Fin vs History - The Jacamo King With a Food Bin For A Leg | Henry VIII (Part 3/4)

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

Henry's back, and he's fallen off his lime bike. Henry VIII (Part Three) This episode of Fin vs History is brought to you by Surfshark. Secure your privacy with Surfshark! Enter coupon code FVH for an extra 4 months at https://surfshark.com/fvh The show for people who like history but don't care what actually happened.   For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening and early access to series, become a Truther and sign up to the Patreon  ⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/fintaylor⁠⁠⁠  Chapters: 00:00 - Lime Bike Leg 03:35 - Prada Willy 06:38 - A Suckling Sumo Wrestler 07:26 - Dog Breath 11:35 - Cut It Off 16:34 - He’s A Feminist  20:43 - She’s A Hoarder 23:10 - Horrible Stew 27:31 - Quill Stuff 29:16 - The Cod Piece Enthusiast  36:28 - She’s Not A Laugh 39:41 - No Means No 43:52 - An Episode Of Scrubs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to Finn versus History. I'm with Horatio Gould. And part three of the Henry the eighth story. And Henry's getting fat. He's growing. He's growing at a frightening rate. You're sort of a reverse Henry the eighth. We hope.

We hope. We hope. Benjamin Button's Henry, Henry, the eight. We hope that we're not currently in an anomaly in an otherwise fat story. Henry has fallen off his horse. Yes. which has absolutely knackered his leg.

Sure. He's sort of got a lime bike leg in the Tudor England. It's opened a wound and Tudor doctors think that the wound needs to be kept open in order for it to not fuck it.

I don't even know what the logic is for this. But this is why it's only even when this story die because doctors know less about medicine than if you did nothing at all basically. Yes, they're making it actively worse. Yeah, they go, well keep that open. Don't let it clot.

Make sure you have the thing. exact same cut on his other leg so it dances out. Yeah. Poor maggots into it. Maggates in it. Yeah. He did have maggots in his leg at all times, but we'll get to that. We're not, we're just sort of pre-maggot phase. Right. This is the last bit where you can say maybe he was attracted.

Well, live cultures are important in one's guts. Yes, not in the leg. No, I guess a live culture. No. If the culture is maggots, maggot culture. If your thigh is a food bin, you're not doing well. Okay. To recap, Henry has broken from Rome.

because of this strumpet anviline, this uppity woman who keeps miscarrying. Is he breaking chairs yet? How do you mean? Under his weight. Not yet. Not yet. But the starting done... We need a fatometer.

We do need like a swingometer. Jeremy Vine watching the fatometer. Where are we at with his fatness at the moment? So what year is this? By 1536, his waist is about 37 inches. So he's probably overweight or thick set rather than, quote, truly fat. Yes. Have you ever been truly fat?

No. No. No, I've been bloated, but I don't know if that really... I find that very offensive. Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't... Incredibly demeaning. Try and muscle in on your lived experience.

You are minimizing my experience, which is a maximal experience. Liver experience. So he was roughly at this point, we think, about 109 kilos, maybe 120. His waist is between 35 and 42 inches. Yes.

So we're getting to the upper limits of the MNS range. What is it, Charlie? He's closer to... the build of a man like Gordon Bamsey, apparently. Gordon Ramsey. Okay, fine. But yes, we're not... He's bigger than Beckham, small than Ramsey.

Look, to place his weight, which I think we should wait, wait, place. We should wait place. Not just on the podcast, I think, just in everyday life. We should wait place women we see in the street. I bet a girl asked, like, can you wait place? Who was this girl? She was before Michelle McManus,

but after Scarley Hansen. Okay, fine. So, He's fallen off a horse and his leg is opened. It's just oozing. And Anbelin has given birth to a girl on the 7th September 1533. That is useless. Put that straight in the bin.

Straight in the bin. Straight in the bin. But yeah, the most Chinese. This country ever is under Henry the 8th. Henley the 8th, puts a girl in the bin. Catherine of Aragon, crucially, she's still knocking about. So he can't get rid of Ambelin because if he does that, then there's probably going to be like, well, you've got to go back to Catherine

because she's still knocking about. But she's even more broken than fucking Ambulin. Yeah. So, luckily, Catherine of Aragon dies in 1536. Sick. In maybe, is this like a few months? This is sick. This is what Emily's react.

Sick. This is maybe a few months after the accident, something like that. And so now he can marry again. Do you think he has Prada Willie syndrome? What, do it's gone? It's a sort of. of an offshoot of Down syndrome, but you cannot stop eating. So he might have fallen

off. Like a Labrador. So I watched the documentary in Prada Willie and they have to be sort of kept in a home because if they're allowed out, they, there's just, you've lost your entire ability to stop eating. So I wonder when he fell off the horse, maybe that's what he got. Finn. Excuse me. Charlie, you can't

grow out of Prada Willie syndrome. Why is it called something so demeaning? It's how to have a very fashionable penis. But it was probably found by someone. I've got a Prada Willie. Charlie could not His eyes went like His eyes went like

It's always good It's always good to get Charlie I got him with something that wasn't poo That's a highbrow It's a highbrow Charlie joke Prada Willie He genuinely couldn't believe he gets to do this for a living In that moment

What I will say though Is that that Yeah that The photo we're looking at With the sort of The terrorist block over the eyes that is a young that is a sort of

maybe a nine 10 year old fin tail really well no because he looks about sort of five or six yeah

before the great stretching yeah but that that was yeah naked the yeah no it was bad it was bad

