Nobility is the equivalent of organized crime.
Like a dog returning to its vomit, America keeps flirting with royalty...
 |
 |
Posted on 01/28/2018 9:43:51 AM PST by beaversmom
1
Henry VIII was slim and athletic for most of his life
At six feet two inches tall, Henry VIII stood head and shoulders above most of his court. He had an athletic physique and excelled at sports, regularly showing off his prowess in the jousting arena.
Having inherited the good looks of his grandfather, Edward IV, in 1515 Henry was described as “the handsomest potentate I have ever set eyes on…” and later an “Adonis”, “with an extremely fine calf to his leg, his complexion very fair…and a round face so very beautiful, that it would become a pretty woman”.
All this changed in 1536 when the king – then in his mid-forties – suffered a serious wound to his leg while jousting. This never properly healed, and instead turned ulcerous, which left Henry increasingly incapacitated.
Four years later, the king’s waist had grown from a trim 32 inches to an enormous 52 inches. By the time of his death, he had to be winched onto his horse. It is this image of the corpulent Henry VIII that has obscured the impressive figure that he cut for most of his life.
2
Henry VIII was a tidy eater
Despite the popular image of Henry VIII throwing a chicken leg over his shoulder as he devoured one of his many feasts, he was in fact a fastidious eater. Only on special occasions, such as a visit from a foreign dignitary, did he stage banquets.
Most of the time, Henry preferred to dine in his private apartments. He would take care to wash his hands before, during and after each meal, and would follow a strict order of ceremony.
Seated beneath a canopy and surrounded by senior court officers, he was served on bended knee and presented with several different dishes to choose from at each course.
3
Henry was a bit of a prude
England’s most-married monarch has a reputation as a ladies’ man – for obvious reasons. As well as his six wives, he kept several mistresses and fathered at least one child by them.
But the evidence suggests that, behind closed doors, he was no lothario. When he finally persuaded Anne Boleyn to become his mistress in body as well as in name, he was shocked by the sexual knowledge that she seemed to possess, and later confided that he believed she had been no virgin.
When she failed to give him a son, he plumped for the innocent and unsullied Jane Seymour instead.
4
Henry’s chief minister liked to party
Although often represented as a ruthless henchman, Thomas Cromwell was in fact one of the most fun-loving members of the court. His parties were legendary, and he would spend lavish sums on entertaining his guests – he once paid a tailor £4,000 to make an elaborate costume that he could wear in a masque to amuse the king.
Cromwell also kept a cage of canary birds at his house, as well as an animal described as a “strange beast”, which he gave to the king as a present.
5
Henry VIII sent more men and women to their deaths than any other monarch
During the later years of Henry’s reign, as he grew ever more paranoid and bad-tempered, the Tower of London was crowded with the terrified subjects who had been imprisoned at his orders.
One of the most brutal executions was that of the aged Margaret de la Pole, Countess of Salisbury. The 67-year-old countess was woken early on the morning of 27 May 1541 and told to prepare for death.
Although initially composed, when Margaret was told to place her head on the block, her self-control deserted her and she tried to escape. Her captors were forced to pinion her to the block, where the amateur executioner hacked at the poor woman’s head and neck, eventually severing them after the eleventh blow.
See Titulus Regius.
Except these days they can’t wait to surrender to the caliphate.
><
That’s an excellent point. They will find out that their new masters won’t be benevolent. I feel sorry for the children.
The Tudors was excellent and very interesting. It made my trips to England much more meaningful; especially the Tower when you see the location where Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard got the boot!
Just finished Reign, which probably should have been titled Mary Queen of Scots 90210. Talk about teen dramas... And Mary sure did cry a lot... But it seems they ran out of time and barely touched on Mary Stuart's marriage to Henry Stuart (Lord Darnley) and totally skipped her third marriage to James Hepburn (Earl of Bothwell) and jumped ahead to 20 years later with Mary in England heading to the executioner. Though I did like the actors who play Henry II, Catherine De Medici and Stephane Narcisse.
Yes, they destroyed Titulus Regius. Luckily, one showed up a couple of centuries later and it laid out the reasons why they passed over the young Edward.
