Vanity of Henry VIII with Kate Lister

Summary

Not Just the Tudors: "Vanity of Henry VIII" with Kate Lister

Host: Professor Suzannah Lipscomb
Guest Interviewer: Dr. Kate Lister
Date: September 17, 2025
Podcast Feed: History Hit – Not Just the Tudors

Episode Overview

This episode delves into the fascinating psychological and physical transformation of Henry VIII, focusing on his intense vanity and the lengths he went to construct, defend, and ultimately mask his regal persona. Professor Suzannah Lipscomb takes the interviewee’s chair as Kate Lister leads a lively discussion, examining Henry’s early chivalric dreams and overwhelming charisma, his spectacular personal style, the trauma of physical decline, and the deeply human vulnerabilities that haunted him in his later years. The conversation is frank, witty, and often "fruity," exploring the intersections of power, masculinity, self-image, and the relentless public gaze.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Destined for the Tudors

[05:10 - 05:40]

• Suzannah reflects on her early fascination with the Tudors, tracing it back to her childhood proximity to Nonsuch Palace and playful school traditions.
• Quote: "It was destiny." – Suzannah Lipscomb [05:38]

2. The Ambition and Upbringing of Henry VIII

[06:11 - 07:22]

• Henry was originally the second son—his brother’s death and his father's control shaped his teenage years.
• Henry VII kept him isolated, denying him the freedoms (like jousting) he later indulged in as king.
• Quote: "His dad was...really a miser. I mean, it's hard to pick out the truth here because of course everybody's praising this young king." – SL [07:46]
• The court’s environment stoked Henry’s ego from a young age, even as his father tried to suppress it.

3. Charisma, Physicality, and Image

[08:00 - 10:30]

• Early Henry was celebrated for generosity, charm, sportiness, intellect, and extraordinary looks: tall, athletic, striking features.
• Contemporary descriptions (though possibly exaggerated) emphasized his “fiery power...way of making each man feel that he’s enjoying his company.” – SL [08:23]
• “He looks like a king, therefore he must be a king.” – SL [10:18]
• Chivalric ideals profoundly influenced his self-image—modeling himself on King Arthur and Henry V.

4. Chivalry, Jousting, and Spectacle

[10:59 - 13:52]

• Henry’s kingship was publicly demonstrated through dangerous and extravagant tournaments.
• Vivid accounts of the king entering tournaments with companies of men in coordinated, jewel-encrusted costumes.
• Quote: “He's literally dripping with jewels...like a hundred of them in purple and yellow and dripping with gold. I mean, it’s insane.” – SL [13:43]

5. Warfare and Realities of Glory

[14:17 - 15:44]

• Henry’s actual military achievements (like capturing Tournai) were modest, but he carefully curated the heroic narrative.
• Thomas Cromwell once called his French conquests “ungracious dog holes.” – SL [14:55]

6. Multifaceted Renaissance King

[15:20 - 16:08]

• Henry’s personal accomplishments: musician, scholar, sportsman, linguist, and hunter.
• His marriage to Catherine of Aragon: a political and personal alliance, with Catherine “putting him to shame” intellectually.

7. The Vanity of Wardrobe and Self-Presentation

[16:52 - 19:48]

• Henry’s clothing budget: about £8,000 a year (over £1 million in today’s money).
• Opulent, power-signifying garments with gold thread, rich velvets, bejeweled details.
• Quote: “Clothes are...not trivial, you know, they’re not frivolous, they’re power.” – SL [18:30]

8. From Peak to Physical Decline

[19:48 - 22:27]

• Henry was “the Dan Snow of kings” into his 40s, but a severe jousting accident in 1536 triggered steep physical and psychological decline.
• Suffered from leg ulcers, rapid weight gain (waist from 37 to 54 inches in ~5 years), and increasing immobility.

9. Excruciating Pain and Its Consequences

[24:57 - 27:14]

• The 1536 accident re-opened old leg wounds that never healed, leaving Henry in constant, debilitating pain.
• Modern comparisons drawn by Kate and Suzannah to living with chronic pain: “I was a ratty, irritable, nasty person to be around. Pain is awful, sustained and constant. It doesn’t surprise me that it changed him, quite frankly.” – KL [26:26]
• Emotional traumas compounded the physical ones in 1536 (Catherine’s death, Anne Boleyn’s downfall and humiliations, the loss of his illegitimate son, rebellion in the North).

10. Public Humiliation and the Loss of Royal Virility

[29:12 - 30:57]

• At Anne Boleyn’s trial, public accusations about Henry’s sexual inadequacy (“neither vigor nor potency...not good at copulation”) dealt a blow to his reputation as a man and king.
• Quote: “This is said in front of 2,000 people...you can imagine how insanely humiliating this is for Henry. Completely undermining, absolutely devastating.” – SL [30:26]
• Start of the flamboyant, outsized codpiece as part of royal iconography.

11. The Codpiece and Masculine Display

[30:57 - 34:19]

• Codpiece—an ostentatious, phallic fashion, exaggerated in Henry’s dress and royal portraits, designed to counteract rumors of impotence.
• Holbein’s 1537 mural meticulously constructed to proclaim Henry’s virility.
• “The portrait...is designed to be seen by exactly the people who’d been in that great hall at the Tower of London...here’s some visual evidence that I can.” – SL [32:31]
• Henry’s proud display of his muscular calves, a key masculine asset at the time.

12. Medical Theories and the Smell of Decay

[35:57 - 37:15]

• Modern theories suggest his vanity (tight garters) may have contributed to his venous leg problems—a bitter irony.
• The unbearably foul smell of his ulcers, and how his courtiers and, notably, his fourth wife Anne of Cleves, reacted to it.
• “He’s talking about himself.” – SL [39:36], in reference to Henry’s complaints about Anne of Cleves’ supposed appearance and scent.