I've been very clear Harvey Price has a parolwellie syndrome does he which makes sense that's why he's he's growing like our patron alarming

alarming alarming and he can't see where it's gonna end It's going to end in tears, I'm sure. Yes, it is going to end badly. So he can't stop eating. So basically, Henry the 8th, potentially, Charlie, can you find out if you can contract

Prada Willie syndrome through blunt forced trauma? If it's a chromosonal thing, then you can't. I feel a bit more, it's nice to we're discovering things. Because with Henry the 8th, we know the story so well, it's nice to be kind of delving into new territory and finding new questions. But it is. But also, I feel like. I know the story in a kind of teetal way, you know, I didn't quite understand, particularly

when we get to next episode, I didn't quite understand the grimness of the end. Right, yeah. And I will say now, just a soft trail next episode, it's Gaddafi-esque. Yes, very much so. In terms of how he ultimately shuffles off this mortal coil. Yeah. So can you contract it from blunt source trauma? No, it's genetic.

No, it's genetic. But Henry is eating 5,000 calories a day. Yes. Now, this, by the way, is what a sumo wrestler has for one meal. And they have two meals a day. I went to the sumo at the weekend. As I said, I got upgraded by a fan because that's... They thought you were a sumo wrestler.

No. Oh, the muster is here. No. The sumo messy is in the young prodigy whose knees went. No. It was a fan because that is the kind of event that I get upgraded at. It's never a business class on a memory of its plane. It's the Greenwich bouts of the London-Southeast sumo experience.

Yeah. So... Yeah, get to choose your fans. But we did, we don't. But I did meet the sumos afterwards, and they were terrific. Anyway. It's now more and more sounding like, your fraud-fooli syndrome. You're going to meet celebrities.

No, it was, what I will say is we, I took my wife on a date night there. Well, she took me there. It was her idea. But there is nothing better than watching two grass-fellers. fat fuck slam into it. The noise is extraordinary. Yeah. The big slap,

oh God, sets me right, gets me going. It's a good spectator sport. Did you get the rules? It's quite simple rules. It's sort of like a schoolboy game, but what I will say is that you'll,

it's so viscerally gripping that I stood up at, I said I was like cheering. I was like beer in the air at the end. Yeah, I guess MNA, it's like the punches and the cracks can be kind of horrible, but the satisfying fat slapping. It's kind of like,

it feels safe. and softer and... Also, the legs, the muscles on their legs is extraordinary. Yeah. Yeah. Probably the most muscular legs I've ever seen. Yeah.

And yet the top half is so fat. A suckling summa wrestler would be absolutely extraordinary. So let's see what they're eating. So five thousand calories for one meal. I know exactly what they eat because I researched this on the way home. They have a big stew that's got fish, beef, tofu, everything in it.

So they wake up, they don't have breakfast because that slows their metabolism down. Right. They then have 5,000 calories in a stew. And then they'll have six pints of beer and have a nap. Really? Yeah. And they'll wake up, have another 5,000 calorie meal and then go to bed early.

Because they're trying to gain fat. And not on the organs, not visceral fat, extra bodily fat. Which sumo wrestler has lived the longest? Because surely this is like, you burn bright. Umagatani I, who lived to 83. Okay. It's a blue zone. It's not that older.

83 is pretty good. To be the oldest, though. Of all sumer wrestlers. Doesn't seem that odd. What's the average age of a average lifespan of a sumer wrestler? Yeah. Now, Henry VIII is eating 5,000 calories a day. 605, yeah, it's pretty low.

605. For Japan, that is, that's pretty low. Anyway. The United States is the weirdest country in the world right now, and it doesn't make any sense to anyone. No, it doesn't, but want to make it a bit less confusing. Oh, I do. Good.

Well, our podcast can help. It's called American Friction, and it's out every Monday and Friday. We discuss all the big news from across the pond and explain it all with world-leading experts. That's American Friction. Listen, right now, wherever you get your podcasts, right now. American Friction! So he's easy. eating basically a sumo's breakfast every day. Now he's been eating this before the accident,

but he's been doing a lot of exercise. Now his leg is full of maggots and it's a food bin. He can't do the same. He's not getting his steps in. No. Firstly, he's, he is convinced that vegetables are not only a bad for you, but a moral sin. So this is like, this is like if Clarkson stuff. This is like if Clarkson was a toddler, basically. So he would be eating 80% of his diet was meat. In the final years of his life, the kitchens at Hampton Court are slaughtering 14,000 large animals a year. He would be presented with a buffet of 15 heavy meat dishes,

including spit-roasted beef, venison, veal mutton, pork, boar, whole-roasted peacocks, roasted swans, herons. On a Friday, you weren't allowed to eat meat in Christian traditions, so he eat fish, but by fish, he meant whales. Wales, seals, beavers. He then would have 13 points of ale a day. Is when I didn't get a day. Awful.

He then, because in the 1540s, Britain and the Caribbean are doing quite a lot of stuff, so sugar comes in. So he gets obsessed with like marzipan and like orange pies, drenched in syrup. Wow. A dish full of snow, which is like whipped cream and sugar and rose water.

But then, so there's no dental. care. So basically his teeth fall out, and he's eating tripe. So his breath is like a fucking dog. I can't imagine. It's awful. The amount of different notes you're being hit with on the whiskey tasting wheel. Rose water and tripe.

