Dan Snow's History Hit - Was Henry VIII England's Most Evil King?

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

This is the turbulent reign of that infamous Tudor monarch, Henry VIII. His spectacularly complicated love life, break with Rome, political executions and ruthless pursuit of power. Today we examine his rule and the many unfortunate people who crossed his path, and ask whether his actions make him England’s most evil monarch.To investigate whether Henry VIII truly deserves the title, we're joined by Kate Williams, author of 'Regina: A New History of Women and Power'.Produced by James Hickmann and Mariana Des Forges, and edited by Dougal Patmore.We need your help! Let us know what you want from Dan Snow's History Hit by filling in our anonymous survey here: https://forms.gle/PvgayWLkWGjYT4St6Dan Snow's History Hit is now available on YouTube! Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/@DSHHPodcastSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.You can also email the podcast directly at [e-mail] Snow's History Hit is a History Hit podcast.History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit history hit.com slash subscribe. You know the case. caricature, the hulking figure, stood with legs akimbo, the ultimate power pose, a man whose appetites seemed endless. He fractured the church. He executed his enemies. He executed his friends. He executed many of his wives. He was a user, an abuser, a murderous, narcissistic, despot. And yet, for some reason, we're all still sort of obsessed with King Henry the 8th.

Is it because he was particularly charismatic? Did he drag England out of the Middle Ages? Did he lay the foundations for a powerful Royal Navy? Which I approve of. Could you say that he sort of launched England, Britain's global golden age and helped to forge the modern state? Well, we're going to talk about it. Do we excuse the terrible things he did to the women in his life

and to all the people that opposed him? And why do we do it? If so. Joining us to dig into the cult of personality that is Henry the 8th is the historian, the author, the broadcaster, the great friend of this podcast, Professor Kate Williams, whose most recent book is Regina A New History of Women and Power. Why do we love to hate King Henry the 8th right now on Dan Snow's history hit? Kate Williams, good to see you.

Good to see you, Dan. It's the big one, isn't it? It's the big one. What is it? Why are we obsessed with Henry the 8th still? What do you? The man's a megalomaniac. He's a murderer. What's going on here? He's a megalomaniac. He's a, one might say, a sexual terrorist. He executes lots of people called Catherine, my namesake. I mean, you know, it says in Holland Sheds Chronicles that he executes 72,000. I think most historians think it's more around the 20,000 mark. But that's quite a lot when Bloody Mary gets called Bloody Mary for executing nearly 300. So, yeah, why do we love Henry VIII so much? Mr. Bombastic, as Shaggy would say.

Is he an anti... Do we love to hate him? Are we drawn to the... There is a feral charisma there. In fact, okay, well, let's break it down. Let's talk about... He was... I mean, we forget, really.

He was a very glamorous prince. He was in the... In the spirit of his absolute legendary grandfather with the fourth, who was beautiful, a phenomenal warrior. if he'd made the most to himself, he could have really gone places ever the fourth. I always think he'd be disappointed.

Yeah, he let himself go a bit. But so initially, it feels like a Henry Christian golden age. And also there's been this big period of instability. Wars the roses. His dad's not super glamorous, Henry the 7th and still. But he comes to the throne.

It feels like we're back. We're back in the stability, there's peace. And then there's a handsome young prince. Is that what it's about? He's handsome. He's 17. He's pure glamour. He marries Catherine of Amaghan,

which is seen as such a great alliance. The daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, rock star. He'd been betrothed to her niece, Queen Joanna's daughter, but the niece was too young to get married. And Henry wants to be married. He wants to be on there. He wants to have this huge coronation, gigantic coronation.

It's the last joint coronation between Catherine and Henry until we get to James I first. So really, this is a huge moment. But you know, what's interesting about Henry is that for so long he was overlooked. For so long he was the spare destined for an ecclesiastical career. I mean, I suppose he did have an ecclesiastical career.

He did have a big impact on religion. Yes, he did, he did. And was rather excluded because he was the spare. Arthur was the heir. Henry was the spare. A bit overlooked. Some historians say he was too cosseted by the women who brought him up around him

and made him a bit too used to women saying yes all the time. And it's when he becomes the heir, after Arthur's death, that transforms his life. And what I do find interesting is that Henry the 7th, as you say, not Mr. Clammer, bans jousting. He does not want the future Henry VIII doing any jousting. And it's all... Is that health and safety concerns?

Health and safety. Or is that he doesn't want them hanging in with that crowd? Health and safety. Well, I think probably both, those dodgy jousting boys. He doesn't want his son jousting. It's too dangerous. He's already lost Arthur. there are two girls, but there were seven births to Henry and Elizabeth of York.

But now we have three children remaining Margaret, Henry, Mary. So we don't want a woman on the throne. We've already seen what happens when you have a weak person on the throne with Henry the Sixth, the Wars of the Roses. So everyone's worried about sliding back into the Wars of the Roses. Everyone's terrified. I think that's the thing we have to remember about the Tudors, isn't it? That they come so quick after the Wars of the Roses. people are terrified of this insurrection.

The endless battles, poor world places like St. Albans get it to the neck. The people of St. Albans and the various shopkeepers of the country want to get on with their lives. And they don't want the wars of the roses. So you want this strong monarchy. So you have the Tudors. It's very dodgy. I mean, I am Welsh, so I can say this, but a very dodgy Welsh claim. I mean, Welsh are somewhat excluded in polite society.

