Transcript
Mark Gagnon (0:00)
The most infamous king in English history wasn't born to rule. He was trained for the Church. He began as a loyal Catholic defending the Pope in Rome. He was even honored as a defender of the faith. And then a single divorce challenged Rome and the Church refused to bend. So he broke England away from the Vatican and made himself the head of England's church. This is the story of Henry VIII and how faith, power and obsession changed England forever. So sit back, relax, and welcome to History Camp. What's up, people? And welcome back to History Camp. My name is Mark Gagnon and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from all history, from all time, forever. Yes, this is my attempt to understand everything that's ever happened on this big, beautiful planet. And it wouldn't be possible without you. Yes, you, the people at home listening right now. While you're at work hanging out, you know, washing dishes, whatever you're doing, I appreciate you for tuning in and keeping the fire burning. Speaking of which, we just launched X Communities, which sounds like what they did to King Henry viii. But no, this is the place where I'm going to be tapping in with all the lovely campers out there in the world and want to chit chat with me and other like minded folks. Doctors, engineers, lawyers, surgeons. What I'm telling you, this is, these are the people that listen to the show. They're some of the most highly. They're the biggest intellectuals of our day and age. If Voltaire and Descartes were alive, they would be tuning into camp. But you can check it out. We got it in the description and in the comments or somewhere, wherever Christos put it. Speaking of which, Christos, how are you, pal? All right, all right, Christos, we don't have time, all right? Because we're talking about King Henry vii. I'm also joined by my friend David who does ads for the pod. He's also just a pal.
Christos (1:53)
He's really.
Mark Gagnon (1:54)
He's what just diminished the importance of being here. It's hard to build you up when I just talked about how sick Christos is and how awesome and, and all the awesome escapades he's going on.
Christos (2:03)
Confidant, friend, bestie, consigliati.
Mark Gagnon (2:07)
Anyway, where do we begin with King Henry vii? You probably know about his infamous marriages, his lineage of women and his inability to have a boy. You know about. Probably just the general stuff, right? You knew he was fat, but going to get into all the details, everything you didn't know and truly what made this guy so obsessed with his secession? Why he broke the, you know, the entire country of England from the Vatican, why he created his own church and everything in between. So where does this story begin? We're going to go all the way back to June 1491 at a small little, you know, small little home called Greenwich Palace. This is where a sweet baby boy is born. Henry Tudor to King Henry vii. He is the second son, AKA the backup plan, as they say. The spare, not the heir. Most people assumed that he'd end up in the church someday, not running a full blown kingdom. Now, his father was a man who was, you know, he basically ended the War of the Roses by sheer determination and strategy. And he married a woman named Elizabeth of York. Uniting the Houses of Lancaster in York, that is a big deal. This is where you get the famous Tudor rose, that red, white, you know, petaled, woven together thing. This is a symbol of unity, or at least a symbol of what Henry VII wanted the world to believe. It looked really neat and pretty on banners and stuff, even if the actual politics underneath it was anything but that. Now, over time, largely through, you know, Tudor propaganda, that symbol became embedded as English heritage and monarchy found in emblems and on money and, you know, military badges and sports, everything you can imagine that's associated with the heritage of England. Now, growing up, Henry lived in the shadow of his older brother Arthur, the golden heir that everyone expected to eventually one day secede his father and become, you know, the next king. Now, Arthur was trained to be the king. Henry was educated with the expectation that, you know, he's going to be involved in the church and typically, you know, that's how these things go, right? You have the ruling class, the, you know, dominant monarchy, the political force, and then you have the religious class. And if you are a prudent ruler, you're going to have multiple sons and you put them into different avenues. That way you can keep all the power with the family. So King Henry, or Henry at the time was studying theology and got swept up in these, you know, new humanist ideas spreading across Europe, ideas that focus on classical learning and critical thinking and what it means to be human. And he ended up becoming something sort of rare for loyalty, which is like a genuine Renaissance kid. He wasn't just smart, he was physically gifted too. He could knock like knights out of their saddles. And he was like, making music that people liked. And he debated scripture with top scholars from around Europe. So through England's, you know, more enlightened circles, he was learning from you know, acclaimed lawyer and, you know, church scholar, Thomas More. And then Erasmus. Yes, literally, that Erasmus likely visited him at eltham palace in 1499. And he was, you know, he walked away from his conversation with Henry, who was then just 8 years old, and he was so impressed by how sharp he was. And then one day, everything shifts for old Prince Henry. April 1502, his brother Arthur dies. Some say that he died from consumption, which is kind of like a, you know, medieval term for tuberculosis. Others say that he developed a sweating sickness. Basically, it was this terrifying disease that would come on in a few hours and, you know, within a few days you'd be dead. We still don't know the