00:05:02.080he was actually kind of like, you know, a little bit less evil in the beginning, I think.
00:05:08.520I mean, everybody's less evil in the beginning, right? No kid comes out evil. But I think as a
00:05:12.120younger person, he had this sort of different path in front of him. And it would have been
00:05:15.460really interesting if Arthur had become king and Henry had not. And we could have seen,
00:05:19.940would he have been the evil monster that, you know, we feel like he is today.
00:05:25.120But well, and I wonder too, like, if, again, if we're just kind of thinking like speculatively,
00:05:28.400it's like he was kind of moved into a path that was not his you know that was not what he was
00:05:34.020raised to do like if he had been raised differently maybe would have behaved differently but also like
00:05:38.720if his life's path is really to become like the archbishop or whatever right yeah like he would
00:05:43.020have had a really different life but so he's the spare right so he's got this older brother
00:05:46.920I did an episode a while ago about his sister Margaret Tudor who became the queen of Scots
00:05:53.380but she was a little kid at the time of her marriage and so she was still living there
00:05:56.820with the family and Henry, I remember reading was really jealous of her because suddenly she
00:06:01.020started being treated like the queen. Ooh, sure. But that's his sister and she's just a girl. So
00:06:07.400I'm just like, well, yeah. In retrospect, you're like, okay, we see who you are, Henry VIII. But
00:06:11.880at the time you're like, oh, he's just the brother and he's like jealous that she gets
00:06:14.600this attention and whatever. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I think he was probably the type of person
00:06:20.460that once all of that praise and attention was heaped on him, it changed him. You know, like
00:06:25.600the other kids grew up with it more than he did it was sort of like he was I don't even remember
00:06:30.720exactly what year old he was when Arthur died Arthur was like 15 so Henry was a couple years
00:06:35.460younger and it probably went from it was at that like puberty stage where he went from being kind
00:06:40.380of nobody to being the most important person in his country literally like besides his dad and
00:06:46.360like I can just imagine how that like warped his mind into what I mean he was already you know
00:06:51.740the, you know, a prince, you know, it's not like he wasn't important, but now all of a sudden he
00:06:55.280is the heir to the throne and it probably just changed everything about him or enhanced the
00:07:00.280things that were there that were probably kind of problematic. Exactly. So, and it's sort of like
00:07:05.180he's living his life. I'm just double checking some of the ages and dates, but it's kind of like
00:07:08.560he, he was growing up, like he's a kid, he has these siblings, he has this mother, um, and then
00:07:14.260boom, boom, boom, like a whole bunch of deaths happen all in a row, which also can change a
00:07:17.840person, especially when you're really young. So his brother, Arthur, is married to Catalina
00:07:23.440of Aragon, Catherine of Aragon, as she's known. And so, and it's this really, it sort of
00:07:29.260legitimizes them by marrying the heir to somebody from an indisputable royal family, like the
00:07:36.800Spanish royal family. Like she brings a lot of gravitas to the role, right?
00:07:41.140Yeah. Daughter of Isabel and Ferdinand. And yeah, all of her siblings are kings and queens of
00:07:46.740various places like i mean spanish royalty was about as solid as you could get at that time
00:07:51.420besides the french but obviously the french and the english were not friends so french and the
00:07:55.820english it's so hard to keep track but they're almost always at war occasionally briefly not
00:08:00.280but yes yeah so spain is kind of it and so the one of the reasons why this marriage happened was
00:08:05.740because this sort of legitimizes them catalina of aragon is also descended several generations back
00:08:11.640from previous kings of england so it's kind of like this is legitimizing like this is a really
00:08:16.540powerful marriage. And then Arthur dies. Yeah. Age 15. Yeah. And they've only been married a
00:08:22.540couple of months. And a lot of that then comes around to did they consummate the marriage? And
00:08:27.580that becomes this whole question for everybody. But in my mind, I mean, these are like 15 year
00:08:33.140old kids who get very, very sick with the sweating sickness, like almost immediately after meeting
00:08:37.860each other, they can't even communicate very well. Their versions of, you know, Latin are very0.95
00:08:42.440different from each other. So as they're trying to build English to Spanish like bridges, it's not0.99
00:08:46.380working as well like even though they're both highly educated so it's sort of this like hi nice
00:08:50.820to meet you i kind of can talk to you and now you're dead like was basically the experience
00:08:55.520that catherine had like and then she gets stuck waiting for henry because the law of that time0.98
00:09:02.260especially because there were dowries involved uh they'd already paid half the dowry uh from
00:09:08.580spain but ferdinand refused to release the other half because he was like well i still want my
00:09:13.140daughter to marry a king. I still want this like alliance and this power. And so Catherine just
00:09:19.800has to wait years for Henry to come of age and marry him. And so she's just trapped in England,
00:09:25.440like stuck there as men take over and control everything that she can do and everyone she can
00:09:30.460be with and anything she can do with her life. And she came out strong as diamonds from that.
