Henry VIII Part IV: The Magnificently Obese Years

Warning: This is the fourth and final installment in a series of posts telling the story of Henry VIII from the viewpoint of a historian with serious dain bramage. If you are scared - run on to a simpler post! If you ain't skeered then by all means indulge, but you should probably scroll down and read the previous three posts first so you can get caught up with meanderings of the now massive monarch.

In 1536 Henry had suffered a jousting accident, which caused severe damage and ulceration of his leg. During the last decade of his life Henry started to assume the appearance that we commonly associate him with, that of a rather roundish basketball of a man (see above for what Henry would have looked like if he were African-American). And like that rubbery round object, the king bounced back quickly from his disastrous fourth marriage to Anne of Cleavage. Within a month of their annulment, in fact, Hammerin' Hank was strolling up the aisle once more, this time accompanied by the luscious beauty Catherine Howard. Henry's luck with wives continued, though, and as it turned out, Cat (as I call her) was a complete whore. To be honest, she was a slut since she did not even charge money for her personal favors, which she gave out like candy to everyone at court from the highest lord to the lowest pissboy. Seriously, she went down like the cure to the plague was hidden in the shaft of each man with which she came in contact. Why anyone would be so brazenly whoretacular while married to a monarch who had already earned his merit badge for sadism is hard to fathom. Nymphomania is the obvious diagnosis. So after a couple years of head-bangin' behavior from the queen, Henry divorced and imprisoned her. One of her lovers was lucky enough to be drawn and quartered - which is a fun way of racing horses that I highly recommend! Several months later, after clearing it with Pope Henry, the king had Catherine executed as well. Reader's Note: I suggest listening to Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" now as it fits the moment quite well.
So those of you who can count to six will know that we have reached the final marriage of Henry's lengthy rule. Who would be the little lady earning the hand of the flabby, ulcer ridden, and delightfully flatulent king? Thomas Cranmer, who was now Henry's lead advisor (everyone else was dead) found the lucky piece of lass. Her name was Catherine Parr and she herself had already been betrothed two times. Both of her previous husbands had died and left her a widow. One would have thought that Henry might have seen a pattern here, but he was too busy being King of England, Wales, and Ireland, heading up the Anglican Church, and fighting random wars with those French pansies, to have any time left to remove his head from his own ass. Had he done so, he might have spotted the Black Widow effect Parr seemed to have on husbands before his own death in 1547. Why Henry died has been greatly debated. Syphillis, diabetes, and complications from his old leg injury have all been proposed as the possible culprit. Regardless of the truth, the old dirty bastard was dead and the son he had fought hard to bring into the world was now king.
So what did Henry VIII accomplish during his forty years on the English throne? The heir thing he was so obsessed with did not work out too well. His son, Edward VI, died only five short years after his father. His oldest daughter Mary, took over after Edward and also ruled only a short time. Her main accomplishment besides contributing to alcoholism was the execution of Archbishop Cranmer, the one person her father had forgotten to kill during his reign. The last of Henry's children to take the throne was Elizabeth and although she reigned for over forty years, she did not have any children. Hey she was the Virgin Queen, her odds were not too good. Her death in 1603 brought about the end of the Tudor dynasty.
Henry's major accomplishment was the creation of the Anglican Church, severing England's connection to the sun-worshiping, heathen papists in Rome. Also, according to Henry's Topps mass-murderer card, he is credited with a career total of 72,000 executions. Such a total insured him entrance on the first ballot into the Tyrant hall-of-fame. The six wives, too, are a record for an English monarch. What king would not be proud of the killin and lady drillin Henry got done during his reign?

Henry VIII : The Newlywed Game

Writer's Note: This is the third part in a four part series. Go to the previous posts if you would like to know what the hell is going on here. And yes this appears to be about history and you may think you are going to be bored to death, but trust me - if you want to read a cool story, please perservere.