exact cause, but modern analysis of Arthur's remains still can't even solve it. But one thing is clear, that Henry's life changes immediately. Despair, all of a sudden is on track to lead the monarchy now. This whole church dream that his family had is now gone and the crown is just waiting for him. So when Henry VII dies in 1509, 17 year old prince Henry steps into the throne looking nothing like the bloated, you know, infamous fat guy that everyone thinks about. He was tall and charismatic and athletic and he was just in every way the Renaissance ideal. He spoke multiple languages and, you know, was a musician. He was a jousting champion and he understood theology so well that it was impressing actual members of clergy. And within weeks, he married Catherine of Aragon, Arthur's widow. Awkward. The marriage needed a special papal dispensation because church law prohibited marrying a brother's widow, but the Pope granted it, though the biblical grounds were, you know, still debated. Right. The book of Leviticus was, you know, forbidding this, while Deuteronomy appeared to, like, allow it if the brother died childless, yada, yada, yada. All he needs to know is that the Pope was cool with it. And there they were, King Henry and Catherine. And England loved him. After years under, you know, his father, Henry VII's, like, cautious rule, people suddenly had a king that was spending lavishly and wore beautiful clothes and he danced and he made music and he fought. I mean, he was just the pinnacle of what it meant to be a king. By 1521, he even wrote a book defending Catholicism against Martin Luther. Yeah, you know, that not King the og Martin Luther, you know, the one, the guy that nine to five theses, you know, the reformed the church, yada, yada, yada. All you need to know is that the Pope loved it. And he loved it so much that he literally gave Henry the Title fide defensor. This is the Defender of the Faith, One of the highest honors you can get from the Pope. Which, considering what we're going to find out about Henry viii, it's kind of ironic. But even in these early, glamorous years, there were these tiny cracks that were starting to form in his rule. Yes, he was charming, but he also hated to be challenged. He believed deeply, so absolutely in his own rightness. And of course, he was a smart guy and, you know, people even admired him as a kid. So by the time he's an adult, he's like, yeah, who's going to challenge me? And thanks to, you know, this Renaissance education that he got, he absorbed this dangerous idea that kings answer only to God, not to any earthly institution. Because he had so much, you know, biblical and theological background, he was able to justify it. And so those seeds of tyranny were already planted from a young age, hidden under all that promise. And as the years rolled on, the distance between, like, this ideal, know, enlightened Renaissance prince and this, you know, absolute monarch that wants to separate his country from the church kept shrinking. Eventually, those two versions of Henry would collide with consequences that, you know, didn't just upend marriages or, you know, get his ex wives killed, but literally just tore England's entire religious world apart. Now, before Henry even married his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, she had technically already been queen, at least for a little bit. So back in 1501, she arrived in England at 15 years old, a Spanish princess meant to, you know, seal this major political alliance and marries Henry's older brother, Arthur. And the wedding was everything that you would expect, right? It's this huge ceremony with all the symbolism, the uniting of these two, you know, political alliances and, you know, massive expectations. And then just five months later, Arthur's dead. So that left Catherine stuck in England in a very awkward way. Right? She's too valuable to send back to Spain, but also too politically complicated to fully commit to a new suitor. So she spent the next seven years in kind of this strange limbo. Her house was underfunded and her rank was sort of blurry. Like, was she the princess, the queen to be? Meanwhile, her father Ferdinand and Henry VII argued over her future like two businessmen trying to figure out, like, a deal. And hovering over all of this was the question, one that wouldn't matter so much at the time, but would one day tear all of England apart. The big question was, did Catherine and Arthur consummate the marriage? Now, you understand what this means? Catherine swears that they didn't, which is tough, right? I promise. Dude, it's still good. All right, now, Arthur, you gotta understand, he was sick, all right? Like, you know, this, this. This consuming that he had, not consummation consuming. Like, if he had tuberculosis or, you know, the sweating sickness, he wasn't feeling well from the get go. So this marriage is short, and the bedding, if, if you will, according to her, never happened. And biblically, it matters. If Arthur dies childless, then Henry is allowed to marry her. And Henry believed her, the Pope believed her, and dispensation is approved. So when Henry marries her in 1509, the whole issue was done right. In those early years, England genuinely looked like it was stepping into this new golden age. Henry was obsessed with this idea of martial glory. He wanted to be the new Henry V and reclaim French lands and prove that he was a warrior king and bring England to a height that it had never seen. And in 1513, he launched an invasion of France. And it cost a fortune and achieved basically nothing. They captured, like, two small towns, and that was basically it. But while Henry was off trying to, you know, be this medieval hero, Catherine was back at home doing something more impressive. She was, in a way, running the country, and she was very good at it. When James IV of Scotland used Henry's absence to invade