13. Psychological Toll, Beards as Virility, and Decline

[40:07 - 42:30]

• Henry’s stubborn attempts to maintain his image: lavish spending, luxurious clothes, enormous beard (which, at the time, signified manliness and virility).
• Quote: “He will be no more shaven... beards at this time are considered signs of manhood, so they’re linked to the ability to produce semen.” – SL [41:00]

14. Humanizing the Tyrant: Pathos Amidst Power

[42:30 - 43:58]

• Despite his blood-soaked legacy and paranoia, Suzannah articulates a certain pathos for the aged, suffering monarch desperately clutching to tokens of his former glory.
• Kate draws parallels with a textbook midlife crisis: “He’s kind of just been reduced and reduced...and he’s clinging on to his beard.” – KL [42:38]

15. Hidden Weaknesses—Glasses and Solitude

[43:58 - 44:38]

• Henry’s declining health forced him into increasing isolation; later he secretly wore glasses (“glazes”) to read—another vulnerability he tried to hide.

16. The Last Years: Mind and Rule Endure

[44:38 - 46:00]

• Despite dramatic physical decline, Henry maintained a tight grip on power and statecraft—annotating policy, deeply engaged with theology and governance.

17. Confidence or Insecurity?

[46:00 - 47:56]

• Final reflection: Henry’s supreme egotism ultimately cloaked a profound insecurity, worsening as his body and political climate turned against him.
• Quote: “He’s trying to secure himself, which to me speaks of deep insecurity.” – SL [47:53]

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• "Clothes are...not trivial, you know, they’re not frivolous, they’re power."
  – Professor Suzannah Lipscomb [18:30]

• "He’s literally dripping with jewels...like a hundred of them in purple and yellow and dripping with gold. I mean, it’s insane."
  – Professor Suzannah Lipscomb [13:43]

• "This is said in front of 2,000 people...you can imagine how insanely humiliating this is for Henry. Completely undermining, absolutely devastating."
  – Professor Suzannah Lipscomb [30:26]

• "He’s talking about himself."
  – Professor Suzannah Lipscomb, on Henry’s criticisms of Anne of Cleves [39:36]

• "He’s trying to secure himself, which to me speaks of deep insecurity."
  – Professor Suzannah Lipscomb [47:53]

• "He looks like a king, therefore he must be a king."
  – Professor Suzannah Lipscomb [10:18]

• "I think he was in pain...it doesn’t surprise me that it changed him, quite frankly."
  – Kate Lister [26:26]

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Memorable Moments

• The vivid, almost cinematic description of Henry’s tournament entrances, complete with color symbolism and gold-threaded outfits.
• Suzannah relaying the public spectacle (and deep humiliation) of Anne Boleyn’s trial, where Henry’s supposed impotence was aired to thousands.
• Candid, humorous discussion of codpieces—how they served as Tudor status symbols and responses to personal rumor.
• The tragic irony that the king’s love for his legs (and vanity-induced tight garters) may have contributed to his eventual decline and death.
• Kate’s modern parallels to living with chronic pain and its transformative effects on personality.
• The measured empathy Suzannah offers for Henry, while not letting his later cruelties off the hook.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Upbringing and Destiny: 05:10–06:11
• Early Charisma and Ideals: 07:46–10:59
• Chivalric Image and Jousting: 10:59–13:52
• Wardrobe, Wealth, and Power: 16:52–19:48
• Physical Decline and Trauma: 19:48–22:27
• Pain and Character Change: 24:57–27:14
• Anne Boleyn’s Trial and Public Humiliation: 29:12–30:57
• Codpieces and Masculinity: 30:57–34:19
• The Scent of Decay: 35:57–39:47
• Beard and Late-Life Image: 40:07–42:30
• Pathetic Majesty and Midlife Crisis: 42:30–43:58
• Final Reflections on Mind vs. Body: 44:38–46:00
• Confidence & Insecurity: 46:00–47:56

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Tone & Style

The episode is lively, humorous, and unafraid to be irreverent about sexual politics, royal insecurities, and bodily functions, while remaining rich with scholarly insight. Both speakers blend wit and empathy, humanizing Henry without minimizing his brutality. The banter is “fruity,” as Suzannah warns—making complex history accessible and deeply engaging.

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Recommended for: Listeners interested in the human side of history, comparative psychology of rulers, courtly spectacle, and Tudor-era masculinity.

For further listening: Check out Not Just the Tudors’ episode on Henry VIII’s wardrobe, and History Hit’s upcoming specials on Henry’s queens, his portrayal in film, and the dissolution of the monasteries.

Transcript

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb. If you'd like Not Just the Tudors ad free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to historyhit with a historyhit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my own recent two part series A World Torn, the Dissolution of the Monasteries and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward/subscribe.

