The Tudors are my favourite of the British royal families. Henry certainly wasn't a wonderful human being, but I find him and his family dynamic very interesting. He could be incredibly cruel and insane, but there were those he perceived as loyal who I think he cared about very much about throughout his life - such as his fool Will Somers. I also find it interesting how he treated his children like rubbish at different times in their lives - in particular Mary and Elizabeth - yet they both loved him as a father. I love reading about Henry and his daughters, and of course the wives!
When it comes to Henry VIII I’ve never really been interested in the drama surrounding his reign or his six wives. I’ve always approached his person from a medical standpoint. He shows clear signs of hypothyroidism from muscle weakness, to a personality shift in middle age, to weight gain (when he died, he weighed nearly 400 lbs.) to his eventual mental deterioration. He also likely suffered from Type II diabetes, and syphilis.
This would be a great thread to start...including all about the Royal family. I would certainly be reading it. I love to hear all the news AND the scandal about the Royal Family. I'll follow both of you so I will know if you post more..... (if you don't mind)
He was one of those kings that made clear unelected absolute rulers are unfavourable. So in that way he did have some use :-D
I'm Henry the Eighth was a lousy song by Herman's Hermits, a less than mediocre band that came with the British Invasion of the 1960s. Revived in the movie Ghost.
I link the mental deterioration back to the jousting accident when he lost consciousness for several hours. His extreme irritably, outbursts of temper as well as the senility could be attributed to brain damage. Although I think I read somewhere Elizabeth was also a bit senile towards her end, there may be a family link.
Some researchers believe Henry VIII may have suffered from Scurvy Their evidence; He often threw large banquets of venison, poultry and game, Bear, hedgehog, and rabbits, with plenty of Beer and Ale, but very little fruits and vegetables. Because drinking alcohol diminishes many nutrients in the body including vitamin C, and it makes it harder for your body to absorb the vitamin, any fruits and vegetable he ate, did not provide a sufficient amount of vitamin C.
just another jerk historians make a big deal about, that the world would have been no worse off without. i guess its a matter of personal taste, but i find architecture, and i don't mean the big monumental stuff either, far more interesting. the kind of houses/shelters ordinary people lived in, how they made things, what the cultures of ordinary, not politically privileged people, expected of each other and acted like. i'm interested in the things you don't often hear about. who sat on that rock right there, to rest from walking, a thousand years ago, and again ten thousand years ago. what did the landscape around them look like. all the indigenous civilizations that were "lost' to what kids are taught in school or on tv. (and no, they didn't have to borrow an alien's tool box, when they could use the brains we've always had, with simple levers, sweat, and hundreds or even thousands of years, to build things) early developments of physical infrastructure, going all the way back to as long as humans made anything, and all the way up to the very earliest developments of "the industrial revolution" and beyond to the "history" of tomorrow. set beside that, the social foibles and inequities of any one person, however familiar their name, are very nearly as naught.
Henry and Thomas Cromwell persecuted individuals and an entire Church. They closed the monasteries for showmanship as religion. Yet reigned as showmanship for government. He was never truly tested in war. The brutality to women is legendary.
This is something I think about often too. History is written by the victors and by the elite. The further back we go, the less we seem to know about the ordinary people of that time. Considering they make the bulk of the population that's a huge amount of historical information that is lost to us.
At least he was honest. He took a wife and if she didn't please him he sent her back home or said "off with her head." No dumb pre-nup stuff for him. In those days the sovereign was a dictator and didn't have to consult a parliament. In those days Harry and Megan would have been tossed into the tower for what they did,
Regrettably this shows your ignorance of British music hall as well as a lack of understanding of Henry himself. For your edification - the song 'Henry the eighth' was first performed many decades before Peter Noon was even born !!!
Three of his wives were my distant relatives, so I don't care for him. They were Ann Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Jane Seymour, who shared the same great grandmother, who is also my many times great grandmother.
You could say the same about many kings and queens of Europe. Think of what their life was. From day one you are told you are god's chosen one and the rules of man don't really apply to you. A peasent is not to kill or commit adultery. But if the king kills god told him to go to war and he's certainly not expected to not partake in earthly pleasures. God forgives his chosen one. Maybe he was an actual sociopath but I think it's more likely you are right.
