds of mistresses and ate with his hands and caught the pox, as it was called then, in fact because we do know he was afraid of sickness he most likely avoided going to taverns and brothels where some courtiers went, as he knew these low born women would most likely infect him with that deadly disease, therefore he only had as his lovers mostly women amongst the higher classes, both Blount and Boleyn were daughters of the gentry and he did pride virtue amongst all women, his grief and shock when he discovered the truth about his fifth queen led to Parliament passing a bill that made it treason for any future queen of the monarch to not disclose her lack of virginity, his Flanders mare comment about his fourth queen was something my history teacher taught us, but that was written of in the 17th c how do these myths come about? And poor Anne could not have been as plain as Jane Seymour I think he disliked her German accent which can sound guttural to the ear, and the fact she was not a Renaissance princess, Henry was used to cultured women, poor Anne is seems had only been taught needlework by her mother had no social graces and no knowledge of what went on between men and women in the sheets, there is another myth as he lay on his deathbed he muttered the word ‘ monks’ but speech is rendered impossible in the dying, and no words were spoken of by this iconic king as he slipped from this world into the next, on the many history websites I have frequented these same myths resurface time and again, and also about his queens, Anne Boleyn had six fingers Catherine Howard said at her execution she would rather die the wife of Culpeper, etc – Edward V1 was a sickly lad all untrue, sadly it happens but whenever I can and others like me, I do try to put the record straight.