On 24th January 1536, at Greenwich Palace, the forty-four year-old King Henry VIII suffered a serious acccident while jousting.
We have three main contemporary reports of the accident: one from Eustace Chapuys, Emperor Charles V’s ambassador in England, another from Dr Pedro Ortiz, Charles V’s ambassador in Rome, and a further one from chronicler and Windsor Herald Charles Wriothesley. Here are the three reports:
Eustace Chapuys reported to Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle, one of Charles V’s trusted advisors, on 29th January 1536:
“On the eve of the Conversion of St. Paul, the King being mounted on a great horse to run at the lists, both fell so heavily that every one thought it a miracle he was not killed, but he sustained no injury. Thinks he might ask of fortune for what greater misfortune he is reserved, like the other tyrant who escaped from the fall of the house, in which all the rest were smothered, and soon after died.”1
Dr Ortiz reported to the Empress on 6th March:
“Has received a letter from the ambassador in France, dated 15 Feb., stating that he hears from England that the King intends to marry the Princess to an English knight. The French king said that the king of England had fallen from his horse, and been for two hours without speaking. “La Ana” was so upset that she miscarried of a son.”2
Wriothesley wrote in his chronicle:
“…it was said she [Anne] tooke a fright, for the King ranne that tyme at the ring and had a fall from his horse, but he had no hurt; and she tooke such a fright with all that it caused her to fall in travaile, and so was delivered afore her full tyme, which was a great discompfort to all this realme.”3
The accident was obviously a serious one, but it is hard to tell just how serious. While Chapuys and Wriothesley, who were both in England at the time, write of Henry VIII sustaining “no injury” or “no hurt”, Ortiz’s rather third-hand information (Francis I said to the ambassador who wrote to Ortiz…) is that the King was unconscious or unable to speak for two hours after the accident, suggesting a rather serious head injury. Whatever happened, it was a nasty fall and Henry VIII never jousted again.
You can read more about the accident and its possible impact in my article Henry VIII’s Jousting Accident – 24th January 1536
Henry VIII’s 1536 jousting accident is one of the events on my countdown to Anne Boleyn’s fall on The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown website – see www.thefallofanneboleyn.com for the list of dates and events.
Notes and Sources
- LP x.200, Chapuys to Granvelle
- LP x.427, Dr Ortiz to the Empress
- A chronicle of England during the reigns of the Tudors, from A.D. 1485 to 1559, Charles Wriothesley, p33
Illustration of a medieval joust from “Peter Parley’s Annual for 1880”.
While the detailed descriptions are vague of whether Henry fell sideways or backwards, we do know that both he and his steed were knocked to the ground, suggesting a massive blow. His padded helmet would have mitigated some of the force of the impact, but he may well have still sustained a brain haemorrhage or a fractured skull, thus appearing as if he had suffered no injury. We know from these written observations that he was unable to speak for some two hours, but was this because he was unconscious or perhaps from a small blood clot pressing within the brain?
If he suffered a haemorrhage he is lucky to have survived. However, it is more likely he suffered a linear fracture which did not create a blood clot, but has been noted by modern medical practitioners to produce a change of character in the individual. It has been observed and noted that Henry’s behaviour after the accident became more erratic and he presented increasing signs of paranoia. For a man who had been so dominant in the joust and the hunt, to have survived this accident is a miracle, but the ignominy of being defeated dealt a blow to his ego far more devastating than the serious injury itself.
There is an interesting hypothesis by a scientist called Kyla Kramer that Henry suffered from a rare blood disorder called MacLeod’s Syndrome. Again, this is conjecture, but adds an interesting facet as to the why Henry’s Queens miscarried so often, plus suggesting a reason for his change of personality in later life.
There was also a medical paper some years ago making a detailed argument that Henry had suffered a fractured skull and how this led to his change of personality. The doctor based his hypothesis on his years as a head trauma surgeon and compared case studies to what we know of Henry’s fall and change of behaviour patters from the various written records. However, I’m sorry I cannot remember the name of the author.
It is only within the past few decades, with the advent of MRI, CT & PET scans we are we able to see inside the human body without cutting it open. The medical knowledge at the time was scant and it is a miracle he survived at all. Only an exhumation of Henry’s body and an examination of his skull would finally solve this conundrum and that is never going to happen.