00:09:36.580And I so admire her, but man, I pity her as well. That would be a terrible situation to be in.
00:09:42.140Well, it's such an awkward situation because the marriage negotiation happened. It's like, oh, this is so great. We have this alliance, Spain, England, and then Arthur dies. And it's kind of like, oh, we did all this work with this negotiation. So then like in a sequence of events as well, Elizabeth of York gets pregnant again. Potentially she's like, oh, let's try to have another son or something.
00:10:01.880yeah but then she dies as a result of that pregnancy and childbirth situation so Henry's
00:10:06.100mother is dead his brother is dead for a minute what I read is that Henry his dad was like maybe
00:10:12.520he was gonna marry Catherine Maragon like just trying to figure out what do we do with this
00:10:15.780like Spanish princess who's kind of stranded here yeah yeah yeah and that was like I just I can't
00:10:21.100imagine being in a time period where you could just be married off to whoever just because it
00:10:27.560was a convenience for power you know and that was of course what happened but yeah it was like oh I
00:10:32.320guess like I guess I'll just marry you and I like what kind of world is that it's horrible so yeah
00:10:37.620poor Catherine well and this is part of like one one maybe the only thing that Henry VIII did that
00:10:44.540I sort of appreciate is that when his father died and he became king one of the first things he did
00:10:49.620was he's like I'm gonna marry Catherine of Aragon yeah because his father wouldn't agree to let him
00:10:55.560do that while he was still alive and so Henry I just appreciate like clearly he liked her but
00:11:01.760like they had some sort of like rapport they had some sort of friendship that had developed as
00:11:05.620just kind of teenagers in this like series of tragedies kind of stranded together yeah so I
00:11:10.480appreciate that he was like you know what I'm gonna do marry her as soon as I can and he does
00:11:13.700yeah yeah and they're married for 23 25 years something like it's a very long time and I think
00:11:20.920that's what people forget too. And I can't speak to, I mean, how much real romance there was,
00:11:26.520you know, and love between them. Like, I think it was a very up and down experience. At least I know
00:11:31.740more about Catherine's side of it as she went through all of these losses of children and
00:11:36.560miscarriages and Henry sleeping around and doing all this stuff. But, you know, they had a very
00:11:42.000long marriage, especially by like any Tudor standards, you know, like, or any standards of
00:11:46.820that time I mean most people died in their 40s at that time so it was like they lived you know
00:11:52.240from their teens into their late 30s together and I think that gets forgotten often that she
00:11:59.980was around for a really long time yeah well I think when people talk about you know like the
00:12:05.120six wives of Henry VIII you kind of imagine each one of them was married to him for like one year
00:12:08.980or something totally yeah yeah yeah and some of them were but not her not her and so this is the
00:12:16.740think so they were married and she was beloved by the country yes um she would everybody loved
00:12:21.740like the i think like what happens often in history when there's like a very elderly king
00:12:27.800and then a new younger person inherits everyone's like oh youthful energy like how wonderful so
00:12:33.140people are excited to have this young couple and as you mentioned like she does conceive um
00:12:37.740so she's like uh unlucky and yeah pregnancies yeah so she has like various like stillbirths
00:12:46.340like miscarriages. Yeah. And Henry, what is it? Duke of Cornwall, their first child lived about1.00
00:12:52.30050 days. And, you know, when they really thought they had an heir and that was, of course, like,
00:12:57.140as we were talking about, you know, the, the tenuousness of this dynasty is that the thing
00:13:02.000that they need to do instantly, because there are no spares left. There's nobody. I mean, other than
00:13:05.900we've got cousins, but, you know, they need to create an heir and they want a boy. Even though
00:13:12.400obviously we know that the girls go on to do just fine. And that, you know, sets the tone for what0.99
00:13:18.160Henry does for the next, you know, two decades of his life there with seeking an heir. But yeah,
00:13:24.060I mean, they got off to a pretty good start. And Catherine, especially, I mean, she was raised in