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[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and welcome to Not Just the Tudors From History Hit, the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to samurais, relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. When I say the name King Henry viii, I'm pretty sure a particular visual image will jump into your head. That broad shouldered, huge man, hands on hips, overweight, overbearing, scowling tyrant of a man who wasn't very kind, to put it mildly, towards his wives. Well, that wasn't always the case with Henry viii. In fact, for a good part of his reign, the majority of his reign, he was quite the looker. And he was known for his charisma. Six foot two, broad shouldered, slender around the waist, auburn hair catching the sunlight, shapely calves. According to the sources, the most handsome prince in Christendom. We've talked before on Not Just the tudors about Henry VIII's billionaire wardrobe. Do go back and have a listen to that episode, if you haven't heard it recently. But I was delighted to be invited by our fantastic sister podcast, Betwixt the Sheets, to talk to the inimitable Dr. Kate Lister some more about Henry VIII, and in particular, the question of his vanity. This was a man who could enter a tournament field with a hundred men in purple and yellow at his back and look every inch the storybook hero he thought himself to be. But by his mid-40s, Henry was battling stinking leg ulcers, relying later on a pulley system to move between floors and facing the humiliating whispers, and in one very public trial, outright accusations that he'd lost his royal vigour. So, for a special treat, I'm going to hand over the reins for this episode to Kate Lister and the Betwixt the Sheets team. While I shuffle over into the interview chair to regale Kate with stories of how the young, hot jousting champion became the suspicious pain ridden monarch in. In a massive codpiece. Oh, and just a heads up, when Kate's in charge, the conversation can get a little, shall we say, fruity, so you might like to have a listen to it first before deciding whether it's suitable for younger ears. Enjoy.

[Kate Lister]

Hello and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's the one and the only, the utterly fabulous Susanna Lipscomb. How are you doing?

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Hello, Kate. I am very well. Great to see you.

[Kate Lister]

It's always amazing to see you. How are you doing? How's life treating you?

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Life is great. I've been away most of the last month filming, including some exciting new projects for history Hit, but now I'm back and podcasting like mad.

[Kate Lister]

I love it. And we're here to talk about the daddy himself, Henry vii. Can you remember when you first got interested in the Tudors? That's your main area of expertise and what you're known for. And do you remember when you first met them, the Tudors? Was it as a small child in a history book somewhere?

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

It was when I was 11 and 12, so in our history class, we were allowed to put stickers on our book and I had Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, you know, from small beginnings. And also I lived very close to the site of Nonsuch palace. So the school I went to at that point was called Nonsuch School, right next to where Henry had built Nonsuch Palace. And I kid you not, I had to walk down a road called Anne Boleyn's Walk to get there.

[Kate Lister]

There you go.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

It was destiny.

[Kate Lister]

Subliminal messaging the whole way through something. I think is really interesting about Henry is his vanity. And I suppose really what that boils down to is his own estimation of himself because he is a man with a huge reputation, well deserved. And I often think it must have been such a strange environment growing up and having people going, right, God's chosen you. Like you are God's representative on earth. Kind of please have a normal sized ego. That was never going to happen.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Yeah. Although I think he was probably cut down to size a bit when he was very young because of course he's a second son and so he's not destined to become king until his older brother dies. And then when his brother dies, Henry's 10 or 11. Although even at that point, I have to say, at his older brother's wedding, there's this amazing occasion where Henry gets so into the dancing that he throws off his outer layer and everybody is sort of charmed by this 10 year old boy, like really getting down. But he's kept confined after that by his father. And Henry VII is a kind of control freak. So he keeps Henry really under lock and key. He's like not allowed out, you know, he's not allowed to joust, which becomes one of the absolute joys of his life. Like he's deeply controlled, even though he's like supposed to be marrying Catherine of Aragon, they're barely allowed to meet. So I think there's a period of what looks like coercive control to me in his teens. And so it's kind of no wonder when he becomes king, when he's 17, 18 years old, I mean, he goes slightly mad. Cause you would, wouldn't you?

[Kate Lister]

You would. And that's the very young Henry. And I was quite surprised to learn that this was a period of his life where he was regarded as very generous, almost generous to a fault, very kind. Everyone's super excited about him. This young, hot. And he was hot. We'll talk about that. But this guy suddenly arrives and he said he rebels against his dad. Was that what he was doing there?

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Yes, I think so. His dad was by the time Stingy died. Yeah, really a miser. I mean, it's hard to pick out the truth here because of course everybody's praising this young king.

[Kate Lister]

Yes.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Because they're telling him what they want him to be. So they're describing him to himself so that he will be this wonderful king. And that's true also about his. Looks like we have to allow for a certain amount of exaggeration. But there is also consensus. And one of the things that comes out is that he is so affable. Thomas More talks about his charisma, his way of making each man feel that he's enjoying his and the fiery power in his eyes. And people do talk about his generosity. And so I think there's this kind of conviviality about him. Like he was a natural leader. He's kind of has this incredible personal charisma and beauty, as you say.

[Kate Lister]

Let's talk about that then, because I know that you said that people exaggerated. Of course, it's the king who's gonna say the king's actually a bit of a minger. But you do sort of get a sense when they're almost surprised by how good looking he is. Some of the ambassadors who meet him, they're like, w, wow, he really is the handsomest potentate of Christendom and all of this stuff. Do you think that he was as good looking as they say?

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Okay, so we've got two sets of different sources to go on here. Like, if you look at the portraits from this period, it isn't the first thing you think, right? So you look at some of the pictures of 1509 or 1520 and he looks kind of insipid. But beauty standards do change and also portrait artists change. So this is the beginning of the kind of great age of portraiture. From the 1520s we get the first miniatures and then we get Holbein's portrait in the 1530s. So we don't really see it in the pictures, but the descriptions are absolutely effusive. And, you know, one man talks of him having a round face so very beautiful that it would become a pretty woman. He's unusually tall. Like he's 6 foot 2 when the average height is 5 foot 7. Think of a rugby player. He has like a waist of 32 inches. He has big chest. Like he's a man to reckon with. And he's physically strong. He's a real sportsman. And he's got this auburn hair, blue eyes. People like talk about twin roses in his cheeks. I mean, he is good looking. And the key thing about this, I suppose, is that they're at this point where they really reckon that physical appearance is linked to, to kingship. Like, so the beauty and strength of the king represents the kind of material, moral, spiritual wealth of the kingdom. Like, he looks like a king, therefore he must be a king.

