Henry VIII – A Tyrant or Just Misunderstood?
Posted By Claire on June 22, 2010
Henry VIII by Holbein
Thank you for all the wonderful responses to last week’s “Henry VIII: Renaissance Prince and King”. I think it’s so easy to forget that Henry VIII did not always look like Holbein’s iconic portrait and that he was actually a rather dashing and charismatic young man who was eager to stamp out corruption. Perhaps Jonathan Rhys Meyers has helped some people realise that there was something for those wives and mistress to be attracted to and love. The Henry VIII of “The Tudors” does turn into a monster, but there are times when I fell for him hook, line and sinker. We cannot credit Anne Boleyn with intelligence and then believe that Henry was all bad. In my opinion, they had a loving and very passionate relationship, and were similar in many ways, so Henry was not always the stereotypical monster we think of.
In his series “Henry VIII: The Mind of a Tyrant”, David Starkey said:-
“The 18 year old who was crowned here was a slim, beautiful, elegant, musical, poetical, reasonable, charming, sweet-tempered young man who’d married for love. How does he turn into the Henry who is the horror, the Henry who is the tyrant?”1
And this is the problem that we have with Henry VIII and Starkey is spot on when he says that “the man behind the myth is a psychological enigma”.
Last week I wrote about Henry VIII as a Renaissance Prince and King, giving contemporary quotations regarding his appearance, his character, his education and his virtues. There was rejoicing when Henry VIII came to the throne, and he was even likened to the Messiah, yet Holinshed’s Chronicle reports that around 72,000 people were executed during his reign – a huge number! But can we classify Henry VIII as a tyrant or is he misunderstood? Was he a tyrannical monster responsible for cruelty and brutality or was he simply a monarch doing all that he could to protect his country and his people? Hmmm…
Henry VIII: Did Henry Become a Tyrant?
Yes
As much as I love Henry VIII, and I do because he is such a compelling and fascinating character, I believe that he was a tyrant and monster. I’m still trying to understand what drove him and why he became the man that he did. I’m trying desperately to make sense of his psyche, what Eric Ives refers to as “the ultimate unresolvable paradox of Tudor history”2, but the conclusion I have come to is that from the mid 1530s onwards Henry VIII was a monster and there’s no persuading me otherwise. He may have done many great things during his reign but that does not stop him being a man who wanted absolute power at any cost and who used brutality to get that power.
Before we can label Henry VIII a tyrant, we first need to define what a tyrant is. In “1536: The Year that Changed Henry VIII”, Suzannah Lipscomb quotes an unnamed Italian who, after Henry VIII’s death in 1547, called the King “the greatest tyrant that ever was in England” and then went on to define a tyrant:-
“The principal token of a tyrant is the immoderate satisfaction of an unlawful appetite, when the person, whether by right or wrong, hath power to achieve his sensual will, and that person, also who by force draws unto him that which of right is not his, in the unlawful usurping commits express tyranny.”3
Lipscomb also gives a modern definition of “tyrant”:-
“A ruler who exercises his arbitrary power beyond the scope permitted by the laws, customs and standards of his time and society and who does so with a view to maintaining or increasing that power.”4
Whichever definition you feel best defines the word “tyrant”, I think Henry VIII fits them both.
So, why do I think he was a tyrant?
- Thomas More – This man was once Henry’s role model and great friend, yet Henry ordered him to be executed. Suzannah Lipscomb points put that More was originally arrested and imprisoned in April 1534 for refusing to swear the Oath of Succession yet a year later he was put to death for rejecting Henry VIII’s new title, Supreme Head, after Parliament had passed the Act of Supremacy in November 1534, and for committing treason because the Treason Act of February 1535 had made his words and deeds treason. How can he be charged with something that wasn’t made a treasonable offence until after he had done it? Hmmm…
- Anne Askew – I told the story of Anne Askew in “Anne Askew Sentenced to Death” last week. Here was a case of illegal torture and brutality, yet Henry turned a blind eye to it and may even have ordered the treatment dished out to Anne. She was linked to his wife, Catherine Parr, and his best friend’s wife, Catherine Brandon, yet Henry allowed Anne Askew to be racked “until the strings of her arms and eyes were perished” and then burned at the stake.