That is like air freshener after a shocking shit, isn't it? Rose water and tripe. Anyway, so we're getting slightly carried away, but he's starting to really motor in his fatness. He's been freed of the handbrake of mobility.

and now he can just expand. It can now... It's territorial expansion. Yes, it's Laban's round. Catherine of Aragon finally dies in 1536, which means Cromwell can hatch a plan

to execute Anne Boleyn. So what he does is he basically just confects this plot that she's been fucking her brother and everyone, it seems. And then a musician called Mark Smeaton, is that right? He gets tortured and confesses that he did rail her.

And then also that maybe he saw her brother railing her as well. Anyway, she gets incest at this point has connotations of witchcraft because it's not a very enlightened age. Right. Whereas now. Well, in the future, I'm sure it will be, that will be the next thing.

Love is love. That'll be the... Two heads or two heads. Six fingers or six fingers. That'll be the next letter in the acronym is incest. And so she's as a witch And then she's tried And her uncle

Gives the guilty verdict That's awesome Her uncle is amazing Like watching the other Balin girl Yes That's a real good uncle That proper proper uncle Well the opposite of creepy

Yeah He fucking sending a death So you fucking shod your brother You should be fucking killed You fucking per You don't want your uncle To be judging you sexually No

The trial outlined These details of the affairs Describing her relationship With her brother as a perverse passion where a sister's tongue found her brother's open mouth and vice versa.

Jesus Christ. Disgusting. Absolutely. Does this woman's sin no end? But in the other Berlin girl that we're talking about on the patron that do try and show the scene

where they almost go for it, but don't. Well, she tries it on with it. She tries it on. They try and make it sort of sexy a little bit. I mean, they're both quivering and crying, but I didn't like the way.

She was undressing him. And I was like, if it's, the whole reason that she was sleeping with her brother is not because she had the hots for him, right? It's because... Well, you may think so. Yeah, well, yeah. Errol Musker was.

Her uncle was Errol Masker. You may think so. Her uncle was Errol Masker. Yeah, basically, yeah. But it was because she wanted to... Large part of the world, marriageable ages 12. She wanted to get, um, have a... She wanted to have a...

Give birth to a son, but he didn't want it to be with someone else that Henry would be like that doesn't look like my son. She wanted to just look like her, basically. Yeah, but it would look like her. It would look like her, basically. Yeah. Would look like her twice. Yeah.

Well, she'd had a miscarriage and didn't want to tell Emily the 8th. So it was like, well, why don't I fuck my brother? Which is all nearly all completely bollocks. But in the scene,

I did think it was funny how they sort of try to make it. I don't know how, she was like undressing him to begin with. And he's crying. Yeah, and I'm like, I feel like you should come

in naked and maybe do it like the Jewish people or do it fully clothed. Like you don't need to, yeah, just fucking get. You don't need to role play. I think actually, the longer the four play is with incest,

the more you want to back out, I think you've got a cold plunge. You've got to just going to thumb it in. Yeah, I think so. I think so. If you're doing it where you feel like your life depends on it, you're back to the corner. You might get something out of it.

Well, you might as well enjoy it. Well, we might as well. I'm here now. Let's make the best of it, all right? Pull my hair. Fuck it. Spit in my mouth. All right.

It's might spit it basically, isn't it? Let's just spin each other's mouths. Pull my hair. Try my finger up my ass. Come on. Come on. We might as well. We might as well.

We have to do it. Yeah. I don't want to do it. Well, I'm hard now, so fuck it. You know, I didn't want to go. If you're going on holiday, you didn't want to go on. You're here already. You might as have a good time.

You're in a pub. Have a beer. What do you mean you're not drinking? You're here now. Fuck on. Whether they actually get down to it or not is unknown. They probably don't. But you've got to be, you can't be too careful with incest.

You've got to nip it in the bud. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So head off just in case. Just cut a head off, just in case. So George, brother, he's executed. a cup in like May 1536.

And then, yeah, he's a perv, had to go. And then Anne, Anne is executed a couple of days later. And for this, what they do is Henry gets a guy in from France, a specialist executioner who's got basically like a French medieval samurai sword, it seems. Because normally the executions are done with axes. And it's apparently very, very, very blizzard. blunt and the executioners are drunk a lot of the time.

Yeah. And it can be quite, quite a big slog. It can take a while. Take a while. Yeah. Right. A long time in the crease. Yeah, exactly.

Hacking away. Single. You don't want to do it in singles. You really want someone to come in and hit 36 off the over, really. Yeah. He commuted her sentence from burning to beheading, which is, I guess that's mercy, woke nonsense, perhaps. Yeah, it's broke.

So he's a feminist. Well, listen, I think you have to say he's a feminist, the amount of wives he has. The longest and most horrific beheading in English history is in 1541. Margaret. Margaret, Counters of Salisbury, who required 11 blows of the axe. Because her inexperienced executioner missed his mark on the first swing and struck her shoulder, the 67-year-old count, 67-year-old woman, leaped from the block and had to be chased around the scaffold while the headsman repeatedly hacked at her.

My God. Benny Hill beheading. I mean, if you're going for a beheading, is it kind of you get more of your money's worth that it takes longer? Oh, it's a real spectator sport. Now I understand when people will go and watch it happen.

Yeah. Because it's like, well, if I can see them, like chasing him or her around. Yeah, it's a hard skill and you've got to really nail it under a huge amount of, it's a real pressure pot. It's a real pressure. It's a penalty kick, really.

