Henry VIII and the men who made him

 

Henry VIII and the men who made him – by Tracy Borman

This was a great book about a terrible man.  I’m convinced that if Henry VIII would have been a ruler in the twentieth century with bombs and tanks at his disposal, he would have been remembered as more diabolical and evil than Hitler and Stalin combined. 

Most people know Henry VIII as the king who had “all of those wives”. They then ask “Didn’t he kill them all or something?”  Well, not all of them. Anyway, I bring this up because the subtitle of this book “and the men who made him” was probably added because this book doesn’t mainly focus on the man’s hapless romances.  Yes, we read about them, but they don’t take center stage. This book is more about the man’s life as a whole, and there were an awful lot of men in the background making things happen.  Most found themselves playing the politics game, frequently switching alliances and many ended up beheaded.  Henry VIII was not a fun man to have as your king.

He was not the first in line to be crowned. He was the second son of Henry VII. The kingdom was supposed to be passed on to his much more responsible older brother Arthur.  As was very common in those days, Arthur died very young and the throne then went to his impulsive irresponsible little brother.  We read an awful lot of these early days, which I found very rewarding; perhaps because this was the era that I knew about the least.

The biggest problem with Henry VIII is that he was obsessed with producing a male heir, which in effect he was never actually able to do – one that lived anyway.  Essentially, one could argue that it was his repeated failures to achieve this goal that essentially turned him into the madman he eventually became.  He didn’t produce a son until wife #3, and she died in childbirth (at least he didn’t kill THAT wife).  Sadly, his son never lived to maturity either.   Then there was the fact that he wanted to divorce his first wife since she couldn’t give him a son (you could argue that the real reason was he had the hots for future wife #2).   Since the Pope refused to annul the marriage, Henry basically decided that he (and all of England) would leave the Catholic church and he started his own religion.  With himself at the head of it, of course.  Side note: This is where the Church of England originated.

Well, it just so happened that this was occurring around the same time Martin Luther was seriously questioning the mother church, so a lot of religious squabbling was already going on.  I mention all of this, because this was a big factor of Henry VIII’s reign; the fact that there were so many divided loyalties to one of the two sides of the same faith, and many lost their lives during this period due to persecution from one side or the other.  And yes, many were put to death by Henry VIII as well.  You easily lose track of how many people he had beheaded and/or ended up confined to “The Tower”.

There are an awful lot of individuals in these pages, and yes, most are men.  Many of the consequential ones ended up dead, and you have to wonder if it really was worth it to be a prominent member of the king’s court. It seems like a place one would want to stay far away from considering the king’s bloodthirsty reputation.  It can be a bit confusing trying to keep up with all of the different advisors, distant family members, clergy, rival kings, emperors, allies and adversaries.  I kid you not, there are probably at least 50 different people in this book with the first name “Thomas”.   The author also refers to some people by their names at times, yet their titles at others. This could be confusing as well.  We read about good friend Charles Brandon often early in the book, and at some point he became the Duke of Suffolk.  So later in the book, we never read about “Charles Brandon” anymore, yet instead we read about the “Duke of Suffolk”.  If your memory isn’t as good as mine, this can cause you to forget who was who, and what everyone’s motivation was as well as with whom they were aligned.  It didn’t help that these alliances changed throughout the reign.  I don’t blame this on the author though.  She did as good of a job as any trying to keep the narrative as straightforward as possible.

This was really a very thorough enjoyable account even though the subject matter was rather grim.  It makes one feel not quite as bad wherever they may reside in today’s tumultuous world. Yes, there were times in our history far far worse than what is happening today.