- Religious divisions and confusion- Don’t you feel sorry for Henry’s subjects? One minute it was ok to be Catholic but you could be burned as a Lutheran, the next minute you could be persecuted for being a Catholic! J J Scarisbrick writes that Henry VIII’s reign “saw the nation acquire a religious discord of a kind which it had not known before and which would soon become bitter and complex, sending fissures down English society to its lowest strata and setting neighbour against neighbour, father against son in a disunity from which that society has not yet fully recovered… this disunity first took root in Henry’s reign.”5
- Margaret Pole – In 1541, Henry VIII ordered the execution of Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, for alleged treason. This frail 67 year old was executed because of her Plantagenet blood and because Henry could not get at her son, Reginald Pole, who had openly insulted the King. Historian Greg Walker writes that “the death of the septuagenarian Countess, so inform and weakened by interrogation that she had to be carried to the scaffold in a chair… marked the nadir of royal vindictiveness”6 and it is clear that the Countess was no threat at all to Henry and she was, in fact, his daughter Mary’s godmother and had been her governess.
- His treatment of others – The way he turned against those he had once loved or shown favour to: Thomas More, Bishop Fisher, Thomas Cromwell, Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, to name just a few. Plus, Lipscombe points out that he had a “manipulative role” in the coups against Thomas Cranmer, Stephen Gardiner and Catherine Parr. Author Elizabeth Norton writes of the coup against Catherine Parr: “By manipulating both the conservative faction at court and Catherine herself, Henry was able to achieve his ends. He demonstrated to Wriothesley, Gardiner and other members of his court that it was his will that was supreme. He also put Catherine firmly in her place and she never attempted to assert herself politically again during Henry’s reign.”7
- Physical violence and threats – We know from reports by ambassadors that Henry lashed out at his advisers, hitting Cromwell on the head, and when Jane Seymour begged her husband the King, on bended knee, to change his mind about the Dissolution of the Monasteries, “Henry pulled her roughly to her feet and warned her not to meddle in things which were not her concern , reminding her of the fate of her predecessor”8 Nice!
- The rise of Acts of Attainder and Executions – However prejudiced her trial, Anne Boleyn was at least given a trial, people like Thomas Cromwell and Catherine Howard were denied a trial, and due process, and were, instead, condemned by Act of Attainder. Lipscomb writes: “The incidence and circumstance of such executions before and after 1536, and especially the increasing tendency not to pursue conviction through due process and common law trial but through parliamentary attainder and a widening definition of treason, provides compelling evidence of Henry VIII’s increasingly savage temper and misanthropic character.”9
- His God complex – I have to agree with Martin Luther who said “Junker Heintz will be God and does whatever he lusts”10 Although there is no doubt that Henry was a highly religious man, I believe that he became corrupted by his power and rather than seeing himself as God’s appointed ruler of England he began to see himself as God of the land and became a ruthless despot.
- The Pilgrimage of Grace – In 1536, during the Pilgrimage of Grace, a priest described Henry VIII as “a tyrant more cruel than Nero, for Nero destroyed but part of Rome, but this tyrant destroyeth this whole realm.”11 and no wonder when we consider his actions when the rebels reopened some of the suppressed monasteries – Henry ordered the Duke of Norfolk to hang some of the monks from those monasteries from the steeple of their own church. He was understandably brutal to the ringleaders of the rebellion but he also ordered executions across the North of England as an example to the rest of the country. Richard Rex writes: “We learn a great deal about Henry from the way he dealt with this broad-based challenge to his entire regime. The idea of resorting to concessions or compromise was inconceivable for him.”12
- The Dissolution of the Monasteries – It can be argued that Henry VIII was trying to stamp out corruption in the Church by dissolving some monasteries but instead of spending the money on good causes – schools, hospitals, universities, almshouses etc., it went into the royal coffers.