So, yeah, I mean, I guess, yeah, if you're watching, that's the kind of, you're getting your money's worth with the leather and blows the axe. Yeah. But a French guy comes in, and then she, kneels down, blind, no she's not blindfolded, she kneels down and then he just, um,

with one blow of this massive sword, whin, head off. Apparently, uh, eyes are still blinking and her fucking mouth still going. Even at the end, her head falls off and you're still fucking chirping away. Right. Going, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bang. Um, and the greatest villain in English history has been dealt with. Yes. In Wolf Hall, they show it, and I think it's quite historically accurate, but basically, so not only do they have the big sword because he wanted to make it like a Chilvaric, like King Arthur sort of Yeah, as opposed to an axe. Basically what the guy did to make sure that her neck

was as relaxed as possible. He went... Massage. He walked one way, whistled. She went like that. You're joking. Yeah. And then he steps and chops the head off the other way.

What? He went, look over there and then chop the head off. He went, tapped on the shoulder. She went, what? Oh, God. I absolutely hate falling for that. Yeah. I mean, that's actually quite insulting.

To do that right at the end. Yeah, that's right. The whole point is that you're giving a more of a kind of dignified death. Yeah, not go over. Oh, you don't go over there. Oh, fuck, you got. Or you go like, I got your nose and then you chop her nose off. Well, you just chop my nose off. Yeah. So, Anbelin has fallen. Yeah. And now a couple of days later, Henry is free to marry Jane Seymour, who is his third wife. So what's Jane Seymour's vibe? If Catherine Arrigan's quite a strong-willed, like, extremely. first wife sort of vibe. Amber Lynn is a sort of devious sexual terrorist.

Jane Seymour, she's seen as the kind of soft pure. A pure English virgin. Yeah. Yeah. Lie back and think of England. Yeah. She is gentle. She's a patron. She's a patron. Jane Seymour's a patriot. Finally, third time lucky. I said Patriot. Oh, sorry. Sorry.

I think she's a patron. A pure English virgin. Yeah. Yeah. No greater patriot than an English virgin. They marry in private, what, two weeks after the, after Hans beheaded. 30th of May, 1536. It's just a private ceremony, no need to make a fuss. And they make it sort of private to try and avoid drawing attention to how it's kind of

one in and one out at this point. Now, Seymour is Henry's favourite wife, in his words. I think because she lived the longest, least, that time. Well, he didn't, yeah, she did his work for her, for him. because he barely knew her. Son, death. Yeah. Perfect.

Perfect. The perfect wife. Yeah. That is a trad wife. Yeah. Gives you a son. Dead. So she, yeah, he ends up getting buried next to her, which is, I suppose, romantic.

Now, obviously, he's still hankering for a baby boy that's not, doesn't die after seven weeks. Yeah. Is that too much to ask, ladies? One job. You've got one job. So in early 1537, Jane Seymour becomes pregnant. and she's convinced it as a boy because she is craving quail.

Pregncy cravings. Pregnancy cravings. In the middle ages. My wife was smashing quail. Really? Yeah. She was pregnant with our son. Couldn't get enough quail.

Whale? Quail. Fescent. Peacocks, herons. She just ate off my plate, to be honest. So he imported quail from Calais and Flanders in order to feed Jane Seymour. And on the 12th of October, she gives birth to a son. Finally,

King Edward the 6th is born, Hampton Court Palace. I think he is quite a weak child. I mean, he won't live that much longer. But crucially, he outlasts Henry. Yeah. So at least he can die. Finally, he can die happy. A dynastic triumph.

However, there is a footnote to the story, I suppose, in that the birth was quite difficult, and Jane falls ill with a fever, then dies. Classies. One in one out. Yeah. She dies two weeks later, 29 years of age.

Supposedly because of an infection from a retained placenta. You want to get rid of that, love, I reckon. Don't retain the placenta. Stop eating placenters. She's a hoarder. God.

Two whores and a hoarder. The hem to the eighth story at this point. So, yeah, she has a placenta. I don't know if she's trying to eat it like Tom Cruise or something. Anyway, Henry's actually devastated at this point because he's like finally a family who's not broken and then she dies.

He's very unlucky, really. She's the only, another victim. Again, victim. She's the only of Henry's wives to receive a queen's funeral. Henry wears black in honor of Jane for three months. And it's during this widowhood that Henry, who is now 46,

really begins to sort. well. So how are the maggots doing in his leg? Are they starting to proliferate? Charlie, let's just check in with the food bin that is Henry the 8th's leg at this point. Yes. You ever had to deal with maggots in a food bin? Yes.

Oh my gosh. That's a real dad job. Yeah. Oh, my God. So what they do is they would like quarterize it. So they don't, they'd constantly be heating it was like hot irons. So it was, they felt that pus was good. Yeah.

One of the humors? Yeah, you're getting rid of evil. from the body. So just, they just kept it infected. Yeah. So it was like, constantly grangerness,

pussing. And it says that the sores generated a foul spelling discharge. Yeah. And so, but then they'd also put like nutmeg and fucking rosemary over the top of it.

Right. So it's just awful. That's a horrible stew. Horrible stew. It's like a, what's that thing with the perpetual stew? It's like a perpetual stew. Yeah,

it is a perpetual stew. It's like a perpetual stew in your thigh. Origano in there. Yeah. Well, you mean like, There's Jamaican pots, the crock pots. It's just like an infinite dish of bollocks.

