February 1, 2021 • 53 mins
Henry VIII was considered amongst the most charismatic and consequential of Kings, marrying six times and establishing the Church of England, what explains his physical and mental downfall later in life?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Personology is a production of I Heart Radio. Henry Theer,
who has been described as the most charismatic of all
English rulers, was the King of England from fifteen o
nine until his death in fifty At the time considered
(00:21):
a very long reign, known for his six marriages, and
in particular his efforts to have his first marriage to
Catherine of Aragon annulled. His disagreement with the pope led
him to initiate the English Reformation, separating the Church of
England from papal authority. Henry is also known for his
changes to the English Constitution, accentuating the theory of the
(00:43):
divine right of kings. He also greatly expanded royal power
during his reign and frequently used charges of treason and
heresy to quell dissent, and those accused were often executed
without a formal trial. My guest today is Danish Schwartz,
host of the I Heart Media podcast Noble Blood, a
(01:04):
podcast about royalty and bloodshed. Probably the most colorful of
the kings and probably in many ways the most written
about and televised story told characters. Because he was so
(01:26):
colorful in so many ways. But to go to the beginning.
He was born June in Greenwich, and he was the
third child of Henry the seventh, with an older sister
and an older brother, Arthur, who was the son who
was supposed to become king and actually did become king.
(01:47):
When we talk about Henry's early life in formative life,
there's not as much known about Henry the eighth as
there are about many kings because he was the second son,
he was the spare, and it was not anticipated the
he would be king, so not as much was written
about him or paid attention to in the same sort
of way, and that also probably affected how he was
(02:08):
raised for the good and for the bad, So his
time was spent mostly in being educated and being entertained.
What did early life probably look like for Henry tudor
sort of The purpose of Henry in a lot of
places was for his dad to sort of just consolidate
titles that he wanted to stay in the family. So
Henry was just sort of this useful placeholder. He was educated,
(02:31):
but we don't know a ton about what his temperament
is like. We do know that when his older brother,
Arthur's fiance, Catherine of Aragon, arrived from Spain, that young
Henry was sort of entranced by her, that she was
sort of his first crush, that she was this older teenager.
He was nine or ten and saw her and was
(02:54):
very smitten right away, and people in court sort of
thought it was adorable the way that the little brother
had a crush on this beautiful Spanish teenager, and adorable
in a way. Is of the few descriptors we have, right,
is that he was an attractive child, a sporty child,
actually kind of a voracious learner, which was really new
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or let's say different in terms of kings before him.
That he really did read a lot. He learned Latin
and French and some Italian, and he really was a learner.
And he participated in, even as a kid, many sporting events,
which was fine and allowed because of course he was
the spear and no one was just worried about his
(03:36):
health or preserving him. So he had by all accounts,
and affectionate and warm relationship with his mother. As you
pointed out, his father was concerned mostly with political ongoings
and consolidating property and power, which he did use his
son for, but that wasn't very unusual for the time,
(03:57):
and there were actually think six or seven siblings, but
most of them didn't make it out of infancy. His
older sister did, he had a younger sister who did,
and Arthur, as you pointed out, it is kind of
telling because ultimately, of course we know he goes on
to marry Catherine, but under unusual circumstances he was smitten
with her. But Arthur was to be the king, and
(04:18):
when his father died, Arthur, at a young age, at fifteen,
becomes king. Arthur is a fascinating character. I think he's
just very strange, and I don't believe he ever becomes king.
I think he does die before he technically became king.
But he was meant to marry Catherine Aragon, who was
(04:39):
the daughter of the two most powerful monarchs in Spain,
fernand and Isabella, both sides of Spanish property, so she
was a massive coup for England. That was an incredibly
important alliance, not just because of her wealth but also
because of her political importance. They get married when they're teenagers,
but Arthur is always really described as sickly, and he
(05:02):
dies I think just twenty weeks after he and Katherine
are married. Catherine will later swear that it wasn't consummated
because he was just this sickly teenager. But it does
throw the succession into a tailspin because now obviously Henry
is going to be king, and it also puts Katherine
in a very strange position. She's sort of for almost
(05:23):
half a decade, becomes something of a hostage in England
because Henry the seventh doesn't want the alliance to be undermined.
He doesn't want to give the dowry back she had
married Arthur, even if they hadn't consummated it. So she's
sort of in this no man's land where neither her
father nor King Henry the seventh want to pay for her.
(05:46):
So she has a credibly challenging court that she's holding
an household. She is surrounded by strangers and can't go home.
It's a very weird time in her life. And then,
of course, when King Henry the Seventh dies and Young
Henry becomes Henry the Eighth, he becomes her savior. It's
important to know I think that Catherine is very Catholic,
(06:06):
that in Spain that is the religion, but she is
more than politically what she's supposed to be. She is
truly devout so the permission to annul the marriage to
Arthur was important to her. And as you said, this
was sort of driven by Henry the Seventh, who wanted
(06:26):
still this alliance to happen, and if it couldn't happen
with Arthur, then he was happy to have it happen
with Henry the Eighth. Yeah, she is incredibly Catholic. As
you said, there's also the no reason we think that
she would have lied. When she's pulled before the court
and basically interrogated as to whether the marriage with Arthur
was consummated, she says it wasn't. Henry the Seventh decides
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to then hold her in England to betrothe her to
Henry the Eighth, the young now next in line, but
he doesn't really have any intention of following through on
that even after this betrothal, he tells Young Henry but
because he made that deal as a child that it
doesn't really count and they're actively looking for other wives
for him. I think we could look at this moment
for young Henry as initially kind of traumatic in the
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sense that his whole upbringing to date, where his goal
in life is to have pleasure and be a taken
care of member of the royal family, but with no
real responsibility, and now suddenly he's it, and it meant
a lot of things, particularly all of the sports and
things that he was physically allowed to go off and do,
(07:35):
he wasn't allowed to do anymore. They had to preserve
his health. There weren't any other male heirs, so his
life has changed dramatically as a kid, that he can't
do the things that he used to do in the
same way, and that he has to now start having
the kind of education that really Arthur had been having,
which is how are you going to be a good king?
And there's also a lot of pressure on him now
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because of how new the Tutor line. The Tutors were
just a brand new family that was started by Henry
the father Henry seven after the War of the Roses,
uniting the houses of York and Lancaster. It is a
new but it is a tenuous dynasty, and now that
is all on young Henry's shoulders. So I think later
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when people talk about how desperate Henry is first son,
that's really part of it. It is his now single
role to preserve the dynasty that his father set up.
He clearly takes that very seriously. That is, as you say,
is apropos. When his father dies and he succeeds, they
go ahead with the marriage. He and Catherine do get married.
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She actually does become pregnant pretty quickly. The first baby
is still born. She gets pregnant again and she has Mary.
She does have a child, but of course, in keeping
with the day, that the child does not mail means
that Henry still feels he doesn't have an air. At
this point, Henry is sort of at the top of
the world. He's married, by all accounts, stunningly beautiful, powerful princess,
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and it was a love match, which was rare at
the time, a rare coincident where a politically important match
is also a love match. He's sort of this new
golden boy for England. As you mentioned, he is intelligent
and loves learned, and his sporty and athletic, so I
feel like at this point even the birth of a
daughter wouldn't get him down. He was incredibly happy to
(09:26):
be married to Catherine. They had the world ahead of
them and they have little Mary, which I think he
probably was like, okay, this is fine for now. There
are some things that when we think of psychologically what's
going on. By all accounts, he was not only in
love with his wife, but he was reported to be
a kind husband, a generous giving things. This actually followed
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him for a while at least being a generous husband,
apparently a generous in bed husband, but generous with the
jewels and titles and pieces of land. He was over
six feet tall, broad, as you said, sporty. He liked
to joust, he liked to hunt, and he was very
good at them. And this was of course more than
just being sporty. This was part of the political game.
(10:11):
This was to show yourself as powerful and a force
to be reckoned with your show of wealth and your
show of physical acumen, particularly in jousting and hunting. It
was like the Gulf of their time. Maybe the Titans
got together and that he would dress the part in
his own jewels and finery and armor for jousting. That
(10:33):
showed his wealth, and that he was physically imposing and
very good looking and young. He played to this right.
This was important his sense of power and England as
a force. Absolutely. I think that the goal is always
that whatever ambassadors are at court, that they go back
to their countries and talk about how virile, handsome, athletic
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Henry is, because as the absolute monarch annointed by Henry
is England. If Henry is strong and virile, England is
strong and viro and let's talk about that. Because the
whole I was anointed by God, I guess i'll, for
lack of a better word, I'll say rhetoric, because it
was the ongoing, very loud message that was certainly propagated
(11:16):
by him, and it was new for him. In the words,
he was the one, sort of the first one to
really put out there the king I have been anointed
by God, so we are sort of one and the same.
And my word is God's word because he directed me.
He will take it farther than other case. And we'll
get there with Anne Boleyn. But I don't think it
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was a stretch for monarchs at the time. Europe was
incredibly religious at the time. The Church was the central
organizing institution. It's this idea that simply by virtue of
the fact that you are king, God wants you to
be king because everything is God's will. So an absolute
monarch then can decide how far to extend that logic.
(11:57):
And as we will see later. Henry will take that
logic further than any other European king had. Was he
mentally ill that he heard God talking to him, or
was he mentally ill that he believed God was directing
each act that he did? And we would have to say,
you have to always think about mental health in the
context of current culture and current society. And as you're
(12:20):
pointing out, in that day and age, hearing God's voice
in your head telling you to do things was not unusual.
It was really culturally consistent, and he was imbued with
all the power of what it meant to be king. Yeah,
that would not at all be an abnormal approach during
the day. Again, Henry was a scholar of Latin and
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religion to that degree, and it was the understood assumption
that everything in the world was as God wills it,
and that by virtue simply of being the king, that
is a sign that God wants you to be king.
And then Henry, in sort of his self justification logic,
will say, well, that means all of the actions that
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I do then show that God wants those things to
be done by the king because I'm the king, because
God made me the king. Uh. Definitely not abnormal at
the time. That is how all absolute monarchies worked. They
are you know, king as anointed by God. That is
standard sixteenth century monarch logic and also in standard political ongoings.