I’ve just updated the article as I noticed that Charles Wriothesley wrote about it too, saying “but he had no hurt”. I wonder if Wriothesley was told to downplay it and perhaps a downplayed report was given to Chapuys, or whether it wasn’t as serious as Francis I thought. It’s impossible to know which report was right so I’m just not sure that we can say that Henry VIII suffered from a head injury which caused a change of character.
Kyra Kramer’s research is very interesting but I don’t agree with it personally and I’m with J J Scarisbrick in believing that Henry always had what we see as tyrannical tendencies. Just my opinion though!
Claire, I’m with you about Kramer’s idea. Scarisbrick’s observations of Henry’s tendencies seem a far more likely bet. Who hasn’t seen a spoiled child throw his toys around in a fit of rage!
I know various people, like Suzannah Lipscomb, think that Henry’s behaviour became more tyrannical after January 1536 but I’m just not sure. He’d already had Thomas More, Bishop Fisher, the Carthusian monks etc. executed, and if you think back to how he started his reign with the executions of Empson and Dudley…
was it not dangerous to speak of the king in any way to imply that all was not well with him maybe treasonous so perhaps no one really wanted to end up in a lot of troubleby suggesting that henry was not in full health,i don’t think that henrys problems were caused by his jousting accident ,I think it was a collection of many different items ,ie no son,and the thought that the expected one was a girl again,would have worried him also he was not a young man getting bigger by the day ,his leg constantly in pain,being caught with jane Seymour {if that happened}losing many children just a major mid life crisis I think ,also not knowing who to trust and then executing people he did not ,with all this going on he probably went mad .I still think he was obnoxious but give that sort of stress to anyone and they would end up the same way
I agree Claire. Henry always had these tendencies.
Proven by his earlier executions, and actions. If anything
made them come out, as in become more apparent, it was his desire
for a son and having so much trouble getting one.
Yes I agree if only his bones could be examined so many questions could be answered ! Richard 111 bones was exhumed He was king ! It would be like winning the lottery to historians !!!!
The claim that Henry sustained no injury is a bit of an understatement. A head injury may not have been obvious, but did they even examine the King on the rest of his body to see if his bones were broken or bruised or that his leg had been injured again? Some four tons of horse in armour and his own body weight plus armour fell on top of the King: he was lucky not to have been crushed. I have seen the documentary on the King that looked at the effects on his body over time when they did a virtual reality of Henry and it showed damage to his temperoral lobes and to his body in general. He would have been killed but for the armour and padding. It dropped a large weight onto a pig and the terrible injuries showe a very nasty battered body under that weight: imagine what it would have done to Henry had he not had his armour on.
At the very least his brain had been rattled around and he definately had damage to his leg with an old ulcer and other problems with his leg, bones cracked and so on. He would have problems walking from this time off and his personality seems to have changed. Jousting was a risky sport: it was also meant as a training for war. Henry was a good jouster but he also took too many risks. It was a good job Anne was not actually watching as the shock may have caused a miscarriage on the spot and injury to her as well. The miscarriage was a few days later; and some sources also state that she had walked in on the King dangling Jane Seymour on his knee. This was a double shock. Her body could not recover and sadly she lost the baby; which was reported as having the appearance of a male child.
This second accident: that which lost Henry’s heir must have also rattled his brain and in his current state he made a decision that was fatal for Anne: he made an angry accusation to Anne that she had killed his son and would have no more sons by him or that God would not grant him any male sons. The exact words depend on which source you read. It is sad for Anne, Henry and England but for Anne it was also fatal as some people believe that this was the start of her road to the block or divorce. Whatever the truth of this; this accident changed everything in Anne and Henry’s life and has been the subject of many what ifs ever since.
Two hours without speech and unconcious: the place must have been in uproar and panic. The fact that the King recovered or appeared to must also have been one of great celebration and relief, sadly it was the start of Henry’s decline and the decline in his relations with those around him. Henry was also to make some of his best decisions for the nation but his worst decisions on a personal note and some of his more paranoid moments followed this fall. It could also be asked what was his rational taking part in the joust during the dangerous months of his wife’s pregnancy. And why was he dangling another woman on his knee in a part of the private chambers that his wife could have free access to and walk in on them? Just what was he thinking?
The trouble is that we don’t know whether it was an understatement or whether Ortiz’s report was exaggerated. I’m sure that a fall in full armour would have caused some injury and been very painful, but if Chapuys and Wriothesley are to be believed (I updated the article as I found Wriothesley’s account too) then Henry VIII was not seriously hurt, not to the extent that Ortiz was told anyway. Perhaps it was a case of them being fed information to downplay the accident but we can’t say for sure.