00:13:30.120a political family. So she knew what to do. She knew how to talk to people. She knew how to make
00:13:34.420connections. She was making stronger connections with Europe. And I think she was really kind of
00:13:40.320credited as the first female ambassador too so she's doing all of this work and henry's doing
00:13:45.300stuff he likes to joust he likes to hunt he's impressive he at that time he's he's young he's
00:13:51.460fit he's very athletic uh and he's still you know like we talked about his education was good so
00:13:56.780he's impressing people as well and so they were this kind of power couple at a very early age
00:14:02.060and then as the question of children and heirs started to happen that's where it really fell
00:14:07.160apart do you have you heard the theory about henry the eighth and the kel positive yes oh
00:14:12.820and i i mean he had six wives three children that survived out of i don't i think it's something
00:14:19.640like the the the number that's thrown around is is multiple dozens of lost children between the
00:14:25.700wives and the mistresses so it's definitely not the women i can say that with certainty even though
00:14:30.440it was obviously a hard time to you know survive in infancy at all but yeah i i subscribe to that
00:14:36.420theory completely so the theory it's um so there's kel positive is just like a a thing that people
00:14:42.220have genetically and if you have this what it means is that maybe if your partner is not also
00:14:47.520kel positive then maybe the first child survives but subsequent children don't and that tends to
00:14:54.360be the pattern with the women that he's children with it's that they have a successful pregnancy
00:14:58.540and then all the other ones fail yeah so it seems like he's bringing some genetic material into this
00:15:03.220that is just yes totally yeah and that's i mean and who knows with all of the connections even
00:15:08.460between all of those people you know everybody's somebody's cousin basically however many times
00:15:12.480removed you know there's just i think it was probably a recipe for disaster in a lot of ways
00:15:16.800but at least you know we did we got our girls out of it and edward's okay i guess it's also it's
00:15:24.180interesting too i know just from like i've i've had conversations with a friend of mine who does
00:15:28.560she's an ob-gyn yeah she has said like it's it's a fact that like interim girl babies tend to
00:15:34.880survive harder circumstances better than boy babies do wow like if you look at really like
00:15:41.220poverty-stricken areas like the children who survive tend to be girls so like of all the kids
00:15:47.220that could have survived like of course it was elizabeth and mary because girls just tend to be0.99
00:15:51.860a bit hardier yeah yeah yeah and they i mean they proved it in their reigns they were for better or0.97
00:15:57.840very hardy can we talk about henry the eighth so he is like you know he's kind of this like jock
00:16:04.100like high school football he's like totally big and as a young man like i will even say like you
00:16:08.640know consider good looking and stuff like not a lot of people were tall he was tall like he
00:16:13.400looked really big and imposing and athletic and then he uh tried to do some war stuff didn't go
00:16:19.000well um he went to france didn't go well no and i think he was this was another like because like
00:16:25.900we were saying, France and England, so much bad blood. And he often was claiming himself to be
00:16:30.700king of France because of all these connections from the past. And it never worked. And they made
00:16:36.340all of these treaties over and over again. Okay, we've lost all this money. We've lost all these
00:16:41.460people. We're not going to do it again. And then Henry would go, kind of inevitably, and do it
00:16:45.040again. And that actually became a large problem for when his children inherited because he spent,
00:16:50.980well, he spent a lot of money on a lot of things. This man knew how to spend. And he even dissolved
00:16:55.140all the monasteries and stole all their money. And he still spent it all. It's wild. But he spent
00:16:59.340so much on war, failed war. And it meant that his children inherited a very challenging kind of
00:17:07.260debt-stricken country and had to rebuild it. And that's not an easy thing to do. And so, yeah,
00:17:13.720Henry and war, he should have just stayed on the jousting pitch, done his thing there. He was fine.