When we last left you, Henry VIII had divorced Catherine of Aragon and created the Anglican Church, severing the power of Rome in England. Thomas Cranmer was made Archbishop of Canterbury and wrote the Common Book of Prayer, which was used as the liturgy (fancy term for the words you mouth while you are in church feeling guilty about checking out the organist). He also composed a lesser known work, Canterbury Tails, dealing with his youthful escapades as a gigolo in Sussex.
Henry would now marry a local hooker named Anne Boleyn (she wasn't really a prostitute, but it makes this into sort of a "Pretty Woman" sort of story - maybe we can get that Julia Roberts chick for the film version now). Historians have been unable to determine the actual year of Anne's birth, so we will say that she was between the ages of 4 and 923 when she married the king on a cold January day in the year of our lord 1533. The newly wedded couple was hopelessly in love, so much so that Henry granted Anne's request that he exile Cardinal Wolsey, her archenemy. Luckily for Wolsey, Anne did not request a wedding cake made out of the Cardinal's organs and a special viscera flavored icing. Yummy, viscera! The end of Wolsey's influence meant the rise to power of Anne's good buddy Thomas Cromwell. If you thought Wolsey was untrustworthy, man wait to see what this douche does!
Her main goal, like the previous queen's (I love a story that involves multiple queens), was to pop out a male child for the good of the realm. Like her predecessor, Anne too was unable to produce anything but a useless vagina, this one going by the name Elizabeth (no way this useless babe would ever make anything of herself).
*Author's Note: Remember I am not the evil misogynistic bastard that created this story, I am just retelling it in a more interesting fashion.
Back to our tale of madness and woe! Henry soon tired of Anne's failures to birth an heir and her desperate attempts to paste a dildo onto her second child did not fool anyone. Mr. VIII had no further use for Boleyn and had her charged with incest, treason, witchcraft, and raping small animals (okay I made one of those up). The double-crossing Cromwell (I told you not to trust him, but did you listen to me???!!) assisted the king, managing through delicate methods (chopping off fingers,toes,etc. - trust me in the 16th century that was playing nice) to convince members of the king's court to admit that they had slept with Anne. Boleyn, whose head was soon to be rolling, was also accused of sleeping with her brother, George, a relationship recounted in "Taboo 4: Family Matters." As a result, King Henry had Anne and George executed. Time for wife #3. Should we even bother giving them names at this point?
The next in line was, Jane Seymour, the most beloved of Henry's wives and also the star of "Live and Let Die" and "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman." She had caught the Round Mound of Rebound's eye as a lady-in-waiting for Anne and after the previous queen lost track of her the part of her body above the shoulders, there was an opening for Jane to fill. She became queen in 1535. Seymour was loved so much by Henry for the simple fact that she was the first of his queens to succeed in the task of delivering him a male heir, Edward. The birth of his first son brought joy to Henry, but unfortunately brought very little to Jane. In fact, she died during the process. Kind of a bummer for her. Things didn't work out so well with Edward either, but that is a story for another time and being that Henry is depressed enough, we may want to save that bad news for later. It was 1537 and the lord of all of England was once again in the market for a new queen.
King Hank was somewhat depressed and stayed single for three years. In 1540, though, his advisor, the wicked and desperately depraved Cromwell decided that had to change. He knew that Edward was a weakly boy and that they needed some insurance on the heir front. Therefore, Cromwell arranged for the king to be married once more. Knowing how well the first marriage to a foreigner had worked out, the councillor pursued a betrothal to a German woman who went by the name of Anne of Cleavage or something like that. Henry was shown a painting of her by the great artist Hans Holbein (see picture up top) and the monarch acquiesced to the arrangement. Sadly, the woman in the picture did not resemble the awful hag that showed up at the English court (keep in mind if you made an aristocrat look ugly in a painting, they might in turn make you dead). In addition, Anne was scared of sex. Henry, in turn, was scared of having coitus with this revolting specimen of womanhood that had shown up in his bedroom. His penis was said to run away and hide whenever it caught sight of her. The marriage did not even last through the end of 1540. Henry the pope granted Henry the king (busy guy, huh?) an annulment on the basis that the marriage had never been consumated. The monarch was also furious with Cromwell with setting him up the marriage in the first place. He had his lead advisor executed and intentionally chose an inexperienced headsman who took three chops to finally sever the neck (if Henry was really such a bastard he would have had the guy use a dull butter knife).
So we have four wives down and two to go. Only two of them even had to die. So Henry wasn't such a bad guy, was he? I will leave it to you decide as we move to the exciting conclusion of our story. See you then kids!

