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 ]
“One suspects, after reviewing the literature, that Henry is too large and complex a figure to fit any single canvas, to be grasped as a whole at once. This, perhaps, is why Henry continues to fascinate. Whether the classical king of beasts worthy of respect and praise, or the predator, a Machiavellian creature of self will and unseemly appetie, More’s ‘lion’ may have known and used his strength much more effectively and completely than More suspected. Yet the image of a prince hard to rule, by any man or even by himself, a bit erratic and more than a bit dangerous, may be another source of the historical fascination with this man.
Not even the modern psychologist can pin down Henry. He remains a bit of an enigma, and no matter how well we understand his age, how closely we study his actions, perhaps he will always remain so. Each generation writes its own history, for its own purposes, and so each must find its own understanding of Henry VIII. Part lion, part fox,Henry the man and the king remains a key piece in the unfinished puzzle of the sixteenth century. Whether one admires or abhors, still Henry must be taken account of. That there has been so little agreement on his character is perhaps history’s highest accolade.
As Oscar Wilde once quipped, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. Wherever his shade now rests, Henry should have no complaints.” [ x ]
I have an opinion on the study of unpopular historical figures, particularly Henry VIII, on this site that might be … unwelcome but it’s been bugging me so here we go.
If you’re presented with evidence that is contrary to a perception you have of this person and your first reaction is, “I don’t care, he’s still a dick,” that confuses me. No one is arguing that Henry is not, overall, a terrible person. Believe me, that’s the general consensus with every modern historian. No biography of Henry’s ends each chapter with, “But remember, he was still an asshole!” because we know. David Starkey, a man who has dedicated much of his academic career to understanding Henry VIII has fully said that this king is probably roasting in Hell. But what this evidence presents is that there are layers to Henry, layers that are stripped away by common myths and misconceptions. Our idea of Henry VIII causes us to inflate the importance of rather meaningless parts of his life (such as when he wrote, “this book is mine” as a child in one of his books – people took that as some early evidence of him being possessive and terrible when, in reality, his mother Elizabeth of York did the same thing and for god sake’s so did I when I was a kid and probably so did many of you and you just don’t want to admit it) while ignoring evidence that contradicts these myths. It prevents us from examining the positive parts of his reign and the financial care he took for those closest to him – yes, even his former mistresses. All of this must be studied in conjuncture with his more unforgivable acts, his ruthless treatment of those who’d displeased him, his eventual nose-dive into tyranny. Because otherwise, it’s a skewed examination.
So if your knee-jerk reaction is to say “I don’t care, he’s still a dick” to arguments and evidence that add complexity to Henry VIII then you don’t actually care as much about the study of history as you claim you do. You only care about being proved right no matter the evidence, and that is not how you study history.
“And so, many more lives would be lost by his decree. It would torment him till the end and he would be guilty, defiant, dictatorial, irrational and dangerous, never realizing that much of it was the denial of grief and conscience. It would be a sad end for a man who [ from the beginning; ]wanted very much to be a good one.” – Nell Gavin
So, this passage is from a biography I’m reading right now, and I’m going to challenge it. The author is certainly not the first to state something similar to this take; in fact this is a common narrative that I’ve come across a lot.
My belief is that this narrative is due (at least in part) to something I’ve privately (well, up till now), referred to as the Anne of the Thousand Days effect:
That line, along with this one:
Yes, I’ve
been told it’s not safe for any of us to say no to our king. That put on, kindly, hail-fellow-well-met of yours. My father’s house will be pulled
down, and Northumberland’s too, they tell me. Well, pull them
down, Your Majesty, you are
what I said.
…are what have endured.
They have, in fact, endured so steadfastly that I’ve never read anyone challenge them; nor have I ever read an examination of evidence pertaining to the subject (Henry VIII, his mistresses, and treatment of them when they were, and no longer were), and whether or not it fits this narrative or contradicts it.
I have never been able to find a single shred of evidence that suggests Henry pursued any woman, and then, once she rejected him, set out to “ruin her family”. Certainly he had the power to do so, being king, if he so wished, but having the power does not necessitate that he ever abused the power. Moreover, once this is considered, the argument that Anne only entertained his affections out of fear of the ruin of her family weakens; unless there was proof that her father pushed Mary into being Henry’s mistress out of this fear – or ambition– himself.
Beyond the realm of The Tudors and The Other Boleyn Girl; there is no such evidence. In fact, it would be fair to say there might be evidence to suggest the contrary (that Thomas Boleyn did not approve of the former affair– which could’ve taken place during Mary’s marriage to Carey, or before it). Even the work making the claim that Henry offered ‘no direct financial support’ contradicts itself with its own evidence–
“Thomas Boleyn obviously little did little to assist Mary, since Henry VIII later granted Anne the wardship of Mary’s son Henry [after Mary’s husband had died; this leaving Mary in financial straits].”
Henry granted Anne the wardship. Surely this was at Anne’s behest; but it suggests a collaborative effort– after all, it is not as if he refused to grant the wardship to Anne, and the pension to Mary.
Beyond that they had sex at least once, we know nothing for certain about the nature of the relationship between Henry and Mary Boleyn. Due to what we don’t know, it does make it a bit difficult to examine the claim that Henry offered her nothing because she was no longer his mistress, or that he “discarded” her, which is another narrative I’ve often read (again, this assumes a lot– for all we know, they could have had a mutual parting of ways, a one-night-stand, a few-week ‘fling’, a month-long affair, etc.). That he “refused to accept parental responsibility” assumes that he had paternity of Mary Boleyn’s children…this is, again, something we do not know. As we cannot date when the affair was (not even, as I said, if it was during her marriage to Carey or before it) beyond that it occurred before he asked for a dispensation pertaining to ‘a degree of affinity through…illicit intercourse’ to marry Anne; it is impossible to determine if it was even possible that Catherine and Henry Carey were Henry’s illegitimate children, born 1524 and 1526 (approximately), much less probable.