00:17:18.900uh but yes not not a very successful man across the pond or the rough wooing of scotland i mean
00:17:25.920he just everywhere he went he was trying to expand his territory make his mark solidify
00:17:30.940that dynasty i think that was in every single move he makes and i laugh a little because he
00:17:36.260failed a lot at it well and the whole thing is like in retrospect it's like the person that
00:17:40.260solidified the dynasty was his daughter elizabeth totally yes he anyway we'll get into that so let's
00:17:45.420talk marriages um the the end of he meets Anne Boleyn but that's it's not just like as is portrayed
00:17:52.300often in like and I understand why like in narrative it's like oh my god he falls in love
00:17:56.320with her and he will throw aside everything to be with her but in fact he was already just kind of
00:18:00.520like Catherine of Aragon it's just she's clearly not gonna have a successful pregnancy yes she's
00:18:05.320like she's had so many failed pregnancies she's getting older which makes it even more risky
00:18:33.600But Anne is, I mean, in every historical document
00:18:36.880I've ever read described as this incredibly intelligent,
00:18:39.980sharp-witted, clever, fascinating woman. She is probably at that point kind of the pinnacle of
00:18:45.660education in England. And so I think he meets a person that is really interesting and like nobody
00:18:52.700else that he's met. And I can see based on the descriptions I've read about her that she didn't
00:18:57.980take shit from him. Everybody fawns over him. And I'm sure you have to be nice to the king or he's0.99
00:19:03.160literally going to behead you. But I think he probably met somebody unlike anyone he'd ever
00:19:08.380met, but their courtship was seven years long. And I wish that we had Anne's letters because
00:19:15.020Henry wrote all of these letters to her and they are love letters. But when you read them and you
00:19:19.640should, they're free on the internet. They are so interesting because you can tell he's really
00:19:25.080trying to coerce her into this situation. So she was a maid of honor of Catherine of Aragon. That's
00:19:29.300how they met. She's at court. And obviously her sister, Mary is involved and there's an affair
00:19:34.520that happens with Mary. And so there's this very complicated situation of like, you're a married
00:19:40.320man, you've slept with my sister, and now you're trying to pursue me. And the letters that he
00:19:46.460writes are very like, oh, everything's okay. Like, I can tell from like your last letter that you're
00:19:51.420feeling kind of nervous about this, but it's fine. I'm king and I love you so, so much. So it's this
00:19:55.280very coercive, very, I'm the most powerful person in the world, basically taking advantage of a
00:20:00.700younger employee so like where have we seen that before she can't say no like she's no recourse
00:20:05.980yeah it's not romantic necessarily so much it's just kind of like he is relentlessly actually
00:20:12.480although i do find it funny um some of the things he sent her to try to win her over at one point
00:20:16.720he sent her a monkey she sent it back yeah she's just like what are you doing why did you send me
00:20:21.980a monkey like stop bothering me old man and she did she left court multiple times like and it was0.83
00:20:27.700like you know is she playing hard to get no i think she was literally just like oh my god like0.92
00:20:31.660i have to get away from this because she knew she knew that it's either like say yes and blow up this1.00
00:20:37.880whole situation that is happening with katherine or say no and probably either die or have her
00:20:43.580family's fortunes vastly changed for the worst so it's a very sticky situation to be in and
00:20:50.160especially knowing that he's had mistresses she said no to being a mistress which is like wild
00:20:55.760so she probably it was like a pig's fly situation like she's like oh yeah i'll sleep with you when0.77
00:20:59.620we're married lol like that's never gonna happen and then yeah it does so he is like you mentioned
00:21:06.120before about his education stuff like he he was a scholar like this is like sometimes i forget like
