I keep mentioning this guy Henry VIII, mainly because he seems to get around and I keep running into him. So I thought I'd be fair and tell the story of some other colorful monarchs. Henry wasnt as bad as he's made out to be, he gets a pretty bad rap.
For example:
1. He inadvertently brought England out of the Dark Ages by bringing Protestantism and Renaissance ideas to England with his divorce of the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon and his marriage to Anne Boleyn.
2. He united England and Wales
3. He brought Renaissance art, theater, dance, and music to the English court.
4. His example set the tone for his daughter Elizabeth I who was a great queen. His courage, stubbornness, and toughness were passed on to her, as was the Protestantism brought to England by her mother and by Henry's marriage to Katherine Parr. Elizabeth was able to learn from his strengths and weaknesses and she led by his example, but with more kindness and less selfishness.
5. He stopped the paying of the "Peter's Pence" which was basically a tax that was sent to the Pope in Rome. Under English law, the English King was supreme, and could not be a vassal under any other king. The Pope was (and technically still is) a king, so stopping the payments made sense. Especially as they were at the time being used to fund England's enemies!
6. He also dissolved many monasteries, which were incredibly wealthy, and owned something like 1/4 of the land in England, and not being subject to tax, this meant significant shortfalls for the Crown. The ruins are fun too.
7. He built up the English navy.
8. He wrote a rather good song called Pastime with Good Company
Henrys Catchy Song
So who else can we look at?
How about
Edward II? He had a penchant for young boys in his court and an interest in low-born activities like "hedging" and "ditching" (laying a hedge and digging a ditch for the hedge) instead of jousting and fighting the Scots. He fell out with his wife, the queen, who manipulated events to have him deposed in favor of his son.
He was later murdered by having a hot lead pipe shoved up his... well, you get the idea.
Henry I died from eating a "surfeit of lampreys" while in France. His body was eviscerated and wrapped in a bulls hide to preserve it on the way home but the embalming had been botched. After a month of delays due to bad weather the corpse had decayed to such an extent a royal servant expired on the spot from inhaling the noxious fumes.
King John. Talk about EVIL. It so bugs me when H8 gets the "he was so HORRIBLE" thing when you have King John. THE royal tyrant of English history. His primary legacy - the Magna Carta - was forced on him by his disenchanted barons in the desperate hope that another John would never be seen again. An unrelenting sexual predator for strategic ends, he targeted the wives and daughters of his leading barons. He had his nephew Arthur blinded, castrated and killed. He had Matilda de Briouze, the wife of a leading magnate, and her son starved to death She was discovered dead between her son’s legs, leaning back against his chest, so desperate was the mother that she had eaten her son’s cheeks. An epic failure as a king, he died of dysentery in a bed filled with.... ahem.
James IV of Scotland met his death at Flodden Field . His battered corpse was sent to London as a trophy of war where Queen Catherine of Aragon had the body sent to Richmond. The coffin mouldered away for years in a shed until the head became detached and was reputedly used as a football by Elizabethan workmen.
We're all living a story, make it a good one!
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