“There isn’t a way to know how much of it Henry wrote himself, but it is definite that this detraction of his scholarship originates from Luther himself, and is more political than genuine. While the love fest between Henry VIII and the Catholic Church continued unabated, Luther read and countered Henry’s Defense with a simple and effective tool. He claimed that Henry was not the author of the treatise and hence, it must not be taken seriously.
However, a little after this time, Luther apparently extended a hand of friendship to Henry. In a letter in 1525, Luther wrote to Henry apologizing for his attack on the King and for claiming that the book was not his work. The only way it could be done, he puts the blame squarely on Wolsey’s shoulders.
“præsertim illud monstrum et publicum odium Dei et hominum, cardinalis Eboracensis, pestis illa regni tui”/ “especially a monster and the public menace to God and man, the cardinal of York, the scourge of thy kingdom”
At this time, Wolsey’s influence over Henry still held, and the King wrote back to Luther in fierce defence of his minister, claiming that Wolsey would be dearer to the King the more he is hated by Luther and other heretics. He also praises the Cardinal and credits him with many advantages incurred by the Kingdom due to the Cardinal, especially opposition to heresy.
Claiming that he had been influenced by Henry’s enemies, Luther gave his excuses for such an action and begged for the King’s friendship and forgiveness. Luther had also offered to publicly recant on his take of the authorship of this book and expressed his wish to write a book in praise of King Henry, which offer Henry declines in this letter.
After such consistent refusal of friendship on Henry’s part, it was not surprising that Luther later refused to stand by him in his hour of need. When the Catholic Church was unable to grant a divorce to Henry, he turned elsewhere for support. Martin Luther, while not influenced by the endless debate on papal dispensations, claimed to believe in the sanctity of marriage and supported Catherine of Aragon in this feud.”
– [ x ]
Tag: history
On 24 June 1532 (or, possibly, 1533) Lady Jane Dudley, the wife of Sir John Dudley, gave birth to her fifth son, Robert. It was a holiday with much street celebration in England, the Feast of St. John the Baptist. It may also have been his father’s name day, so that baby Robert was arguably a very special present. (X)
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector. [ x ]
“Alongside their very real political value, the energetic revelries at court were meant to be enormous fun. Since political credibility was so closely linked to personal charisma and chivalric display, this is no contradiction. Hall’s description of Henry’s first year, after the excitements of the coronation, is instructive. He describes the king behaving as a chivalrous king should. Henry pardoned the innocent in the person of Henry Stafford, brother to the Duke of Buckingham, making him Earl of Wiltshire; he expanded the company of the King’s Spears; he sent relief to Calais, which was afflicted by the plague; he held Parliament in which Empson and Dudley were condemned.” – [ x ]
“Henry VIII and his councillors barred the [1509] pardon to a few people: they sacrificed Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, chief financial agents to the late king, to appease popular discontent. Most of the others excepted from the pardon received mercy after individually pleading their cases. In the first year of the reign, nearly 3,000 people bought copies of the pardon from Chancery and over the following three years, almost 300 more joined them. Again, people of all social ranks obtained pardons; some pardons applied to all citizens of a town or all members of a monastery.” – [ x ]
“The text [of the general pardon of 1515] listed those offenses that it pardoned, including statutory felonies, contempts, hunting and forest offenses, forcible entries, and usury. It specifically excluded treasons, murder, robbery, and all other common law felonies, as well as concealments and unlawful assemblies of more than twenty people. In this respect, the statute resembled earlier grants. Effecting a striking change, however, this act declared that people did not have to obtain individual copies and thus freed them from the fees demanded by the Chancery. Instead, it voided any future suits concerning matters it pardoned and had no expiration date. It allowed people guilty of the pardoned offenses but not yet charged to rest easy. People currently before the courts for offenses pardoned in the act only had to plead the statute to have their cases discharged. The pardon, then, demanded no fees above the 12d due to the court clerk who entered the plea. This arrangement persisted in all subsequent Tudor parliamentary pardons and presumably made it much easier for greater numbers of people to take advantage of the royal grants of mercy.” – [ x ]
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, hélas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.– A poem by Thomas Wyatt, which is said to be about Anne Boleyn.
favourite sultana meme: 3 quotes ♦ Dispatch of Jacopo Soranzo, 26 October 1566
“the Chassechi [haseki]… is said to be extremely well loved and honored by His Majesty, both for her great beauty and for being unusually intelligent.”
Henry and Anne: The Lovers Who Changed History
Mine own Sweetheart, this shall be to advertise you of the great elengeness [loneliness] that I find here since your departing; for, I ensure you methinketh the time longer since your departing now last, than I was wont to do a whole fortnight. I think your kindness and my fervency of love causeth it; for, otherwise, I would not have thought it possible that for so little a while it should have grieved me. But now that I am coming towards you, methinketh my pains be half removed; and also I am right well comforted in so much that my book maketh substantially for my matter; in looking whereof I have spent above four hours this day, which causeth me now to write the shorter letter to you at this time, because of some pain in my head; wishing myself (especially an evening) in my sweetheart’s arms, whose pretty duckkys I trust shortly to kiss.
Written by the hand of him that was, is, and shall be yours by his own will,
H.R.
“David Starkey examines the letter in Six Wives and explains that the word ‘elengeness’ means loneliness, dreariness or misery (Pg. 339). He states that Henry would have encountered the word ‘in the continuation of the Romaunt of the Rose by a follower of Chaucer’:
She had a ….scrippe (bag) of faint distresse
That full was of elengenesse.
He goes on to say that Anne would have been familiar with the poem in its original French as well as in the English translation and would have understood the meaning immediately.
‘Elengenesse is a word for lovers, to describe the pangs that only lovers – separated by distance, or necessity, or a false parade of virtue – know. (Starkey, Pg. 340).”
As for “some pain in my head”; this is probably due to the chronic migraines he suffered from after the jousting accident of 1524; in which he forgot to lower his visor and “the duke [Charles Brandon] struck the king on the brow right under the guard of the headpiece on the very skull cap or basinet piece.”
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