00:21:11.280i think what him is just this kind of like jock guy but he also he he was being trained for like
00:21:16.560church jobs so like he's like he comes to believe or makes himself believe that the reason why he
00:21:23.560hasn't had a son with Catherine is because she was married to Arthur before and it says in the
00:21:29.680bible like don't marry your brother's wife although I think the bible does say like it also says if
00:21:34.880your wife if your husband or you're sorry your brother's wife dies you must marry her it says0.97
00:21:38.920both of those things so he just chose the one that worked best for him but he was just like you know
00:21:43.620and he was like he took or at least he claimed to like take this really seriously he's like oh my
00:21:48.240god i've like betrayed god whatever yeah so it's kind of like coincidentally that he's like oh
00:21:54.020actually turns out my marriage like jk that was not a real marriage that's why we didn't have a
00:21:58.020son god doesn't approve of it and also i met this cool girl anne boleyn yeah and i'm really
00:22:02.580intrigued by her and so he like first he tries to do this like and i don't know a more straightforward
00:22:08.820way he's like hey pope can i get my marriage dissolved like can we just do that straight
00:22:13.420and the pope who is like related to catherine is like yes no yeah like definitely not yeah no
00:22:18.720like you've been married for decades you have children like no i'm not gonna annul your
00:22:23.080marriage yeah so this is where he has to like this and this is a very famous thing that lots
00:22:28.820of people have written books about neither you or i have got into this minutia but basically a bunch
00:22:32.880of men sat down with a bunch of legal documents and tried to figure out how to do this and
00:22:37.160ultimately what it meant is like england starts its own religion that is not pope based so he
00:22:42.900can do whatever he wants. Yeah. And it's, I mean, it's honestly like insane when you look at it,
00:22:47.580because it's like, okay, I don't want to be married to this person anymore. Divorce doesn't
00:22:52.340exist. I want to be married to this person. And he's already had, like at this point,
00:22:55.840he's had mistresses that have had children. Like at this point he has Henry Fitzroy, who is a couple
00:23:01.700years old. Like, so it's not like when he's all like, and he does, he's always like, oh, I'm so
00:23:05.500pious. I'm so good. I'm like, excuse me, there's living proof of your infidelity right there.
00:23:10.880And like, you're going to be like, oh, I'm the chosen one of God. But he puts out this, I think it's called like the act of supremacy. That's basically like he, Henry, is the most important being on this planet Earth in England. And it's just him straight to God. Bye bye church, don't need Pope. And they start like calling the Pope, you know, like foreign devils.
00:23:30.320They like it's really this sort of propaganda campaign of a religion that they have been part of for centuries that they choose on the whims of a man wanting to marry somebody else.0.59
00:23:41.300And he you know, it's the time of the English Reformation when they're switching from sort of this strict Latin Catholicism to sort of this more, I guess, accessible to people.
00:23:52.520The idea with the Reformation was that people could read the Bible and they could learn things about it in English instead of if they didn't know Latin, they only could go to church and hear what the preacher there was saying to them.
00:24:04.820So it's this kind of wild, radical time.
00:24:07.120And it's not like Henry was like pro that.
00:24:09.400He still remained kind of pretty much Catholic his entire life.
00:24:14.460He just made himself the head of a new one and was like, Pope's out, Catherine's out, Anne and Henry are in.
00:24:21.960And it's probably the most dramatic time of his entire life.
00:24:27.040And obviously the thing that we most think about, I think that's part of the reason why the Anne Boleyn story is the one told more than any of the other wives is this.
00:24:35.480It all kind of coalesces together at the same time.
