Henry
VIII FAQ
In
the three years since I started the Henry VIII pages, I've
received many questions in both the guestbook and by email. Lots
of the questions are about the same things, so I thought it might
be useful to put the most commonly asked ones into a FAQ format.
Q:
Why is Henry VIII so important? England's had a lot of kings and
queens, after all.
A:
Henry was the King of England at a pivotal time in European and
particularly English history. New schools of thought were
flourishing all over Europe at the time that Henry inherited the
throne, and these schools of thought, among them, humanism and
Protestantism, were going to greatly affect England during the
course of his reign. England, when Henry inherited it, was
largely a medieval country, staunchly Catholic and because of its
isolation and recent history of civil war, somewhat backward
compared with France, Italy and other parts of Europe where the
Renaissance had already flowered. By the end of Henry's reign,
England was a Protestant country, free of the dictates of the
Roman Catholic church. The old social structure had been
permanently changed, with the dissolution of the monasteries, the
confiscation of Church land, and the declaration that the English
head of state was also the head of the English Church. These
enormous changes, particularly over such a short time
historically, amounted to a paradigm -- after the changes brought
about in England during Henry's reign, nothing would ever be
quite the same again. There was no way that England could revert
to the medieval, Catholic country it had been.
Q: I
hear a lot about Henry's leg. What was the matter with it?
A: During the time that Henry was
married to Anne Boleyn, he fell from his horse while jousting in
a tournament. It is thought that a joint in his armor broke, and
cut him deeply in the leg. The wound seemed to heal with little
trouble, which was rare at that time, when there were no
antibiotics and knowledge of the necessity of keeping a wound
clean. Some sources mention that the fall also knocked Henry
unconscious for several hours -- some scholars have suggested
that this head injury might be responsible for the changes that
seemed to take place in his personality at this time in his life.
After a few months, the wound opened again into an ulcer, which
then followed a pattern of healing and reopening for the rest of
Henry's life. Unfortunately, the medical treatments of the time
were barbarous, including cutting into the wound to let out
"bad humours", and the application of various
ointments, including one that consisted of powdered pearls and
lead mixed into a lard base! Because medical knowledge was so
primitive at the time, this leg ulcer, possibly caused by a
longterm untreated infection or cyst, was blamed for later
ulceration and gangrene in Henry's feet and lower legs as he grew
older. It was believed that there had been an infection of the
original wound that spread downward, though the foot ulceration
started years after the initial wound from the fall.
Unfortunately, because of the paucity of information available to
us, and the primitive state of medicine at the time, we will
probably never know exactly what ailed Henry's leg. However, the
initial leg injury seems to be a turning point in his life, so
far as his health was concerned. Though he remained quite healthy
and active during his short marriage to Jane Seymour, he gained a
great deal of weight after her death, and by the time he was
married to Anna of Cleves, there were reports that he had an
ulceration of an old wound on his leg. His health slid rapidly
downhill at that point, and he also aged markedly.
Q: Didn't
Henry VIII die of syphilis?
A: This is
one of the most common questions about Henry -- and the answer is
that there is really no definite way to know what his final
disease was. The legend has always been that he contracted
syphilis in his youth, and then showed the symptoms of tertiary
(end stage or terminal) syphilis as an older man. Though this is
possible, many of Henry's symptoms don't necessarily point to
syphilis. For more about Henry and syphilis, click here.
Q: How much did Henry VIII
weigh? I heard he was supposed to be enormous.
A: At the time of Henry's death, between obesity and fluid
retention caused by circulatory problems, he was
enormous, and it took four strong men to lift and carry the
sedan chair that he was carried around in. His
coffin, which was lined with lead, was so heavy that
it broke the supports that were provided for it in at
least one of the churches it was displayed in.
We know from seeing Henry's armour (he had several
sets made a different times in his life), and from measurements taken
of his skeleton about 200 years after his death, that he was
probably around six foot, three to six foot four inches tall during his lifetime. His early
armour indicated an athletically built man with a
small waistline -- he probably would have weighed in
the neighborhood of 180 to two hundred pounds at this
time. There are a couple of other sets of armour in
existence, including one made for his final invasion of
France in the last two years of his life. The waist
on this last set of armour would fit a waist of about
58 to 60 inches, as compared to the first set of
armour which would have fit a waist of about 34 to 36
inches.