[Kate Lister]

He must be a king. He must be a great king. I mean, I'm not a Tudor scholar, but for what I have read about this, it seems that quite a key thing to understanding Henry's character, if we can do such a thing from this distance, is that a lot of it was rooted in the chivalric tradition of stories that he read when he was a boy, about King Arthur and the Round Table and what it meant to be chivalrous and what it meant to be a good knight and a good leader. And he absorbs all of that and takes that with him.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Yes. And also about Henry V. So stories about Agincourt and being king of France. And he dedicates quite a lot of time in his reign and loads of money to trying to take back the ancestral lands in France. And this is all tied up with that, because to be a good king at this time, you had to be a warrior, you had to be a champion. And so that, like, risking your life is a kind of required part of kingship. And Henry's really, really good at jousting, which is the way that they practice war, essentially, when they're not at war, they don't know that muskets are coming and they're going to completely transform. Like military battles at this time. It's. You go on with a lance and you're trying to hit something. They've got cannon, of course. But this sense that he needed to demonstrate his physical strength to earn the respect of those around him is absolutely key.

[Kate Lister]

He must have terrified the people around him, like the king. You've got one of them, and in these early days, he doesn't have a heir yet and he's got up on his horse and he's going off jousting. That must have absolutely terrified people.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Yeah. And he does it all the time in any excuse, basically. So, like, you know, it's Pentecost, a joust, it's New Year, a joust. And these things are wildly expensive, these tornado. And as you say, the dangers are real. I mean, these are wildly violent occasions. But he loves them because it gives him a chance to demonstrate his courage, his daring. I mean, his horsemanship, his agility and skill, his stamina, as you say. It's chivalrous. It's all this kind of story from of old. And he gets to have all the women, his wife, whom he's madly in love, Catherine of Aragon in these early years, watching him and sort of adulation, and it's spectacle, fabulous ostentation. This is a story from 1517 where he goes out to joust and it requires dressing up. So the king emerges with his immediate company, maybe 10 of them or so, and they're all dressed in purple Velvet decorated with leaves of cloth of gold, which is basically a fabric made from the metal thread of gold. So it's really heavy and it glistens in the light. And then others of gold damask, all of which are bordered with bits of gold bullion. So he's literally dripping with jewels. And then behind them there are about 20 lords and knights in yellow velvet and another 30 on foot, and then behind them another 40 in yellow satin. And this is the company with which he enters the jousting field. Right. So there's like a hundred of them in purple and yellow and dripping with gold. I mean, it's insane.

[Kate Lister]

How could you not be impressed with that? If you saw. I mean, that is a flex, isn't it? That's a hell of an entrance.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

And he's 25, 26 and good looking.

[Kate Lister]

When you think about what you're doing at 25, 26 and just like how reckless you are and how kind of dumb you are, and now imagine that you were also the king. But he's making good and he does actually go to war. We're not gonna get into too much into the warfare at the moment. But was that a success? Did that live up to his image of the heroic chivalric knight?

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

I mean, they take what they can get, really. I mean, he gets the little town of Terrouane, he takes the bigger town of Tournai. And there are paintings that are made of this. There's one called the Battle of the spurs because they call it that because the French flee so quickly and so all they can see are they spurs. And Henry's depicted at the center of fighting. But of course, they won't actually let him fight the council because as you pointed out, he doesn't have an heir at this point in time. Far too dangerous. But he hangs on to Tornay for five and a half years and he claims it as king of France. And so it goes a little way towards satisfying his ego.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, yeah.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

But, you know, in 1523, in Parliament, Thomas Cromwell refers to these two little places as ungracious dog holes. I mean, they're basically nothing. So he hasn't taken Paris, you know.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, Henry. But I'm sort of getting a sense of like, you could understand why somebody like Henry would have a very high estimation of themselves at this point.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

It's not unfair. Yeah. He's a scholar.

[Kate Lister]

Yes.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

He's a musician. He can play every musical instrument in the room to entertain a visiting French Embassy in the 1520s. He writes music, speaks languages. He speaks a whole number of languages. He is quite intelligent. I'd probably like second rate mind. And he's this great sportsman. He can tire out eight or more horses on a day's hunting.

[Kate Lister]

Wow.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

And so he's quite extraordinary. And then everybody thinks that he's wonderfully good looking.

[Kate Lister]

I mean, this is a recipe for disaster, isn't it? But there's this brief moment where I think he does actually have the goods to back this up. He is the young, dashing, heroic figure and he's married to Catherine of Aragon, who's beautiful and Spanish and he's madly in love with her. And it's like, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Everything we want from a dashing king.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Yeah. And she has a better claim to the English throne than his father did because of her Lancastrian blood. She is associated with, related to all the major royal families in Europe. Like she is a very impressive queen to have at this time. And she's learned and brilliant as well. I mean, she puts him to shame, frankly.

[Kate Lister]

Wow. So when it comes to Henry's estimation of himself, we can kind of get a sense of it in the things that he's doing. But his own personal appearance and grooming, some of the records that we have when he actually is king of what he's spending on clothes and perfume, what kind of monies are we talking about here? Is this a man who looked after his physical appearance as well as working out?

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Yes, I think it's fair to say that he's spending about 8,000 pounds a year on clothing.