00:24:48.880Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to say like, this is the same time where this is like, potentially, this is another like simultaneous aim, which is realized it's like, oh, if we stop being like Pope based country, then like all these monasteries don't need to be there. And I can claim those land and take all their treasures. And so it's kind of, oh, and this can help fund wars and debts. Isn't that interesting?
00:33:20.420Did the sound of those words call to you like Pavlov's dog?
00:33:23.440Then you might enjoy our podcast Turtle Time.
00:33:25.760Every week, you can join me, Riley Hamilton, and my co-host, Amy Scarlotta, as we cover the most pressing Bravo news and dig into the new episodes to answer important questions like, who the hell is Adrienne Maloof in this world?
00:33:38.960Listen to Turtle Time on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Wednesday and Friday.
00:33:46.320The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled
00:33:55.360detective story that probably nobody saw coming.
00:34:00.140Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotix Detective Agency as they take on their biggest case
00:45:32.920And then you go to meet your wife and you're just like, and then they're supposed to recognize
00:45:37.860your kingly wonderfulness, even within the costume.0.86
00:45:41.120And they're like, ho, ho, I know it's you.
00:45:42.280but he came in and he's this like 49 year old man with you know like an ulcerated leg and like
00:45:46.580various things that are not like yeah instantly kingly yeah yeah exactly so he comes in and then
00:45:52.360he speaks to her in this familiar way and she's just like who's this who's this page this is0.98
00:45:56.960creepy yeah um and so she does not respond to him amorously and then he's just like well fuck this0.97
00:46:02.940yeah yeah where it's like sir like you you basically like tricked her like yeah you pulled0.99
00:46:08.320like a parent trap without a twin on her and yeah nobody told her that to expect this and she's like
00:46:14.180german customs are different from english customs like this is like a a whimsical fun thing that
00:46:18.380they do in english history and she didn't know about it so she behaved as anyone would if like0.98
00:46:23.680she's supposed to be boy came in and started acting weird yeah she's supposed to be marrying
00:46:27.600a king so if she thinks some guy is coming on to her like that's a stranger she and she knows what0.98
00:46:32.480happens if the king thinks that his wife has you know slept around so she's probably scared confused
00:46:37.840and he's all like hi hi and uh he also overhears at one point uh a couple of his i don't know
00:46:45.960exactly who it was uh his fellow nobles being like oh well she's definitely not as pretty as
00:46:50.200we thought she was going to be and so he starts to develop this very twisted opinion of her based
00:46:55.200on this weird experience the opinions of others and he's just like instantly just like nope i
00:47:00.760couldn't possibly even sleep with her we can't get married and like again this is a man who does not
00:47:05.420If we're just talking looks for a minute, this is a man who no longer looks remotely good. And we've got Anne who, I mean, I think her portrait's beautiful. And even if it's a little bit embellished, she still probably was a perfectly normal looking human being. There's no way she was this hideous beast that couldn't even be tempted into the king's bed. It's wild.
