henry viii - was he a f*ckwit?

[petee]

it is wierd how he seems to get a pass and is regarded as "a bit of a charchter" when he was very much a capricious tyrant who seemed to think nothing of executing advisors and wives who failed him in some way. And he casued a siesmic repture in englands social fabric and international relations just to sastify his own personal desires and greed.

THe enlglish reformation is a wierd one in that its main driverwas Henry breaking with rome it as a way of divorcing his wife in order to a. persue his obsesson with Anne Bolyen and/or b. secure a legitmate male heir.
Cramner and Cromwell used this as a way of pushing England towards protestantism - and Henry seemed happy to go along with it as a way of getting rid of Catherin of Aragorn and then later enriching himself on the proceeds of the disolution of the monestrys (which also bought the support of the noblilty) . Cromwell seems to have been the key player here - im not sure whether he was driven by deeply held religious convictions - and/or a machiveioan genius for wealth and power (which bit him on the arse big time after the anne of leaves debacle)
Who knows what would have happened Catherine had provided a male her - or if the pope had sanctioned a divorce? The History of England and Britain would have been very, very different.

excellent summary.
more should be said (in general, not pointing any fingers) about Catherine's bravery in refusing to go along with Henry's arrogance.

 

[A380]

The British Isles were still bloody & didn't side step anything. The Tudor conquest of Ireland took the lives of thousands. And there was the long drawn out Anglo-Dutch war against Spain, (who gave some support to the Irish) & the Spanish Armada.

Which we know leads to The English Civil War, which was a chapter in the European Wars of Religion, itself part of the wider global crisis of the 1600s.

Geoffrey Parker's book is vast in scope & daunting.

Last time I looked England Wales and Scotland were different to the British Iskes…And none of the ways of the three kingdoms came close to what people endured inn continental Europe. You are right about Ireland though, which is why I specifically excluded it. Otherwise, you make an excellent cogent argument.