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That big year fifteen o nine, his father dies, he
becomes king, He marries Catherine. He also arrests two of
his father's most unpopular ministers, Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley,
and charges them with treason and executes them. This sort
of style of king management, the idea of removing people
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who you don't think politically are aligned with you, going
to do what you want them to do, and therefore
may pose a threat, becomes stylistically. And I think it's
important because people tend to think, oh, this didn't happen
till later in life, and certainly it escalated later in life.
But he did this from the get go, and I
think it was sort of a move early on that
was people praised. They thought that it was an adept
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political move, that he was sort of cleaning out the
skeletons from his father's closet, that he was eighteen when
he became king. This idea that this new hero was
coming into to rebuild England. That praise probably made him
more willing to take broad strokes later on the fact
that when he was young, people were happy with everything
he did and praised it and saw him as a
(14:30):
crusading hero for England. He was changing the direction of
the country in a good way. But he was this new, youthful,
powerful person and everyone from ambassadors to ministers were really
excited about everything he did. And that's important when we
think about the psychology of an individual because of something
that actually has only been in my field understood well
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from a psychiatric standpoint in the last decade, and that
is this concept of hubris syndrome that one they see
in leaders, or basically the criteria are the person who
has a lot of power and perhaps fame, and is
surrounded by people who tell them nothing but that everything
they do is incredible and the best and they can
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do no wrong. That someone who maybe originally wasn't narcissistic,
who wasn't actually didn't necessarily even have the tendency to
be consumed with themselves and think they are super special
and awesome, could become that way to the level that
they are blinded by risks and by the morality of
things they are doing because everyone around them has told
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them they are it, and they fly too close to
the sun ultimately as a result, hence the Hubris and
sort of Icarus illusions. When talking about Hubris syndrome, you
almost can't imagine how a king wouldn't become crazy huberistic
with the way that the system was structured. How could
you not if everyone is telling you that you are
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God's chosen leader for an entire nation and everything you
do is the will of God. I should say that
before the birth of Princess Mary to Catherine and Henry,
she did have a pregnancy that was male but was
born still born. So I think the hope that she
would be able to still even after Mary have a son,
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and that all would be well was still certainly in hand.
It wasn't that unusual to miscarry or have a stillborn
baby in those days. It wasn't that unusual even for
a young child to die, as Henry had seen around him,
and so I think there wasn't concerned that there would
be a problem. They were young. The fact that she
had a daughter showed that she could bear children. They
(16:42):
had time, No one was worried again. They were in love.
They were sexually active together by all accounts, and the
fact that she had a child indicated that there wouldn't
be a problem later on. Another important feature, apparently to
Henry of Catherine, was that she was willing to allow
affairs to occur, that he could take mistresses, and she
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understood that was part of the deal and that she
should be lovely about it and turn of bline I
and she did, and he did a very notable Bessie Blout,
who he had a multi year relationship with, including having
a son with that we believe was Henry's. He acknowledged
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was his. At first he was like, well, this is
an illegitimate child, but at some point along the way
decided to legitimize that Henry by giving him a title.
I do want to be clear that it was always
an illegitimate son because it was not born to his wife,
But he does formally acknowledge that it is his bestard
at least, which is better than he does for some
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of the others to come along afterwards. Although it is
also perhaps politically important and may have been a political
move and not just an emotional move on his part
because he doesn't have a son yet at the point
which he starts doing that, and this potentially paved the
way for him to at some point make the choice
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to create an air of this Henry. So we sort
of go back and forth between what was motivated by
Henry Tudor the eight by emotional investment and what was
done really by pure political movement, objectively, this is the
thing for me to do. You know. That's interesting. I
don't know, and it might change it at different points
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in his life. I think it probably was an ego
move with Henry Fitzroy, the idea that like, look at me,
I can have a son. I mean, the idea is
it's a very sixteenth century idea of masculinity that you
can have sons across the country by numerous women. That
is a flattering thing that would reflect well on him.
(18:48):
And I think this was early enough in his marriage
with Catherine that there was no real fear that they
wouldn't have a son themselves. It's also interesting because even
though in we say wow, he had this mistress or
that mistress for a man and for a king of
that time, he actually by reports had few affairs, or
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would have one woman. He was having an affair with
which was a reduced number as a norm of the time,
and really in that sense was considered a more faithful
man to his wife. I think Henry saw himself as
a romantic hero. He is someone who, even later on
with his mistresses, would always have a favorite and shower
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her with poetry and love and gifts and praise. I
think he is very much someone who loves to be
in love and loves to be like a hero out
of an epic story. And so that absolutely does affect
him in an interesting way. And his approach to women
is distinct maybe from other royals who were less discriminating
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with their number of affairs. And Catherine, in turn, the
other cheek, was just sort of an exemplar of the
ideals of what being a queen was. She was beloved
by the people. She was kind, she was pious, she
prayed a lot, she was passive. She did not get
involved in political affairs. Exactly when she did, you know,
(20:18):
it was always to support her husband. She's someone who
adored her husband and understood that as king, he could
have affairs and that was something she had to tolerate.
Let's take a quick break here. We'll be back in
a moment. M m what in this early stage before
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the entry of Anne Boleyn in the happier day as
although you could say they were becoming increasingly less happy
as Catherine sadly continued to have pregnancies that ended in
still births and never really produced an another living air.
So he became increasingly concerned politically and disenchanted. But he
(21:08):
ran a very active court. He was very politically and
in terms of accruing power, not at that point yet
via the church, but in other ways he was busy
accruing power. I think Henry was influenced a lot by
his dad being a great military leader, and his dad
achieving unification of factions in England through battle, and I
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think Henry wanted that. I think Henry wanted to be
a glorious hero for England, riding in on a horse,
and so sometimes he would manufacture battles and military excursions
where maybe a less young monarch would have focused on peace.
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I think he's someone who wanted glory and wanted that
storybook narrative for himself in the same way that he
wanted that storybook narrative with his loves. He was a
romantic in every sense of the word. You could say
he was romantic, but his family of origin, for at
least for the time, was a reasonably healthy upbringing, right
with a warm mother and a clearly wanted and loved son.
(22:13):
But he so prematurely at this young age, was basically told, Okay,
the responsibility will be yours and you need to live
up to X. And the way that he did that
was really, as you said, this romantic ideal. That's kind
of juvenile, right, It's almost like a tween ideal of
what it means to be king. Absolutely, I think his
(22:36):
too venalia will continue throughout his entire life, even I
mean close to his death. He will be obese, go
out ridden, need help getting on his horse, and still
think that he needs to lead his men into battle
because it'll restore some sense of virtue to him. In
some ways. He will have that eighteen year old sense
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of what a great king is his entire life. And
just so people understand that sometimes having you could call
it traumatic or it was not that unusual for the
time to have your parents die when you were eighteen.
To be honest, it wasn't that unusual, but to have
both parents die, when what it means is you literally
(23:17):
have to step into their shoes. Most young people when
they died, maybe they had to now be more responsible
for the farm or the house, or or trying to
just physically survive in some way themselves. But to take
over a kingdom and a country and suddenly the people
before you who were taking care of you are gone,
(23:38):
might arrest your development, might arrest the development of your
ideas of what it means to be an adult. Yes,
I'll say, and we and so, as you're pointing out,
we see a lot of evidence of that, and it's
just important to consider as nonetheless, he was the one
who made the rules, and as we'll go on to
(23:58):
talk about and see what the arrestment, a lot of
the rules he made were rules almost of a teenage gang.
I think there's a reason absolute monarchy has gone out
of fashion. I don't think it is conducive to the
best decision making process. And I agree with you there's
definitely a stunted development, the same way that like celebrities
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will never learn technology after the point that they've become famous,
Like a celebrity who becomes famous in their twenties will
sort of become stunted in their twenties and like won't
learn how to send an email. I think the same
is true to some degree about Henry and his ideas
of what being a king is. I don't think they
evolve very much. As I mentioned earlier, Sadly, Catherine goes
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on to have several more stillborn babies, and this is
important because now Henry does become really concerned that he
is not going to have an air. As Catherine approaches forty,
and though the nightmare, of course is that she'll hit menopause,
which there are rumors that it's already happened. You know,
(25:04):
every detail of a royal is digested through the court
and excruciating detail, so people know when she is or
isn't leading, and the rumors are already swirling that she's
going through menopause. And even if she hadn't, Henry had
just sort of become disenchanted with her. You know, she
was no longer the beautiful teenager that he had seen
(25:25):
when he was a child. She becomes an older woman,
he's less attracted to her, and he stops visiting her
bed chamber. And the reality is, even today one's odds
of becoming pregnant at forty are greatly diminished from what
your odds are. Obviously in your twenties and even through
your mid thirties, not that it's impossible, but the odds drop,
and even without the medicine and nutrition that we have today,
(25:48):
it was even worse and even lower odds if your
husband isn't sleeping with you. He had at this point
already had a physical affair with Mary Boleyn, who was
in the ladies in waiting group for Catherine. And obviously
the Boleyn sisters were from a noble family in the
(26:11):
sense that they were, you know, well to do, had
some influence. The daughters were very educated. They had been
in France in a court there, the purpose of which
right was to basically learn to be a wonderful, educated
and political wife to somebody of importance. So they had
already had that experience, and he had already been involved
(26:32):
with Mary, but his attentions turned to Anne. She plays
it a little more intelligently than her sister. She has
different goals and coming from the French court, is coquettish, flirtatious, witty,
challenges Henry in their head to heads when it comes
to intelligence. They're very flirtatious and of course, it's a
(26:52):
contrast to the sort of dowdy Spanish style of Catherine.
Here is this new French, and she's not a French,
but she came from France and had the fashions of France,
this French, flirtatious, stunning woman, and people always describe her
as not necessarily conventionally attractive, but enchanting, that she was flirtatious,
(27:14):
that she knew how to engage, very charismatic, and she
just in chance Henry in every sense of the word,
and as he will say later, literally but he falls
madly in love with her, and she wanting to be queen.
Seeing the writing on the wall and knowing that Catherine's
time is over, sees that opportunity and decides to write
(27:34):
it out and refuses to have sex with Henry, refuses
to become a mistress until he makes her his queen.