And here they are. This Welsh claim coming through Catherine of Valois. Henry the 7th has used and abused Catherine Navalwa's body and Westminster Abbey left it open to the elements and everyone can see it because I think he wants to disavow his debt to Catherine Navalwa and later on this is the best thing. It's not the best thing. It's a very bad thing. But much later on, Samuel Peepes decides it's his birthday, his 36 birthday. So he's going to go and kiss the queen. So he goes and gets a great big kiss to Catherine Avala and Westminster Abbey. So the poor woman is used and abused by goodness knows how many people like Peeps. And I think part of that is Henry the 7. disavowing his link to Catherine Valois and Owen Tudor, but yet claiming he's the man who won on the battlefield, the great king who's allied, the Tudor Rose, York and Lancaster are bonded together, and he's got to have this son who takes a throne.

So Henry VIII as a young prince is rather wrapped in cotton wool, well, Tudor Cotton Wall. And it's been a hundred years since a reasonably grown-up male heir has succeeded his father on the throne. So there's been a civil war in the means that. So everyone's quite excited for this. Henry the 7th dies. This young prince takes over. And everyone thinks this is kind of normal service resumed. This is good. Everyone is thrilled. Everyone is delighted with Henry on the throne. He has everything. He's got riches. He's got power. He's got this alliance with Spain. It seems as if he's the great prince.

and Henry, well, all kings do this, but Henry really drinks his own cool, doesn't he? Henry believes his own myth. He believes he's the greatest and he thinks, ha-ha, now what I'm going to do is I'm going to rule France. That's what I'm going to rule Scotland, I'm going to rule France. So his vision is of himself as the most powerful prince in Europe. I always think it's interesting that he even thinks he could be Holy Roman Emperor at one point. I mean, it's a bit of a change in life, isn't it? You think you can be Holy Roman Emperor and then you were break out from the church.

Yeah, well, exactly. And he, the man who would be defender of the faith. But anyway, so he is, but he is physically impressive. I mean, it's not just the cool. We are told, aren't we, that he was every inch, the kind of prince of Renaissance prince. Everyone says that princesses are gorgeous and everyone says that princes are handsome. But I do think Hemby was handsome. He was handsome.

He was fit. He'd been a great athlete in his, you know, youth, I would argue, a greater athlete than a scholar. He's perhaps someone at school who would be heading up the ruggers team, but not really doing so well in his maths exam. And Henry is so, you know, he's really, I mean, he's brilliant at presenting himself. All the Tudors know how, as Napoleon put it, to throw glitter in men's eyes to distract them and dazzle them with monarchy.

This is what the Tudors specialize in. And Henry himself specialises in these grand celebrations. at court and also public ones, public processions, which Elizabeth I first is a brilliant inheritor of when we look at her coronation, the final triumphal arch through Henry and Elizabeth of York and Anne Boleyn and then Elizabeth all together. It's this myth making, this myth weaving and the use of tableau and spectacle. Henry is brilliant at it and creates this young, fun, international looking court. And then he has a son

and there's a new Prince of Wales and there's more celebrations and then... Seven weeks later the Little Prince of Wales dies. It is sad. It is sad. They'd even celebrated it with the joust.

So Henry put the jousts on... Huge party. The jousts, everything happens and the poor little boy dies. And it is a tragedy. It's so tragic what happens to Henry and Catherine because in every one,

she was the perfect consort. People loved her. She was seen as really devoted. She was seen as really pious. And I think out of all of his wives, she was the only one he did truly respect. He did truly see her as a great queen and a great consort. Yes, I think he respected Anne Boleyn in different ways. And yes, Catherine Parr, but certainly with Catherine of Aragon, she was the perfect consort. She's regent for him. She goes bonkers on James of Scotland, sends James of Scotland's blooded coat to Henry while he's fighting the first of his three totally hopeless wars with France. I mean, they are totally hopeless. Well, let's come to that because, so we, if we have established why Henry is superficially quite attractive as a young king, it's a reasonably good time for

England, it seems like normal service been resumed you've got a sort of magnificent glittering king and indeed royal family the makings of our all family on the throne. And then let's come on to the fact that actually the reality behind that, which is that, as you say, he uses that kind of capital and just embarks on the stupidest set of wars of France, doesn't he? He's got money in his treasury, he's got youth on his side, he's got a reasonably united political class the first time a long time, and he just goes and sets fire to it all by trying to replicate the successes, if you like, or certainly the endeavours of his ancestors.

His plantagenet forebears, Ebb III, the Black Prince, and the Fifth, and he invades France. He tries to press this claim to, if he tries to restart 100 Years War almost,

is me? I mean, the thought that you could ever get England's possessions in France back. I mean, that's just not going to happen. And, you know, I love it. They're like, oh, everyone, we've got Beloyne now. Oh, great.

It's marvellous. Well done, well done, chaps. And obviously, he is sending young men. to their deaths. It is serious. But at the same time, we just think, Henry, this is a disaster. And, you know, I really feel that, Dan, you are the military expert. If you think there is nothing salvageable in these hopeless wars. Well, there is nothing salvageable in these hopeless wars because England at this point is not to conquer France.