Yeah, but it's his leg. But it's his leg, yeah. So, yeah, it's in the widowhood with the grief that he really starts to pile on the pounds. Quite soon he will be at an astonishing 52 inches. Wow. Waste. Which is, that's got to be Jackamo stuff.

Right. What is, Charlie, can you find out what Jackamo's waist range is? Yeah. What is the smallest Jackamo does? Yeah, who is the kind of... Jackamo's not for you. Yes. Who's the thinnest Jackamo guy?

Jackamo goes up to 64 inches. Wow. Jackamo offers a highly inclusive member. It's 32 inches. So that's me on a skinnier day. I can do 32. 64. So I can get in...

Maybe I should start shopping at Jackamo just at the bottom end. No, no, Jackamo is not for you. Jackamo. You walk into Jackamo, like, everyone instantly feel very, very sad. you know I used to Jackamo yes

ask me ask me where my parents used to take me age 12 to get my clothes where did your parents used to take you age 12 high and mighty

high and mighty yeah I know high and mighty great branding that is what does it not fast and sad not fast and sad they tried that and it didn't really work

as well so they had a branding no we got the fast and sad catalogue through the door we said no thank you I want to go to high and mighty

for my socks and my trousers right my vests. For socks. Yeah. Big feet, big fat feet.

But what's the vibe in the shop like? It's sad. Yeah. It's sad. Yeah. What, the shop assistants are coming around.

I got one. No, it's a sad vibe in High and Mighty. It is sad. What's the people behind the counter? Because when you're like, packing heat. Yeah, the shop assistants,

I suppose they're maybe fuller in figure than other. Shop assistants. I say that. I feel like shop assistants is kind of its own class of people really. Much like train employees, ticket inspectors. You know,

they're a different breed, really. Different race. They are a different race. They are different species. They are. They should be treated as such. But no,

I guess the real issue is when you're in a high and mighty and they get everything out and you go, I don't like any of these pieces, but I am confined to them because of my decisions. And my Prada Willie syndrome,

So I guess I have to just wear that. Yeah. Because I guess there's a determinism to the clothes almost. Yes, I had waistline determinism. You know, when you're too fat even for your red, quicksilver Hawaiian shirt, you know, with the palm trees on it. You don't say goodbye to that. I've had to say goodbye to that. What moment did Gavin Plum behind Emma Watson in now?

You take him a Hawaiian shirt? You know, that was my fun shirt. Now I've just got to wear fucking beige Jackamo shit. anyway, so Jane Seymour dies, Henry starts to swell and this just renews the constant instability that is in England in the 1530s. Now, meanwhile, Cromwell, or Thomas Cromwell, he's in his like flow state.

Yeah. This is the montage. He's dissolving monasteries. It's all like quill stuff. Move on up. And you're down, baby, just burning a roof, chasing my house. Ah, spanking points in a flow state.

He's dissolving monasteries. He's benefiting personally. I mean, he like takes over hundreds of, like, church lands. A hundred manners and estates. Now, this doesn't seem very Cromwellian, but he keeps exotic pets. Yeah, I did not know this about him. Like leopards and greyhounds, and he would gift them to the king. He is new money, though.

Yes, he is. I suppose he is. But I'm trying to find a thread between this Cromwell and. and Oliver Cromwell, it's hard to... Yeah, there's a lot of similarities. I guess, yeah, the smashing the monasteries and stuff. Anyway, the court starts to die down because Henry's sad and he's just fat

and he's got a magazine in his leg. And so Henry does not remarry for over two years, which, you know, it's good to have a break. You need to know yourself, don't you, before you enter into relationship. Yes, you can't just go from one relationship to another. You need some time to be single, you need to work out who you are on your own before

as long as you'll bring the baggage of the last relationship. Yes, and he's in danger of being termed a serial monogamous. Yeah, I'd hate that. I wish I would not want him to have. He's also got an actual waste sight in his leg. Yes. So I don't know how eligible you'd say he is.

Yes. However, Cromwell immediately starts trying to find him a new piece. But Henry is mourning, you know, his one true love who gave him a son, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what Henry does, right, just maybe try and make himself feel better about how fat he is and stinky and how his legs got maggots in it, is he devotes himself to cod pieces. And so perhaps it would be now worth doing a little side quest on the history of the codpiece. He devotes himself to cod pieces.

Yes, he's a codpiece enthusiast. So a codpiece began as a piece of fabric to conceal a gap in the men's hose. Okay. Whereas Henry begins to weaponise it as a seat. symbol of virility and power and fertile. So did he bring that into the fashion world? What was it? So the codpiece fashion was...

Now obviously, if you're being kind of Freud in, he's a man who's insecure about his fertility. Yeah. And so he is trying to have obscenely large cod pieces to try and project. I mean, it's a bit on the nose, though, isn't it? Your one is very operative. I must just say...

It's sort of brown and fleshy. I was complaining about my one. If you're only listening, we have been in costume the whole time. And Horatio has really... I just got a tanned, curved knob just sticking out. I'd say that is quite offensive, actually. It's quite... And I complained to our researcher who got these costumes,

but she insisted that this is a normal cockpit. And I feel like there's normally some fabric around it. It's meant to blend into the rest of your outfit. Well, you did ask for a small one. I did not ask for a small one. This is not a small one. It's the same size of yours. That's nice because that blends in.