- Henry’s treatment of his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and their daughter Mary – After the Great Matter had been resolved, Catherine was stripped of her title of Queen and ended her days in relative poverty and poor Mary saw her father ill treat her mother, was stripped of her title of Princess, was forced to wait on her step-sister, Elizabeth, and was threatened into signing the oath of succession. Why could Henry not treat these women with some compassion and respect?
- Anne Boleyn – Whatever your theory about Henry’s involvement in Anne Boleyn’s downfall, his actions are beyond understanding. How could he pretty much shack up with another woman, his wife’s maid, Jane Seymour, while his wife was in the Tower waiting to die? How could he marry Jane Seymour just 11 days after Anne Boleyn’s execution. Anne Boleyn was surely the love of his life, the woman he had waited so long for and broken with Rome for, yet he managed to cast her aside and move on incredibly easily. He may even have plotted her downfall and probably did, if you consider that nothing happened at court without the King’s “say so”.
Those are just a few of the reasons why I believe Henry VIII was a tyrant, however, some do not agree.
No
- He did what was necessary – In the prologue of “1536″, Lipscombe writes that “The prevalence of religious belief meant that crime was conceived of as evidence of sin… As such, painful and spectacular punishment was thought necessary both to deter others and to cleanse society from the disorder and pollution of the criminal’s sin”13, so perhaps it can be argued that Henry VIII’s sometimes brutal actions were necessary for the good of his realm.
- Even his people did not see him as a tyrant – Lipscombe writes that even in the late 1530s his contemporaries were describing him as “gifted, courageous, gentle, noble, brilliant and accomplished” p24. Also after his reign he was remembered fondly as “Bluff King Hal” and his daughter, Elizabeth I, queen of public relations, knew that she should draw on his memory, styling herself as “the lion’s cub”, because he had been a popular and well-loved King.
- He had always been a tyrant – J J Scarisbrick says: “Henry was not notably more cruel afterwards [after his 1536 accident] than he had been before.”14 – The idea that his tyranny did not spring from nowhere, it had always been in his character. He did not become a tyrant.
- The Pilgrimage of Grace – Henry’s belief that he was only accountable to God and that the rebels had no right to rebel against him15. Henry was simply squashing an illegal and ungodly rebellion.
- Punishments and executions – Henry VIII was simply responding to threats and “he remained convinced of the lawfulness, wisdom and benevolence of his actions” and ”by Henry’s own estimation, he was doing the things a good King did – it was only his rebellious subjects who were deviating from the orthodox and proper way.”16
- We cannot judge a 16th century king by our 21st century standards – He may be seen as a tyrant by today’s standards but he was simply being a successful monarch an doing what was needed to keep the peace.
- Context – Henry was simply reacting to the context he lived in: “For the world into which Henry was born was scarred by hatred, treason and betrayal. For almost 50 years there had been two royal families in England – the House of York and the House of Lancaster – and time and again their rivalry had erupted into bloody civil war, the so-called Wars of the Roses.”17 We have to remember that the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower had happened only 8 years before Henry VIII was born. These were dark times and the Tudors were seen by some as usurpers and not the true heirs to the throne. Henry VIII had to do all he could to secure the throne and deal with any challenges.
Princes in the Tower
What Happened?
What happened to turn the “chivalrous warrior prince” into the “tyrant of legend”18? How can we come to terms with a man who was great in many ways but also so cruel and tyrannical.
J J Scarisbrick has this to say of Henry VIII in his conclusion to his book “Henry VIII”:-
“Henry was a huge, consequential and majestic figure. At least for some, he was everything that a people could wish him to be – a bluff, confident patriot king who was master of his kingdom and feared no one. By the end of his long reign, despite everything, he was indisputably revered, indeed, in some strange way, loved. He had raised monarchy to near-idolatry. He had become the quintessence of Englishry and the focus of swelling national pride. Nothing would ever be quite the same after he had gone.
