HENRY VIII

Of all the kings of England, Henry VIII has left the deepest impression on the imagination of posterity. The arrogant and colossal pose of the great Holbein portrait, which survives in so many contemporary and subsequent copies, conveys the awesome personality of a man who would still stand out even in the well-nourished society of early twenty-first-century England. Although this was just an image, created by the genius of Holbein, it was successful because it did not belie reality. Henry’s sheer physical presence was remarked by his contemporaries, and goes a long way to explaining just how some of the political changes of his reign were possible. This was a man who could dominate the council table or even, on occasion, the Houses of Parliament: a man to whom it was difficult to say no.

After the portrait, it is perhaps those six wives of his who have helped him catch the popular imagination, which, as so often, has latched onto something of real importance. The six wives are not in fact the emblem of sexual prowess which popular fancy has made them - many kings have been far more extravagant in their amours than Henry, who had an acutely religious if almost athletically flexible conscience - but they do testify to his ability to move mountains in order to get his own way. Henry was a man who would overthrow a Church to obtain a divorce, a man willing to sacrifice ministers and friends, even wives and children, on the altar of dynastic interest.

This is not to say that Henry’s reign is all image and reputation, or for that matter all blood and brutality. For good or ill, intentionally or not, his reign proved a turning point in English history. To his reign can be traced the roots of the Church of England, the seeds of the Irish Question, the birth of the English Bible, the founding of the Privy Council, and the principle of the omnicompetence of parliamentary statute. His reign saw the destruction of English monasticism, which had helped shape the society and landscape of England for nearly a millennium. As a result, it also witnessed the greatest shift in landholding since the Norman Conquest, and saw the landed wealth of the Crown itself reach its highest level ever. His reign, in short, saw something little less than a revolution.

Only one of the Tudor monarchs was born to the throne, and it was not Henry VIII. Born in 1491, his earliest years were spent as second in line for the succession, after his brother Arthur. We know relatively little about those years, and myths have inevitably filled the gaps - most notably the idea that his father originally intended Henry for the Church. No English prince had been ordained since the Norman Conquest, and the idea that Henry VII was contemplating an unprecedented ecclesiastical career for his second son is adequately contradicted by Prince Henry’s installation as Duke of York at the venerable age of three (i November 1494). Moreover, this well-built youth was brought up on a regime of martial exercises, becoming an expert horseman, which does not suggest a priestly destiny.

We do not know much about his academic education, although his tutor was the leading English poet of that generation, John Skelton. Henry was evidently a talented and willing pupil, and his scholarly attainments won him the praise of Erasmus. He grew up an accomplished man, speaking four or five languages, and able to sing, dance and play. He wrote poems, and is one of the few English monarchs to have written a book - and in Latin at that. He dabbled in musical composition, writing songs and even, apparently, a setting of the Mass. Sadly, ‘Greensleeves’ was not by him, but ‘Pastime with good company’ certainly was. He was not above flattery on his musical talents. When Rowland Phillips, the Vicar of Croydon, earned himself a dressing-down from the king on account of a sermon which failed to please, the king’s secretary wryly observed that he might have done better to imitate the example of the king’s almoner, who that same day had preached to the royal household, by working in a few references to ‘Pastime’.