[Kate Lister]

Holy wow.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Which is definitely over a million pounds today. And we've got descriptions of some of these things. So first of all, like, I want you to imagine what male clothing at this time looks like. So you've got this white linen undershirt, which is the bit that can be cleaned, long sleeves. You have a doublet, which is the bit from the waist up that's long sleeved as well. And that can be decorated or embellished or pinked, you know, slashed in various ways. You've got the hose, which are basically tight fitting stockings attached to like upper, upper stocks, the breeches which are the big kind of onion shape bit and that's tied up to the doublet with ties which are called points. And the front is closed with the codpiece. Let's come back to that. Then there's the gown which is the most expensive a man can afford. And so Henry's are obviously, you know, decorated, embellished, they're in velvets, they're fur lined. And so we've got one description of a doublet that from 1521, where it's purple cloth of gold tissue. So this is purple in color, the silk is purple, but it's made with these spirals of actual gold. So imagine that in the candlelight, it's lined with black satin and then it's covered at the edges with silver tissue. And he has hoes that match. And this cost the equivalent of £25,000 today for this one outfit. And he loves to wear like these really incredible colours. Purple, he loves purple, he loves yellow, he loves crimson. So it's sumptuous and it's opulent. But the thing is that clothes are not just trivial, you know, they're not frivolous, they're power. And one of the things I think we were saying earlier about exaggeration, but the other form of report that we have of what he looks like and how he's dressed are those ambassadors reports. And those are written for a reason. They're written to inform the King of France, who's Francis I, the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, of what's going on, so that they know how much he's rivaling them. Because to be able to spend all this money on clothing is to say, I can go to war as well. It's an assertion of power in himself, but it's also an assertion of the wealth of his kingdom.

[Kate Lister]

Like, he's dressed every day as if he's gonna go to the Met Ball. Like it's just full on bling.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Wow. Absolutely. I mean, and I mean, to be fair, there's no sort of unostentatious way of demonstrating your wealth in this period. It's not like you can just put on Patak Philippe, you know, it's like, it's very much. It's very much getting in your Portia every day. You know, it's showing off.

[Kate Lister]

So what I'm trying to get a sense of it is just. I don't want to say how far he falls, but I get a sense of the height of where he was in terms of physical fitness, physical appearance, reputation, his, what we might say, of women accomplishments, because it doesn't last. And it sounds like he has an awful lot to lose here. Like, this is a man who values being physical and being strong and being admired, and that is gonna be taken away from him in quite a brutal way.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Yeah, it lasts quite a while, though, Kate. I mean, it's like at least 20, 25 years.

[Kate Lister]

20 years of being a hottie is quite good going.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

It's pretty Good going, isn't it? I mean, so like late into his 30s, early 40s, still looking pretty fine. I mean, he's the Dan Snow of kings. And then it all goes horribly wrong and he has this accident in early 1536. He falls from his horse whilst jousting. It's not a tournament, we don't have any records of a tournament, so he's probably just rehearsing. And we don't know exactly what happened, we don't know if the horse landed on him, but even the weight of his armour would have been really great. And we have reports saying it was a miracle he wasn't killed. And he's unconscious for two hours, which is a huge amount of time.

[Kate Lister]

That would be a hospital job today, without a doubt.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Absolutely. Still no air, no male heir. I mean, he has Mary and Catherine of Aragon is absolutely certain her daughter can reign, but Henry is quite a chauvinist and thinks he needs a male heir. And to be fair, there hasn't been a successful ruling queen by this point. So he has legitimate grounds for thinking that at the time. And from this moment onwards, he doesn't joust again. I mean, he continues to hunt. He's not that athlete that he has been. And you know what happens if you're an athlete who continues to eat after you cease being an athlete like you did when you were. And Henry's diet is not one of moderation, so it's all meat and bread and alcohol and he gets really big. And it's big by Tudor standards. He's not actually exceptionally obese by modern standards. He ends up with a chest of 57 and a waist of 54. But that is within five years. He's gone from a waist of 37 inches to a waist of 54 inches in five, five years. So it's a really steep decline from.

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[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

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[Kate Lister]

For more hey, what's up?

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[Kate Lister]

That really is this accident that he had. I mean, whether he sustained some kind of brain injury that impacted his health going forward, but it also seems that his legs were badly damaged here and there'd been a couple of warning lights on the dashboard about Henry's legs already because he'd had some tennis injury and an ulcer appeared. Do we have any information about what happened to his legs in this jousting accident?

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Yes. So he's had earlier ulcers, he's had earlier accidents. I mean, you know, he's playing sports so much it makes sense. And he had a sergeant surgeon called Thomas Vickery who had healed his legs in 1528. Fun fact, Thomas Vicary is the man who discovered the clitoris.

[Kate Lister]

Another one.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

The women knew about it already, but.

[Kate Lister]

It'S the best mansplaining in history.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

And it's called the Tentigo. He calls it the Tentigo. Anyway, there you go. Just in case you ever need that for a pub quiz.

[Kate Lister]

Fabulous.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

1528 is when men discovered it. But then the jousting accident of 1536, he opens up this ulcer that never heals, so it gives him constant and debilitating pain for the rest of his life. You know, so we have occasions. A year later, reports are saying that the king does not go abroad because his leg is somewhat sore. A year after that, he's in great danger of dying. He goes black in the face because he's having basically dvt. I mean, his blood clots in his legs. It's what kills him in the end. 1541, there's another attack. And this is an ulcer. That's suppurating. It's pus filled. It's stinks. It's an open wound. It must have been so deeply painful. We don't have antibiotics.

[Kate Lister]

No.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

You know, just imagine. I don't know about you, Kate, but I get a little bit more irritable when I'm in pain.

[Kate Lister]

Tremendous pain.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Just imagine that. Imagine that. Over a decade.