It’s frustrating that we haven’t got a definitive account of this accident, to know whether Henry VIII did suffer a head injury which could have caused health problems, personality/behaviour problems etc.
One possibility I haven’t seen mentioned is that Henry’s changing personality was not caused by a single fall but by the many traumas he suffered through the years both in training and in the jousts themselves. Former football and hockey players today are frequently diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the result of too many hits. Personality changes similar to the ones observed in Henry are common symptoms.
Good point, he had had a previous jousting accident in March 1524, where he’d been hit in the face.
The accident in 1524 seems to me to be even more of a lucky escape as he could easily have had his eyes put out or the lance go into his brain. He is meant to have suffered from severe headaches: I assume migraines from this time onwards. As a migraine sufferer from severe ones; I can vouche that it puts me into the most foul of moods and I just have to lie down for as long as possible. It also wipes me out for days at a time, and that is with two types of medication, one that is meant to block the signals and stop them and the strongest for treatment. How many accidents did Henry have at the joust? The point about hockey players is a good one: someone was tried for murder a few years ago and it emerged they had a complete personality change due to the number of head collisons and accidents: not from hockey but from American football and there was a big campaign afterwards to have something done about this dangerous sport. Boxing is another example that we have known about for a long time: punch drunk boxers have brain damage and have to give it up. I think now in America some sports are considered so dangerous that they are no longer allowed in school or college; only after the brain and skull is fully developed when they are full adults. I am not sure that every action of Henry can be pointed to the accident of 1536: as you say there are a number of executions from 1533 onwards; but they seem to speed up and become more and more personally motivated. However, a collective number of head injuries or other severe injuries, migraines and may-be other brain injuries or just being in chronic pain and restricted to the palace; could have a long term affect on Henry’s decisions and his judgements. I really think that we do not know enough about his medical history to be able to really make a true determination.
Not that I would want to compare Henry VIII with Herod the Great but several sites have linked his mad behaviour and paranoid state of mind to the fact that he suffered cancer and worms in the scrotum. Another example is Ivan the Terrible or Awesome, depending on translation and there are studies that claim that he had severe trauma to the head and tumours that led to mental health problems and mania. This was behind his cruel reign. Or he could just have been cruel as could Herod.
Yet something turned Henry from a benign Prince to a man of great wrath and paranoid behaviour. If not this accident then what? Frustration at not having a son, a long and bitter divorce, sexual frustration, arguments with the wife; several other accidents combined, a blood disease has also been blamed; a sudden mania; a tumour on the brain? Or was it a combination of all of these and the consequences of his disappointments in his domestic life and his marriages to the wrong people?
I think the 1524 and 1536 are the only recorded jousting accidents, and he certainly had a very lucky escape from the first one. Jousting was incredibly dangerous – Sir Francis Bryan lost an eye doing it and Henry II of France died as the result of a jousting accident.
If things seemed to speed up and get worse after 1536, I believe that it may have been more to do with the challenges that Henry faced. His impotence had come out at court in May 1536, his wife had allegedly had affairs with his friends (whether he believed that or not, that is what she was accused of and what the people were meant to believe), people were rising up against his plans for the monasteries, after Fitzroy’s death he did not have a living son and both of his daughters were now deemed illegitimate etc. etc. He was living on a knife edge and he had to react brutally to any challenges to his authority. Just my opinion though and it could well be that his health caused his behaviour.
I’m not convinced that Henry’s jousting’s accidents had much to do with alleged ‘personality changes’ – I agree with Claire that the seeds of tyranny had always been there.
Remember, the young Prince Henry executed his father’s unpopular counsellors Empson and Dudley immediately after his succession merely because they were unpopular rather than due to any wrongdoing on their part. Whilst it could be argued that he was merely following advice, it was hardly a ‘benign’ gesture. And he was clearly responsible for the execution of the Duke of Buckingham in 1521 on rather shaky evidence.
As Claire said, the pressures on Henry increased after 1536, and so did his sense of his own ‘divinity’. Thomas Cromwell had shown him that he could go a lot further in imposing his will than he had ever dreamed was possible. No doubt having to give up his favourite sport of jousting due to the potential risks and his increasing weight and leg problem contributed towards the King’s unhappiness – which was bad news for his courtiers and subjects!
Both accidents would have played a part, but the thing about CTE is that all the little incidents nobody would have recorded – the ones where he just fell, or had his bell rung – would each have caused almost as much damage. The dozens of little unrecorded hits would have caused the majority of the damage.