That's flat. But this... really looks like I'm a letterist man on the bus Yeah, it's hard to seem creepy Especially wearing that hat It's hard not to seem creepy But this, my one just looks like balls, I guess

What have you found, Charlie? People would hide oranges in their cod pieces And then playfully pull them out To give to ladies Ah, so like boiled egg behind the ear kind of thing Orange out of the codpiece I had a question which was If, obviously it's not good to have

massive balls and a tiny knob Right But if you have Is there a limit to where where even if your knob is so tiny, if your ball's like the size of like the bath or if you have like the world's biggest balls. Like the Indian guy we found in the Gandhi series.

Yeah, is there any way that it kind of goes full circle and actually becomes kind of, um... Sexy again? Yeah. No. I don't think so. I don't think having balls the size of the bath is sexy. Well, in some cultures, maybe.

Maybe, but not this one. It's a sign of virility. Is it? I mean, I guess it's a terrifying bust. You could probably put out a house fire with that guy. Yeah, and there's got to be a woman on earth who's like...

There's got to be a woman on earth who's just like... There's got to be at least one woman who's just, you know, catching his eyes out at the side of the side. What with the biggest fanny in the world? Oh my God, look at the size of those balls. Christ.

The United States is the weirdest country in the world right now and it doesn't make any sense to anyone. No, it doesn't, but I want to make it a bit less confusing. Oh, I do. Good.

Well, our... podcast can help. It's called American Friction, and it's out every Monday and Friday. We discuss all the big news from across the pond and explain it all with world-leading experts. That's American Friction. Listen, right now, wherever you get your podcasts, right now. American Friction! Anyway.

Back to the codpiece. Back to the codpiece. By the 1530s, he had popular. bejeweled cod pieces. Wow. I guess this is sort of male vejazzling. Yeah, maybe we should bring back

the bejewed cod piece. Yes. It feels, there's something kind of more aspiration about the cod piece. It's not about the piece you've been given. It's about how you

bejewel and customize the sort of... It's an expression of personality. You can express yourself. But also... It's less deterministic of the size of your piece. But also, you know, we talk about

the female gaze. Would it not be nice for the ladies to open the foreskin and find some jewels down there? They like shhals. tiny things. They love that shit. Yeah.

Yeah, like, um, Croc gems. Like croc gems. Widget. They're called widgets, I believe. Croc widgets.

Yeah. We could all have little Simpsons widgets underneath our foreskins. So anyway, the trend peaks in 1540 when Henry commissions oversized metal cod pieces

for jousting and siege armor. At this point, his waistline is 52 inches. Yeah. Now, Elizabeth I first would sort of fade away this trend and it would give way to a sort of new padded style.

that shifted the focus of fashion. So this is the first bit of the way, I guess it's because it's like, everyone finds their dad sort of embarrassing. With a massive fake cop. Sorry, that reminds me of my dad's fake knob that he used to wear around the house.

And I'm already embarrassed that my dad popularized the fake massive knobs. Can we just like tone it down? It is a weird thing to walk around a huge strap on. Also that your dad's the one who came up with it. It's weird.

But it'd be funny. I mean, fashion trends are circular, aren't there? It's cyclical. It could come back around. Big jeans, skinny jeans. Yeah. You know, no codpiece,

it's the same sort of cycles. It's been a while since the cod piece is. It has been a while. It is due a renaissance. Yeah. So, by 1540, Cromwell has found, he thinks, Henry's next piece. This is my favourite of the wives.

Friend of the Pod and of Cleaves. Now, she is from a wealthy German family. and I think by this point that German family is still Catholic or they Protestant I'm not sure Cromwell finds some kind of... It must be Protestant if Cromwell's founder Yeah, Cromwell finds basically a politically convenient

Yeah Theologically convenient noblewoman in order... Yes, she is Catholic Is this a German during the second right? This, no, the first right, please. This is the first right. Please, please, we're still in the First Reich. Yeah.

We're nowhere near Bismarck, yeah. Yeah. Can we find out why Cromwell picked Anna Cleves even though she was Catholic? That does feel weird. Yeah, a character. No, I think it's because Cromwell, by this point, is trying to calm things down with the papacy.

And so he finds a German family that are still Catholic in order to try and smooth ties over. Because he's genuinely Protestant and believes a lot of these things, so it does seem... No, but Cromwell's actually just legalistic. He's more opportunist. I don't think he's... I think he really believes it.

No, because Anne's a reformer and he fucking gets rid of her. And he actually had often spired with her about the reformation. I don't think he is. How hardcore Protestant was Cromwell's actual beliefs? Yeah. It says Arden's supporter of Protestant Reformation. Yeah, I think he was. He was pretty involved

in the Reformation. He was having secret meetings of a lot of the Protestant guys. But he picks Anne of Cleaves to build a strong diplomatic alliance and prevent isolation from the Catholic powers of Europe. But build a strong diplomatic alliance with the Protestant German states. She's Catholic. So I don't quite understand that.

Is Cleves Catholic? He said yes, but yeah, he was definitely very Protestant. Because it's geopolitical. In 1539, England faces the threat of invasion from a unified alliance of Catholic France and Spain. Cromwell aims to counter this by allying with the Schmalkaldic League, a powerful confederation of Protestant German princess. Although Anne's family was not Lutheran, they were politically aligned with the Protestant princes. So the two ones Protestant, basically. Fair enough.