[Kate Lister]

You know, I often think that about Henry. Cause if there's one man who's been diagnosed with just about everything posthumously, it's Henry. From syphilis to bipolar disorder to Cushing's disease to all sorts of. I think he was in pain, like, eight years ago. I ruptured two back discs and eventually had to have them surgically fixed. But they don't take you to the hospital straight away. They leave you to see if it heals itself. So it's about 12 months of not being able to walk properly, not being able to do any of the things that I wanted to. And this is with modern painkillers. And it's not at the kind of pain that venous ulcers would give you. I was a ratty, irritable, nasty person to be around. Pain is awful, sustained and constant. It doesn't surprise me that it changed him, quite frankly.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

I wrote about this year of his life some years ago, because 1536 was a year in which he also had numerous emotional wounds. So, you know, he may have been waiting for his first wife to die, but I actually think it probably hit him quite hard when she did. Yes, he. Then, as a result of the jousting accident, at least Amberlynn blamed the news of the jousting accident on the miscarriage that she had thereafter, which was of an infant, a fetus, that they could, at that point, diagnose as male.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, God.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Then, of course, she's accused of adultery. And I believe that Henry fundamentally was convinced that she had committed adultery. And this is the woman he has moved heaven and earth to be with. And she's accused of sleeping with five men, including her brother. And the shock of this, the blow, the public ridicule. Then in the summer, his illegitimate son, who's 17 by this point in time, it looks like Henry's lining Henry Fitzroy up to be his legitimate heir. And Henry Fitzroy dies, and then there's a massive rebellion against him in the north of the country. People who are turning against the doctrine of Henry being supreme. Head of the Church, which is something he's really attached to following the break with Rome. And so there are these multiple occasions across this year where he feels betrayed or let down. So you add all of that to the physical decline, and you can see why he changes.

[Kate Lister]

I think just thinking about the trial that Anne Boleyn goes on for, and I think you're right. I think he probably did genuinely believe this or at least was telling himself this. But what something that's not spoken about a lot is just how humiliating that must have been for this dashing, chivalrous knight prince, is that now his wife is on trial saying that he was crap in bed. Or words to that effect.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Yeah. So this is what gets out at the trial. So the context for understanding this. I mean, obviously this would be terrible at any age, but in the 16th century, they associate a man's potency, his ability to satisfy his wife, with him being a man, like him demonstrating his manliness. And, you know, your ability to control your wife is the ability to demonstrate your strength of personality. And Henry's governing a realm. Like, if he can't control his wife, how can he govern a realm? And so the idea that she has been so unsatisfied by him that she needs to sleep with five men. In fact, he actually composes a ballad where he says, she slept with upwards of 100 men. Oh, Henry, I don't know. So what are you doing there, mate? You're making it worse. That's not helpful. In the trial, her brother is given an accusation, given a piece of paper. He's told to read it and not read it out loud, but he does in his trial, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford. And it says, and we have this only in an ambassador's report of the trial. It says that Anne had laughed with her brother about the way the king dressed. She'd laughed with him about the king's terrible poetry. And she'd said that Henry has neither vigor nor potency and is not good at copulation. And this is said in front of 2,000 people in the Great hall at the Tower of London. You can imagine how insanely humiliating this is for Henry. Completely undermining, absolutely devastating. I don't think it's any surprise that we start to get portraits of him with a massive codpiece.

[Kate Lister]

With a massive cock. Yeah. Tell me about the codpiece. What is that? It's such an odd item of clothing. Yeah. The first time I saw one, I thought it was gonna be like a little cup that rugby players wear. Like A little emphasized area. It's not. It's a full blown phallus hanging off the front. Yeah. Yep.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

It's the facsimile of an erect penis. For about 60 years, men sport these things. I mean, like there's a practical function. Obviously this is what they let down to go to the loo. Right. So it's like. But why they shape it like this? It's clearly designed to draw the eye and Henry's are often differently colored to the rest of his hose. And you know, obviously bigger.

[Kate Lister]

It doesn't take fried, does it, to work out what's going on here.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

It doesn't at all.

[Kate Lister]

Could anyone have a bigger codpiece than the king? Did like everyone come in and like check theirs wasn't bigger than Henry's.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

I love the idea that there's a kind of yardstick at the door. Oh, go change it. You're going to be unpopular.

[Kate Lister]

Stop showing off.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

I mean, the portrait of Henry from 1537 by Holbein, first full length portrait of an English monarch is the one where we first see this in a portrait because most of the portraits are kind of what we would call headshots. And so we've got this picture where Henry is framing it with his hands. It's differently coloured. There's a bow above, like the whole shape of his broad shoulders and his splayed feet is designed to kind of make his body into these two triangles that focus the gaze on the bulging codpiece. And this is painted in a massive mural. It's sort of 3 by 4 meters at the Privy chamber at Whitehall Palace. And I think it's designed to be seen by exactly the people who'd been in that great hall at the Tower of London, the ones who'd heard. He can't get it up. He's like, here's some visual evidence that I can. Because also it's painted when Jane Seymour is pregnant.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, wow.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

In all ways it's testifying to his manliness. And it's so interesting. We're so used to it. We don't think about the fact that actually this is Henry as a man. I mean he's a king but he's not painted as a king. We don't see a crown. He's not holding an auburn scepter. This is Henry as a man with.

[Kate Lister]

Full on rock stamps as well. Legs splayed.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Yeah. Which is really sort of an odd pose for portraits of the time. You only ever paint men in that kind of straddle position if they're a legendary Hero, I guess, or, you know, we've got this sense. I mean, the art historians say about it, it speaks of martial glory because it. It's a bit Clint Eastwood. He looks a bit like he's still aching from getting off a horse.

[Kate Lister]

It absolutely does, doesn't it? And of course, his legs feature very prominently in that one. These sore legs that he's got.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

No sign of them being sore there.