Henry VIII: The Saga Continues: In Search of Heir Balls

Warning: This is a continuation of the previous post. If you have not read the last one you may want to check it out so you know what the hell is going on. Or not if you are the type that reads the end of the book first. Or the middle in this case.

We resume our story in the year of our lord 1509, with our hero Henry VIII taking the throne after the demise of his father. Young Henry is saddled with a Spanish wife he doesn't really want - Catherine of Aragon - and a group of advisors led by the devious Cardinal Wolsey who try to dominant the young monarch and control English policy. Henry was still a teenager (18) and more interested in whoring (thus his nickname Hammerin' Hank) and hunting in his boundless private woods than in ruling England during these years and for the most part allowed Wolsey to make most of the important decisions. Check him out in the upper right hand corner there - he is definitely scheming something, that old, dirty bastard. I don't trust him for a second. Another one of Henry's advisers was Sir Thomas More. More wrote the book Utopia, about what life would be like if everything on Earth was perfect. I have had some fantasies like that myself, but there is no way in hell I would put them in a book.
The most important task Henry needed to accomplish as king was to produce an heir. A male heir. Back then nobody listened to anything a woman had to say because Gloria Steinem had not been invented yet. Therefore having a queen would be no good. Unfortunately, Queen Catherine of Aragon (you will see why I use her whole name later, these aristocrat-types aren't too creative with names) was only able to produce one child who lived to be an adult - Bloody Mary. Although useful to alcoholics who need a beverage in the morning, a Bloody Mary was not what Henry was looking for in a son due to her unfortunate lack of a penis.
Although considered a serious manho by most historians, Henry was married to Catherine for the majority of his roughly forty year reign. After fifteen years of marriage to Catherine, the king started to think their marriage was cursed, they had no prince and Cathy (as I call her, we are tight) was starting to get a bit haggard in the age department and was unlikely to be popping out any more children. Henry discovered around this time that a chapter in the Bible, Leviticus, says that anyone that marries his brother's widow will be doomed to have a barren marriage (conveniently forgetting the existence of Mary). Of course, the Catholic Church knew this fact when they let him get married, but conveniently forgot it since they did not want to witness the Hulk-like lunatic rage England and Spain, the main beneficiaries of the union, were capable of when you got them wifebeater-tearing mad.
Mr. VIII, with the help of Wolsey, decided to ask the Catholic Church for permission to have his marriage to Catherine annulled on the grounds that he had been unknowingly committing incest for a mere fifteen years. Whoops! The Catholic Church, much like any Washington bureaucrat worth his salt, took seven years to come up with a decision on the matter. Virtually imprisoned by the more powerful Spanish emperor Charles V, the pope chose to deny the request.
Henry was so upset upon hearing of the decision that he chose to take an unheard of step. He beheaded all Catholics. Actually, that is in fact not true (although only barely so), but it would have been cool as well as helping him to work through his anger management issues by giving him a proper direction to vent his uncontrollable rage. Seriously though, Henry chose to sever ties between England and the Catholic Church in Rome. He had always wanted to wear that funny hat the Pope had and now he could. In addition, the coffers could use some filling so all of the monasteries and other various properties that had previously belonged to the church now belonged to Henry. All holy men in the land had to take a break from their all-male orgies and swear fealty to Henry as the head of the new "Anglican" church. Those priests who failed to do so had their heads chopped off and used for to decorate England for the Anglican church grand opening . Sir Thomas More was one of those executed for this reason. Way to stand up for what you believe, Thomas! The Catholics will rise again, no doubt.
Most importantly, though, Henry was able to get his annulment from Catherine. The new archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, made it happen. The decision making process went something like this:
King Henry: Can I get divorced from that Spanish wench
Cranmer: Hell yea you can - everything you say is so awesomely true it causes God to weep (thus the current rainstorm). Oh, and please don't kill me.
King Henry: That is megasweet, let's get it on

Henry already had a new target for his kingly phallus in mind, a young hottie by the name of Anne Boleyn. Her reign would be a tumultuous and exciting 1000 days long - at least according to the movie I used to do my research.