Yet, for all his power to dazzle, for all the charm and bonhomie, which he could undoubtedly sometimes show, and for all the affection which he could certainly give and receive, it is difficult to think of any truly generous or selfless action performed by him and difficult not to suppose that, even those who enjoyed his apparently secure esteem, like Jane Seymour or Thomas Cranmer, would not have been thrown aside if it had been expedient to do so, along with the many others who had entwined their lives around his, given him so much, and yet been cast away.”
There were definitely two sides to the man and monarch but the good does not cancel out the bad, perhaps absolute power does corrupt absolutely.
In my next article in this series, I will be examining the different theories regarding why Henry turned into a tyrant. Interesting stuff!
Notes and Sources
- Henry VIII: Mind of a Tyrant, David Starkey (DVD)
- Eric Ives quoted in 1536: The Year That Changed Henry VIII, Suzannah Lipscomb, p14
- 1536: The Year That Changed Henry VIII, Suzannah Lipscomb, p185
- Ibid.
- Henry VIII, J J Scarisbrick, p655 of my old and battered Methuen version
- Greg Walker quoted in 1536: The Year That Changed Henry VIII, Suzannah Lipscomb, p196
- Catherine Parr in Danger, article by Elizabeth Norton
- Henry VIII, Richard Rex, p95
- Lipscomb, p191
- J J Scarisbrick, p677 of my old and battered Methuen version
- Lipscomb, p203
- Rex, p95
- Lipscombe, p21
- Scarisbrick, p25
- Lipscomb, p159
- Lipscomb, p202
- Henry VIII, Mind of a Tyrant
- Ibid.
- Scarisbrick, p653
Definitely a feast for thought, but I still am glad I did not live under this man’s rule. It would have been terribly confusing!
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This is a great article on Henry, i definetly agree that Henry was confused on his religious beliefs. Great Stuff thanks.
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I love all of this wonderful information! Thank you so much for posting!
If only Queen Catherine of Aragon would have produced a male heir. …then maybe we would not have all this really cool drama to read about…:)
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He was a monster. Too much inbreeding in that gene pool.
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Thanks for this brilliantly written article, Claire. You have said everything I believe about Henry, but you have put it far more eloquently than I could manage.
There is a quote by Thomas More which I also think sums up the danger of thinking of Henry as a friend and of relying on that apparent friendship:-
‘You often boast to me that you have the King’s ear and often have fun with him, freely and according to your whims. This is like having fun with tamed lions, often it is harmless but just as often there is fear of harm. Often he roars with rage for no known reason, and suddenly the fun becomes fatal.’
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A very insightful article and much food for thought. I still like the idea of him suffering brain injury in that joust and then his paranoia, etc, coming from that. But, his father was paranoid, too, so??? He is such a character that I don’t think we’ll ever understand him–yes, a different time from ours but we have people who show those signs today. That’s why he’s so fascinating–no pigeon-holing him. What other monarch, with the possible exception of his daughter, is so intriguing? THanks, Claire.
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Yep, a tyrant to the core. He just loved hurting people..and he loved manipulating people to hurt others.
Thanks for the brilliant article Claire. Haven’t changed my mind though.
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Great information and food for thought. I certainly would not have wanted to exist within his inner circle-or outside of it for that matter. It seems in the end no one was really safe with Henry on the throne. I can’t help but see him as a tragic figure though, he must have been quite a miserable person. I have always wondered if mental illness might have played a role in his actions and decisions or at least aggravated circumstances. I agree that he became a monster but can’t help but be totally intrigued by him.
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Claire, I think you have said it all – Everyone who got that,man angry suffered. Wish I had time to write more to rant and rave over a person I really do despise. If he believed, in aven then after all he did I hope he is still rotting in Hell
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I think we think of Henry as tyrant because of how quickly he could turn on those he loved. He had a great capacity to love, but for all that he belived the worst in those he loved at the drop of a hat. It’s like he could talk himself into beliving the worst in all people, and because of that he felt he had to get rid of them almost as an example i suppose. Everyone in a postion of power throughout all ages from King Alfred the Great to Stalin, had to deal with enemies and pretenders. that was bound to have an effect on anyone. it would have been easy for Henry to assume that everyone he was close to was their for their own gain and not his the pleasure of his company. Of course it would mess with his head.