And secondly, Henry VIII has not seemingly noticed that there is one of the great revolutions of world history happening, which is the Atlantic world's opening up. Christopher Columbus has been to the new world. John Cabot has been to the New World He's been to Newfoundland, very nice place And Henry is investing all his time and energy Trying to re-fight medieval battles in France What are you doing?

I just want Normandy! Yes, what do you think? Look, West young man. So, okay, so that's catastrophic. He burns through money, he burns through prestige, he burns through, like, he actually, he sort of shows England for what it is, which is a lot less powerful.

A lot less powerful, that it was, once this tiny tin pot country Catherine of Aragon, really, I mean, she's the youngest princess of Isabella of Castile. It's not particularly marvellous what she gets as a solution. You know, Catherine of Aragon, I really do feel, you know, when Henry the 7th, when Elizabeth of York died, he actually thought he might marry a Catherine of Aragon. Himself really? Yes, he thought he might marry her.

And Isabella of Castile, Catherine's mother said, oh no, that's disgusting to the ear. I mean, goodness, no, she married various of her children to various similar men. And she said no, but if only Catherine of Aragon had married Henry the 7th and been Henry the 8th stepmother, she would have had a much better life, I'd say. But instead she gets Henry the 8th who her parents have always wanted her to marry. And he is this iconic figure. But he gets that, as you say, with money, with power. He squanders it in war. And also he has zero interest in the details of administration.

And this is how various men pretty much were all called Thomas. If all of his wives are called Catherine, all of his advisors, we've got Thomas Cramner, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas More, Thomas Woolsey, the Thomas's gained the power. And Thomas Walsy, who's already been serving Henry the 7th, is someone who survives and becomes very significant in Henry the 8th reign because Henry doesn't want the minutiae, and Woolsey takes on the minutiae.

Henry the 8th's greatest military victory, probably won for him by his wife. That's a good point. So while he's off in France, wasting time and money, the Scots invade England. And tell me, I mean, to what extent is his wife really involved in the defence of the realm at that point? Well, actually, Catherine is ruthless. She commands immediately that Scots men, Scots people living in England must lose their property because you will be potential spies. And she sends the army out.

and there is this cataclysmic battle at Flodden. I mean, cataclysmic, and James himself, the king is dead. So Catherine... The King of Scotland. James of Ford is actually killed. And this is Henry's nephew and he's killed. And Catherine of Aragon, well, she gets the blooded coat of James. Poor guy, can't you get buried in his coat?

She gets a blooded coat and sends that to Henry as a triumph. So she is triumphant. But then she miscarrows the pregnancy that. she'd been bearing. So that's the tragic thing for Catherine. It doesn't matter. You've been a great consort, devoted, pious, a war leader, a regent, but all you are judged by is whether or not you can have that sun. We hold that thought, but what we should do at different time is the untimely and strange deaths of the Stuart Kings of Scotland. That would be a great podcast. It would be very strange. Fell off a horse. Oh, here we go, another one.

Blown up by a cannon. Okay, so. So strange. So the, and these misdames. And these misdames. miscarriages, then are we now getting towards the beginnings of the epic psychodrama of the Henry Sheen reign, which is, of course, his desire for a son and his married life. His married life. So Mary is born in 1516, a very healthy little girl, Princess Mary, future Mary the first, a very healthy little girl. And Henry thinks she's marvellous initially. He's delighted by her. She's very clever. She's shown off to the ambassadors. And she is betrothed the dofan of France at some point, various marriage deals, but she's a girl. And no matter how much Catherine of Aragon, who's seen her mother be this queen of Spain, a great queen,

and obviously be very cruel to the Jews and to the Muslims of Spain, but being deemed by many is a great queen, Catherine thinks, well, Mary can rule. But to Henry, that's going back to the chaos of the wars of the roses. And he is the ultimate alpha male. He's obsessed with his own masculinity. I mean, we might say Henry has been, Henry's high on a cocktail of toxic masculinity. Radicalized by the manor sphere. The manor sphere. The jousting sphere, the joustosphere.

And this is what Henry is. He's proving himself, I think partly because he was an ignored spare all those years until Arthur died. And we don't know what he dies of. Maybe he dies of sweating sickness. But do you know what? I've been looking into this. Some researchers think that sweating sickness was.

They think it was. the hanta virus. No. They do. They do. Rat-born hanta virus, that that is what the sweating sickness may very well have been. It's all coming round again. It's all coming round again.

And we know how brutal the sweating sickness is. So very interesting question. But I think Henry really felt the fact that he was an excluded air. And now he's taking a psychodrama revenge on his father and making himself into this grand, great prince, except his wars are hopeless and he doesn't want to be bothered with government so he leaves it all in the hands of people called Thomas So Kate, we're trying to wrestle with this question

Why are we still quite drawn to him So we talked about his military failure early in his reign But alongside an element of being a kind of majestic embodiment of the kingly ideal We are also interested in him, are we? Because important things in government happen on his watch the birth of the Royal Navy, the sophistication of the bureaucracy, the kind of beginnings of a,

I don't know, might you say a modern state, does he deserve any credit for that, do you think? Or is that his clever ministers who are doing that because he's too busy off doing other things? We do see the birth of a much more modern taxation system, start to see a centralised bureaucracy. But a large amount of the reason for that is, of course, because of, as we'll talk about Henry's break from Rome, we see a separation of canon law from day-to-day law, that increasingly the law is what is made by the English courts. The church courts don't have the same jurisdiction. So we are becoming a secular country. And the tax collection is something that does become more efficient and centralised.