Full intensive purposes. She was Boston. So, and Henry, so Cromwell shows Henry this portrait that we're looking at now. She does look very nice. Yeah. Looks fine. Yeah, she looks gorge.

And so Henry thinks brilliant. Perth. Terrific. She'll do nicely. Anna of Cleaves arrives at Dover in December 1539. And Henry, the prankster that he is. Yes. basically decides to like

sort of fake ambush her with his boys? Yes but I think he thinks he's much more attracted than he is so his head he's still a young man so he sees this is quite a dashing romantic thing but I don't think being in disguise when you've got maggots in your legs gives you away somewhat

it's not like I'm here it just doesn't really have the same sort of 10 minutes before Anne would have to go what the fuck is that smell that it absolutely stinks because you could smell Henry from three rooms away because he was sort of He was like rotting, basically.

So he tries to intercept her at Rochester with his mates, but the meeting is a disaster because he storms her chamber with some disguised friends. And Anne, quite rightly, fears that she's going to be abducted. Right. Which is, I mean, that is. Fair play. I mean, fair enough. Henry is, immediately thinks, ah, fuck, she's not a laugh.

So is at that scene in the office, where Rick and Jervais is going to meet the blind date. Yeah. So this is Henry the 8th, wait for Round of Cleaves. She said to be wearing a white shift on scar to help me spy. He's coming. So, um, oh, fuck. Ah?

Ah? Hem of the eighth, Heming of the 8th meets Anne of Cleaves. Quote, she is nothing so fair as she hath been reported, calls her a, quote, Fat Flanders mayor. This is all the while he's literally

like dripping in. He's walking around like when you're carrying a fucking black bin liner just crawling with maggots. And it's just got like, you know the binges as you're taking it to the bins just dripping it through your kitchen. That's him just walking about.

And he's going, oh, fucking hell, she's on a truck. Christ. God, you could have got me a fit one. And he's seeping binges out of his leg. I mean, this is why I think Henry the 8th is so, English and so Clarkson. Yeah.

The entitlement, the toxic maleness of going, fucking hell, look at the state of your love, while you've got maggots pouring out of your thigh. On the morning of their wedding, right, because Cromwell insists that the alliance is too important, right? So they are going to get married.

Henry remarks that Anne had some, quote, very evil smells about her. From a man with maggots pouring out of his, something stinks in here, and it's not me. Is that you? But yeah, it is the English. The break from Rome, Brexit, is the same thing of just looking and saying, God, you guys are fucking weird.

Everything's a bit shit here. That must be your fault. You can't do that. He finds her malodorous, repulsive, and things. Well, she can't be a virgin because she stinks. Kind of goaded from Henry's for fear. Yeah. On the blind hypocrisy of a man who's a walking bin juice.

No, you're too stinky to be a virgin. You can't be a virgin. You smell awful. Meanwhile, court attendants could smell Henry from three rooms away, and they had to keep moving him from palace to palace because attendants couldn't stop throwing up when they were near him. The cartoonishness on the noseness of Henry is also what's satisfying. There's so little to read between the lines.

Even like he was scared about his own virility, he like fucking sell a take to giant knob to his one. Like there's no, there's probably why you like this story. There's no subtext. There's no like interpretation. It's very clearly down the line what's going on. Yeah, you don't need a fucking degree in psychoanalysis to work out what's going on.

The man who invented giant fake knobs walking around going, yeah, I'm a bloke. He's quite insecure about his masculinity. Yeah. But also it's so funny to be seeping out of your leg with a giant fake knob and to be like, you're a munter. What the fuck?

I can't have sex with you. And then the guy who got you the manta, you end up chopping his head off. Yeah. You're like, what the fuck you think I was meant to do? Have sex with her? kill him fucking hell she's punching anyway

so um uh reluctantly Henry marries Anne on January 6th the original January 6th 1540 the wedding night is not a success with Henry confiding to Cromwell quote I liked her before not well

but now I like her much worse I don't know why he's speaking like Borat but this is probably because Henry was impotent now I like her much worse um you probably He's probably his own smells, right? And he thought that was her smell.

Fuck, I know. Close your legs, love. Yeah, see, probably couldn't get it up by this point. Couldn't consummate the marriage. And so blames her plain face. And rather than his maggot leg. I mean, it's awesome. It's so English.

It's so Clarkson. The exceptionalism. Yeah. The blind hypocrisy. Rules that apply to you and no one else. Yeah. I mean, it really doesn't. all start here, I think. You don't really

have this sense of Englishness before Hemley 8th. No. Because it's just sort of vaguely medieval Europe. It's not distinctive for Europeans, really. But also I think this is something that you don't actually, when you learn about Heming the 8th, you don't learn about, you don't dig into

why he is so English. You just think... Well, how his characteristics relate to ours now? Yeah, you don't dig into that. What you dig into is the kind of cartoonish nature of his wives And also, I think he is the sort of archetype of an evil megalomaniac king that then America uses to distance itself from that order. It goes like, he's the tyrannical king.

He's the despot king. So we want to make a sort of democracy. But do you think Henry VIII's reputation is of evil? For me, it's slightly more complicated than that. He doesn't seem to be like this completely agreed evil guy. It's more, he's just, he's more sillier than that, almost. I don't know. Yeah.

He's an African dictator. Yeah. You know, it would make more sense if all his quotes were in the same voice to abuse for idiomene. Yeah.