From personal experience, as my father is six foot,
four inches tall, and has a waist measurement of about
58 inches, I would say that at the time that Henry had
the last set of armour made, his weight was probably
at around 300 pounds. After his return from France,
he entered the time of his final illness, where his
body became very bloated from fluid retention (called
"dropsy" in those days, because the patient's hands would swell
so much that their grasp was impaired, causing them to drop things).
So it is likely that Henry
probably weighed well in excess of three hundred
pounds by the time of his death.
Though these sizes, particularly of the first suit of
armour, don't seem that enormous to us today, it
should be noted that in Henry's time, people were much
shorter and smaller than they are now, due to lack of
proper nutrition and health care. He was almost
literally considered a giant in his time, and his size
had much to do with the glamour associated with him
when he was a younger man -- and with the stories of
his enormous size as an older man. Also, as he began
to become heavy, Henry insisted that all his clothes
be designed to hide his expanding waistline, which is
why he adopted the extreme padded shoulders that are
seen in his later portraits. By the time he died, his
clothing literally extended as wide as he was tall, to
create an image of a man with very wide shoulders and
a powerful build, rather than the "pear shaped" body
that was hidden underneath them.
Q: Didn't
Jane Seymour have a Caesarean section to give birth to Edward?
A: No. There
is nothing in the historical record that indicates that Jane
Seymour underwent a Caesarean, and the facts definitively rule
out this particular legend. We forget that medical practice was
primitive at the time, and that no-one would have survived an
abdominal surgery for eleven days -- which is the amount of time
that Jane Seymour lived after giving birth to Edward! In fact,
she seemed quite well for several days after the birth, received
guests after the baby was christened and wrote letters. Abdominal
surgery was not performed in the Tudor period -- it wasn't to
become standard medical practice until the end of the nineteenth
century, and even then, until the antibiotics became readily
available after World War II, abdominal surgery was accompanied
by a high death rate from infection. The legend that Jane Seymour
sacrificed her life by insisting on a Caesarean section seems to
have come from a ballad called Quene Jane -- in it, she begs
Henry to "cleave her side open to save his babye". This
is very dramatic, and makes for a nice song, but the reality was
that during Tudor times, making a decision to kill a mother to
save an unborn baby was absolutely against the teachings of the
church -- making the decision to save one or the other would also
be a decision to kill one or the other. That would be murder -- a
mortal sin. The standard medical practice was to let God make the
choice -- the mother labored until the child was delivered, or
she was dead. Only after death was a Caesarean section ever
performed, in a desperate attempt to save the baby.
Q: But I read
that Henry was asked by the doctors whether they should save the
Queen or the baby.
A: Unless
someone was there at the time who can give an eyewitness account,
we'll never know this for sure -- but in light of the teachings
of the church, and Henry's staunch belief in them, it is very
unlikely that the question would have ever been asked. Even in
the English church, anyone making the decision to sacrfice mother
to save child, or child to save mother, would be committing
murder -- and would be subject not only to trial and execution
for the crime of murder, but also would be guilty of a mortal
sin, and be condemned to hell for eternity. People took religious
teachings very seriously in Tudor times, and mortal sin was
avoided by most.
Q: I read
that Queen Jane died of puerperal fever. What is that?
A: Puerperal
fever is an infection that sets in after childbirth, particularly
when the birth is performed under unsanitary conditions. The
infection spreads from the birth canal and uterus into the
abdominal cavity, and if untreated, causes death from
peritonitis. In Henry VIII's time, of course, there were no
antibiotics, and sanitary conditions were unheard of, so many
women died of puerperal infection, known at the time as childbed
fever. Katherine Parr also died from puerperal infection, after
giving birth to her daugher by her fourth husband, Thomas
Seymour. Henry's mother, Elizabeth of York, died in her mid
forties, after her eldest child, Arthur, was already married,
giving birth to her seventh child. It was not at all uncommon for
men to go through a series of wives -- death due to complications
of childbirth and pregnancy were probably the leading cause of
death among women of childbearing age.
Q: Did Henry
write Greensleeves for Anne Boleyn?
A: This is,
unfortunately, probably not the case.There has been a legend that
Henry wrote Greensleeves since the late 16th century, when
Greensleeves appeared in a collection of songs called A Handful
of Pleasant Delights, printed in 1584. In this book,
Greensleeves is described as "a courtly sonnet to the Lady
Greensleeves, to the new tune of Greensleeves". Shakespeare
also mentions Greensleeves. This was many years after Henry's
death, and no previous mention of the tune or poem has been found
in earlier works -- nor has it been found among Henry's
manuscripts. Also, there are some musical intervals in
Greensleeves that were not used in Henry's time. For these
reasons, most historians and musicians feel that Henry did not
write the song that we know as Greensleeves.But there are those
who do believe that he did, as there has been considerable
mention of him having done so in biographies and historical
fiction based in the Tudor period. The legend is a strong
one, and there is some evidence that the "new tune of
Greensleeves" may have been based on an old Welsh lullaby.