Of course, the first two people that Henry executes are his father's rather successful tax collectors. Who were doing their jobs. So yes, exactly. You know, the hardworking HMRC reps, answering the phone on the HMRC phone lines and get executed for it, just doing their job. And Henry does preside over this radical change in the state, partly due to the break from Rome, but partly due to modernisation. He does build up the Navy and does create huge dockyards and much more shipyards. I mean, he does create a much more modernised country. I mean, partly it's because he's so wildly competitive with everyone else. in the whole wide world. But I think also we wouldn't be as fascinated by Henry

if it wasn't for the King's Great Matter. Okay. If it wasn't for the divorce. We would, I think, see him as the ultimate blinking or the bombastic setup, the field of the cloth of gold where they finish it off with a dragon on a wagon. A sort of great dragon flew through the sky, apparently, with fire coming out of its mouth after, you know, Henry's portal palace.

I think the Porto Palace in the Field of the Clause of Gold for Henry took 6,000 men to put it up and it was 12,000 square yards. And it was a brick sort of foundation with cloth over it painted to look like a palace. I mean, unbelievable expenditure on a diplomatic summit. You know, we watch a diplomatic summit now and think, my goodness, they're eating a lot of salmon sandwiches. Nothing compared to the field of the cloth of gold. So Henry goes big and he goes big on everything. And I think that's one fact that we might not find something we'd like. like in a modern day leader, but we find it fascinating in terms of his sort of gigantic,

go big or go home. That's what he does. But I think that despite everything that happens in his reign, without the King's Great Matter, without the six wives, as Six the Musical tells us, that's the story that we'll never forget. Well, we're going to talk about the great matter. After this, don't go away, folks, more Kate Williams coming up. So Kate, we have talked about Henry as a glamorous prince. We've talked a little bit about the changes in government in the state that's going on, some of these more modern innovations, the fact that everything was larger than life, he was a showman. But you think the reason that we remain drawn to him,

lots of young people, that's the first king that they, the first king of England, that they would name, strangely. You think it's because of his extraordinary drama of his wives, of his six wives. I think you're right, Dan. Ask people to name a king of England, and apart from the current one, people would say, Henry the 8th. That is the one people remember. Divorce, beheaded died, ETC. It's the one that's inscribed. It's the one we talk about. He is the bombastic, the biggest, the greatest. Henry the 8th is the biggest character in the royal pantomime you could ever imagine. Like you say, he's a showman. He is a showman. He's the ultimate circus showman. He comes out and he leads the circus. But also he creates the biggest show. The biggest show in the 16th century, I might argue. And it's not. not the field of the cloth of gold. It's not any one of his celebrations or parties or dances at

court. It's the king's great matter. And it's when the king sees the limits of his authority. Because when you're a king like Henry, you believe that nothing, nothing can stop you. And even when he keeps losing against France, he's like, we haven't lost everyone. We've won. Oh, yes. But with the king's great matter, it's about so many things. It's about what is the consort? What is the queen? How much power does she have? Can she just be set aside? But it's also the king coming up against the limits of his power. And that, I think we find that fascinating as humans. How far can we go until we are stopped? Well, he's stopped by nature on one level because he can't produce a son with his wife, Catherine. Has an illegitimate son with Elizabeth Blount in 1519.

That must boost his morale because he's quite a good looking kid. He does well. He grows well. I mean, the question of how many mistresses Henry has is a constant debate. Did he have a lot? Did he not have many? But certainly that moment that he has his illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, is a big boost to him because he's thinking, well, I can do it. It must be her. And when Catherine, Catherine turns 40 and it conveniently intersects with a moment when Henry is struck by the dart of love. struck. Now, the French wars, as we talked about, the collapse of poor old Cardinal Walsy, who I do love him. He loves a contract, Cardinal Walsy. He makes these wonderful contracts of peace,

these peace summits of 20 people and everyone gets together and then they all fall apart. So the end of the French alliance, which was sealed and created at the field of the cloth of gold. Quite short-lived. Yes, very short-lived. Cardinal Walses is very sad. But that also has the effect, that Anne Boleyn comes back from France because Anne Boleyn is in France serving the French queen. She was at the field of the cloth of gold. She was there. Henry would have seen her there,

but he obviously wasn't struck by any dots at that point. So Ambelin comes back in 1522 because it's not appropriate that a woman can serve the French queen when her country's at war. So she comes back. She becomes lady in waiting to Catherine of Aragon in 1522. And then in around 1525, Henry falls in love.

Decides that he's madly enough. She's the one. He's got to have her. And Anne says no. Smart move. It's interesting, isn't it? Because Anne, what's she going to do at this point? Her sister has been Henry's mistress. Mary Berlin has been Henry's mistress.