Anyway, so Henry makes it through four months of marriage saying that they've never fucked because she's awful and plain and smells. He argues that the marriage is invalid because he'd entered it without consent.

So he got raped? He was, well, they didn't actually have sex. Right. But every time she tried, he was like, no means no. Anne basically cooperates and Anne immediately agrees to the annulment I wonder why

which means that she gets a generous settlement which means she gets Heaver Castle I've been there with my kids it's great day out of Hever Castle I hear it's amazing It's not far from where we record about an hour away in Kent and so there's yeah

she gets Hever Castle and their marriage is an old on the 12th of July Not Beaver Castle Charlie Hever Um They've introduced Beaver They've called it Heaver Castle out of what the...

They call it Heaver Castle out of what the attendants would do when they were around Henry's... So the marriage isn't old in 1540. We haven't placed anything. Should we place 1540? Yes, so I guess this is... I guess it's after the invention of the cod piece and it's before the invention of the plug-in dildo.

Mains. You know the Mains Dildo? I'm very aware of the Mains Dildo. So this is... You can't be battery powered. Battery powered doesn't touch the sides for me in my house. It's like one of those soakers you use on a car. Pressure washer.

Pressure washer. It's a lawn trimmer. Yeah. You know, these are things that you cannot have battery power. It's just too. Charlie, when is that invented? The 1880s. It's a fantastic time, the late 19th century.

No, no, no. It's not the 1880s because there's no electrical mains in the 80s. 1960s. 60s. The Hitachi Magic Wand. our female researcher is nodding. Yes. She's having a religious experience about there.

Got it, yeah. Of course it was in Japan. Yeah. And it plugs directly into the mains. That's proper. How can we harness, or only the Japanese would think of it. How can we harness the power of the tumble dryer to make my wife bust? Yeah.

So, yes, that's when 1540 is. Now, the divorce from Anne of Cleves is a massive, political embarrassment for Henry the 8th. And so he's backed into a corner. Once again, can we stop cornering this man? Yeah. Right? He's got a lot on. And so as Cromwell,

as the instigator of the marriage, is then basically forced to pay for it. And so Cromwell's enemies frame him as a man who had misled the team. Because he's a bit of a prick. Yes. He's not a people person. He's not a fun guy. No. And so...

And everyone hates him because he's not from money. He's not a... He's not like a nobleman of anything. sought. And he's just coming. He's now the most powerful. So they're waiting. They can't wait for his downfall, basically. So in June 1540, at a privy council meeting, Cromwell is arrested on charge of treason and a heresy. He's imprisoned in the Tower of London. And he's then condemned without formal court proceedings. And he really doesn't take it well. He writes letters going, I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy. I mean, he's a legal guy. He's a legislator as well. So for him to

not even get any court proceedings, even a fake court is kind of crazy. But I guess, This is where Henry's life is sort of quickening up everything. He's been through all these stuff before. So everything now is just hurried. Right. Dunnish, done. Head off. Next.

Henry will execute 72,000 people on his orders. How are he? 72,000. So he's like Stalin, basically. Yeah. Yeah. But most of this is after the accident. So by this point, he really is a bit of a bloodbath.

Yeah. So Cromwell is executed on the 28th of July 1540. and as we were saying it's kind of the opposite of Ambulin in that the executioner is pissed and had got... Basically, I think, some of his enemies

had got the executioner drunk the night before. But even now, it's like, is barbaric what he did to Ambelin? But like, the transition, it's now getting even more ridiculous. And now you can look back on Ambelin. It's like, God, that was a much classier time. Yeah.

When it was just... Because he was lobbing his wife's hell off. Single stroke. Yeah. And now it takes... Everything's become... It takes half an hour before his head

was finally severed. So it's like a sitcom episode. Yeah, it's an episode of Scrubs. Yeah. I mean, it's half, we've been talking, how long we've been talking for? About 50 minutes, something like that?

Yeah. I mean, basically half this episode, Cromwell's on a block going, oh, oh, oh, please, oh, God, please. Half an hour, head off. Wait, so was it an experienced teenager? Yeah, it was a teenager, but apparently

quite, oh god. So it's like a guy who works like a view cinema with fucking acne yeah is the...

I only know how to operate the sloshing machine I'm not sure I'm qualified for it yeah and fucking half I mean he earned his money fair play

half an hour of chopping a head off yeah I guess so I guess you put it like that anyway the same day Is the executioner apologising or is it are they just like

Well as he's I'm so sorry about this He's a teenager So he's probably quite He was hung over He's probably trying to throw up Yeah Is he kind of grumbling

he's probably just sweating and he's just like raining axes down I mean you've got to be getting in one straight if that's your job On the same day that Cromwell has executed Henry marries his fifth wife The 17 year old Catherine Howard Can I hear a

A woo Now that's a pretty bleak story actually We'll get into that in the next episode Which is already on our Patreon The final part of the 10th of the 8th series Where we'll get into his grizzly end And as I said, it is Gaddafi-esque stuff. We'll deal with his final two wives.

And we'll sum up on why he is probably the greatest king we've ever had. That's running the Patreon for £3 a month. You get instant access to series and bonus episodes. And you know, you know where it is. Sign up. Sign up. I don't need to give you any more reasons. Fuck it.

Fuck it. That's all from us here. We'll see you next time for the final part in our epic Henry the 8th series. Goodbye. Goodbye. Thank you.