Henry VIII was part Welsh, and very proud of that heritage, as
was his father, Henry VII. It is possible that Henry might have
set a poem to the Welsh lullaby that Greensleeves seems to be
based on.
Q:
Why did Catharine of Aragon, Kathryn Howard and Katherine Parr
spell their first name differently?
A: Spelling
was far from standard during Henry's time, particularly as far as
names were concerned. In fact, during the Elizabethan period,
Shakespeare actually used varied spellings of his own name!
Biographers of Henry and his wives have adopted the method of
using different spellings to try to avoid confusion between the
three Katherines that Henry was married to. Most commonly these
spellings are: Catherine of Aragon, Kathryn Howard, Katherine
Parr. Though Catharine of Aragon signed documents as
"Katherine the Quene", biographers have adopted the use
of the first letter "C" to differentiate her from
Katherine Parr, and because her original name was Catalina when
she was living in Spain. Kathryn Howard and Katherine Parr
spelled their names that way, and these are the most common
spellings you will encounter of the two. There is no really
correct spelling for the names of these ladies -- as you see, I
tend to link Catharine of Aragon even more closely with her
Spanish name, and additionally, I call Henry's fourth wife Anna
of Cleves rather than the more commonly accepted Anne, as Anna
was her German name. Just my little quirk -- on this one, you get
to call the shots!
Q: Did
Cardinal Wolsey really run England for Henry?
A: When Henry
inherited the throne from his father, he was eighteen years old
-- and though most men of eighteen were considered mature in
Tudor England, he had been sheltered and was quite inexperienced
for his years. He had been kept so sequestered from the world
that he rather understandably spent quite a few years being a bit
of a playboy, and was more than content to spend his days
hunting, dancing, composing and following the other popular
pursuits of a gentleman. Cardinal Wolsey, on the other hand, was
very experienced, and was a master of organization and strategy
-- an excellent choice as the power behind the throne, who ran
the country quite admirably, while keeping the young King
informed as to current events and policies. Over time, as the
drama of Henry's personal life affected policies and the very
legal and social structure of the country itself, Wolsey was hard
pressed to keep up with an ever changing and increasingly
opinionated and mature Henry. Wolsey's inability to provide Henry
with the changes that he wanted so that he would be free to marry
Anne Boleyn without hindrance led to his downfall -- and to his
eventual death.
Q: Did Anne
Boleyn really have six fingers on one hand?
A: Anne
Boleyn almost certainly did not have six complete, working
fingers on her left hand. This is one of the rarest forms of
polydactyly (extra digits), and if she had possessed such a
deformity, much more would have been said about it at the time
(and she would have likely been hidden away in a convent from
birth as well -- such deformities were considered marks of the
devil, signs of evil, etc.). There are no contemporary reports
that Anne Boleyn sported such a deformity, though it was
frequently mentioned that she preferred a long, hanging sleeve,
which was very graceful and which shadowed or concealed the
hands. She wore these sleeves a great deal, and they became the
fashion at court. It is possible that she might have had a mole,
partial sixth finger or split fingernail, but it seems that the
mentions of a sixth finger on one hand originated during the
Victorian era. Anne Boleyn was not at all popular during her
career as Henry's paramour and wife, so rumors of physical
anomalies, such as the sixth finger and a third breast, were
common.
Q: Why would
rumors like that be common about Anne Boleyn?
A: Most
people in Tudor times believed in witchcraft, and they certainly
believed in the existence of the devil and demons. Anne Boleyn
did not fit the standard of beauty at the time -- blonde,
blue-eyed, plump, buxom and dimpled with a pink and white
complexion. Instead, she was dark, rather thin, fairly flat
chested and was striking rather than "beautiful". When
Henry became enamoured of her, and remained so for seven years
while he put away his very popular wife of twenty-four years as
well as his legitimate daughter and heir, changed the laws of
church and state and broke with the Roman Catholic Church, which
at the time was THE church, with the Pope as the spiritual leader
of all Christians, people were astonished. After all, she wasn't
even "beautiful" -- so of course she must have
"bewitched" him. The sixth finger and third breast
(reported to be at the base of her throat, where a demon or
familiar could "nurse") were considered signs of a
witch. Sort of the Tudor version of "what does he see in
HER? She must have money or something!" when an eligible man
falls for a woman who doesn't fit the popular version of
"beauty".