England, Catherine reacted instantly. She mobilized an army, sent them north under the Earl of Surrey, and watched as the Scots were crushed at Flodden Field. Seven to 10,000 Scots died that day, including their king. Catherine sent Henry James IV's bloodstained coat, suggesting that he might want to use it as a banner. She's not like a decorative trophy queen. She was like a real military leader. But military victories can't secure a dynasty, right? Only heirs can, and more specifically, only sons. So Catherine becomes pregnant pretty quickly, but the baby was stillborn. And then came another pregnancy. A son finally right, who only lived 52 days. And then another, and then another. And nine years. She endured six or more pregnancies, but only one child survived. Mary, who was born in 1516. And Henry adored Mary, but everyone knew the truth, that a daughter can't guarantee the Tudor line. And last time England tried a reigning queen, Empress matilda, in the 1100s, it spiraled into, like, 20 years of civil war. And Henry knows this, so he starts looking for signs. And in 1519, he got one. Or at least he thought that he did. His mistress, Elizabeth Blount, gave birth to a healthy son. Henry proudly named him Henry Fitzroy. And by 1525, he made him Duke of Richmond, a title that basically is just telling everyone, like, hey, this is a potential error. This. This guy could do it. So to Henry Fitzroy's existence proved that the problem wasn't him. Who is it? It's Catherine. Meanwhile, the political world around him was shifting really quickly and not in England's favor, because grand European power games that are always going on. England wasn't top tier. It was stuck between two giants. Francis the first of France and Charles V, a Habsburg emperor whose empire stretched basically across half the continent. Now, Henry was the ambitious outsider. He was coming in to shake up the whole game and was determined to prove England deserved a place among them. So every war, every summit, every dazzling display, it wasn't just ego. Of course. Ego was a part of it, but it was Henry forcing Europe to treat him and the rest of England as a serious power, not the loud king of a little island on the edge of the map. So Henry spent enormous amounts of money trying to play this diplomatic game, including the field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. This was a massive, glittering meeting with Francis the First of France that basically proved one thing. Kings can spend a lot of money without really doing anything. Then Henry pinned his hopes on an alliance with his nephew, the young Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. But Charles had no interest in being the sidekick to England. So by 1527, that alliance is basically done. And Charles controlled an empire stretching across Spain, Netherlands, and even into Italy and the expanding lands in the New World. And Catherine, well, she was his aunt. This connection would soon become Henry's worst nightmare ever, because by 1527, Henry believed that he had three reasons, three justifications to basically change everything. One, a theological argument to end his marriage. Two, a political argument to break away from Rome, and three personal reasons. And that personal reason was a woman named Anne Boleyn. So by the late 1520s, a brilliant young king who once seemed destined for greatness and to, you know, reclaim England and bring it into the world stage, started to feel boxed in. He had this marriage without kids or without sons specifically. And diplomatic failures that kind of isolated England even more. And by the growing belief that God was punishing him for marrying his brother's widow, all that pressure was building towards this moment that would just change England forever. And it would all begin with one man's obsession and one woman who refused to be the side piece. Now, Anne Boleyn wasn't considered a classic Tudor beauty, not if you listen to the people writing at the time, according to descriptions, which, again, I'm not bashing a you Know, a woman here, she had dark eyes, a long neck, slim, striking face. But what really set her apart was her mind. In. In a court where women were kind of just expect to, like, smile and wave and stay quiet. This sharp mind could be dangerous. What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break real quick because we gotta have some real talk, all right? 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It is a natural support for your testosterone. Look, you can buy all of these, you know, supplements separately or you can just go to Mars Men and get it all in one case. Now let's get back to the show. Ann had spent years in the French court absorbing culture and politics and understanding this social game. She learned how influence works and, you know, how to be subtle and strategic and intellectual. So when Henry VIII started pursuing her in 1526, she did something that no one saw coming. The king's like, yo, can I get that? And she says, nah. She goes, not like a timid, like, oh, I mustn't, but like a firm, like, no, I'm not going to be your side piece. I'm not going to be a mistress. If he wanted her, you got to, you got to wipe me up, put a ring on it. And that decision, as simple as it sounds, lit the fuse that would basically blow apart the English courts and really the entire religious landscape of Europe. Henry was obsessed. He wanted what he couldn't have. We still have the letters he wrote to her. Emotional and frustrated like, kind of needy, especially for, like, a king. This was a guy who never got told no in his life and suddenly is begging for the attention of a woman who just kind of kept him at a distance. Which, I'm just saying, if there's any ladies listening, you can use that to your advantage. Right? It worked on Henry viii. Like, it'll work on Joe that, you know, as a mechanic or something. Like, just be like, hey, I'm good.