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Excellent piece, Claire! You summed up Henry pretty well, i think! (or at least as well as anyone can!) I think the labels of hero or villain are way too simplistic but there’s no doubt that Henrys character underwent some kind of change. Maybe it was through the disappointment of not getting a son or suffering some kind of brain injury or as been pointed out, perhaps genetics played a part as he got older – after all his father tended towards paranoia as well. But I guess that’s what makes him so enduringly fascinating! Whichever way you look at him you can’t say he wasn’t interesting!!!!!
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I noticed a previous comment about mental illness-it could explain a lot. I’ve recommended this site to others in posts on Showtime’s “The Tudors” message board twice now, always crediting you for your wonderful articles. I’m sorry The Tudors is over, but so glad to have this site to read more about it.
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Henry’s treatment of the Carthusian monks in 1535 and his refusal to commute Francis Dereham’s sentence to simple beheading was tyrannical. Neither the monks nor Dereham deserved the drawing and quartering deaths.
I think his treatment of Bishop Fisher’s cook in the early 1530′s was beyond cruel. By boiling that man in his own pot that was horrific and bloodthirsty. Why not imprison the man and fine him or something along those lines.
Personally, I think Henry’s cruelty can be traced back to the beginnings of his reign when he executed Empson and Dudley, his father’s tax collectors for their oppressive taxes. They were doing what his father, Henry VII wanted and required, and did not deserve death. Henry did that in order to gain “brownie points” with the people since these two men were hated and despised.
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Henry was a spoiled tyrant!
He got whatever he wanted, probably his whole life, no matter what it took.
Only a king could change wives, rules and laws so often. People probably didn’t know if they should play the role of the loyal, queen acknowledging Catholic…or the loyal, queen denying Protestant or visa versa…Only the people willing to conform seemed to live a little longer than the strong faithful ones.
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Although Henry was spolied by all the women around him in his youth, his father seemed to have been a distant and very authoritarian person. When Arthur was alive, Henry was not that important to HVII, only the “spare” although, to give HVII his due, all his children were highly educated. However, by the time Arthur died, there seems to have been a great rift between father and son (tpical of many royal dusnasties throughout Europe) and what ever HVII would have liked HVIII would have gone against. Yes, he did execute two os his father’s advisors from the beginning. he married Katherine of Aragon aginst his father’s wishes AND that was before Anne Boleyn came on the scene. He was not raised to make a decision of his own – was always influenced by others until someone else came along to get him out of a spot.
Hiis dynasty was also on a dodgy wicket – HVII could only claim the throne because he had killed Richard III and consildated his claim by marrying the demale Yorkist heiress – but there wer and also in HVIII’s time contenders to the throne who possibly had more clout than the gransdon of a Welsh Horsemaster and his French/wife mistress and the possible “bastard” daughter of Edward IV if the Blaybourne story is to be believed. He must have spent a lot o f his time convincing himself he was in the right and when thing went well, all was jolly, but to question anything he did was the stairway to teh gallows or the block. Katherine of Aragon did not help to control him either which is why I think Anne Boleyn whether it was by her own doing or being set up by her family who had the nerve to say no to him, inially facsinated him. Anne’s prblem was that she could not produce (well in enough time) the needed heir to the throne to consilidate a weak Tudor dynasty.
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Henry survived a brain injury. His actions resemble that of frontal lobe damage. He also appears to suffer a mental illness that of Manic Depressive disorder. His tyrancy mimics that of a person suffering thoughts of Granduer. Granduer that he was entitled to by that of the throne. His behaviour was acceptable to that periiod of time. However, such cruelty toward women and behaviours relative to religion exist even today. i.e The Taliban and that of the Middle East. These may be seen as human behaviours .Henry being engulfed with disease, sepsis a brain injury and psyche illness had every excuse for tyrancy.
