Tag: towyns

where do you position yourself on the spectrum “cromwell alone is responsible for anne’s fall” — “cromwell and henry are responsible for anne’s fall” — “henry alone is responsible for anne’s fall” ?

I mean honestly I’ve varied on a lot on this spectrum over the years; I feel like it’s always adjusted at least a smidge anytime after I read a paper on this topic. 

I’d say I believed most in the third one when I was like, 13-20 and that in retrospect that was more influenced by fiction than research. 

Right now I’m pretty dead-center on the second one; with the caveat that I think it was Cromwell’s idea initially, not Henry’s. I’ve never been the first, because it’s literally impossible– a jury convicted her, and ultimately Henry had to sign her execution warrant for it be carried out. It could only be the first one if Cromwell literally had her murdered by an assassin or himself, via poison etc. 

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While I think Arthur Tudor is interesting, and understand that he’ll always be  compelling in the way figures we know very little about (who were unable to meet the future they were trained for due to tragedy), the idealization of him as a king strikes me as a bit…disengenuous.

I’m not knocking AU’s, of course, or anyone’s edits or gifsets– that’s not really what I’m talking about here. Or dissing anyone’s interests, because personally I really dislike when that’s done to mine. 

It’s more that when I go on history discussion forums online, there is legit “Let us WEEP for the Arthurian England that never was…the world would’ve been so much better for it, COA would’ve been so much better for it, every subject at court would’ve been so much better for it” etc. rhetoric. 

And like…could he have been a better ruler than Henry VIII? Of course he could have. 

But also…could he have been a worse one? Yeah, that’s definitely possible too.

Same with the world at large being better off/ worse off. 

It’s just that we literally don’t know if it would’ve, because it didn’t…like…happen. 

So the certainty I find a bit baffling, but when I yield the second (that his reign could also have been worse than his younger brother’s was, overall), it’s met with a long string of question marks, and “how could ANYONE have been a WORSE king than Henry the [insert fatphobic term here]???”

And…I guess that’s just where my opinion tends to diverge the common one…namely, that I don’t think Henry VIII was the worst king in history. Frankly, I don’t think he was even he worst king England ever had– certainly not as far as governmental policy and national security went. Nor was he the best, but that range is a pretty long one…

As for the worst husband in England? Certainly he’s somewhere on the top of that list…and I think that maybe that is what gets conflated with actual overall policy during his reign, and tends overshadow any accomplishments. [ x ] [ x ] [ x ]