It's pretty interesting that Henry, who as time moves on,
seems to be a big proponent of taking what you want,
whether the other person wants it or not, or you know,
or getting rid of them. He doesn't force the situation,
sounds like he certainly verbally tries, but he wants her
(27:56):
to willingly be with him. I think he's in love,
and he's very romantic, enchanted by the chase as and
smartly clocked very early on. I think that is another
interesting piece of Henry's psyche, which is, as we've been describing,
he's in love with love. He really loves that feeling that.
As a psychiatrist, I say that dopamine high that one
(28:20):
gets from feeling in love, particularly in new love, which
doesn't necessarily last forever, but in the beginning, is like
a neurochemical high. For people like no other you need
less sleep, you feel just giddy and happy all the time.
And for someone like Henry, who knew what that felt
like because he had that with Catherine, it must have
(28:41):
been pretty intoxicating that he didn't just say, well, Anne Boleyn,
I will have you whether you like it or not.
I don't need to marry you. But he really, by
all accounts, subscribed to that feeling state wanted that. So
he sets about trying to figure out, possibly with the
help of Anne, who is not like Catherine, who is
not quiet or passive, is intellectual in her own right.
(29:06):
She's described as mood intense. She could be highly irritable
and temper filled, but she could be delightful and charismatic
and super fun, and she had her own political aspirations.
So whether she contributed to his ideas of how he
could go about constructing a exit route from his marriage,
but he surrounded himself with people to take up the
(29:28):
cause and figure out how to make this happen the
reasons you describe before of why Henry is so written
about because what happens changes the course of Europe and
world religion forever. Henry demands a divorce from Catherine on
the basis that because she had been married to his brother,
that their marriage was not valid, and he offers her
(29:50):
a pretty generous I guess we'd call the settlement being like,
you'll be the King's sister. You'll basically have the title
as if you had been married to my brother. But
Catherine is incredibly Catholic and religious, and Catholics don't believe
in divorce. She knows in her heart that she never
consummated her relationship with Arthur, and she doesn't want her
daughter Mary to be a bastard child. And I think
(30:12):
that the integrity of being queen is so incredibly important
to her, and she refuses to go quietly, and of
course Spain being such an important global hub of Catholicism,
the Vatican is behind her. The Pope refuses to grant
the annulment to Henry. So I'm making a very long
story very short. Henry is excommunicated from the Catholic Church,
(30:34):
breaks from the Catholic Church, starts the Church of England,
which is basically Catholicism at this point. It's not the
sort of reformation. It's not very different in ideology from Catholicism.
But the main difference is he is the head of it,
not the Pope. And he declares his marriage from Catherine
annul and he marries Anne Boleyn. And the writing yet
(30:55):
isn't on the wall for An Boleyn because she's number two.
And he does not execute Catherine. This is what she wanted,
and she promises Henry his son. He gets rid of
Thomas More at this juncture. He executes Thomas More, which
is sort of the beginning of a long list of
executions of a pattern of dealing with people who aren't
(31:15):
supporting his decision about the church. And as you said,
this decision about the church, it benefits him in many ways, right.
The Church of England. He becomes the head of the church,
which means that he can and does close all the
monasteries and other such structures that were valuable, and he
gets all the money so he sees is the property.
(31:36):
He puts this money in his coffers. It's also notable
to say that Henry was a pretty big spender all along,
whether he took up to have a battle to consolidate
some power or look good, or what he spent in court,
but he usually kept the coffers pretty low because of
the lavish style in which he kept his parts of
the kingdom. This was a good way to put more
money into the coffer. So a lot of this really
(31:59):
worked for him and probably both consolidated and added to
this hubris that he had in terms of what it
meant that he was the king. And I think he
justified it to himself by understanding it to be God's will.
Of course, God would want him to have a son.
Catherine hadn't given him a son. Here's this beautiful woman
(32:20):
who promising him a son, and this is the only
way to make it happen. I think Henry is fully
convinced that doing this is God's will. By evidence of
the fact that he didn't give him a son with Catherine.
If God had wanted him to stay in the Catholic
Church and stay married to Catherine, he would have given
him a son. And the people around him, Cromwell and Wolseley,
(32:44):
they're really supporting that. They are political advisors and they're saying, politically,
you have to do something to continue the Tutor line,
so this is necessary. So he has support for that.
So Anne also has several still births. She does give
birth to a girl, to Elizabeth, and almost as soon
(33:07):
as he has her, the bloom is off the rose.
I mean that is sort of always the way things
are with the chase. Once you get the object of
the chase, it's never quite as good. Basically, the moment
that she doesn't have a son and it's a daughter,
Henry feels betrayed. He thinks that he went through this
massive thing and she, you know, it was a witch,
a sourceress who tricked him. They're very least she didn't
(33:28):
keep up her end of the bargain, that was the deal.
He's like, why did I do this? This was a
huge myster He has massive buyers remorse, but instead of
acknowledging it as a mistake that he made. He blames
her entirely. He gets word from her political enemies that
she has been sleeping around with other people, no real
evidence of that. I mean, she was a flirtatious person
(33:51):
and some things that she did say could be absolutely
construed against her. But it would have been incredibly foolish
for her at this point to have an affair. And
Anne was far too savvy for that. But she had
a lot of political enemies because of her opinionated nature
doesn't have anything to do with sleeping with other people.
She had made a lot of enemies and they had
understood that the way to remove her would definitely be
(34:12):
to accuse her of adultery and basically, Henry's massive buyers
or morse. After this huge break from the church, the
population of England hates Anne. And then the final nail
in the coffin is her not giving him a son.
At first, there's Elizabeth and he can live with one daughter,
but she has one more pregnancy that sort of becomes
(34:33):
the one everything is riding on because she could tell
that Henry's affections have turned and it is a miscarriage.
And at that point. I think she knows that she
missed her chance. She took a swing and she missed.
I mean, if she had had a son, it would
have worked out for her. You gotta hand it to Anne.
She really went for it. She tried and failed, but
(34:53):
through no fault of her own, as you say, no
fault of her own. But in those days, right, it
was very much considered the woman's al whether it was
going to be a boy or a girl and survive
or be pregnant at all was definitely considered up to
the woman and the woman's fault, and if there was
thought to be a problem, it was always the woman.
It certainly wasn't going to be the king. It wasn't
(35:13):
generally going to be the man period. But it's sure
as heck wasn't going to be the king who could
possibly be at fault. But in that vein, let me
just mention it's very interesting just in recent years two
bioarchaeologists who have done i'll say research, though they're trying
to get access to as we speak, Henry the Eighth's
(35:33):
hair or bones or something so that they can look
at DNA, but they have put forward a theory that
actually fits a lot of what we've talked about has
transpired in the sense that there were so many still
births between Catherine and Anne Boleyn that one has to wonder.
I mean, even for the times, this was an unusual
(35:54):
number of deaths in utero, and they were not early
term deaths. They were late term or just after birth deaths,
and that is important information in terms of why would
that happen. And so they have put together a lot
of the medical information that is available about Henry the
Eighth and this history of an earlier pregnancy that survived
(36:17):
but only a female, and a late term pregnancies that
did not survive that were often male, and that would
fit with a pattern of Henry the eighth having had
something called McLoud syndrome, which is a genetic syndrome that
is sex linked to the sex chromosomes, so that males
who inherit this genetic mutation are much more likely to
(36:38):
be affected in various ways than females, who are more
likely to be carriers, and that males are affected usually
starting in midlife. In those days, it would have been
mid to late life because people didn't live as long,
but males got things such as what's called cardiomyopathy or
enlarged heart. They got muscle weakness, which could have been
a contributor to less physical activity and the development of obesity.
(37:02):
They got neuropathy, which means your nerves sort of basically
not functioning as well, again a contributor to slowing down,
not being able to walk as well, and gaining weight
and becoming obese. And they also got some mental status changes,
which can be anything from some cognitive decline to the
development of paranoia to mood changes, all of which we
(37:25):
think about Henry later in life and wonder if that
was what was going on. But a prominent feature of
McLeod is often the people with the gene mutation have
what's called Kell positivity blood. And you know, people are
familiar I think with RH factor blood you're a positive,
you're a negative, that the positive negative being rh factor.
But there's another factor in blood called Kell and very rarely,
(37:47):
but in the Caucasian population there is a small percentage
of men, particularly who can be Kel positive. And when
a KEL positive man mates with a Kell negative woman,
which most all women are because this is it's a
rare genetic mutation, then it is likely that the fetus
will not survive, particularly later pregnancy is not necessarily the
(38:09):
first pregnancy, but after the woman's body has been exposed,
her blood has been exposed to Kelly positivity, she will
make antibodies to that foreign positive. Those antibodies, when they
spotted again and they say, oh, here's another Kelly positive
fetus will attack it. That's it, exactly. So everyone of
his wives gets one shot, and both Catherine and and
(38:31):
both failed. So, of course, if you are divine and
chosen by God, this has nothing to do with you,
and so Henry just had to find a way to
remove the next wife. Of course, as you said, the
bluem is already off the rose. He'd already moved on
to being infatuated with James Seymour. He also had impotence
issues at this point he had been in jousting accident.
And basically from this point in his life you will
(38:53):
have real impotence issues that his doctors will try to treat.
And so Henry not being attracted to his wife will
always be blamed on the wife again, regardless of actual
medical things going on. But Jade Seymour is the opposite
of and you know, she is sort of an English rose.
She is quiet, she's demure. She's more of a Catherine type.
(39:14):
And after the once have been fun and then became infuriating,
challenging wit of Anne Boleyn, he just wants a simple
life again. Let's take a quick break here. We'll be
back in a moment. You mentioned the jousting accident, and
(39:37):
that is really important if we're going to talk about
the psychological makeup of Henry. That's a pivotal moment. I
think it was six that he has this accident and
he has knocked unconscious for two hours. He opens up
a wound that is an old wound that ultimately will
never really close back up again. But the loss of
(39:59):
consciousness and the depth of injury is really important. A
it has decided he probably shouldn't joust anymore, which was
a huge source of pride and prowess, and you talk
about impotence, you know, but like literally a phallic symbol
of him, the jousting, and he really can't do that anymore.
Losing consciousness for several hours means you basically have had
(40:21):
a concussion, and organic brain trauma leaves one with the
potential for everything from ongoing mood changes like depression to
paranoia to cognitive deficit, and it shows a weakness for
Henry that in terms of aging and not being that young, handsome,
athletic buck that he really needed to view himself at.