Q: Do you
believe Anne Boleyn was a feminist?
A: Once
again, this is a case of projecting modern thought on unmodern
times. During the Tudor period, "feminism" wasn't even
a word. Anne Boleyn was definitely an accomplished and educated
woman, with a mind of her own, and a lot of ambition. She did
advance from the rather insignificant position of merchant's
daughter to Queen of England, though that, of course, was not
entirely her own doing! She was known to be outspoken, though not
much is known as to just what she was outspoken about. I've never
seen any mention that she felt strongly about anything that could
be considered "women's issues" -- women's issues as we
understand them today simply were not issues in Tudor times.
Women were destined from birth to be wives and mothers, or to
join a religious order. There were no options. To a degree, Anne
Boleyn defied the traditional scheme of things, mainly in that
she refused to become the mistress of the King when the King
wanted her to! Possibly at first she just refused out of
contrariness, or because she had seen him make her sister, Mary,
his mistress and then discard her -- but when she found that this
particular king had more than a passing fancy for her, I think
she set her sights higher. Unfortunately, very little of Anne
Boleyn's correspondence or writing exists today, because Henry
had her possessions and portraits destroyed after her execution.
Because of this, it is very difficult to know what her intentions
and beliefs were. She has been so demonized throughout the
centuries that she has become known as a conniving seductress,
with a sharp tongue and evil intent. She has been blamed for the
deaths of Thomas More (who, by the way, wrote about equality for
men and women in his Utopia), Bishop Fisher, Cardinal Wolsey, and
Catharine of Aragon, and there is reason to suspect that she had
something to do with an attempt to poison Bishop Fisher. It
probably became very convenient after her execution for Henry to
claim that he had been bewitched into ordering various things --
in fact, it seems that Henry actually came to believe this
himself.
In a
nutshell, Anne Boleyn was not your run of the mill Tudor woman.
She seemed to have a great deal of energy, and a mind that was
more inquiring than that of the average woman of the time. She
had spent many years in the French court, and was accomplished
beyond the average English noblewoman. She was interested in the
New Learning of the Reformation, and in other scholarly pursuits
as well. This would be enough to damn her in the eyes of many of
the more staid Tudor nobility. But I think it's really stretching
the envelope to apply modern feminist theory to Anne Boleyn, and
to say that she was making a statement for women's rights and
equality.
Q: Do you
think that Kathryn Howard was the great love of Henry's life?
A: I think
that Henry loved her a great deal, though by that time he was
very jaded and ill. Contemporary sources say that their marriage
revitalized him -- he went to great lengths to keep up with his
youthful bride, and to regain his health. His heartbroken
reaction when he was told of her infidelity was certainly
sincere. She was also given the opportunity to plead that she had
already been married to Francis Dereham -- this might have saved
her, though a similar pleading on the part of Anne Boleyn that
she had been betrothed to Henry Percy did nothing but
illegitimize Princess Elizabeth, nullifying any claim that she
might have on the throne. Perhaps Henry was holding out a chance
for life to Kathryn Howard -- perhaps she would have been
executed anyway. Henry's health and emotional condition took a
definite downturn after Kathryn Howard's downfall, from which he
never completely recovered. He had all portraits of her
destroyed, as well as her possessions. Initially, he was blind to
any faults she might have had -- after all, he called her his
rose without a thorn. Since she certainly brought him no fortune
or political influence, I think it's safe to say that he
definitely cared for her. Unfortunately, he couldn't extend that
care to forgiveness for her. Of course, a terrible precedent had
been set by the execution of Anne Boleyn -- once you set that
sort of thing in motion, it's terribly hard to turn around and
say "well, never mind".
Q: Why was
Mary I called Bloody Mary?
A: Mary I was
given this nickname because of the execution of Protestants
during her reign -- though ironically, only 287 Protestants were
put to death during her rule, while 57,000 Catholics and
Protestants were executed during Henry's time! Of course, he was
King a lot longer than Mary was Queen. Mary was fanatical about
returning England to the Catholic Church, though many Englishmen
had no memory of any church other than Henry's English one. She
has become demonized over time because of these events and her
attempts to force an unpopular religion on England.