Jousting was certainly a dangerous sport, not just because of the risk of injury but because the impact of charging into another man at around forty miles an hour, with both knights (horses and armour combined) weighing around half a ton jolted both body and brain. Some semi-professional jousters may well have suffered from a disorder similar to the ‘punch drunk’ condition that can affect boxers and others who play sports such as rugby, hockey and American football, as Charlene and Bandit Queen said.. However, do we know how much jousting Henry actually did in the course of his life?
My impression is that it probably wasn’t that much, given his comparatively late start and the other pressures on his time when he was king. In contrast, one of his Lancastrian predecessors as king, Henry IV, took part in over fifty jousting competitions, starting when he was fourteen. It had been suggested that the cumulative effect of this affected Henry’s brain and was a cause of the ill-health he suffered in 1405. However, his biographer Ian Mortimer (from whose book the helpful information on the potential effects of jousting comes) points out that the King’s handwriting does not show any significant change, which makes brain damage from this or from a stroke very unlikely. I don’t know for certain whether anyone has examined Henry VIII’s handwriting for change after 1536, but given the vast amount of study that has been expended on his reign, it seems likely that anything like this would have been noticed by historians.
As far as I know, this incident in 1536 is the only recorded occasion on which Henry fell from a horse, and it is far from clear whether he suffered a concussion or not due to the contradictory contemporary information, as Claire said in her original post. Whilst we cannot rule out brain damage from the fall and/or participation in jousts as.a factor in the deterioration in Henry’s behaviour in later years, it still seems far more likely that the the corrosive effect of wielding immense power was the primary cause.
I looked up this condition here is a link. If you skip the first bit, and go straight to the Introduction it lists the various symptoms. Do we think any of these were displayed by Henry?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945234/ (cut & paste into another tab is probably the best way to get to this).
A great observation, Charlene.
I think I agree, Claire, with all that going on, not so sure that any monarch faced with so many challenges to his authority would not have reacted the same way. Thanks for the confirmation of the accident dates; yes; certainly having an heir early in his reign would have resolved a lot of problems. Risings, divorces, children dying young, no heir, his sexual potency being rumoured about; threats from inside and outside the court, perceived treasons from old friends and colleagues and his wife not being all he hoped for, even if she was innocent; his world must have seemed as if it was about to fall apart at times. I am not very surprised that his reaction was often one of cruel violence, these were violent times, and may-be he did not feel as in control as he should have been. As a Henry VIII fan, I often want to grab a TARDIS and go back and correct some of the things that went wrong in Henry’s domestic life; take some miracle cure back, save the life of Jane Seymour or one of his children by Katherine of Aragon; and not caring about the rules about time travel. I probably sound potty; but Henry is one of the few rulers that had so much more potential than his life problems allowed him to have. Oh well!
He’s a fascinating character, isn’t he? He started his reign with so much promise and really was a Renaissance prince, but things went rather wrong. I think we always have to remember that it wasn’t that long since the Wars of the Roses, so Henry knew he had to face any challenges head on to keep his throne and the line of succession safe. What pressure he must have been under.
Henry Bieber? LoL
Sounds silly I know. And you can not compare the both of them. But…
When a boy has been treated strict in some ways (Henry VII: oh no, no jousts!), and at the same time has been told that he is very special, you are asking for trouble I guess…
bandit queen ,I think a lot of people on this site would like to go back in time to henrys day ,even if just to catch a glimpse, but how long would any of us last before being thrown in the tower for some treasonous act or another,
Have you read any of the Time Travellers Guides To ———- England? Time Travellers Guide to Elizabethen, Tudor, Medieval England series; very clear from the most recent one that many of us would be very unprepared for the era; many of the diseases would take us out for a start and so many different laws that would affect our daily lives; we would indeed probably end up doing something that would get us into trouble. Oh, well, back to the drawing board.
Cheers.
What strikes me in all the reports of doctors telling us about Henry’s health, is that they have to make do with reports like the ones Clair cited here. How reliable is that?
I mean, would I trust the diagnosis of a doctor prescribing me medicine or a treatment only based on some rather vague things he has heard about me? Without a proper examination, tests of my blood, and other things? And even when doctors do examine a patient and take blood and have it tested, etc., there are still cases where they make some very serious mistakes, do not find out what is wrong, and / or disagree with each other. Should we really trust the diagnosis by a doctor based on the scanty evidence we have? And yet, this is what happens where Henry is concerned. We say: oh, wow! How clever, and it sounds reasonable. And it may sound like that yes.