(40:43):
So that was probably not just a jousting accident for him.
That was probably a psychologically a big event and upsetting,
depressing and possibly even from a physiologic standpoint turning point
for Henry, it becomes the beginning of the end him biologically.
I mean, he can't exercise, he gains a massive amount
(41:04):
of weight that sore on his leg. Descriptions range from
clinical to disgusting, but it is always just like dripping pus.
He becomes this obese smellie. They had to rig mechanical
devices later on to basically sort of help move him around.
And of course has sexual ramifications and I think it
(41:24):
probably in the back of his mind knows that women
aren't attracted him the same way they were when he
was younger. This has ramifications for him politically in terms
of the way that other countries see him and the
consolidation of power other leaders. I guess I'll say, you know,
other kings, emperors are aware of what he is like
at this point, so actually, at this juncture he's married
(41:46):
to Jane Seymour. She does thankfully for her produced Edward,
who sadly though sounds like he also is a very
sickly boy for much of his not that long life,
and James Seymour dies shortly thereafter, within two weeks. He
actually initially is surprised, but not too saddened. He later becomes,
in retrospect sad and says she was his best wife
(42:09):
because of course she gave him a son, and because
she didn't probably annoy him in any way, because she
died on his standards that would make her pretty terrific
white she he wants to be buried next to her,
but at this point politically things are looking shaky for him,
and because of the break with the Catholic Church, and
because of losing this woman that in retrospect he can
(42:30):
make perfect in his memory, Henry sort of gives up
on this idea of romantic love for a little while
and is only talked back into marriage by his advisor Cromwell,
basically forcing him to marry for diplomatic reasons and to
marry outside of England, which will be Anne of Cleaves,
because they needed international allies. Breaking from the Catholic Church
(42:53):
and the Vatican was a massive political move, but he
still hasn't gone so far as to become Protestant the
same way that other German states are, So there are
very few women that he could sort of choose from
that would be political matches. Cleaves is one of the
perfect sort of right in the middle zones where they're
not too Protestant but they don't support the pope, and
(43:13):
so Thomas Cromwell orchestrates that match. At least this is
sort of the idea of creating an ally in Germany
right or that region. But at this point he now
presides over Wales, but he gave himself they were more
formal titles over these regions. You know, his brother had
been Prince of Wales, and then Henry becomes Prince of Wales.
(43:34):
Oh god, those titles are such a mess. But he
and his father would have had Scotland and Wales for
their entire terms as king. What Henry really wants is
regions in France that would be the jewel in his crown,
and in and out he's made attempts to do that,
but they have not been highly successful. Now if their victories,
(43:54):
their period victories, their losses, their pointless. It's really a
stalemate between him and France Usking of Friends. Anna Cleaves
doesn't work out so well. He deems her not attractive,
which sounds like an incredible projection because it seems likely
that upon her seeing him, he may have read that
she did not find him particularly attractive. But he goes
(44:14):
through with the wedding, but pretty quickly wants out and
has that annulled, punishes Cromwell for basically that and other issues,
so has him arrested and executed. And now basically the
court of Henry the Eighth has become a pretty terrifying place.
So we could say, oh, it was McLeod syndrome making
(44:36):
him more paranoid. Was organic brain damage from his jousting
accident making him paranoid? Or was he and the environment
that he created by executing so many people making this
a very paranoid environment. Where he hired a spy master
to feed him conspiracy theories of who was against him.
He becomes a man obsessed with holding onto his power.
(45:00):
He is terrified of losing that power. Now he has
a son, but you need another one, because you always
need a spare, and Henry knows that as well as anyone,
because he had been despair and with his health failing him,
he sort of goes into like an extended mania. His
next wife is a teenager who is just sort of
this stunningly beautiful teenager, Katherine Howard, who he marries and
(45:24):
almost immediately beheads because she was having affairs behind his back,
which can't really blame her. She is a teenager and
he is a incredibly disgusting at this point man with
an open leaking leg wound. And then his last wife,
of course, will be Katherine Parr, who is often presented
as the nurse sort of because she's more matronly. She's
(45:46):
a widow, she is older, she's more mature, but she's
also incredibly intelligent, but also intelligent enough not to rock
the boat. She and Henry talk about religion, and whenever
he gets too mad, she backs off immediately and it's like, oh,
I was just you know, I wanted to see how
well you debate, and I wanted you to teach me.
(46:07):
I was just pretending because I wanted you to be
so intelligent to debate me, so unlike an who always
held her ground. This Catherine is an incredibly intelligent woman,
recognizes what you need to do to keep your head.
With Henry, she is smarter in that sense, but she
also may have been debating a man who was less intelligent.
(46:30):
He had certainly had some cognitive decline by now, and
of course she had some historical warning shots that she
was in dangerous territory herself, So the combination was probably
the case. But she did some very instrumental things in
convincing Henry to reacquaint himself and take back into the
fold his daughter's Mary and Elizabeth and put them back
(46:51):
into the line of succession where he had written them out,
changing the face of history. Because we know that Edward
did not live very long and ultimately both Mary and
Elizabeth go on to have the crown, but that is
thanks to par who in fact really quietly and consistently
worked on getting him to bring those women back into
(47:12):
his life. Yeah, and when she's queen, she's really wonderful
with his two daughters, who had been neglected to various
degrees during the several states of his various other marriages.
She brings them back to court. She's really maternal or
sterlily almost and She's an incredibly intelligent woman in her
own right. She's a published writer. She writes religious tracts anonymously,
(47:34):
of course, at first and then later under her own name.
And when she debate tenoring, she always knows when to
pull her punches. Is the smartest thing she does, because
she recognizes that living is the most important thing. Towards
the end, he's described as incredibly gluttonous and eating everything
under the sun, But it's hard to know really how
(47:56):
true that was as the source of his obesity, and
how much other things may have been afoot, whether he
had some sort of organic brain damage that may have
contributed to obesity. People who have brain trauma can sometimes
impact their production of various hormones like growth hormone that
actually causes them to develop a metabolic syndrome that causes
them to develop obesity and then diabetes. It does seem
(48:19):
from all of the leg ulcers that he had that
would not heal that he probably did have diabetes in
the days when nobody knew what that was. But it
did cause you to develop lower extremity wounds that wouldn't
necessarily heal. He was thought to have gout. He had
a lot of pain often, and gout was not unusual
in those days for people who ate so much meat
(48:40):
and drank beer and things that stimulate gout if you're
predisposed to it, so wouldn't be shocking. And it's also
wondered if later he didn't even suffer from scurvy due
to lack of eating of fruit and vegetables, which were
not in abundant supply and not something that he particularly
tried to eat, because nobody knew about scurvy at that
time either. But any one of these things does not
(49:02):
make for a very appealing body habituts and also makes
for very poor health. So what ultimately killed Henry is
hard to know because there were so many things going on.
Without an autopsy, we don't know ultimately which one. I'm
I'm not sure how important it is exactly which one.
But he certainly was almost a bedridden man by the
time of his death. As you mentioned, he couldn't get exercise,
(49:23):
and he had been a formally very athletic man. He's
eating incredibly rich food, he's being indulged. The combination is
not a healthy combination. Combined with fifteen hundreds medicine, it
was not a great formula for a long life for Henry.
Although you know he's the long reigning monarch by those standards.
He dies at fifty five, which is I would say
(49:45):
young for us. Thirty seven years is very long reigning
for a monarch. And he did preside over a number
of changes, certainly the Church of England being one of
the most notable. But he did hold onto power, hold
onto territory. He played the political game. He is remembered
(50:05):
for presiding over many peaceful times, and he is remembered
as presiding over a time of fair or decent prosperity
for a lot of the country. Well, yeah, you got
all that Catholicism money right. The Pope didn't like him,
but the people did like him as a monarch. And
he also set up his will for his line of succession,
(50:26):
which was also not something that monarchs necessarily had done before,
to beyond the grave, try to set up and allow
women to rule so that he could have his bloodline
continue for the foreseeable future. And he even laid out
a plan if Mary wasn't there, and then if Elizabeth
wasn't there, it would be his sister's family, the Grays.
(50:46):
He tried to write off the Stewarts altogether his other
sister's family, but he did try to consolidate and maintain
his power even past his death. As he mentioned, it
would set a challenging precedent for king's leaving lines of
successions in their will, because young Edward would be manipulated
into undoing his father's He's like, well, I'm king now,
(51:08):
so I can do it, or he wouldn't, rather his
advisors would. He was just a child. But Henry leaves
it in this strange place of peace that you can
ascribe maybe to Katherine cars mediating influence that he does
put his daughters in the line of succession, and of
course his daughter Elizabeth will reign over the Golden Age
of England. So in the end Hubers may have undone
(51:31):
Henry the Eighth, but he did have the acumen and
intellect and political ambition to set up his country to
be ruled by his bloodline for years to come. Of course,
she will have to, for her own challenging political reasons,
make the decision not to get married and have children,
and so the Tutor line will end with Henry's daughter Elizabeth.
(51:55):
But yeah, I think the reason people write about him
is because he's such a strange, fascin eating very human person.
All of his decisions are very mercurial and emotional, and
he's someone who has the potential for greatness and gets
in his own way and wants so much and has
so much power and screws up in so many different
ways that it's very exciting. He's a great example of
(52:17):
how you cannot separate leaders from their human minds and
the psychological makeup that they get when they're younger, and
how that plays out for their lifetimes. I think that's
incredibly well said. That wraps things up for this episode.
Thank you to my guest Dana Schwartz. If you'd like
to know more about Henry the Eighth, you can check
(52:39):
out her podcast Noble Blood. And if you want to
know more about the concepts and personology, you can check
out my book The Power of Different The Link Between
Disorder and Genius. For mental health advice from me, you
could take a listen to my other podcast, How Can
I Help? Follow me a Twitter at Dr Gayl salts
and until next Time. Personology is a production of I
(53:03):
Heart Radio. The executive producers are Dr Gayl Saltz and
Tyler Clang. The supervising producer is Dylan Fagan, The associate
producer is Lowell Berlanti. Editing music and mixing by Lowell Berlanti.