Henry VIII - The Early Squirrelly Years

There have been many television shows and movies done dealing with history over the century long life of the two mediums. Books, as well, but they are way too long and require the pointless effort of reading. One example of historical enlightenment brought to the masses on a glowing box or screen is the life of Henry VIII, which has been dramatized countless times over the years, most notably in the movie "Anne of 1000 Days" and the current HBO series, "The Tudors." You certainly cannot blame Hollywood for wanting to use this story, for it is full of the intrigue, the romance, and the fascinating characters/total prostitutes that drive the greatest cinematic classics. The problem with turning life into a movie is that the reality inevitably gets thrown under a speeding Greyhound bus along the way. Here then, is the real story of one of history's most pleasantly plump tyrants. Be prepared for the occasional attempts at humor along the way. I may not have said anything funny so far, but it is just a matter of time unless you are just a cold, heartless bastard. Mel Brooks hasn't taken his shot at turning this story into a tale of the Jewish people yet so I thought what the fuck, let's do this thing.
First of all, was Henry always a corpulent slob, munching on a never-ending series of overloaded trenchers until the first Big and Tall store was created to deal with his unique fashion needs? In fact, he was actually quite a handsome, fetching lad during his youth. With a pretty nice ass to boot, I would rate him an 8.4 on the dude scale. Who would you rather trust, a historian or a flaming homosexual on this point? He was not as hot as the guy who plays him on the HBO program, that guy gets a 9.7 (a here is my phone number and address type rating). Congrats to straight dudes who survived those sentences with their manhood intact; I will move on now to the crux of our tale. Henry was not originally the heir of his father, who happened to be named Henry as well. His dad was the seventh because according to Sesame Street's The Count, this number comes before eight. The firstborn son of Henry VII, who was the first of the Tudor dynasty, was actually named Arthur. There has never been a king of England named Arthur, so guess what happened to that guy? Yes and I know after reading that you will say, but what about the King Arthur who had the magician named Merlin, the dirty, cheating tramp wife Guinnevere, and that round table? Sorry to crush your hopes and dreams, but that is a bunch of bullshit. Never happened. Most of it was written in a story called "L'Morte d' Arthur" by a freaking French dude hundreds of years after the Anglo-Saxon invasion used in the Arthur stories.
Anyway, this is a story about Henry VIII, so quit getting me off topic or we will never find out if Henry gets married six times or not. Our future monarch became the 2175 butterfly only in 1502, when his older brother died of diabetes, consumption, or a hantavirus (ask Web MD for further info on hantavirus, I am not a damn doctor Jim) at the age of fifteen. Hell, it could have been all three, even the rich people had crappy doctors back then and your autopsy was performed by the same guy that cut your hair. Full insurance coverage wasn't enough to save Arthur's behind. As a result, besides becoming first in line for the throne of England, Henry got the opportunity to bang his brother's wife. Daddy Henry, however, was a little bit creeped out by the idea and objected to his son going ice fishing in the same hole used by his elder brother. Since Arthur was around the age of puberty at the time of his death, it was unknown as to whether he had been icefishing there yet (this is how we talk about sex when the kids are around). Catherine claimed, in fact, that no pole had previously been dipped in her waters and she was wide open to the future possibility.
It was not long, though, until Hank VII was no longer calling the shots, which kicks ass because it is confusing to read/write about two people with the same name - I for one am glad he is about to exit stage left. So, in the year 1509, Henry VII passed away of a broken heart due to the loss of his first son and his wife seven years earlier. Apparently, it takes a really long time to die from a broken heart. I always wear a condom in hopes that I never acquire the condition.
The result of his delayed, yet tragic demise, was a new monarch for England and the beginning of the "Dallas"-like soap opera that would be the reign of Henry VIII. The king was immediately married to Catherine, cementing the alliance between Catholic England and Catholic Spain. Surely they would enjoy a lifetime of marital bliss. Of course, the monkeys from "The Wizard of Oz" might also fly out of my buttocks. Stay tuned for the epic conclusion, which will be a combination of all the greatest episodes of "Days of Our Lives" and "Dynasty!"