Henry VIII Was Ever Inch A King Both Physically And Mentally; He Was No More Vicious Than Many Kings

❝ Henry VIII was ‘ever inch a king’ both physically and mentally; he was ‘no more vicious than many kings who have maintained a fair reputation in history’ and as for ‘the greatest and most critical of changes of his reign’, he himself was their ‘main originator’. The king, in fact, was ‘neither the puppet of parties nor the victim of circumstance, nor the shifty politician, nor the capricious tyrant, but a man of light and leading, of power, of force and foresight, of opportunities and stratagems and surprises, but not less of iron will and determined purpose ”

William Stubbes

“For three years of Anne’s reign, Chapuys’s correspondence had been filled with predictions of rebellion. Now, five months after her death, the predictions were fulfilled. First Lincolnshire and then the north rose in revolt. The rebels found a charismatic leader in Robert Aske […] [and they formed a list of demands]. The monasteries were to be restored. Mary was to be declared heir. Cromwell, Rich, and Audley were to be executed or at least exiled. And Anne’s heretic bishops, Cranmer, Latimer, Shaxton, and Hilsey, were to be burned.”

— The Queens of Henry VIII, David Starkey (via madamedepembroke)

Owen Tudor was born in Anglesey, Wales around 1400. Owen was born into one of the most powerful families in Wales, although like many, their influence had been greatly reduced by Edward I’s conquest and the family’s loyalty to Welsh independence. Owen was descended from Welsh kings on both sides of his family. During the Glyndwr rebellion of 1401, Owen’s father and uncles sided with Owain Glndwr as he was their maternal cousin. The Tudur brothers were loyal to the last, Owen’s uncle Rhys as executed in 1412 and their lands were confiscated by the crown, Owen’s father Maredudd disappears from record after 1405, but it would seem likely he did not live long after.

Not much is known about Owen’s early life, it has been suggested he may have been one of Welshman who served with Henry V at the battle of Agincourt, Owen was certainly in the service of the king by 1421. It is known that Owen served the young dowager queen, Catherine of Valois as her keeper of household or wardrobe. After her husband’s death Catherine lived at Leeds Castle, where she was more or less forgotten about and had no official role in her young son’s reign and was forbidden by parliament to marry again without their approval. Sometime between 1427 and 1430 Catherine and Owen fell in love and married secretly, their marriage was not made public until 1432 and was not received well, although Owen was granted the rights of an Englishman.

Owen and Catherine had 3 to 4 children, their sons, Edmund and Jasper, and it is likely they had at least one daughter Margaret who may have died young or became a nun, and a son Edward who also joined the clergy. The existence of Margaret and Edward remain inconclusive however. Catherine died in 1437, after her death Owen was left without protection and was imprisoned in Newgate which he would escaped from twice. Eventually Edmund and Jasper were received at court as their half-brother Henry VI who was very fond of them.

Owen supported Henry VI against Henry’s cousin the Duke of York, in what would become the 30- year conflict of the War of the Roses, Owen fought at the battle of Mortimer’s Cross in 1461, where he was captured and quickly and illegally put to death by Edward of York, the future Edward IV. However his grandson Henry Tudor would become the eventual victor at the Battle of Bosworth on August 22nd, 1485, making Owen the direct ancestor of every English monarch since.

“During spring 1532, Stephen Gardiner led the unsuccessful defence of the church’s liberties against Henry VIII, a stand which probably cost him his chance of becoming archbishop of Canterbury. During summer 1532, Cranmer did something even more crazy; he got married.“ 

–Diarmaid McCulloch, Cranmer 

“...this was in pleasant contrast to the harsh treatment she received from Anne on the few doleful occasions that she was summoned to the Concubine’s court.”

Except Mary was never summoned to the ‘Concubine’s’ (lol) court .... ?

“When Jane was Queen her persistent entreaties on behalf of Mary were the eventual cause of being allowed to return to court from Hunsdon, the latest of her many country-house retreats. On her return she was treated with much kindness, given costly jewels and in due course restored to her rightful dignity of princess; this was in pleasant contrast to the harsh treatment she received from Anne on the few doleful occasions that she was summoned to the Concubine’s court. Jane would have met Mary when she in Catherine’s service, for mother and daughter were not finally separated until the summer of 1531, and obviously she came to like, or certainly feel sorry for, this, small, rather plain and myopic girl, with something of a man’s voice and more moral courage than most men. She may have also been influenced by Mary’s devotion to the old religion, and secretly admired that unshakeable integrity, which burked all attempts to effect a full reconciliation with a father whom Mary never properly understood.”

— Ordeal by Ambition: An English family in the shadows of the Tudors by William Seymour

“Henry [VIII] earliest encounter with the solemnity of death, occurred when was nine when Prince Edmund died. The warrant shows the household at Eltham was plunged into. Black clothes were ordered even for Jane Poppincourt and ‘The Lady Mary’s scolemaster’. Twelve months later the whole gloomy procedure was repeated at Arthur’s death, but Elizabeth of York was there to comfort and pray with her reamaining children. What Henry never forgot was his mother’s death. Four years after the event, on a January day in 1507, the adolescent prince was replying to a letter telling him the Holy Roman Emperor’s son, Philip of Castile, had died. Henry explained that he had already 'with great unhappiness the report about the death of the King of Castile, my deeply, deeply regretted brother…no less welcome news welcome news has ever come here since the death of my very dear mother’. He wrote from Richmond Palace, where the previous year Elizabeth’s apartments, closed since her death, had opened up for the visit of Philip and his wife Queen Joanna. Briefly Henry VII’s court, dreary since his wife’s passing, had sprung to life again. Prince Henry’s mind slipped back to the dreadful scenes where his mother had died in childbirth and his father’s grief was unrestrained. 'I was less enchanted with that part of your letter’ he wrote tersely 'it seemed to open a wound which time had healed’ Then the schoolboy prince remembered he was addressing the great Erasmus, mended his manners and praised his corespondent elegant Latin.”

— The Sisters of Henry VIII: The Tumultuous Lives of Margaret of Scotland and Mary of France, Maria Perry