At best it is speculation, and nothing more. As Claire pointed out, there are lots of things happening during Henry’s reign. Many things may have influenced his decisions, even his state of health. But unless we find out more about his state of health, we can not give too much credit to the opinion medical of doctors living now…
To reverse it. Many people thought the fact that Richard III was deemed a ‘hunchback’ was Tudor propaganda. Now his remains have been found, we know that this was actually based on something: his scoliosis. Not a hunchback, but indeed a deformity of his body that must have been noticed at the time.
We need both written evidence and research of a body before we can come near to a good explanation. And in Henry’s case the body is missing…
So, we have one report (hear say), that tells he was not able to speak for several hours, and two telling he did not have any injuries. For Wriothesly it would possibly have been safe not to dwell on any serious injuries. But Chapuys would not have any reason to keep things to himself. To me it seems likely that he based his reports on what he heard, and not just by one person, probably what he heard from several sources.
Which is the more reliable account? You tell me! We just do not know exactly what happened…
Hans, I think you will find Henry’s body under the floor in St George’s Chapel, Windsor. I don’t think we will ever get permission for an exhumation to examine his bones and thus prove/disprove all the various speculative theories.
However, if the injuries were internal, or sub-cutaneous to the hair, then it might be thought he had no injuries. Wriothesly would be spinning the story of uninjured, but I agree, Chapuys would have no reason so to do. If nothing could be seen, then to all intent and purpose, Henry appeared to be uninjured.
LoL
I know where the body is. I just meant as long as no one has a change to look at it, the body is ‘missing’. And agreed, I do not think exhumation will happen as long as Britain is a monarchy.
Hmm…. what kind of animal has to be annihilated for that to happen? LoL
Hans, I believe the animal would have to be able to slay a unicorn and a lion and will probably speak with a Scottish accent. The Scottish referendum in September will tell the world whether or not Scotland is going to break with England. Will this be the pebble that starts the avalanche that overwhelms the English monarchy? But I digress!
I think the accident, even if it didn’t cause serious injury, would have frightened everyone to death … including Henry, who probably had a realization of his own mortality. After all, he still didn’t have a legitimate male heir; and he must have realized that his death could trigger a civil war between the Protestant backers of baby Princess Elizabeth and the Catholic backers of Princess Mary (war would have prevented the war would be if someone recognized that very few accepted that Mary was illegitimate). I think it is significant that, after this injury, Anne wasn’t given other chances after her miscarriage … and her fall (and his remarriage) so rapid. IMO, the accident made Henry realize that he needed an heir whose legitimacy was unquestionable, ASAP … he didn’t have any more time to wait.
Very true, Esther, it must have been a real wake-up call for Henry. As well as reminding him of his mortality, it must have been sad for him to realise that he couldn’t keep up with the younger men any more. After this accident he didn’t joust again, and we know how important to him jousting and sport were.
All the comments are very interesting. Whatever the truth is, something of major importance changed Henry’s feelings of love towards Queen Anne to absolute loathing between Christmas and the end of April. Four months is a comparatively short time for such an about turn. Was Henry really so gullible as to believe the almost incredible rumours his sycophantic courtiers fed him, and why, after his schism with Rome did he turn his attention to someone (the Seymour creature) with Catholic sympathies? I’m sure many of us endure marriages where love dies, but we don’t usually resort to murdering the spouse to solve the problem. I wonder about Henry’s mindset to be able to order the bloody beheading (albeit graciously with a French sword) of her ‘whose pretty duckys’ he once yearned to kiss? And the fact that she had such an undignified burial. Presumably Henry expected Sir William Kingston to have made the necessary funeral arrangements, and I’m surprised he hadn’t. After all, there had been several other headless corpses to provide for in the preceding days, and the incumbent of St Peter ad Vincula must have been kept pretty busy mumbling some sort of committal service over them all. For a ‘religious’man constantly selfishly preoccupied with his own immortal soul, Henry was singularly nonchalent about the earthly remains of those he’d sent on an early trip to the afterlife.
I think he was astonishingly capable of self-delusion. He didn’t deliberately lie; he merely persuaded himself that black could be white if it suited him. Unlike people today who cling to lies no matter how much reliable evidence exists to the contrary, he merely had new evidence created that justified his beliefs.
Charlene, a very astute comment. As king, his ‘divine right’ afforded him the necessary authority!