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Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely…..Henry was a narcissic,sadistic personality…He believed he was God,,,,and no one male or female could contradict him in any way shape or form….He was also so bound by his beliefs that he thought that God spoke thru him…..Therefore everything he did in his mind was logical and right….when viewed today,,,it is evil in purest form….I also think he had a problem with women in that he may have had leanings toward homosexuality….and these feeling combined with the overpowering need to produce a son drove him to the crimes he commited toward females….
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great article as always! I believe that Henry was a complex sole who was both fickle and spoilt, who had he got his son through Catherine or more importantly Anne would have been a very different king, possibly not as notable as he is.I think his tyrannical nature came from one key element of his character;Passion. The great earnest love he had for Anne which fascinates us was driven by his passionate nature, which is well documented in his youth in his lust for HenryV style war and glory and his competitiveness in jousting and hunting. This passion was compromised by his failure to get his son and as quickly as he cruelly turned on and dispatched good Queen Anne was the beginning of his dissent into tyranny driven by bitterness and guilt.
I do not know how much truth there is in an interesting book from the 1950s which I have mentioned before by W.S. Pakenham, a vicar who became fascinated by Anne’s story and began a psychic journey with several mediums who convinced him that Anne herself was contacting him and urging him to write a play about her to release her and others from their perpetual torment. In one psychic session he is introduced to Henry himself who is angry and unremorseful and who has lived in anguish and confusion since his death. Through Anne and Catherine’s help he is led to understanding of his crimes and they find peace and Anne forgives him. It may be untrue but it is a compelling read which I would recommend. The reason for my mentioning it is that it demonstrates admirably the arrogance of kingship and how far down the tyrannnical path he went. At heart I believe he was good king Hal but he was corrupted by bad advisors, a fickle nature and the unfortunateness of circumstances. Catherine East
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Mental illness and manic depression might explain his recluse behavior in the wake on Jane Seymour’s death, and the idea for Nonsuch Palace.
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Sharon,
What you say about HVIII having homosexual leanings is a new one on me – BUT I do know a lot of gays who were brought up in a completely feminine household (I am not saying all) and whilst they can be charming to women, they can also be vicious and to their male friends as well when they don’t get their way. I have nothing against anyone’s sexual leanings (except paedophiles) as long as I am not involved in their traumas – But it could explain why, if things didn’t go his way, he viciously turned on both women and men alike.
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Hmm, I always thought his indulged, women-filled childhood might have made him a “mean girl” rather than it being any indication of latent homosexuality. Maybe he learned about relationships and how to use drama and manipulation to control them from his grandmother, Margaret Beaufort? She was reported to be an overbearing, drama-loving mother-in-law from hell toward Henry’s mother, Elizabeth of York. And frankly, some of Henry’s back-stabbing, whiplash-inducing (“We’re BFFs – No, I hate you!”) stunts just smack, to me, of the bratty, emotionally immature drama of a high school girl’s clique.
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Margaret Beaufort – a very clever and manipulative woman, knowing when to keep in the shadows and contiinually moving her life like pieces on a Chessboard. Until her grandson took power and turned the tables on her. Are there any books written about her? She must be a study in itself.
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And on cue – Claire has an article on her posted today (June 29th)!
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Claire – it may be my computer which seems to be developing a mind of its own but I can’t find the post mentioned by Carolyn – Any suggestions?
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Hi Jenny,
The most recent post, until I post today, is “Lady Margaret Beaufort” – http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/lady-margaret-beaufort/5849/ – I hope you can find it ok. x
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It is sometimes surprising to analyze the dichotomy inherent in greatness. High achievement seldom comes with a plain vanilla wrap. In the case of larger than life Henry VIII, all of the contradictions reinforce the necessity for boldness the monarch perceived. Without this fascinating king, driven by lust to found a denomination, England would have been merely a pawn in the push/pull Euro-centric sixteenth century.
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I often think Henry fits a lot of the criteria of the psychopath or narcissistic personality disorder. The entire lack of apparenrt conscience, remorse of empathy. The superficial charm belying a chilly inner life where people were all easily expendable. The entirely egocentric worldview, where everything is seen in terms of his wellbeing. The easy self-pity. Such people are motivated entirely by personal gratification, but they won’t always be cruel, because, put simply, they won’t always need to be in order to get what they want.