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Personology is a production of I Heart Radio. Henry Theer,
who has been described as the most charismatic of all
English rulers, was the King of England from fifteen o
nine until his death in fifty At the time considered
(00:21):
a very long reign, known for his six marriages, and
in particular his efforts to have his first marriage to
Catherine of Aragon annulled. His disagreement with the pope led
him to initiate the English Reformation, separating the Church of
England from papal authority. Henry is also known for his
changes to the English Constitution, accentuating the theory of the
(00:43):
divine right of kings. He also greatly expanded royal power
during his reign and frequently used charges of treason and
heresy to quell dissent, and those accused were often executed
without a formal trial. My guest today is Danish Schwartz,
host of the I Heart Media podcast Noble Blood, a
(01:04):
podcast about royalty and bloodshed. Probably the most colorful of
the kings and probably in many ways the most written
about and televised story told characters. Because he was so
(01:26):
colorful in so many ways. But to go to the beginning.
He was born June in Greenwich, and he was the
third child of Henry the seventh, with an older sister
and an older brother, Arthur, who was the son who
was supposed to become king and actually did become king.
(01:47):
When we talk about Henry's early life in formative life,
there's not as much known about Henry the eighth as
there are about many kings because he was the second son,
he was the spare, and it was not anticipated the
he would be king, so not as much was written
about him or paid attention to in the same sort
of way, and that also probably affected how he was
(02:08):
raised for the good and for the bad, So his
time was spent mostly in being educated and being entertained.
What did early life probably look like for Henry tudor
sort of The purpose of Henry in a lot of
places was for his dad to sort of just consolidate
titles that he wanted to stay in the family. So
Henry was just sort of this useful placeholder. He was educated,
(02:31):
but we don't know a ton about what his temperament
is like. We do know that when his older brother,
Arthur's fiance, Catherine of Aragon, arrived from Spain, that young
Henry was sort of entranced by her, that she was
sort of his first crush, that she was this older teenager.
He was nine or ten and saw her and was
(02:54):
very smitten right away, and people in court sort of
thought it was adorable the way that the little brother
had a crush on this beautiful Spanish teenager, and adorable
in a way. Is of the few descriptors we have, right,
is that he was an attractive child, a sporty child,
actually kind of a voracious learner, which was really new
(03:15):
or let's say different in terms of kings before him.
That he really did read a lot. He learned Latin
and French and some Italian, and he really was a learner.
And he participated in, even as a kid, many sporting events,
which was fine and allowed because of course he was
the spear and no one was just worried about his
(03:36):
health or preserving him. So he had by all accounts,
and affectionate and warm relationship with his mother. As you
pointed out, his father was concerned mostly with political ongoings
and consolidating property and power, which he did use his
son for, but that wasn't very unusual for the time,
(03:57):
and there were actually think six or seven siblings, but
most of them didn't make it out of infancy. His
older sister did, he had a younger sister who did,
and Arthur, as you pointed out, it is kind of
telling because ultimately, of course we know he goes on
to marry Catherine, but under unusual circumstances he was smitten
with her. But Arthur was to be the king, and
(04:18):
when his father died, Arthur, at a young age, at fifteen,
becomes king. Arthur is a fascinating character. I think he's
just very strange, and I don't believe he ever becomes king.
I think he does die before he technically became king.
But he was meant to marry Catherine Aragon, who was
(04:39):
the daughter of the two most powerful monarchs in Spain,
fernand and Isabella, both sides of Spanish property, so she
was a massive coup for England. That was an incredibly
important alliance, not just because of her wealth but also
because of her political importance. They get married when they're teenagers,
but Arthur is always really described as sickly, and he
(05:02):
dies I think just twenty weeks after he and Katherine
are married. Catherine will later swear that it wasn't consummated
because he was just this sickly teenager. But it does
throw the succession into a tailspin because now obviously Henry
is going to be king, and it also puts Katherine
in a very strange position. She's sort of for almost
(05:23):
half a decade, becomes something of a hostage in England
because Henry the seventh doesn't want the alliance to be undermined.
He doesn't want to give the dowry back she had
married Arthur, even if they hadn't consummated it. So she's
sort of in this no man's land where neither her
father nor King Henry the seventh want to pay for her.
(05:46):
So she has a credibly challenging court that she's holding
an household. She is surrounded by strangers and can't go home.
It's a very weird time in her life. And then,
of course, when King Henry the Seventh dies and Young
Henry becomes Henry the Eighth, he becomes her savior. It's
important to know I think that Catherine is very Catholic,
(06:06):
that in Spain that is the religion, but she is
more than politically what she's supposed to be. She is
truly devout so the permission to annul the marriage to
Arthur was important to her. And as you said, this
was sort of driven by Henry the Seventh, who wanted
(06:26):
still this alliance to happen, and if it couldn't happen
with Arthur, then he was happy to have it happen
with Henry the Eighth. Yeah, she is incredibly Catholic. As
you said, there's also the no reason we think that
she would have lied. When she's pulled before the court
and basically interrogated as to whether the marriage with Arthur
was consummated, she says it wasn't. Henry the Seventh decides
(06:47):
to then hold her in England to betrothe her to
Henry the Eighth, the young now next in line, but
he doesn't really have any intention of following through on
that even after this betrothal, he tells Young Henry but
because he made that deal as a child that it
doesn't really count and they're actively looking for other wives
for him. I think we could look at this moment
for young Henry as initially kind of traumatic in the
(07:13):
sense that his whole upbringing to date, where his goal
in life is to have pleasure and be a taken
care of member of the royal family, but with no
real responsibility, and now suddenly he's it, and it meant
a lot of things, particularly all of the sports and
things that he was physically allowed to go off and do,
(07:35):
he wasn't allowed to do anymore. They had to preserve
his health. There weren't any other male heirs, so his
life has changed dramatically as a kid, that he can't
do the things that he used to do in the
same way, and that he has to now start having
the kind of education that really Arthur had been having,
which is how are you going to be a good king?
And there's also a lot of pressure on him now
(07:56):
because of how new the Tutor line. The Tutors were
just a brand new family that was started by Henry
the father Henry seven after the War of the Roses,
uniting the houses of York and Lancaster. It is a
new but it is a tenuous dynasty, and now that
is all on young Henry's shoulders. So I think later
(08:16):
when people talk about how desperate Henry is first son,
that's really part of it. It is his now single
role to preserve the dynasty that his father set up.
He clearly takes that very seriously. That is, as you say,
is apropos. When his father dies and he succeeds, they
go ahead with the marriage. He and Catherine do get married.
(08:38):
She actually does become pregnant pretty quickly. The first baby
is still born. She gets pregnant again and she has Mary.
She does have a child, but of course, in keeping
with the day, that the child does not mail means
that Henry still feels he doesn't have an air. At
this point, Henry is sort of at the top of
the world. He's married, by all accounts, stunningly beautiful, powerful princess,
(09:04):
and it was a love match, which was rare at
the time, a rare coincident where a politically important match
is also a love match. He's sort of this new
golden boy for England. As you mentioned, he is intelligent
and loves learned, and his sporty and athletic, so I
feel like at this point even the birth of a
daughter wouldn't get him down. He was incredibly happy to
(09:26):
be married to Catherine. They had the world ahead of
them and they have little Mary, which I think he
probably was like, okay, this is fine for now. There
are some things that when we think of psychologically what's
going on. By all accounts, he was not only in
love with his wife, but he was reported to be
a kind husband, a generous giving things. This actually followed
(09:48):
him for a while at least being a generous husband,
apparently a generous in bed husband, but generous with the
jewels and titles and pieces of land. He was over
six feet tall, broad, as you said, sporty. He liked
to joust, he liked to hunt, and he was very
good at them. And this was of course more than
just being sporty. This was part of the political game.
(10:11):
This was to show yourself as powerful and a force
to be reckoned with your show of wealth and your
show of physical acumen, particularly in jousting and hunting. It
was like the Gulf of their time. Maybe the Titans
got together and that he would dress the part in
his own jewels and finery and armor for jousting. That
(10:33):
showed his wealth, and that he was physically imposing and
very good looking and young. He played to this right.
This was important his sense of power and England as
a force. Absolutely. I think that the goal is always
that whatever ambassadors are at court, that they go back
to their countries and talk about how virile, handsome, athletic
(10:56):
Henry is, because as the absolute monarch annointed by Henry
is England. If Henry is strong and virile, England is
strong and viro and let's talk about that. Because the
whole I was anointed by God, I guess i'll, for
lack of a better word, I'll say rhetoric, because it
was the ongoing, very loud message that was certainly propagated
(11:16):
by him, and it was new for him. In the words,
he was the one, sort of the first one to
really put out there the king I have been anointed
by God, so we are sort of one and the same.
And my word is God's word because he directed me.
He will take it farther than other case. And we'll
get there with Anne Boleyn. But I don't think it
(11:37):
was a stretch for monarchs at the time. Europe was
incredibly religious at the time. The Church was the central
organizing institution. It's this idea that simply by virtue of
the fact that you are king, God wants you to
be king because everything is God's will. So an absolute
monarch then can decide how far to extend that logic.
(11:57):
And as we will see later. Henry will take that
logic further than any other European king had. Was he
mentally ill that he heard God talking to him, or
was he mentally ill that he believed God was directing
each act that he did? And we would have to say,
you have to always think about mental health in the
context of current culture and current society. And as you're
(12:20):
pointing out, in that day and age, hearing God's voice
in your head telling you to do things was not unusual.
It was really culturally consistent, and he was imbued with
all the power of what it meant to be king. Yeah,
that would not at all be an abnormal approach during
the day. Again, Henry was a scholar of Latin and
(12:42):
religion to that degree, and it was the understood assumption
that everything in the world was as God wills it,
and that by virtue simply of being the king, that
is a sign that God wants you to be king.
And then Henry, in sort of his self justification logic,
will say, well, that means all of the actions that
(13:02):
I do then show that God wants those things to
be done by the king because I'm the king, because
God made me the king. Uh. Definitely not abnormal at
the time. That is how all absolute monarchies worked. They
are you know, king as anointed by God. That is
standard sixteenth century monarch logic and also in standard political ongoings.
(13:24):
That big year fifteen o nine, his father dies, he
becomes king, He marries Catherine. He also arrests two of
his father's most unpopular ministers, Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley,
and charges them with treason and executes them. This sort
of style of king management, the idea of removing people
(13:46):
who you don't think politically are aligned with you, going
to do what you want them to do, and therefore
may pose a threat, becomes stylistically. And I think it's
important because people tend to think, oh, this didn't happen
till later in life, and certainly it escalated later in life.