[Kate Lister]

No sign of them being sore. And he loved his legs, didn't he? He used to tie, like garters around them to really emphasize his calves in his youth.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Well, yeah, I mean, that's also because he's a knight of the garter.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, yes, okay, okay.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

But certainly he loved his legs. You're absolutely right on that. Because there's a story about the king of France having slightly spare legs. And Henry did not miss leg day. So he takes the moment to open up the front of his doublet. Cause sometime the doublets can have these kind of skirts. And he shows off his thigh. He places his hand on the thigh. He's like, look at this. Look at my meaty thigh. And I have a goodly calf as well. He says, so.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, my God. That's how we end up with cod pieces, isn't it? It's just this willy waving.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

It is. I mean, I find so fascinating nowadays, like, it's women who show off their legs, but good legs are a real masculine asset in the 16th century.

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[Mario Lopez]

Hey, what's up? It's Mario Lopez. Back to school is an exciting time, but it can also be overwhelming. And kids may feel isolated, a vulnerability that human traffickers can exploit. Human trafficking doesn't always look like what you expect. Everyday moments can become opportunities for someone with bad intentions. Whether you're a parent, teacher, coach, or neighbor, check in, ask questions, stay connected. Blue Campaign is a national awareness initiative that provides resources to help recognize suspected instances of human trafficking. Learn the signs and how to [e-mail] blue campaign.

[Kate Lister]

There was a piece of research published by two varicose vein surgeons in London. It was in 2009. They published it and they suggested that actually the leg sores might have been caused by the garters that he tied around his legs, because that can inflame deep vein thrombosis and that ultimately the infection gets into the deep tissues of the leg and that's what caused the ulcers. That's a horrible irony that it might have been his love for his legs that actually did it in.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Yeah, it's possible. I'm slightly skeptical of the medical diagnosis from this distance because you'd think that scientists, medical people would have a kind of sense of the scientific method and use a certain amount of. I don't know, they'd be cautiously speculative. But actually, they tend to write with such certainty, and we just don't have the medical records from the period to justify that kind of certainty.

[Kate Lister]

They are very, very certain. That's absolutely true. It's as if he's there in front of them. But it seems that whatever was going on, like, they're called venous ulcers. I was talking to a nurse about venous ulcers, and she said that they do smell so bad that when someone's in the hospital with them, you can smell them from three rooms away. And that seems to track with whatever was going on with Henry. And I often think that must have been one of the most humiliating things to know. Not only do you not smell good, but you stink.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Yes. And one of the things I liked about the film Firebrand, where Jude Law played Henry viii. I mean, historically, it goes all over the place, but I thought his interpretation of Henry VIII was really interesting. And one of the things he did was he had this really vile concoction of things made for him to wear as a kind of perfume.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, God. Wow.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

And he told no one about it in advance, so that he would appear on set smelling like Henry did. And everyone's like, oh, God. So you see them doing it in, and they're not pretending. They are just like, oh, my word.

[Kate Lister]

Generally gagging. That's commitment. Although that. That's a really interesting experiment to do, because how do you mask that? Like, imagine you're meeting the king. This is your king anointed by God, the King, and you just like, Jesus Christ. That must have been awful for everyone concerned.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

And I think it puts such a different spin on the Anne of Cleave story, because, you know, the story we're told is that he sees her and. And doesn't like the way she looks, and he's rude about her pendulous breasts and thinks that she's not a virgin, et cetera. But the truth of the matter is, he bursts into the room that she's in in Rochester with a company of men. They're all dressed in the same thing because one of the games at court has been the king appears in disguise. This happened back in the day of Catherine of Aragon. And he's dressed the same as five or six of his courtiers. And how can you tell which one is the king?

[Kate Lister]

So embarrassing. Oh, no.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

And, you know, obviously he's at that early point. He's the best looking, the tallest. So he appears in 1540, dressed up like a jester, effectively and kind of motley. And he grabs hold of her and everybody else, of course, knows he's the king and perhaps could have warned her that he might appear or that he might smell or that he might be a little portly. And he grabs hold of her and kisses her. And she is just frankly and obviously disgusted. No. And I think it's that moment everybody's been pretending all the time. And now someone holds up a mirror and shows him what he really looks and indeed smells like. And that is his complaint. He says she's fat, smelly and not a virgin. Like, he's talking about himself.

[Kate Lister]

When you put it like that. Like she hasn't been informed that she needs to pretend this stuff. Like it's proper emperor's new clothes time, isn't it?

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Exactly. She's. The little boy is saying, but he's not wearing any.

[Kate Lister]

He's not. And he really smells. So as he's getting older and he's going through his wives, he can't exercise the way he used to, so his weight is increasing exponentially, as you said, in just five years, he starts to suffer really bad bouts of ill health, like repeatedly taken to his bed for weeks at a time. He's black in the face. He's like, it's dangerous stuff.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Yes. It's all these ulcers in his legs. Whether it's one or two ulcer or multiple, we don't really know. In the end, that will be what kills him. It's a pulmonary embolism. It's probably a blood clot from one of these ulcers. That is what kills him. And he becomes severely disabled. He puts on a lot of weight and he walks with a stick. And then after some time, he needs to be put in the equivalent of a wheelchair to be moved around his palaces. He has a kind of device that pulls him up from one floor to the next. I mean, he's really Disabled by the end of his life. Life. And actually, there is one other point about his appearance that we should mention that's quite important, which is about his beard. So in his youth, he doesn't have a beard. Anne Boleyn likes him with a beard. Catherine of Aragon doesn't. He has two portraits, painted miniatures in the 1520s. One is clearly for Anne, which is like, with the beard, and one without, for Catherine. But from 1535, he says that he will be no more shaven. And the significance of this is that beards at this time are considered signs of manhood, so they're linked to the ability to produce semen. So if you want to advertise your virility, you do it with this growth on your face. And so from 1540 onwards, this amazing piece of research by Will Fisher that says out of. I think it's like 350 portraits that he's looked at in the century after 1540. 320 of them show men with a beard. They only don't have a beard if they're a cleric or they're a youth, because they're such a powerful testament to manliness. There are styles of beard. There's the sugar loaf or the stiletto or the hammer beam. There are these extraordinary beards. The last piece of evidence for how important beards are at this time is this. When in the 1530s, Henry's exerting himself as king of Ireland, he orders that in Galway, all men's upper lips should be shaved because he understood the power of stripping a man of his beard.