He was badly maligned. In his short time on the throne, he was a good king. Especially for the commoners.
Considering they were allying with Spain to take her throne and have her killed should she have served them tea and cookies?
Sometimes it just sucks to be a human.
Tudors is solid all the way to the very end.
Who had the most to gain by the death of Edward's sons? Who had the means to get rid of them? The majority of the people alive at the time believed that he murdered his nephews. He was not a popular King. I've never heard of Von Poppelau's claim in any of the books I've read. The boys were never seen again outside the Tower of London. There were pretenders but the truth of their backgrounds were discovered. The Royal Family will not allow DNA testing of the bones that were found beneath a Tower staircase in 1674. Maybe some day that will be allowed to occur.
Prior to his petitioning his Titulus Regius to Parliament...justifying his right to rule as King, Richard had eliminated many of the individuals who had opposed his claim to the throne, which left many absences in Parliament. Nothing sends the message of "support me or else," more than executing the Lords who refused to support your claim. One of his biggest supporters, the Duke of Buckingham had turned on him. He was hunted down and executed. Richard also confiscated monies, titles and estates from those Lords who had opposed him. He stripped Elizabeth Woodville of all the land given her by Edward IV, and then he rewarded his supporters. Once he got what he wanted from Parliament, he dissolved it. His only Parliament opened at Westminster on 23 January 1484 and sat for less than a month before being dissolved. Once Henry Tudor became King, Richard's Titulus Regius was overturned by Parliament.
There are plenty of theories on both sides regarding what happened to the Princes. I choose to believe, based on evidence presented in many of the books I've read, that he murdered his nephews. He had the motive, and the means. There is no proof that he didn't have them killed. It's been suggested that one of the reasons the Duke of Buckingham turned on Richard III was because of his plans to have the Princes murdered. Of course that's speculation, just like a so-called German diplomat's claims the boys were still alive in 1485. Having worked for 25 years in law enforcement, I'm more prone to believe that Richard of Gloucester was a low-down, murdering scoundrel.
If anyone, besides Edward V, and Richard, Duke of York had claim to the throne, it was Edward Plantagenet, George, the Duke of Clarence's son. George had managed to tick off his brothers by supporting the Earl of Warwick (his father-in-law) in rebelling against Edward IV. He was condemned, and put to death by his brother, the King. A Bill of Attainder against his succession was introduced by Edward IV to Parliament, which Richard, Duke of Gloucester could have petitioned Parliament to be reversed, but he never did. He wanted the crown for himself.
Went there twice. It's been suggested that the spot noted as the actual site of Anne's execution, may have actually been at another spot on the Tower grounds. I've heard this in a few British documentaries I've watched, and found some info here:
I presume you are talking about The Tudors that first appeared on Showtime and had Jonathan Rhys Meyers playing Henry VIII?
I tried to watch it and while I could see it as perhaps being entertaining, I couldn’t get past all the glaring historical inaccuracies, the bad casting, poor dialogue, costuming not being of the correct period, ….
for later
Nobility is the equivalent of organized crime.
Like a dog returning to its vomit, America keeps flirting with royalty...
|
|
Of course not. She wanted to keep her throne, and did what she had to do to remain on it. I don't think there was ever a time when she didn't feel threatened. In a way, as she got older, she became just as paranoid as her father. But in her case, it was probably justified.
As much as I've read on the Tudors and British History in general, I'm still baffled by the fact that the people didn't rebel when Henry broke from Rome, and established himself as the Head of the Church in England. All the upheaval, and destruction of the monasteries, just so he could get rid of his Catholic wife, and marry another woman. Makes me wonder what history would have been like if he hadn't indulged his own selfish wants, and stayed married to Catherine of Aragon.
In the present day, the people of England have once again, simply sat back, and watched another religion take over their country.
Henry also looted all of the monasteries and rewarded those who pledged allegiance to him with the lucre.
Perhaps that is why the nobility didn’t revolt.