00:47:25.520but he was just like in this case he's like i want to annul this marriage so like they don't
00:47:31.520consummate the marriage he just tries to be like let's be straightforward about this oh we did
00:47:35.600mention when um and berlin was executed then their child elizabeth was also oh yeah named basically
00:47:41.220like right we've got we've got edward from jane and he's at that point just a couple of years old
00:47:47.640um so it's a few years between jane and anne of cleves but he's a couple years old but again
00:47:52.220that's why it's always they say an heir and a spare so he's like instantly henry knows if he's
00:47:56.500like okay you know anne of cleves is not the one i need to move on pretty quickly and so he does
00:48:02.420and guess what he finds lady-in-waiting within i think he and uh and they know i mean it's
00:48:09.540something like six months it's incredibly short he that makes up for the the long catherine
00:48:13.940marriage and how quickly this is and she gets uh titled like it's something like the king's
00:48:19.780favorite sister or something like that she gets the title like the king says well she's he's like
00:48:24.440we're gonna end all this marriage and she's like yes great yeah yeah he's like well i'm gonna call
00:48:28.500you the king sister and she says that's fine and then he gives her all this land and property and
00:48:32.160this is part of why i think a lot of people are like she's the one who got out of this the best
00:48:35.700because yes he basically paid her off to go away and not complain and she didn't and she got to
00:48:41.560live this like cool life of like independence and land ownership yeah and yeah and for the most part
00:48:48.500i mean i think had the best ending of any of his queens so undoubtedly yeah yeah yeah but the
00:48:54.820person who he sets his sight on is her 17 year old um lady-in-waiting who is also a niece of
00:49:00.640evil evil duke of norfolk yes ambulance cousin um catherine howard oh baby girl
00:49:09.640because he was 49 when he married so he's like 49 50 she's 17 it's just kind of like
00:49:16.700potentially this is just a real like I need someone who's fertile and like let's have a son
00:49:22.000like let's find the youngest possible person I can marry yeah maybe part of it yeah yeah and I
00:49:26.480think you know she she is very different again like I think he's also you know cycling through0.96
00:49:31.660different types of women you know she is young she's not very interested in politics she's a
00:49:36.880great musician she's very beautiful she kind of is just this ray of sunshine and you know you can
00:49:43.620just think of her as being this really vibrant, like young person, a 17 year old girl. And he
00:49:48.660sees and he's like, yes, this is it. I haven't had something like this before. I've had my strict
00:49:53.000Catholic queen. I've had my like too sharp Anne Boleyn. I've had my obedient Jane. And then I had0.75
00:49:58.820Anne of Cleves for a second. I was like, no, no, no. And so now it's like, ah, yes, I need. And
00:50:02.740it's sort of like, maybe he wants to feel young again. There's like probably so much wrapped into
00:50:06.400this. But Catherine had this really weird upbringing. Her dad basically spent all their0.79
00:50:15.100money. She got sent off to live with her grandmother and grew up in this household that
00:50:22.060was very loose. There weren't a lot of rules and there were a lot of men trying to take advantage
00:50:28.040of her at that time. She had a music teacher. She had another suitor, both of who were twice her
00:50:33.640age. And so she has this weird past that she's kind of like clawed her way out of a little bit
00:50:39.840by getting this maid of honor job. But she also hasn't maybe had all of the etiquette rules and0.82
00:50:47.260education of that time that would have prepared her to enter Henry's court and be safe and secure
00:50:52.400in that. So she comes in at a disadvantage. Well, and a lot of these people are sort of
00:50:57.020questionable as well yeah like some of the people who know about kind of how weird her childhood
00:51:03.640was start like sending her letters and basically blackmailing her totally yeah because there's i
00:51:08.240think henry saw her as this like rose without a thorn this like beautiful untouched where it's
00:51:13.500just like that's not her story but she has to pretend she is and all these people are like
00:51:16.840we're gonna tell about your past if you don't give us this job so she has she keeps giving
00:51:21.160people these jobs yeah um and they keep kind of blackmailing her so it's a super stressful
00:51:25.800situation for this teenage child yes and it does not end well no I don't know I mean in my version
00:51:36.280of events I do have her actually have a love story with a nice young man uh who is not Henry
00:51:42.080because I wanted her to have that um but that is basically the implication that comes out uh I think
00:51:47.440they're married for you know two years two years I'm just looking at it's like July 1540 to February
00:51:52.620she's beheaded february 1542 so i think yeah she's yeah it's around christmas you know she
00:51:58.300gets sent to the tower that year um but yeah she gets accused not only of having an affair
00:52:03.720um with somebody in the present day but also having already slept with somebody before she