[Kate Lister]

Wow.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Emasculate him.

[Kate Lister]

Wow.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

So one of the things we really see, even as he's declining, even as hunting, is now him sitting on a horse and then driving the deer in front of him. Even as he's unable to walk, he's sporting this massive beard.

[Kate Lister]

God, his beard. Oh, Henry. I know that he was. Well, historians say he's complex. He killed so many people. He just seems to been utterly, utterly vile in so many ways. But there's always a part of me that feels this pathos for this former warrior king, this champion, this erudite man of learning this. Everyone's loved him and he's kind of just been reduced and reduced and reduced. And there he is, he's got his beard and he's clinging on to his beard. And I guess it sort of makes sense, him getting involved with Katherine Howard because he was so ridiculously excited about his young, sexy wife. It's all classic midlife crisis stuff.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Yeah. I mean, he's apparently unable to keep his hands off her. This is what the ambassadors say. He touches her more than he did the others.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, nice.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Oh, really? Because she's maybe 18, maybe 20, and he's 50 odd. So, yes, he's very pleased and of course he thinks that maybe she's going to give him an heir at that point as well, so that's important. And he has Edward, but Edward's very young and children die a lot before the age of 5 or 10 at this point in time. So he needs to make provision for another heir. But, I mean, I think you can certainly extend him some degree of sympathy. He goes through a lot. But I think we're also responsible for how we react to trauma.

[Kate Lister]

There has to be a limit. So one of the things that I learned about Henry recently that I hadn't realized that kind of, again, it gets me. He had to wear glasses later in life, or was it glazes, as they called them, imported from Germany, that obviously nobody saw him doing. As he's becoming sicker and sicker, he spends more and more time sequestering his rooms, reading stuff. He has to wear glasses to read stuff. And it's all this, hiding this from the outside world and trying to present himself as, I'm still manly, I might be fat, but I'm big. I'm married to this young woman, I'm super virile. But the reality is there's this man who's in pain and his body's failing and he's wearing glasses and he's trying to grow his beard out to look tough. And it's just. There's a huge contrast.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

There is. I think what we could say is, I mean, he's still spending just as much or even more on his clothing in these later years. And he still has his hands on power very firmly. I mean, so even in the last month of his life, when Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the poet, is accused of treason, Henry VIII takes the questions to be asked of this young man and he annotates them, he writes all over them. So he's personally involved in all aspects of rule. He's still managing everything. He's still really deeply engaged with theology, for example, like ideas about faith dominate his thinking. Some of the big questions of his reign. And he. He actually very cleverly annotates books that are written by his bishops and adds one or two words that completely change the meaning of a sentence or completely rethink the theology that they've asserted. So he is engaged. Like, I feel like we could Possibly focus too much on the exteriority when there's a lot going on at an interior level. And sure, he shows periods of depression and, you know, we can't excuse him his bloodthirstiness in his later years, but, like, he's not just all decline, is what I'm saying, I suppose.

[Kate Lister]

No, no, that's very true. So, as a final question, then again, I know this is difficult from this kind of a distance. Do you understand Henry to be someone that's supremely confident or somebody that's supremely insecure?

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

I think that those two things kind of go hand in hand. I think in his youth, he demonstrates that extraordinary confidence, that egotism, and his egotism is shown off by him doing a thousand little jumps on his horse or tiring out all those horses or being particularly wonderful at tennis or jousting or whatever. But that reality does not continue. And so he's trying to grasp onto something that he's losing. And at the same time, he has all these attacks on him for good reason, for things he's done, like the break with Rome. There's a moment where the Pope says it's legal for anyone to invade the country and take his throne. There's a moment when Francis I and Charles V are ganging up to do just that. And Henry builds all these fortresses along the south coast to defend England from invasion. There's a moment in 1545 when a bigger fleet than the Spanish Armada arrives on the south coast, the Battle of the Solent, and tries to attack. That's when the Mary Rose sinks. So Henry is subject to threat, and he begins to see threats amongst those around him. But his response to that is so egocentric. He has treason laws passed that expand the definition of treason. It becomes treasonous to call the king a tyrant, which is about the most tyrannical thing you can imagine. It becomes treasonous to imagine the death of the king in words, to even think it, really. And so he tries to sort of pin down everything around him. He's trying to secure himself, which to me speaks of deep insecurity.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, Henry. But also, oh, Henry. Susannah, you have been fascinating. You always are. And if people want to know more about you and your work, and frankly, they should. But where can they find you?

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Well, they can, of course, find me on your sister podcast on not just the Tudors. And we've got a couple of documentaries also on history hit. There's one out already called the World Torn Apart, which is about the dissolution of the monasteries. There's lots there about Henry VIII's queens. And we've got some coming up about things like Henry VIII on film, Lady Jane Grey, Catherine Howard, the wife we've been talking about. So everybody should be dwelling on history hit all the time and obviously subscribed.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you so much. You have been fabulous.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

It's been great to talk to you. Ken, thanks for listening to Not Just the Tudors and to Kate Lister and the Betwixt the Sheets team and my producer Rob Weinberg. And do join me, Professor Susannah Lipscomb next time for another episode of Not Just the Tudors. From History. Hit.

[Kate Lister]

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