The Rotten End of Henry VIII
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How did Henry VIII’s physical decline and paranoia shape his final years?
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Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.
By the final years of his reign, Henry VIII had achieved much of what he had once fought for. He'd broken the power of Rome in England, he'd made himself supreme over the English Church, and finally he had a legitimate son to inherit his throne. Yet victory had brought him remarkably little security. The court of the fifteen forties was a dangerous place. Thomas Cromwell, the minister who had helped Henry break with Rome and transform royal government, was suddenly got rid of. Catherine Howard brought youth and excitement back into the king's life and then went to the scaffold. Even Catherine Parr, Henry's sixth and final wife, came frighteningly close to arrest. Meanwhile, the king himself was deteriorating.
Chronic ulcers and restricted mobility left him increasingly imprisoned by his own body. But the ambitions of the young warrior prince had never quite disappeared. Henry still wanted glory. He returned to war against France and Scotland, spent enormous sums of money, and continued to present himself as the formidable Renaissance monarch he had once been. In this concluding episode, Dr. Joanne Paul, author of Tyrant, a forthcoming new study of Henry VIII, and I enter Henry's final court and confront the question that has hung over this entire series. What did Henry VIII actually leave behind? A stronger monarchy and a sovereign English state? A shattered religious inheritance, depleted treasury and traumatized political class.
Or something far more complicated. And when we call Henry the Eighth a monster? Do we risk missing the more disturbing story? Of how an admired and charismatic prince gradually became a tyrant.
Doctor Joanne Paul, this is our last episode on Henry the Eighth and listeners will be pleased to know that we are going to kill him at the end of it.
At the beginning of fifteen thirty eight, say. Henry is recently a widower, Jane Seymour has died after giving birth to Edward, and Henry is for the first time in his adult life. Single. This is a period in which his paranoia is also growing, though for good reason.
Let's
talk about some of the events of fifteen
thirty eight. Really, I think the the seismic event of fifteen thirty eight happens at the end, just before Christmas, and that's when the Pope finally excommunicates Henry VIII. And I say finally because there had been talk of it twice before, uh and actually in fifteen thirty five after the deaths of Moore and Fisher. A papal bull of excommunication had been drawn up, had been drafted, it was just never executed. And so that's actually finally put into play at the end of 1538, along with a a new sort of preface to it, which explains why they're doing it. And it is still because of all the horrible things that he had done, fifteen thirty-five in particular. Uh, but it's also to do with something that happens in fifteen thirty eight, in the summer of fifteen thirty eight.
And that's the destruction. Of the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury. This is seen as actually one of the worst acts of Henry's reign. To us now, it pales in comparison to the loss of life, of course. But this is the desecration of a shrine, and not just any shrine, but the shrine of someone who had stood up against King Henry and been.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Henry VIII’s physical decline and paranoia shape his final years?
0:01–8:04
2
What was the significance of the 1538 excommunication and the destruction of Thomas Becket’s shrine?
8:04–14:54
3
How did the dissolution of monasteries and the funding of wars affect England’s treasury?
14:54–20:38
4
Why did Henry VIII marry Anne of Cleves and how did that marriage end?
20:38–27:32
5
What led to Catherine Howard’s rise and rapid downfall?
27:32–33:22
6
How did the 1544–1545 French invasion attempt and the Battle of the Solent impact Henry’s reign?
33:22–39:46
7
What were the religious reforms and parliamentary acts Henry pursued in his last years?
39:46–46:47
8
How did Henry VIII’s death in 1547 set the stage for the turbulent succession?
46:47–56:24