Just thinking, maybe – if he was such a person – then the ‘morphing’ into a monster is more about the fact that in his earlier days he had less need to be cruel in order to get what he wanted? Maybe he was always capable of it, but in his earlier life the capability was dormant?
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poppsych Reply:
July 13th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Yes, I’m convinced that Henry VIII was characterized by Narcisstic Personality Disorder.
All this nonsense about a bump on the head does not fit the facts. His murders of Empson and Dudley were more reprehensible by far than his murder of Moore (who at least had an opportunity to submit to Henry’s will and thus escape with his head), yet those who want to claim some dramatic change in personality later in his reign, necessarily gloss over that fact.
Narcisstic Personality Disorder is highly explanative, and completely consistent with all the evidence. In particular it explains why he was so charming and “bluff” when he got his own way, along with the manner in which he so often turned on those he had previously held in such passionate or high regard. The co-occurence of these characteristics (great charm and astounding cruelty and disregard for others), which many see as some great contradiction, are predicted for Narcisstic Personality Disorder.
He’s a text book case of Narcisstic Personality Disorder. No further explanation necessary.
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King Henry the 8th was definitely a tyrant even in his day. As it was pointed out, things were different back then, which I completely understand, and I even agree on some of his methods, but in retrospect he was a dormant monster. What he did to Anne Boleyn, Anne Askew, Thomas More, and Katherine Howard was just monstrous and I’m not just talking about the deeds themselves but the way he reacted to their punishments and deaths. He obviously couldn’t care less.
However, even though he was a tyrant and a monster he did some good stuff for England and I agree that he most definitely had some mental disorders–Depression, paranoia. He might of even been bipolar or maybe even a schitzophrenic. Who knows? All I know from what I’ve gathered is that there was definitely something wrong with him and maybe all it was was his ‘mean girl’ tendencies?
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I think there are several things that happened in Henry’s life that sewed the seeds of tyranny. First, he was pretty much raised by his mother and sisters. As the “little man” of that group, he was no doubt spoiled. Of course, the older he grew, the more spoiled he learned to become. His father, Henry VII, was quite paranoid and I think Henry picked up on his father’s fears and buried them deep in his psyche. For a while, in the blossom of youth and new kingship, he could rely on his charm to get what he wanted. Plus, he had Wolsey to do most of the boring stuff so Henry could dance and sing and have ‘pastime in good company.’ But, after he “grew up” and shook off the harness of Rome, took control of his own destiny (heady feeling!) he then started believing his own press–he was God’s annointed, the highest human in the land, right up there with God. I really believe he thought his own will was also God’s will. And that lead to cruel tyranny. Plus, I think the bump on his head while tilting didn’t help much.
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There is sufficient evidence to suggest that good ol’ Henry VIII suffered severe damage to his frontal lobes during a jousting accident. What does this mean you say? Well if anyone has ever heard of Phineas Gage (a miner of sorts who- during an accident- exploded a pole through his brain (left or right frontal damage i can’t remember both of which however are involved with similar processes). Anyway, Gage’s behaviour was documented and although made a full healthy recovery physically, psychologically he was ‘a different person’. Once a good businessman, wife family, realistic goals expectations- all of this was altered with severe frontal lobe damage.
It is believed that Henry VIII suffered a similar fate during a jousting accident- i’m actually writing an essay about it as we speak. I’ll save you the boring details but basically, damage to this are of the brain is thought to impact upon the ‘self’. Patients typically lose concentration, become extremely impulsive and spontaneous and formulate unrealistic, if not ridiculous goals (which are easily abandoned).
It’s interesting to see how some people claim what a nice guy he was and then in some illogical gap a tyrant…some people attribute it to power/ego etc. but i see no reason why a neuropsychological reason cannot be the main. Like Henry VIII, Phineas Gage went on to marry several times (illustrating lack of concentration, boredom etc). The similarities are striking, if you search the internet you will find support for this.
What does anybody think?
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