Q: How
accurate was the movie Elizabeth?
A: A question
I dread answering -- not very. The portrayal of costumes, customs
and the interiors of buildings was absurd. I spied a lady in
waiting with a chin length bob, acrylic fingernails on Cate
Blanchett, men with razored off "rapper" haircuts.
Dress styles spanned decades. The notion that Elizabeth I would
have had sex with Robert Dudley in full view of a harem of
giggling ladies in waiting is asinine. The interior of the
"castle" was completely off, and looked like a cross
between the Alhambra and a bad 1930s monster movie. What all
those bishops and archbishops were doing wearing black hats like
Russian Orthodox priests, I don't know. Lots of historical events
were exaggerated, misrepresented and fictionalized. All in all,
the film came off as a desperate attempt to be arty and daring,
and I personally just found it inaccurate and absurd. However, it
has done a great deal to spark interest in the Tudor rulers, and
people want to find out more, so the inaccuracies don't do a lot
of harm in the long run! Hollywood usually distorts and remakes
history, and to be honest, most history does not a good movie
make without some "adjustments". The film was visually
stunning and so long as you bear in mind that it isn't exactly
grounded in fact, you can't go wrong. Elizabeth fans,
please don't write to tell me I'm a meanie -- enjoy the film for
what it's worth and if you want to see something more
historically accurate, try the Elizabeth R miniseries
made by the BBC in the 1970s with Glenda Jackson. It's not nearly
as "kewl" as Elizabeth, but it's a lot more
grounded in reality.
Q: Don't you
think Henry VIII was a bloodthirsty monster who hated women?
A: No. Henry
VIII was a complex and very probably mentally disturbed man, who
was extremely self centered and who lived at a time of great
societal change, some of which was brought about by himself. He
had a tremendous ego, and truly believed in the divine right of
kings. He seemed to have the ability to absolutely believe his
own press -- in other words, he believed what he needed to
believe to justify whatever his actions were at the time. He was
driven by a number of motivations, chief among them a need and
desire to provide England with a strong line of succession
through male heirs. Henry set events in motion through some of
his actions that I'm sure he never expected. As far as
bloodthirsty, it must be remembered that he did not carry out
executions himself, or witness them. In fact, once someone was
condemned to death, he made it a strict policy to refuse to see
them, because he knew that he could be easily swayed by someone
who spoke convincingly. Because of this, he refused to see
Cardinal Wolsey, Anne Boleyn and Kathryn Howard after they were
condemned, and he also avoided Catharine of Aragon, probably
because she would have been able to talk him into changing his
course. Personally, I believe that Henry was able to convince
himself of just about anything -- a sign of mental instability.
And because of his position of power, he held the power of life
and death over everyone in his realm.
Because Henry
was remote from the actual process of execution, I'm sure that he
became desensitized to such death. As for the prosecution and
executions of people who refused to swear to the Oath of
Succession, that was an even more impersonal situation, as Henry
only knew a handful of them personally. As for hating women, the
opposite seemed to be true, but Henry was more driven by the need
of a male heir than he was by love of any one particular woman.
Unfortunately, because of his peculiar mental makeup, and his
power as ruler, this gave him the ability to choose execution for
those wives who he believed betrayed him.
Q: Will you
tell me what I should write about for my project, or look up
sites on the Internet that have more information about Henry
VIII, his wives, his palaces and his children for me? Would you
write something about Henry for me and email it to me, or to my
professor in my name?
A: This is
the most frequently asked question of all, and after two years of
spending many hours "helping" people (though I never
wrote a paper for anyone, but I spent a lot of time trying to
help people get information they could have found themselves),
I've got to say that the answer has to be no. When I first put up
my Henry page, there was only one other Tudor site on the
Internet -- now there are hundreds. They are easily found by
using search engines like Google, HotBot, Infoseek, Yahoo and Alta
Vista. Be sure to
search not only on the term you are looking for, like
"Windsor Castle", but try broader search terms such as
"Tudor palaces" or "Tudor architecture. Use the
links I have on my links page to find other Tudor sites. Check
their links pages for other sites. There's lots of information
out there. Also, don't forget your school and public libraries.
Internet information isn't always the most accurate, or the most
comprehensive. have gotten so many requests of late to the effect of
"you have to help me with my term paper, it's due tomorrow,
so please tell me what the religion was that Henry VIII created and
how it changed world history, and please hurry"
that I have been forced to remove both my guestbook
and email address from this website.