Henry VIII issued a series of grants to William Carey from February 1522 to May 1526. It has been assumed that this must have dated the duration of his affair with Mary, and that the end of the grants marked the beginning of his interest in Anne, but this is mere speculation. If we mark Henry’s interest in Anne to the Shrovetide Joust of February 1526, with his “Declare I Dare Not” motto, and the letter claiming he’s been “a whole year stricken with the dart of love" (which is dated, by several historians, to have probably been written late 1526/early 1527), it is probable that– at the very least– he continued to make grants to Carey for at least five more months after ending the affair with Mary (although this is, again, hypothetical dating).
So, let’s take a look at that claim again:
“Thefactthat Henry offered no direct financial support to his former mistress is an indication of his indifference to those who no longer contributed to his pleasure.”
A) How, exactly, does any kind financial support (even if ‘indirect’, which– hello – has a similar effect to direct financial support in the case of grants to Mary’s husband, and an identical effect with her annual pension granted in 1528, as well as the assurance that her son would be receiving a fine education by skilled tutors at the assurance of her sister) indicate indifference?
B) Given the timeline of the probable longest hypothetical for the affair, it seems like Henry did continue to offer financial support, in the form of grants to her husband, after Mary “no longer contributed to his pleasure.”
C) Moreover, why would Mary have expected a man she had slept with to offer her financial support? It was her husband that was under obligation to do so, and he was Gentleman of the Privy chamber, and Esquire of the Body to the King– the implication that they were destitute after Henry stopped issuing grants due to “his indifference”, when both positions had a salary, seems a little far-fetched. After Carey died and she lost her husband’s financial support, Henrydid give her an annual pension to support herself, as well as ensure that her son was taken care of (again, her son whose paternity was either William’s or Henry’s– and we don’t know which).
D) The assumption that he would not have helped her if he’d had no relationship with Anne at the time of Carey’s death is just that– an assumption. We don’t know if he wouldn’t have in that scenario, because that scenario didn’t occur.
E) There is no indication that he offered “no direct financial support” or assistance to his earlier mistress, Bessie Blount (even after their relationship ended) or the illegitimate child he had by her– in fact, Henry Fitzroy was titled a duke. After she had Henry’s son, a marriage was arranged to her for a baron– so the underlying assumption and drama of the speech in AOTD (that to be Henry’s mistress was, and had always been, the ruin of a woman’s life, standing, and reputation), again, falters in the face of the actual historic record (at least, as far as precedent goes– which was, before he asked Anne to be his “official mistress”, only Blount and Mary for certain).
The financial support Henry continued to offer Blount and his son by her would indicate the opposite of what this passage claims Henry’s actions indicate– again, that he was indifferent to those that “no longer contributed to his pleasure”.
But my examination of the evidence concerning Bessie Blount (and perhaps, a speculated-mistress for good measure– I’m thinking perhaps Jane Popincourt, or Anne Stafford) is something I will tackle in “part 2″.
“She is ‘her father’s daughter’. This phrase is first used about her at the age of six, and constantly thereafter. For contemporaries had only to use their eyes to see that it was true. She looked like Henry, with her father’s hair, skin-colour, nose and lips. She had much of Henry’s character as well: his intelligence, his force of personality, his eloquence, and his ineffable star-quality that made her, like him, the automatic centre of attention.
But in other respects, she is self-consciously different. When her father makes himself Supreme Head of the Church, he begins by reconsidering his coronation, much of whose ritual and language was wholly incompatible with his present claims. In particular, he revised the second part of the coronation service, the oath, which is the equivalent of a contract between monarch and people. And he alters the oath fundamentally. Obviously, the monarch’s promise, central since Magna Carta, to respect ‘the liberties of the Church’ is wholly rewritten. But that is only the beginning. The result is to transform the oath from what it had been since the Anglo-Saxon period, a compact between the king and the people, into a solipsistic promise to defend the rights of the crown. But most interesting are his alterations to the undertaking that deals with the monarch and justice. At his coronation he had sworn, like his predecessors and like all his successors, from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II, to do justice not only in truth but in mercy. But now, in his redrafting (which happily was never used), he crosses the word ‘mercy’ out.
“[Henry VIII] had over 2,000 pieces of tapestry, the largest collection ever
recorded. Only one or two per cent remain in the royal palaces. His books have
fared better. His library at Whitehall was made up of books catalogued in two
numerical series, one going up to 910, the other to 1,450. Several of these
remain in the Old Royal Library, which is now in the British Library. The
losses from the library at Greenwich, which numbered 329 volumes, were more
severe and only twenty-seven have been identified, all in the library of
Trinity College, Oxford.
In
fact only his munitions remain occasionally intact. The string of castles and
forts he built along the south coast still stand, whereas his palaces have
vanished; his armour and weapons, lodged now as then in the Tower, survive in
prodigious quantities; even his loss of his warship, the Mary Rose, has been
our gain.
Otherwise
the losses have done incalculable harm, both to the king’s reputation and to
our understanding of him. For, by an irony of time, what Henry destroyed has
survived better than what he built. The palaces have vanished, but the ruins of
the monasteries, whose confiscated wealth built those same palaces, stand as a
mute indictment of Henry’s policies. The achievement of Henry’s victims, More
and Fisher, as it was other-worldly, survives; the king’s own glory, as it was
this-worldly, has gone.
The
result is a gross imbalance. We judge Henry simply on the negative side of the
account. This is large, and I am not pretending otherwise. But so is the credit
side: if Henry destroyed and dispersed more than any other king of England, he
also built and accumulated more.”
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