And Anne is under pressure. She doesn't want to be Henry the 8th's mistress. She wants to make a good marriage. That's what she's at court for. She'd hoped to marry a great aristocrat. That had been blocked. Cardinal Walsy, she blames for it. I think Anne's vision was of herself, well, marrying a great aristocrat

and then busying herself with the Tudor equivalent of the school run and the school bake sale. That's what she wants to do with her life, chatting with the other four-wheel driver mums. And that's what she wanted. Instead, she gets dragged into this great drama when the king decide she's the only one he can have. And he is sexually harassing her. There's no way around it. I mean, he's sexually harassing her. Everyone's pressing her. Everyone's pressing her, not just her family, but everyone's saying.

just make the king happy. But she knows that everyone's going to laugh at her. The whole court is going to laugh at her and set her aside. So Anne resist. She goes to Heva Castle when there's an outbreak of the sweating sickness. She goes to Heva Castle. That's what we have some of the letters that Henry writes to Anne, offering her a buck that he hunted and think on it.

And I'm really fascinated by this jewel that Anne sends to Henry of a damsel being rocked around in a boat. Now, Henry thinks this is a... sexual invitation. You think, oh, that's you being rocked around in the boat of my love. But I think she's saying, you know, I'm going to drown here. I'm going to drown here. Have mercy on me. But of course, he doesn't have mercy on her. And Henry presses and presses. And so early in 1527, there's a meeting because the king has now realized, he's realized that he shouldn't have married. Catherine, after all, it was against the word of the Bible. So shouldn't marry.

brother's wife. And then Catherine is told that she could go quietly and live where she wants. And she says no. And this is the beginning of the King's Great Matter, which will drag on and on and be the news of all Europe. All Europe becomes obsessed by the King's Great Matter. And over and over again, Henry is thwarted. Is in the end Henry breaks with Rome, which people, it means that he says that England is no longer under the spiritual authority of the Pope. We are going to break away. We're going to establish our own church Anglicism. Is that another reason you think traditionally people have been quite drawn to Henry? Because particularly when Britain, there was lots of almost total religious observance in Britain, people are very proud of Anglicanism

of England and Britain's journey separate from the Catholic powers of the continent. Do you think in the 19th century, 18th century, people were quite proud of Henry the 8th,000th, that reason, that kind of boost his reputation? I think you're absolutely right, Dan. I think the Victorians are fascinated by the Tudors, fascinated by the glory of the Tudors. They see the early, they see the beginnings of the Imperial Victorian project. Exactly, in Henry. Now, they're ambiguous about Elizabeth as Gloria.

And because she doesn't do that thing that women should do is have a child, but they do love to see her as the great heroine. And I think, as you say, so much of that is rooted in this real love for Anglicanism, which, thanks to Henry and thanks to Elizabeth, is something of a fudge, isn't it? We can say it looks Catholic with the crucifixes, with the candles, with the interiors. It doesn't look what Calvin would have wanted, a stripped down bare room. But it has the English common prayer, it has the English services, it has the idea of the communion rather than the mass. But Henry's so resistant to that at times.

He gets crosser and crosser. But near the end of his reigns, I'm sorry. No, no, no, we are staying Catholic. And so we have the ultimate. And I'm scrolling forward a bit. We have the ultimate irony that when Henry's dying, Cranmer, the pretty much very sympathetic Protestant Archbishop, is sent to hear Henry's confession,

except poor old Henry can't speak. So just clasps cram in his hand. But I think Henry is a Catholic. It's almost like he is riding a tiger. He gets on this tiger saying, okay everyone, I'm going to be head and I'm going to get all the money and suddenly he finds this religious sentiment is exploding past him. He can't control it.

So he can't control his wives because no matter how much he tries to silence them, cancel every image of Ambelin or Catherine Howard because he never wants any mention of them, yet their voices have reverberated more powerfully through history. But he also can't control religion. When we think of the great poem, Osiemandius, that Shelley's poem, isn't it? You know, look on my works, you mighty in despair and it's just a crumbled ruin. There's so much of that in Henry the 8th.

He's the ultimate irony. Yes, he lays down the empire and he lays down the church, which the Victorians thought was the best ever church, best, best, and must be imposed on the entire world. Yes, thank you very much. But also he sees the limits of his power. That's so interesting. So his religious settlement, such as it was, his sort of fudge, but anyway, subsequent generations came to admire that very much. But, but, His, yeah, so he goes, he marries Ambelin eventually. He marries Amberlin early in 1533. Truly sends his former wife, divorce's former wife, sends her off to the countryside.

Off she goes, yes, I'm never going to see you again. Dyes of neglect. Dyes of neglect in 1536. Yes, because he's married to Ambelin. She has a series of, well, there's miscarriage. She has another daughter. Henry marries Ambelin in 1533, early January, at York Place, which was Cardinal Wals's house, and they take it and becomes Whitehall Palace, now covered by our wonderful government buildings.

Actually, the cockfighting pit, the cabinet office, is on the position that was Henry the 8th cockfighting pit, which I think is rather fitting. And then in September, in early September, Anne gives birth to a little girl, Elizabeth. That's not what everyone expected. Everyone expected a prince. Anne had this coronation ceremony, this special coronation ceremony when she was crowned with the monarch's crown to really imply that they were crowning. this baby in her belly.

And Henry, you know, he's not devastated by the birth of a girl because it's a good start. But what happens is the same story that he had with Catherine. Obstetric tragedies, stillbirths, miscarriages. And in early 1536, Anne miscarriage on the same day that Catherine of Aragon was buried. And the ambassador who hates Anne said she is miscarried of her saviour. And our friend Stan Lipskin's written that marvellous book, 1536, hasn't she, about how this changes Henry's life. He has this fatal jousting accident. Kathleen of Aragon dies and this is the year which Ambelin will not see the end of.