But he did this from the get go, and I
think it was sort of a move early on that
was people praised. They thought that it was an adept
(14:08):
political move, that he was sort of cleaning out the
skeletons from his father's closet, that he was eighteen when
he became king. This idea that this new hero was
coming into to rebuild England. That praise probably made him
more willing to take broad strokes later on the fact
that when he was young, people were happy with everything
he did and praised it and saw him as a
(14:30):
crusading hero for England. He was changing the direction of
the country in a good way. But he was this new, youthful,
powerful person and everyone from ambassadors to ministers were really
excited about everything he did. And that's important when we
think about the psychology of an individual because of something
that actually has only been in my field understood well
(14:52):
from a psychiatric standpoint in the last decade, and that
is this concept of hubris syndrome that one they see
in leaders, or basically the criteria are the person who
has a lot of power and perhaps fame, and is
surrounded by people who tell them nothing but that everything
they do is incredible and the best and they can
(15:15):
do no wrong. That someone who maybe originally wasn't narcissistic,
who wasn't actually didn't necessarily even have the tendency to
be consumed with themselves and think they are super special
and awesome, could become that way to the level that
they are blinded by risks and by the morality of
things they are doing because everyone around them has told
(15:36):
them they are it, and they fly too close to
the sun ultimately as a result, hence the Hubris and
sort of Icarus illusions. When talking about Hubris syndrome, you
almost can't imagine how a king wouldn't become crazy huberistic
with the way that the system was structured. How could
you not if everyone is telling you that you are
(15:58):
God's chosen leader for an entire nation and everything you
do is the will of God. I should say that
before the birth of Princess Mary to Catherine and Henry,
she did have a pregnancy that was male but was
born still born. So I think the hope that she
would be able to still even after Mary have a son,
(16:20):
and that all would be well was still certainly in hand.
It wasn't that unusual to miscarry or have a stillborn
baby in those days. It wasn't that unusual even for
a young child to die, as Henry had seen around him,
and so I think there wasn't concerned that there would
be a problem. They were young. The fact that she
had a daughter showed that she could bear children. They
(16:42):
had time, No one was worried again. They were in love.
They were sexually active together by all accounts, and the
fact that she had a child indicated that there wouldn't
be a problem later on. Another important feature, apparently to
Henry of Catherine, was that she was willing to allow
affairs to occur, that he could take mistresses, and she
(17:03):
understood that was part of the deal and that she
should be lovely about it and turn of bline I
and she did, and he did a very notable Bessie Blout,
who he had a multi year relationship with, including having
a son with that we believe was Henry's. He acknowledged
(17:23):
was his. At first he was like, well, this is
an illegitimate child, but at some point along the way
decided to legitimize that Henry by giving him a title.
I do want to be clear that it was always
an illegitimate son because it was not born to his wife,
But he does formally acknowledge that it is his bestard
at least, which is better than he does for some
(17:44):
of the others to come along afterwards. Although it is
also perhaps politically important and may have been a political
move and not just an emotional move on his part
because he doesn't have a son yet at the point
which he starts doing that, and this potentially paved the
way for him to at some point make the choice
(18:05):
to create an air of this Henry. So we sort
of go back and forth between what was motivated by
Henry Tudor the eight by emotional investment and what was
done really by pure political movement, objectively, this is the
thing for me to do. You know. That's interesting. I
don't know, and it might change it at different points
(18:27):
in his life. I think it probably was an ego
move with Henry Fitzroy, the idea that like, look at me,
I can have a son. I mean, the idea is
it's a very sixteenth century idea of masculinity that you
can have sons across the country by numerous women. That
is a flattering thing that would reflect well on him.
(18:48):
And I think this was early enough in his marriage
with Catherine that there was no real fear that they
wouldn't have a son themselves. It's also interesting because even
though in we say wow, he had this mistress or
that mistress for a man and for a king of
that time, he actually by reports had few affairs, or
(19:11):
would have one woman. He was having an affair with
which was a reduced number as a norm of the time,
and really in that sense was considered a more faithful
man to his wife. I think Henry saw himself as
a romantic hero. He is someone who, even later on
with his mistresses, would always have a favorite and shower
(19:33):
her with poetry and love and gifts and praise. I
think he is very much someone who loves to be
in love and loves to be like a hero out
of an epic story. And so that absolutely does affect
him in an interesting way. And his approach to women
is distinct maybe from other royals who were less discriminating
(19:56):
with their number of affairs. And Catherine, in turn, the
other cheek, was just sort of an exemplar of the
ideals of what being a queen was. She was beloved
by the people. She was kind, she was pious, she
prayed a lot, she was passive. She did not get
involved in political affairs. Exactly when she did, you know,
(20:18):
it was always to support her husband. She's someone who
adored her husband and understood that as king, he could
have affairs and that was something she had to tolerate.
Let's take a quick break here. We'll be back in
a moment. M m what in this early stage before
(20:45):
the entry of Anne Boleyn in the happier day as
although you could say they were becoming increasingly less happy
as Catherine sadly continued to have pregnancies that ended in
still births and never really produced an another living air.
So he became increasingly concerned politically and disenchanted. But he
(21:08):
ran a very active court. He was very politically and
in terms of accruing power, not at that point yet
via the church, but in other ways he was busy
accruing power. I think Henry was influenced a lot by
his dad being a great military leader, and his dad
achieving unification of factions in England through battle, and I
(21:31):
think Henry wanted that. I think Henry wanted to be
a glorious hero for England, riding in on a horse,
and so sometimes he would manufacture battles and military excursions
where maybe a less young monarch would have focused on peace.
(21:52):
I think he's someone who wanted glory and wanted that
storybook narrative for himself in the same way that he
wanted that storybook narrative with his loves. He was a
romantic in every sense of the word. You could say
he was romantic, but his family of origin, for at
least for the time, was a reasonably healthy upbringing, right
with a warm mother and a clearly wanted and loved son.
(22:13):
But he so prematurely at this young age, was basically told, Okay,
the responsibility will be yours and you need to live
up to X. And the way that he did that
was really, as you said, this romantic ideal. That's kind
of juvenile, right, It's almost like a tween ideal of
what it means to be king. Absolutely, I think his
(22:36):
too venalia will continue throughout his entire life, even I
mean close to his death. He will be obese, go
out ridden, need help getting on his horse, and still
think that he needs to lead his men into battle
because it'll restore some sense of virtue to him. In
some ways. He will have that eighteen year old sense
(22:57):
of what a great king is his entire life. And
just so people understand that sometimes having you could call
it traumatic or it was not that unusual for the
time to have your parents die when you were eighteen.
To be honest, it wasn't that unusual, but to have
both parents die, when what it means is you literally
(23:17):
have to step into their shoes. Most young people when
they died, maybe they had to now be more responsible
for the farm or the house, or or trying to
just physically survive in some way themselves. But to take
over a kingdom and a country and suddenly the people
before you who were taking care of you are gone,
(23:38):
might arrest your development, might arrest the development of your
ideas of what it means to be an adult. Yes,
I'll say, and we and so, as you're pointing out,
we see a lot of evidence of that, and it's
just important to consider as nonetheless, he was the one
who made the rules, and as we'll go on to
(23:58):
talk about and see what the arrestment, a lot of
the rules he made were rules almost of a teenage gang.
I think there's a reason absolute monarchy has gone out
of fashion. I don't think it is conducive to the
best decision making process. And I agree with you there's
definitely a stunted development, the same way that like celebrities
(24:18):
will never learn technology after the point that they've become famous,
Like a celebrity who becomes famous in their twenties will
sort of become stunted in their twenties and like won't
learn how to send an email. I think the same
is true to some degree about Henry and his ideas
of what being a king is. I don't think they
evolve very much. As I mentioned earlier, Sadly, Catherine goes
(24:42):
on to have several more stillborn babies, and this is
important because now Henry does become really concerned that he
is not going to have an air. As Catherine approaches forty,
and though the nightmare, of course is that she'll hit menopause,
which there are rumors that it's already happened. You know,
(25:04):
every detail of a royal is digested through the court
and excruciating detail, so people know when she is or
isn't leading, and the rumors are already swirling that she's
going through menopause. And even if she hadn't, Henry had
just sort of become disenchanted with her. You know, she
was no longer the beautiful teenager that he had seen
(25:25):
when he was a child. She becomes an older woman,
he's less attracted to her, and he stops visiting her
bed chamber. And the reality is, even today one's odds
of becoming pregnant at forty are greatly diminished from what
your odds are. Obviously in your twenties and even through
your mid thirties, not that it's impossible, but the odds drop,
and even without the medicine and nutrition that we have today,
(25:48):
it was even worse and even lower odds if your
husband isn't sleeping with you. He had at this point
already had a physical affair with Mary Boleyn, who was
in the ladies in waiting group for Catherine. And obviously
the Boleyn sisters were from a noble family in the
(26:11):
sense that they were, you know, well to do, had
some influence. The daughters were very educated. They had been
in France in a court there, the purpose of which
right was to basically learn to be a wonderful, educated
and political wife to somebody of importance. So they had
already had that experience, and he had already been involved
(26:32):
with Mary, but his attentions turned to Anne. She plays
it a little more intelligently than her sister. She has
different goals and coming from the French court, is coquettish, flirtatious, witty,
challenges Henry in their head to heads when it comes
to intelligence. They're very flirtatious and of course, it's a
(26:52):
contrast to the sort of dowdy Spanish style of Catherine.
Here is this new French, and she's not a French,
but she came from France and had the fashions of France,
this French, flirtatious, stunning woman, and people always describe her
as not necessarily conventionally attractive, but enchanting, that she was flirtatious,
(27:14):
that she knew how to engage, very charismatic, and she
just in chance Henry in every sense of the word,
and as he will say later, literally but he falls
madly in love with her, and she wanting to be queen.
Seeing the writing on the wall and knowing that Catherine's
time is over, sees that opportunity and decides to write
(27:34):
it out and refuses to have sex with Henry, refuses
to become a mistress until he makes her his queen.
