Henry main layout Richmond 24/4/09 12:11 Page 1
KEW 250
The Whitehall Mural by Remigius Van Leemput (1667), copied from Hans Holbein (1537). L to r: Henry VIII, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York (Henry’s
parents), and Jane Seymour (Henry’s third and favourite wife). The Royal Collection © 2009 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
King of pain
He is the monarch we all love to hate. But what exactly made him so bad?
500 years after Henry VIII came to the throne, Richard Nye meets the
Hampton Court historian with a controversial theory of her own
ome myths defy contradiction. throne exactly 500 years ago. See him “We’ve been lazy over the years,”
S
Fashioned by folklore, honoured glower out like Rambo from the Whitehall maintains Suzannah, sipping thoughtfully
by time, they have hardened into Mural (above); a volcanic projection of at her coffee. “We’ve made Henry into a
orthodoxies brooking no dissent. untrammelled power, effortlessly shifting caricature and just assumed that he was the
Martin Luther King, we know, was a little our gaze from the centre of the canvas to same throughout his life, whereas the true
lower than the angels; Queen Victoria was the edge. Behold the face of tyranny: an picture is far more dynamic.”
rarely amused; Richard III had the hump. open-and-shut case. Even a cursory glance at the sources
And then there’s Henry VIII. We have Or is it? Not according to Suzannah would appear to back this up. For the
him taped, alright: irascible, despotic, the Lipscomb, a Tudor historian working as a events with which we principally associate
ultimate Weight Watchers flop; a serial research curator at Hampton Court Henry – destruction of the monasteries;
executioner signing death warrants with Palace, where Henry 500 events are taking divorce from Katherine of Aragon and
pathological glee; a horny hypocrite who place throughout 2009. In an intriguing marriage to Anne Boleyn; the executions
changed his religion to dump his old lady new volume, the Oxford scholar – of Anne, Catherine Howard, Sir Thomas
and marry the new bird at court. employed through a partnership with More and many other high-profile figures
For evidence, take a look at the famous Kingston University – arrives at two main – were largely confined to the final third of
Holbein portraits of the mid-1530s; the conclusions: that Henry, like most of us, his reign. For over 20 years, Henry ruled
two images which, with a little help from changed over time; and that the biggest with intelligence, calm authority and
Hollywood and the BBC, have shaped our changes were catalyzed by a series of essential good grace. He was the golden
perception of the king who ascended the crushing events during the course of 1536. celebrity of his day: handsome, athletic,
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