So she gives birth, people suggest it was a boy, it would have been a boy, had it lived to full term. Henry VIII is in a catastrophic josting accident almost dies. Henry the 7th did tell him. Henry the 7th did tell him. Henry 7 told him, don't jowse last. Yeah, and he's getting a bit old by now. It's getting a bit old. Yeah, exactly. And he had probably lifelong consequences. This wound in his leg, he gets his, he was concussed for a period,

and then he gets his very bad wound in his leg. And it doesn't heal. Partly because they don't really believe in closing it, so they think it's good to be open to the elements. And it separates and gets worse and worse. And when he's older and can barely move, there's gout and he's got boils, and it's a separating wound. So that wound will,

torment him for the rest of his life. And leads him to put on lots of... He does less physical exercise afterwards, so he puts on the weight. He ends up with a 54-inch waist and has to be sort of transported and mechanical transporters. So it is perhaps not the most appealing. So Catherine of Aragon gets this young, handsome, super, you know, the male model of Europe and Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr get this...

The last one. So... Well, the large man. Anne Boleyn, he cast aside Anne Boleyn. He cast aside Ambelin. she's executed on the 19th of May 1536, a totally trumped-up charge. I mean, it's totally a political assassination. It's all the setup.

I mean, even her enemies say, oh, I don't, this is a setup. She has clashed with him over many things. She's clashed with him over the dissolution of the monasteries. She wants the money from the monasteries to go to charitable causes. He and Cromwell want it to go to our coffers. We want that money. And she clashes with him on many religious issues. And I think we can say, people debate this, but I think it's,

the evidence seems very clearly she is a religious reformer. She does believe in religious reform. And that Henry does not. Henry just wants to get the divorce. He's not... And get his hands on the cash. Yes, that's right. He wants the cash and he wants the divorce.

He doesn't want to give up on transubstantiation. He doesn't want to stay with the math and all the comforting things he remembers. I think he doesn't really care about religion. He just wants it to look like it always did. He's a bit of a trad, a bit of a trad man. And Anne is executed, set up. and on the day after Anne's political assassination, he gets betrothed to wife number three,

her lady in waiting. That's Jane Seymour. So he's married his first wife's lady in waiting, now he's married his second wife's lady in waiting. So yes, Henry sees his wife's ladies in waiting as a dating pool. Tragically, his next wife dies whilst giving him the son he yearned for so desperately. She goes birth in 1537 to Little Edward, at the first. future edge of the sixth, but dies, you know, not a short period later from some kind of infection, I think, after giving birth a hemorrhage. So Jane dies and he has the son and Henry's got everything he ever wanted. And yes, he's a bit sad about Jane, but not really. She's served her purpose.

You know, what a lucky girl. She's given me a son marvelous. So you might think at this point that Henry will settle down into saying to himself, I've got the son. At what point, I mean, killing Anne Boleyn is, extreme. But at what point does other people start going, this guy has got a crazy personal life? I mean, at what stage, because it's not uncommon for kings to marry more than one person, people died and marriages were annulled. You look at Eleanor of Aquitaine. At what point do contemporaries go, this is out of control? I think it's around Amberlin, because you're right, she could have been an old, sent off to a nunnery. We still have some nunneries, sent off to a nunnery. He didn't need to kill that. She could have been sent overseas. She could have been sent to the

is that remain. I mean, that would have been possible. But Henry just wants her out of the way. He wants to make an example of her. And he treats her like any other man who's tried to resist him. He executes him, including, of course, you know, quite a few of his friends. He executes for consorting with Amber Lynn when it's all totally made up. There's no way. There's no way that the dates don't even fit with how it would have occurred. But Henry just goes on this Vampage and many say that many say that it's Cromwell not Henry but it's Henry pulling the strings

Henry can stop it any time he wants and indeed when Anne is executed she is looking behind her and perhaps she's looking for that last minute reprieve because she can't imagine that you could kill a queen you can't imagine that she's not even been queen three years he said he loved her more than anything

so why is he executing her and by this point people are shocked But the marriage with Jane Seymour, the birth of a son, seems to settle things down. But then, you know, women don't want to marry Henry. Mary Queen of Scots' mother, Mary of Geese, has been considered as a possible wife for Henry the 8th. And she's said she's got two possibilities, marry James V of Scotland or marry Henry the 8th. And Scotland, the French thing, has such a bad climate, is that it kills French people. French people die when they turn up there.

And he's also seen us rough and ready and always drinking and the Scots are. always drinking. But Mary of Gies prefers James of Scotland to Henry the 8th. She says, I don't think I want to marry him. I haven't got the right sort of neck. So it's actually So he's getting a reputation. He's getting a reputation for executing his wives. And that's very clever of Mary of Gies. She knows that it had happened again. She's a tough cookie. Cardinal Wals has been executed. He's executed for not getting the divorce. Then Thomas Cromwell takes over and he'll later be executed. Henry is such an agent of chaos in terms of executing his friends, his advisors, anyone who's close to him, that people are so terrified

of it turning on them. There's a lot said, isn't there, about how Amblin was unpopular at court. And yes, I don't think she's the person to be baking Tudor cupcakes for the entire court. But even if people liked her, they have to turn against her, because if they don't, they could get dragged into it. So Henry is so all-powerful that people are just terrified of him. And the farce continues, the Anne of Cleaves. He marries Anna Cleaves gets divorced almost immediately. Yeah, Marries Ann of Cleaves. He thinks, well, I'm going to surprise her.