It's pretty interesting that Henry, who as time moves on,
seems to be a big proponent of taking what you want,
whether the other person wants it or not, or you know,
or getting rid of them. He doesn't force the situation,
sounds like he certainly verbally tries, but he wants her
(27:56):
to willingly be with him. I think he's in love,
and he's very romantic, enchanted by the chase as and
smartly clocked very early on. I think that is another
interesting piece of Henry's psyche, which is, as we've been describing,
he's in love with love. He really loves that feeling that.
As a psychiatrist, I say that dopamine high that one
(28:20):
gets from feeling in love, particularly in new love, which
doesn't necessarily last forever, but in the beginning, is like
a neurochemical high. For people like no other you need
less sleep, you feel just giddy and happy all the time.
And for someone like Henry, who knew what that felt
like because he had that with Catherine, it must have
(28:41):
been pretty intoxicating that he didn't just say, well, Anne Boleyn,
I will have you whether you like it or not.
I don't need to marry you. But he really, by
all accounts, subscribed to that feeling state wanted that. So
he sets about trying to figure out, possibly with the
help of Anne, who is not like Catherine, who is
not quiet or passive, is intellectual in her own right.
(29:06):
She's described as mood intense. She could be highly irritable
and temper filled, but she could be delightful and charismatic
and super fun, and she had her own political aspirations.
So whether she contributed to his ideas of how he
could go about constructing a exit route from his marriage,
but he surrounded himself with people to take up the
(29:28):
cause and figure out how to make this happen the
reasons you describe before of why Henry is so written
about because what happens changes the course of Europe and
world religion forever. Henry demands a divorce from Catherine on
the basis that because she had been married to his brother,
that their marriage was not valid, and he offers her
(29:50):
a pretty generous I guess we'd call the settlement being like,
you'll be the King's sister. You'll basically have the title
as if you had been married to my brother. But
Catherine is incredibly Catholic and religious, and Catholics don't believe
in divorce. She knows in her heart that she never
consummated her relationship with Arthur, and she doesn't want her
daughter Mary to be a bastard child. And I think
(30:12):
that the integrity of being queen is so incredibly important
to her, and she refuses to go quietly, and of
course Spain being such an important global hub of Catholicism,
the Vatican is behind her. The Pope refuses to grant
the annulment to Henry. So I'm making a very long
story very short. Henry is excommunicated from the Catholic Church,
(30:34):
breaks from the Catholic Church, starts the Church of England,
which is basically Catholicism at this point. It's not the
sort of reformation. It's not very different in ideology from Catholicism.
But the main difference is he is the head of it,
not the Pope. And he declares his marriage from Catherine
annul and he marries Anne Boleyn. And the writing yet
(30:55):
isn't on the wall for An Boleyn because she's number two.
And he does not execute Catherine. This is what she wanted,
and she promises Henry his son. He gets rid of
Thomas More at this juncture. He executes Thomas More, which
is sort of the beginning of a long list of
executions of a pattern of dealing with people who aren't
(31:15):
supporting his decision about the church. And as you said,
this decision about the church, it benefits him in many ways, right.
The Church of England. He becomes the head of the church,
which means that he can and does close all the
monasteries and other such structures that were valuable, and he
gets all the money so he sees is the property.
(31:36):
He puts this money in his coffers. It's also notable
to say that Henry was a pretty big spender all along,
whether he took up to have a battle to consolidate
some power or look good, or what he spent in court,
but he usually kept the coffers pretty low because of
the lavish style in which he kept his parts of
the kingdom. This was a good way to put more
money into the coffer. So a lot of this really
(31:59):
worked for him and probably both consolidated and added to
this hubris that he had in terms of what it
meant that he was the king. And I think he
justified it to himself by understanding it to be God's will.
Of course, God would want him to have a son.
Catherine hadn't given him a son. Here's this beautiful woman
(32:20):
who promising him a son, and this is the only
way to make it happen. I think Henry is fully
convinced that doing this is God's will. By evidence of
the fact that he didn't give him a son with Catherine.
If God had wanted him to stay in the Catholic
Church and stay married to Catherine, he would have given
him a son. And the people around him, Cromwell and Wolseley,
(32:44):
they're really supporting that. They are political advisors and they're saying, politically,
you have to do something to continue the Tutor line,
so this is necessary. So he has support for that.
So Anne also has several still births. She does give
birth to a girl, to Elizabeth, and almost as soon
(33:07):
as he has her, the bloom is off the rose.
I mean that is sort of always the way things
are with the chase. Once you get the object of
the chase, it's never quite as good. Basically, the moment
that she doesn't have a son and it's a daughter,
Henry feels betrayed. He thinks that he went through this
massive thing and she, you know, it was a witch,
a sourceress who tricked him. They're very least she didn't
(33:28):
keep up her end of the bargain, that was the deal.
He's like, why did I do this? This was a
huge myster He has massive buyers remorse, but instead of
acknowledging it as a mistake that he made. He blames
her entirely. He gets word from her political enemies that
she has been sleeping around with other people, no real
evidence of that. I mean, she was a flirtatious person
(33:51):
and some things that she did say could be absolutely
construed against her. But it would have been incredibly foolish
for her at this point to have an affair. And
Anne was far too savvy for that. But she had
a lot of political enemies because of her opinionated nature
doesn't have anything to do with sleeping with other people.
She had made a lot of enemies and they had
understood that the way to remove her would definitely be
(34:12):
to accuse her of adultery and basically, Henry's massive buyers
or morse. After this huge break from the church, the
population of England hates Anne. And then the final nail
in the coffin is her not giving him a son.
At first, there's Elizabeth and he can live with one daughter,
but she has one more pregnancy that sort of becomes
(34:33):
the one everything is riding on because she could tell
that Henry's affections have turned and it is a miscarriage.
And at that point. I think she knows that she
missed her chance. She took a swing and she missed.
I mean, if she had had a son, it would
have worked out for her. You gotta hand it to Anne.
She really went for it. She tried and failed, but
(34:53):
through no fault of her own, as you say, no
fault of her own. But in those days, right, it
was very much considered the woman's al whether it was
going to be a boy or a girl and survive
or be pregnant at all was definitely considered up to
the woman and the woman's fault, and if there was
thought to be a problem, it was always the woman.
It certainly wasn't going to be the king. It wasn't
(35:13):
generally going to be the man period. But it's sure
as heck wasn't going to be the king who could
possibly be at fault. But in that vein, let me
just mention it's very interesting just in recent years two
bioarchaeologists who have done i'll say research, though they're trying
to get access to as we speak, Henry the Eighth's
(35:33):
hair or bones or something so that they can look
at DNA, but they have put forward a theory that
actually fits a lot of what we've talked about has
transpired in the sense that there were so many still
births between Catherine and Anne Boleyn that one has to wonder.
I mean, even for the times, this was an unusual
(35:54):
number of deaths in utero, and they were not early
term deaths. They were late term or just after birth deaths,
and that is important information in terms of why would
that happen. And so they have put together a lot
of the medical information that is available about Henry the
Eighth and this history of an earlier pregnancy that survived
(36:17):
but only a female, and a late term pregnancies that
did not survive that were often male, and that would
fit with a pattern of Henry the eighth having had
something called McLoud syndrome, which is a genetic syndrome that
is sex linked to the sex chromosomes, so that males
who inherit this genetic mutation are much more likely to
(36:38):
be affected in various ways than females, who are more
likely to be carriers, and that males are affected usually
starting in midlife. In those days, it would have been
mid to late life because people didn't live as long,
but males got things such as what's called cardiomyopathy or
enlarged heart. They got muscle weakness, which could have been
a contributor to less physical activity and the development of obesity.
(37:02):
They got neuropathy, which means your nerves sort of basically
not functioning as well, again a contributor to slowing down,
not being able to walk as well, and gaining weight
and becoming obese. And they also got some mental status changes,
which can be anything from some cognitive decline to the
development of paranoia to mood changes, all of which we
(37:25):
think about Henry later in life and wonder if that
was what was going on. But a prominent feature of
McLeod is often the people with the gene mutation have
what's called Kell positivity blood. And you know, people are
familiar I think with RH factor blood you're a positive,
you're a negative, that the positive negative being rh factor.
But there's another factor in blood called Kell and very rarely,
(37:47):
but in the Caucasian population there is a small percentage
of men, particularly who can be Kel positive. And when
a KEL positive man mates with a Kell negative woman,
which most all women are because this is it's a
rare genetic mutation, then it is likely that the fetus
will not survive, particularly later pregnancy is not necessarily the
(38:09):
first pregnancy, but after the woman's body has been exposed,
her blood has been exposed to Kelly positivity, she will
make antibodies to that foreign positive. Those antibodies, when they
spotted again and they say, oh, here's another Kelly positive
fetus will attack it. That's it, exactly. So everyone of
his wives gets one shot, and both Catherine and and
(38:31):
both failed. So, of course, if you are divine and
chosen by God, this has nothing to do with you,
and so Henry just had to find a way to
remove the next wife. Of course, as you said, the
bluem is already off the rose. He'd already moved on
to being infatuated with James Seymour. He also had impotence
issues at this point he had been in jousting accident.
And basically from this point in his life you will
(38:53):
have real impotence issues that his doctors will try to treat.
And so Henry not being attracted to his wife will
always be blamed on the wife again, regardless of actual
medical things going on. But Jade Seymour is the opposite
of and you know, she is sort of an English rose.
She is quiet, she's demure. She's more of a Catherine type.
(39:14):
And after the once have been fun and then became infuriating,
challenging wit of Anne Boleyn, he just wants a simple
life again. Let's take a quick break here. We'll be
back in a moment. You mentioned the jousting accident, and
(39:37):
that is really important if we're going to talk about
the psychological makeup of Henry. That's a pivotal moment. I
think it was six that he has this accident and
he has knocked unconscious for two hours. He opens up
a wound that is an old wound that ultimately will
never really close back up again. But the loss of
(39:59):
consciousness and the depth of injury is really important. A
it has decided he probably shouldn't joust anymore, which was
a huge source of pride and prowess, and you talk
about impotence, you know, but like literally a phallic symbol
of him, the jousting, and he really can't do that anymore.