Edward, indeed, married Eleanor Talbot. Robert Stillington was a witness to it. Here is Paul Murray Kendall on the subject: “In the eyes of the Church, the essence of marriage was consent, a mutual interchange of personal vows; therefore, betrothal had the force of a legal tie and the sanction of sacred obligation.” Henry 8 used Anne Boleyn’s supposed betrothal to the Earl of Northumberland to get rid of her. We cannot view betrothal in a modern way. It was legally binding and used to put aside a child king who would have been a disaster given his villainous mother and her villainous and rapacious family.
Nicholas Von Poppolau was a diplomat, not a “so-called” diplomat. His account of staying with Richard 3 several months before Bosworth Field is one of the few real glimpses we have of this maligned king. He reports that the boys were alive. Von Poppolau turns up in every decent history book written about R3. There is now a tantilizing hint put forward by my friend, Stephen Lark, that the children were seen at Gipping Hall in Suffolk. That was the ancestral home of the much-maligned and lied-about Sir James Tyrell. It’s been suggested that this is where they were sent before slipping into the continent. (This is still speculation.)
I’m not going to bandy words and try to prove a negative - even with a law enforcement professional. Believe what you want to believe about the disappearance of those children. But I wouldn’t take the remains in the urns at Westminster Abbey too seriously. From their brief examination we are not even sure if they were male or female or from what era they were from. And one had a serious jaw disease. Neither of the princes was reported to have that. Elizabeth 2 will not allow the urn to be reopened - perhaps Charles will. I think it will be akin to Al Capone’s vault.
Sometimes it just sucks to be a human.
><
That’s true. But it helps a lot not to be stupid like those who get taken in by their lack of discernment. That some people accept Islam for something it is not (religion of peace) and cannot see one thing wrong with people like Obama or Hillary, is truly sickening.
In this case people knew the back ground of the marriage which was as follows.
Katherine of Aragon was his older brother's widow. That means by Church law he could not marry her as she was his sister. Which was fine by him as he had no wish to marry a woman that was six years his senior. What 11 year old boy would?
But he was forced into the marriage with the Pope granting a dispensation (because the marriage was against Church law) and Katherine swearing that she was still a virgin because horny 16 year old boys are well known for not touching their wives.
When Henry turned 14 he legally renounced the marriage.
Katherine's dad then named her as ambassador to England so she could have a reason to stay there and get her hooks into Henry.
Finally four years later after his father extracted a death bed promise from Henry he married Katherine. This now makes the marriage three time a violation of Catholic Church law.
He did not enter the marriage of his free will, they were within four degrees of consanguinity by blood and it was incest by marriage .
After seven pregnant that resulted in only a living female heir Henry had finally had enough. He decided that him marriage was not fruitful because God was punishing him for his unlawful marriage. He then asked the Pope for an annulment.
He was well within the bounds of church law to ask for this but Spain wanted England and with their plan to marry Mary to her cousin, Philip of Spain (also a violation of Church law but what was one more?) it was in reach. The Pope was inclined to let that happen. England had long been a thorn in the Roman Catholic Church's side while Spain was far more likely to jump when the Pope said "Frog."
So the Pope told Henry no.
This left Henry feeling betrayed. He was a good son of the Church, so much so that he had been given the title of "Defender of the Faith" by the pope for his argument against Martin Luther.
He was living in sin and the Pope was telling him that he could not get out of it.
The legitimacy of Mary could even be called into question meaning that he might not only did not have a legitimate male heir, he might not even have a legitimate female one.
England had just gone though a century of war because of kings not having properly born heirs. It was not going to happen again.
You have to wonder how history would have changed if the Pope had followed his own Church laws and granted the annulment.
Henry would have likely married a proper Catholic princess and kept Ann as his mistress.
“At least Liz the First wasn’t paranoid. The Catholics really were out to get her.”
Interesting theory. My view. Elizabeth’s rule of 50+ years and punishment of Catholics was not justified self-defense.
Henry VIII? Loser who started a religion like Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard. He delayed the progress of metallurgy, beer making and global marketing. Notice how the industrial revolution in England started in 1850 with textiles, not 1650.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.