I'm going to surprise her in disguise because I'm so kingly she'll recognize me. And poor Anne of Cleves. Who is this weird, weird person? I don't know who you are. Bad start. Bad start. And Cromwell has to go for that one. And then he marries Catherine Howard, Amberlyn's cousin.

Another lady in waiting. Another lady in waiting. Anne of Cleves' lady in waiting. Very young girl could have been 15, 16 when he marries her. And that's a total disaster. But he has learned. from Amberlin with Catherine Howard, hasn't he done? He's not going to put her on trial

because everyone's going to say, well, putting a queen on trial, oh dear, and I don't think much of this evidence. And sorry, what did you say? She was having sex behind the marmalade cupboard. Is that what you said? Because that's something about Amblin. So Catherine Howard is not put on this public trial. She's taken and really, she starts panicking.

And Thomas Cramner, yeah, another Thomas. Thomas Cramner who's there says, I feel so sorry for her. But still, I'm going to write down everything she says in her sort of mad deliriums. and she's just executed pretty swiftly. You know that. I mean, basically when we look at the,

when we look at those executed in the envrons of the Tower of London, they're pretty much all at Henry's behest and his wives. So the execution sort of phase of Henry's life. So he executes two of his wives. He executes her cousin, Margaret DePaul. Various friends like Henry Norris. Yes, his groom of the stool.

I mean, you think being a groom with the stool, going to the king would, you know, hopefully that would protect you for life. But no. Yeah, you've put in some work. What is that about? Again, is this normal for the period? Do other kings in other places kill people all the time? Or have we, this kind of Lewis Carroll off with their heads?

We get that from Henry the 8th, right? So was this an unusual thing? Or was this just because he's been on the throne for a long time, he's slowly turning into this kind of megalomaniac? Is he just naturally psychotic? What's happening there? Yes, I think Henry's executions are unique. There's so much more than before.

There's so much more than after. And if it's true, I do think 72,000 is too much, as is cited in Holland Sheads Chronicles. But many, many men and women die under his regime. And yes, it is because they refuse to accept him as head of the Church of England. They refuse to submit to the end of papal supremacy. They refuse to submit to what they think is Protestant reform. And yes, some are caught up in the psychodramas of. his wives, but some people simply are executed. And the fact is, I think, I think what the fact is

is that he gets away with it. Henry keeps, keeps going and no one seems to stop him. Do you think he tries it once or twice and thinks, good, this actually works? This actually works. And this is my way of squashing the aristocracy. So his father really had a method of, I think, squashing the aristocracy by appointing, not middle class men, but men from those kind of families like Woolsey. And, you know, when Henry himself is two, he gets given. given so many accolades, so many titles, so that Henry the 7 doesn't have to give them to an aristocrat. So that's Henry the 7th strategy. Henry 8th strategy is, yes, you carry on giving a lot of power to be like Walsy and Cromwell. But also, he's going to execute. And I think also

Henry has, I mean, I think Henry does have an aggressive personality, but he also has the attention span of a flea. And he has this very short attention span. Nothing captures the attention span. It gets worse and worse as he gets older. And I think Sometimes he just executes people because he's lost interest. He eventually executes his wife, Catherine Howard. He then marries the long-suffering Catherine Parr. By this stage, she's an invalid. She's nursing him.

She has got the accolade of being the most married English queen at four marriages. She's already had two marriages. And then she marries Henry VIII. Doesn't really want to marry him. But I think it's quite a good partnership. She makes a real effort to befriend his children. She tries to be a stepmother to his children. Now, others have tried as well.

Jane Seymour's tried as well. Catherine Howard actually was a much better stepmother than people often credit her for. So Catherine Navarro, Catherine Part is this very educated woman, this very, you know, intelligent woman. But she also is a religious reformer. And he does consider executing her. And what she says is very clever. She says, oh, you know I was talking to you about those modern religious ideas. I'm just trying to take your mind off your leg.

I'm just trying to get you cross. Take your mind off your leg. then you could think about something else. And Henry says, oh yes, thank you very much. I think in the end he knew that putting another queen on the block would be ridiculous and that you couldn't accuse her of adultery because she seems so wise and mature and sensible. And she's been married. I mean, she said, well, I did have sex other men, but they were my husbands.

So I think he thinks he probably can't get away with it with her. But he certainly considers it. Then he dies. And I always think this is something quite important when we're evaluating. kings and queens. Longivity is so important. Like it's, you, you tend to, surprise, surprise, the kings and queens that rule for a long time tend to be quite near the list of good sovereigns. Yes. They just bed in. They defy in. Bed in. They defy an age. And yeah, and you're just like, whether it's Henry the second, Edward the third, Elizabeth II. Elizabeth the second,

Victoria, you're just around for ages and everyone else. And you outlive all your opponents and all the people. You're just there. You're part of the furniture. You get to be the nation's grandpa. I'm not sure. You get to be the nation's grandpa and maybe that's what Henry was in the end. So Henry benefits from that. Henry benefits from that. And then there's a bit of turbulence. There's a couple of shorter lived monarchs. So do people quite rapidly in the later 16th century go, oh, good King Henry's time. I mean, is there nostalgia for that? So does he get brownie points for that? I think there is nostalgia for that. And certainly there is nostalgia for his fudged religious settlement, which you see Elizabeth sort of revoke reincarnating.