Losing consciousness for several hours means you basically have had
(40:21):
a concussion, and organic brain trauma leaves one with the
potential for everything from ongoing mood changes like depression to
paranoia to cognitive deficit, and it shows a weakness for
Henry that in terms of aging and not being that young, handsome,
athletic buck that he really needed to view himself at.
(40:43):
So that was probably not just a jousting accident for him.
That was probably a psychologically a big event and upsetting,
depressing and possibly even from a physiologic standpoint turning point
for Henry, it becomes the beginning of the end him biologically.
I mean, he can't exercise, he gains a massive amount
(41:04):
of weight that sore on his leg. Descriptions range from
clinical to disgusting, but it is always just like dripping pus.
He becomes this obese smellie. They had to rig mechanical
devices later on to basically sort of help move him around.
And of course has sexual ramifications and I think it
(41:24):
probably in the back of his mind knows that women
aren't attracted him the same way they were when he
was younger. This has ramifications for him politically in terms
of the way that other countries see him and the
consolidation of power other leaders. I guess I'll say, you know,
other kings, emperors are aware of what he is like
at this point, so actually, at this juncture he's married
(41:46):
to Jane Seymour. She does thankfully for her produced Edward,
who sadly though sounds like he also is a very
sickly boy for much of his not that long life,
and James Seymour dies shortly thereafter, within two weeks. He
actually initially is surprised, but not too saddened. He later becomes,
in retrospect sad and says she was his best wife
(42:09):
because of course she gave him a son, and because
she didn't probably annoy him in any way, because she
died on his standards that would make her pretty terrific
white she he wants to be buried next to her,
but at this point politically things are looking shaky for him,
and because of the break with the Catholic Church, and
because of losing this woman that in retrospect he can
(42:30):
make perfect in his memory, Henry sort of gives up
on this idea of romantic love for a little while
and is only talked back into marriage by his advisor Cromwell,
basically forcing him to marry for diplomatic reasons and to
marry outside of England, which will be Anne of Cleaves,
because they needed international allies. Breaking from the Catholic Church
(42:53):
and the Vatican was a massive political move, but he
still hasn't gone so far as to become Protestant the
same way that other German states are, So there are
very few women that he could sort of choose from
that would be political matches. Cleaves is one of the
perfect sort of right in the middle zones where they're
not too Protestant but they don't support the pope, and
(43:13):
so Thomas Cromwell orchestrates that match. At least this is
sort of the idea of creating an ally in Germany
right or that region. But at this point he now
presides over Wales, but he gave himself they were more
formal titles over these regions. You know, his brother had
been Prince of Wales, and then Henry becomes Prince of Wales.
(43:34):
Oh god, those titles are such a mess. But he
and his father would have had Scotland and Wales for
their entire terms as king. What Henry really wants is
regions in France that would be the jewel in his crown,
and in and out he's made attempts to do that,
but they have not been highly successful. Now if their victories,
(43:54):
their period victories, their losses, their pointless. It's really a
stalemate between him and France Usking of Friends. Anna Cleaves
doesn't work out so well. He deems her not attractive,
which sounds like an incredible projection because it seems likely
that upon her seeing him, he may have read that
she did not find him particularly attractive. But he goes
(44:14):
through with the wedding, but pretty quickly wants out and
has that annulled, punishes Cromwell for basically that and other issues,
so has him arrested and executed. And now basically the
court of Henry the Eighth has become a pretty terrifying place.
So we could say, oh, it was McLeod syndrome making
(44:36):
him more paranoid. Was organic brain damage from his jousting
accident making him paranoid? Or was he and the environment
that he created by executing so many people making this
a very paranoid environment. Where he hired a spy master
to feed him conspiracy theories of who was against him.
He becomes a man obsessed with holding onto his power.
(45:00):
He is terrified of losing that power. Now he has
a son, but you need another one, because you always
need a spare, and Henry knows that as well as anyone,
because he had been despair and with his health failing him,
he sort of goes into like an extended mania. His
next wife is a teenager who is just sort of
this stunningly beautiful teenager, Katherine Howard, who he marries and
(45:24):
almost immediately beheads because she was having affairs behind his back,
which can't really blame her. She is a teenager and
he is a incredibly disgusting at this point man with
an open leaking leg wound. And then his last wife,
of course, will be Katherine Parr, who is often presented
as the nurse sort of because she's more matronly. She's
(45:46):
a widow, she is older, she's more mature, but she's
also incredibly intelligent, but also intelligent enough not to rock
the boat. She and Henry talk about religion, and whenever
he gets too mad, she backs off immediately and it's like, oh,
I was just you know, I wanted to see how
well you debate, and I wanted you to teach me.
(46:07):
I was just pretending because I wanted you to be
so intelligent to debate me, so unlike an who always
held her ground. This Catherine is an incredibly intelligent woman,
recognizes what you need to do to keep your head.
With Henry, she is smarter in that sense, but she
also may have been debating a man who was less intelligent.
(46:30):
He had certainly had some cognitive decline by now, and
of course she had some historical warning shots that she
was in dangerous territory herself, So the combination was probably
the case. But she did some very instrumental things in
convincing Henry to reacquaint himself and take back into the
fold his daughter's Mary and Elizabeth and put them back
(46:51):
into the line of succession where he had written them out,
changing the face of history. Because we know that Edward
did not live very long and ultimately both Mary and
Elizabeth go on to have the crown, but that is
thanks to par who in fact really quietly and consistently
worked on getting him to bring those women back into
(47:12):
his life. Yeah, and when she's queen, she's really wonderful
with his two daughters, who had been neglected to various
degrees during the several states of his various other marriages.
She brings them back to court. She's really maternal or
sterlily almost and She's an incredibly intelligent woman in her
own right. She's a published writer. She writes religious tracts anonymously,
(47:34):
of course, at first and then later under her own name.
And when she debate tenoring, she always knows when to
pull her punches. Is the smartest thing she does, because
she recognizes that living is the most important thing. Towards
the end, he's described as incredibly gluttonous and eating everything
under the sun, But it's hard to know really how
(47:56):
true that was as the source of his obesity, and
how much other things may have been afoot, whether he
had some sort of organic brain damage that may have
contributed to obesity. People who have brain trauma can sometimes
impact their production of various hormones like growth hormone that
actually causes them to develop a metabolic syndrome that causes
them to develop obesity and then diabetes. It does seem
(48:19):
from all of the leg ulcers that he had that
would not heal that he probably did have diabetes in
the days when nobody knew what that was. But it
did cause you to develop lower extremity wounds that wouldn't
necessarily heal. He was thought to have gout. He had
a lot of pain often, and gout was not unusual
in those days for people who ate so much meat
(48:40):
and drank beer and things that stimulate gout if you're
predisposed to it, so wouldn't be shocking. And it's also
wondered if later he didn't even suffer from scurvy due
to lack of eating of fruit and vegetables, which were
not in abundant supply and not something that he particularly
tried to eat, because nobody knew about scurvy at that
time either. But any one of these things does not
(49:02):
make for a very appealing body habituts and also makes
for very poor health. So what ultimately killed Henry is
hard to know because there were so many things going on.
Without an autopsy, we don't know ultimately which one. I'm
I'm not sure how important it is exactly which one.
But he certainly was almost a bedridden man by the
time of his death. As you mentioned, he couldn't get exercise,
(49:23):
and he had been a formally very athletic man. He's
eating incredibly rich food, he's being indulged. The combination is
not a healthy combination. Combined with fifteen hundreds medicine, it
was not a great formula for a long life for Henry.
Although you know he's the long reigning monarch by those standards.
He dies at fifty five, which is I would say
(49:45):
young for us. Thirty seven years is very long reigning
for a monarch. And he did preside over a number
of changes, certainly the Church of England being one of
the most notable. But he did hold onto power, hold
onto territory. He played the political game. He is remembered
(50:05):
for presiding over many peaceful times, and he is remembered
as presiding over a time of fair or decent prosperity
for a lot of the country. Well, yeah, you got
all that Catholicism money right. The Pope didn't like him,
but the people did like him as a monarch. And
he also set up his will for his line of succession,
(50:26):
which was also not something that monarchs necessarily had done before,
to beyond the grave, try to set up and allow
women to rule so that he could have his bloodline
continue for the foreseeable future. And he even laid out
a plan if Mary wasn't there, and then if Elizabeth
wasn't there, it would be his sister's family, the Grays.
(50:46):
He tried to write off the Stewarts altogether his other
sister's family, but he did try to consolidate and maintain
his power even past his death. As he mentioned, it
would set a challenging precedent for king's leaving lines of
successions in their will, because young Edward would be manipulated
into undoing his father's He's like, well, I'm king now,
(51:08):
so I can do it, or he wouldn't, rather his
advisors would. He was just a child. But Henry leaves
it in this strange place of peace that you can
ascribe maybe to Katherine cars mediating influence that he does
put his daughters in the line of succession, and of
course his daughter Elizabeth will reign over the Golden Age
of England. So in the end Hubers may have undone
(51:31):
Henry the Eighth, but he did have the acumen and
intellect and political ambition to set up his country to
be ruled by his bloodline for years to come. Of course,
she will have to, for her own challenging political reasons,
make the decision not to get married and have children,
and so the Tutor line will end with Henry's daughter Elizabeth.
(51:55):
But yeah, I think the reason people write about him
is because he's such a strange, fascin eating very human person.
All of his decisions are very mercurial and emotional, and
he's someone who has the potential for greatness and gets
in his own way and wants so much and has
so much power and screws up in so many different
ways that it's very exciting. He's a great example of
(52:17):
how you cannot separate leaders from their human minds and
the psychological makeup that they get when they're younger, and
how that plays out for their lifetimes. I think that's
incredibly well said. That wraps things up for this episode.
Thank you to my guest Dana Schwartz. If you'd like
to know more about Henry the Eighth, you can check
(52:39):
out her podcast Noble Blood. And if you want to
know more about the concepts and personology, you can check
out my book The Power of Different The Link Between
Disorder and Genius. For mental health advice from me, you
could take a listen to my other podcast, How Can
I Help? Follow me a Twitter at Dr Gayl salts
and until next Time. Personology is a production of I
(53:03):
Heart Radio. The executive producers are Dr Gayl Saltz and
Tyler Clang. The supervising producer is Dylan Fagan, The associate
producer is Lowell Berlanti. Editing music and mixing by Lowell Berlanti.
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
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