Do we know if Henry ever read a copy of Machiavelli’s, The Prince, printed in 1532 but circulating after 1513 in written format? Probably the best known quote is from Chapter 15: He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.
When did Henry suffer the broken leg which pained him for the rest of his life?
Had he died, history would have been so changed!!!! Anne would be the reigning monarch, I would assume & would take the throne. It is interesting to think what would have transpired.
Anne wouldn’t have been the monarch if Henry had died in January 1536. If she hadn’t miscarried, the son she bore would have been king and she might have acted as regent until he was old enough to rule on his own. Had she miscarried anyway, Elizabeth would have been queen, again with her mother likely acting as regent.
To expand on my remarks, Anne was Queen Consort, not queen in her own right. She was queen only because she was married to the King. She was the equivalent to Prince Philip, who would not become king if his wife died.
Actually, if Henry HAD died, and Anne NOT miscarried, there might have been quite the struggle between political factions over who would see to the running of the government until Anne’s baby was born, when it would finally be known who would be the next monarch; whether the child was a boy (who would become King), or if it were another girl, in which case, Elizabeth would become Queen as the eldest.
She would not have been reigning monarch. That was absolutely impossible. She had zero claim to the throne in her own right.
Before Anne’s miscarriage, a regent (almost certainly not Anne – her pregnancy would make this almost impossible) would have been appointed and the country would have waited until Anne was delivered. If the child had been a boy, he would have been crowned and the regent would have remained in power until the boy reached his majority.
If Anne miscarried on schedule (or if she gave birth to a girl) Elizabeth would have become the legal successor, but who knows if Mary, Henry Fitzroy, or a third party would have tried to seize the throne. Anne was just the consort; she had no right to the throne. She might gave been able to maneuver herself into the position of regent in this circumstance, but it would be very unlikely.
I can’t see anyone trying a coup while Anne was still pregnant, or if she delivered a live-born son. But no matter the circumstances, Anne would never reign in her own right.
True, she would at best have been the king’s or queen’s mother. Would she have become regent? Perhaps not likely. Too many greedy men around I think.
“What, a woman being regent? No way…!!” I’m not sure how a 16th century courtier would have said it, but I think that would have been the feeling. George or daddy Boleyn? More likele a Norfolk would have tried. And he had better have watched who was walking behind him!
I think it might have caused murder and a civil war as a result. Which does not mean I think Anne would have been incapable of being a good regent. Far from it perhaps, but this was the 16th century, and a very much male dominated society…
anne would not have stood a chance at becoming regent ,she had too many enemies and was extremely unpopular a and id say plans were already afoot to get rid of the boleyns.
Yikes, I typed ‘change’ instead of chance! LoL
Melanie, I think the one I referred to is the raven. But I do wonder what the Scottish referendum will bring…
I wonder if Henry’s change of personality had more to do with him being a type 2 diabetic that continued to eat whatever he wanted even when he could no longer exercise.
I remember reading an interesting article about the possibility of Henry’s personality changes having to do with being an untreated diabetic in later life. I know first hand with my husband, who is a type 2 diabetic, how the mood swings can be even when one is taking insulin or other diabetic medications and watching what one eats.
In Henry’s case, he ate whatever he wanted, could no longer exercise after the 1536 accident and the ulcers on his legs being quite painful, I imagine that most everyone treaded on eggshells whenever the King was in one of his “black” moods.
I think Henry maybe started to get worse through ageing maybe he had diabetes and other ailments that we don’t know about he did joust a lot and he may have sustained brain damage or he might not. I think he didn’t like aging so he bullied Anne Boleyn and others like a child he blamed other people he was never taught about consequences because he was spoilt rotten. I think it was appalling the way he treated Anne he was a mean person
There was a rumour that he had Henry Fitzroy poisoned because Henrys fitroys funeral was done secretly do you think Heny the eigth capable of murdering his own son so he wont rise up against his legitimate heir
No
Oh come on that is just stupid ITS NOT TRUE
No
Wow – this site is so interesting and is a perfect source of facts that I can use for my project on Henry VIII!!!!!
Hi,
I have always thought that Henry 8 did actually die as a result of his more serious accident, and like all monarchs and important personages through history into modern times they must have used people who look almost like them, but were not, to be used in difficult situations
so if they were killed, then nothing was said about them and the king duly appeared as normal and frustrated would be assassins.I think this worked in reverse on that day in utmost secrecy to protect the TUDOR LINE