Because his daughter takes over, his son takes over and he goes quite ultra-pronaston, his daughter takes over, he goes back to the Catholics. So actually, if you're 20 years later, you think, well, at least Henry, I wasn't that bad. It was all sort of live and let live a bit. Yes, exactly. I think Elizabeth, the ultimate evidence for that is how much Elizabeth, although Elizabeth has great loyalty to the Berlins were left, the ones who are still survived, she does use her father's precedence as a way.

of creating legitimacy for herself. Most famously, of course, in the speech at Tilbury when she says, I've the, I've might have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but the heart and stomach of a king and the king of England too. Now, some people say maybe she didn't say it, but whether she did or she didn't, I think she did, whether she did or she didn't, that was what was expected of her to say. You cite Henry the 8th. You don't say I'm the granddaughter of Henry the 7th. You say I'm the daughter of Henry the 8th. So we are still, people are still obsessed to them and we have to hold two ideas and I head at the same time is that we find him fascinating, but he was also in many ways destructive and dreadful, narcissistic, murderous. Is that strange for a story like you that

we are drawn to these people who are so objectionable? I mean, you've done so much work on Henry the 8th yourself down. You've done so much research and so much work and particularly on his military campaigns. And I mean, he is this titanic figure, isn't he? He can't escape him. Can't look away. He can't look away. And it's an important period.

And also he's there at an important time, isn't he? We talked about the Atlantic world. There's the beginnings of the modern government of ideas. There's stuff going on. The world is changing. It's the crucible of change. The modern state is emerging. And yes, we are fascinated by this man,

this sort of terrible character. I mean, I don't think a single one of us would want him as our boss. I mean, we'd flee in terror. I mean, flee in terror. You know, Zoom calls would be full of fear. But he is this person who occupies the role of king in the most excessive, wild, extravagant way. So when we think, what is a monarch?

What is someone who's got ultimate power? and yeah, what does a human do with ultimate power? And what does a human who's seen as, I think, quite a nicest person in his early life? Yeah, the story arc. Power corrupts. And yet, what does he end with? It's the wives who he remembers.

Another thing I find really fascinated about the wives is they're all descended from Edward I first and Ellen of Castile. So they're all related. It's a small world. It's a small world. And yet this man who imposes his character on an age, some people say they don't understand what his character is. You know, Deerman McCulloch writes so well on how he doesn't see what Henry does as a strategy.

It's piecemeal and it's sort of reactive. And Susie, Susan Lipscomb, has such a fascinating quote she found. The court is who said that Henry bears the imprint of the person who most recently sat on him. Yes. I mean, I don't know how one would fare sitting on Henry the 8, but he's like a giant jelly. He just absorbs impressions. And I think that's as he gets older, he throws them back. And to me, he is the ultimate cautionary tale of what happens with power because he squandered it, he abuses it, he executes, he's cruel, he's violent.

And yet, people still love him, people still adore him, but he doesn't get the legacy that he wants. So he wants this giant grave, doesn't he? This giant tomb in St. George's Chapel, Windsor. He wants it all marble and whole thing. He steals the catapult from Cardinal walls in. It's all going to be gold and marble. and there's going to be masses sung around it till the end of time.

But he doesn't get it done before he dies. He's not like an Egyptian putting up a pyramid. It doesn't get it done. And the masses are stopped after a year. End of the six protectors say, yeah, sorry, no more masses. And Henry's body is lost. The catafog ends up with Nelson. He gets it in St Paul's Cathedral.

Henry's body is lost really to history until some builders in George the Fourth Rain are bumbling around under St George's Chapel and they find him down there. And George the fourth doctor can't believe it. It's like, oh my goodness, there's Henry VIII. And that's why he's got that very modest plaque in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, because, you know, sometimes people say to me, but why did Henry the 8th?

He was humble by the end because he just put down that nice little plain plaque. No, no, no, no. He wanted the biggest tomb in history. Well, that's a monument to the fact that no matter how powerful you are in life, you cannot control events. You can't control. And I think one of the reasons why Henry does get a lot of press is because the one thing he didn't want,

a woman on the throne, transforms his legacy. Because Elizabeth I first with Gloriana, with the portraiture, the Tudor Rose, she is Henry's daughter. And I think that we wouldn't be as fascinated by Henry VIII if it wasn't for Elizabeth going on the throne. The one thing he'd,

turn the world upside down to avoid became his greatest legacy. It's the biggest irony in English and British history. Kate Williams, thank you very much for coming on the podcast, telling us that story and helping us unpack this complicated legacy of Henry VIII. Wherever you're listening to or watching this, please smash all the buttons, follow, like, and subscribe, and make sure you send us a comment. Tell us what you want us to cover. See you next time. Have you been enjoying my podcast and now want even more history? Sign up's history and watch the world's best history documentaries on subjects like how William conquered England, what it was like to live in the Georgian era,

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