00:52:08.920married the king which they make an entire law i was gonna say yeah about that like that's like
00:52:14.180i mean there were a lot of people that slept with people before they slept with the king like this
00:52:17.500was and the king slept with a lot of people like this is an insane law to make um but yeah to
00:52:22.300basically when she you know they had not had any children who knows what henry was even capable of
00:52:27.640doing at that point um there are no children that have come from this union um and he is probably
00:52:35.780worried he's being cuckolded he's probably worried everybody's talking about them this is a very like
00:52:40.260dramatic another big drama uh time it's kind of like it's it feels like ambeline like but fast
00:52:46.740forward like the whole sequence of events and the fact the fact that she's the relative but it's
00:52:50.700kind of like yes okay like so we're gonna make some make up some charges that she maybe had
00:52:55.400affairs that she's currently having affairs yes and she does um uh she she said like no i was like0.73
00:53:02.240forced into these relationships with this person i was never cheating on you on purpose which is
00:53:06.260heartbreaking yeah um and so the people she's accused of having the affairs with are executed
00:53:11.220and then so is she and yes yeah and at that point i mean like so this she's howard but the howards
00:53:17.700and boleyns are you know family and at this point i mean pretty much all the boleyns are dead um i
00:53:23.880think mary might still be alive but she dies you know shortly thereafter but he's already killed
00:53:29.440um well he's not killed elizabeth but he's killed anne he's killed george uh anne's parents both die
00:53:36.360you know a couple years after their kids are killed so mary's out there his one-time mistress
00:53:41.480and then he's going through the howards and so this family basically like besides the duke of
00:53:45.700norfolk but they all kind of scuttle away for a little while but even the duke was in a little
00:53:49.400bit of hot water because of course he's the one that put forth another bull in howard girl and
00:53:54.840henry is like how could you have you know he basically kind of blames him for this marriage
00:53:59.340having gone sideways um but yeah he uh the the duke does uh end up in the tower himself but
00:54:07.040survives um in real life by like one day because henry dies like the day before he's supposed to
00:54:13.100be uh executed which is very annoying to me um but anyway uh yeah so yeah we we lose catherine
00:54:20.060and she i mean she was probably 19 or 20 we don't even know her birth and that's the interesting
00:54:25.460thing some of these women we don't know their birth dates like anne boleyn people don't know
00:54:29.400if she was born in 1501 or 1507 it's like wild stuff that henry gets i mean i know we're talking
00:54:34.800about him right now but mostly meanly uh but he gets all these stories told about him and these
00:54:38.420women we don't even know when they were born well and that's part of the thing too so like with anne
00:54:42.280boleyn um like you know her name was carved into all these buildings and he had like and this is
00:54:46.860why they saw the question today of like what did you look like because he had like all the portraits
00:54:50.060destroyed he scratched out her initials from the building so like so we don't know a lot about her
00:54:54.880And Catherine Howard was around for even shorter periods.
00:54:57.620Like we don't, there's one portrait that people often look at as being her, but is it her?
00:55:41.500So his final, his sixth wife is Catherine Parr.
00:55:44.200And I just want to side note, yourself and anyone who's written a book, a book these
00:55:48.740women are faced with the challenge of having three different Catherines. And I like that you
00:55:53.380just called par just goes by par in your book. She's like, there's too many people call Catherine
00:55:57.280just call me par. And I'm like, respect. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And yeah, we'll just call her par for
00:56:02.800at least I will. That's how I think of her in my little brain. But yeah, she she's so interesting
00:56:08.520because she's been married twice by the time she gets to the king. So talk about sleeping with1.00
00:56:12.420other people granted in marriages, but still, well, there were husbands have died. I that's
00:56:17.200That gave me the idea in Henry Tudor Must Die, she's sort of a black widow poisoner because it's like, what happened? Like one of the men that she married was very young. Like they were, you know, contemporaries. Another man she married was very old and not very old, but old, much older and got them into a great deal of hot water politically.
00:56:32.080but she's never had any children during this time. So there's no evidence that marrying this
00:56:36.980like sort of multi-married, a little bit older woman who has had no children is going to further
00:56:42.460any of the, you know, ideas that Henry has been, you know, circling his whole life around by this
00:56:47.720point. So that's where she sort of, I think, gets the nurse sort of moniker put upon her.
00:56:54.060That's what I was thinking. It's just kind of like, yeah, like an older man with health concerns
00:56:57.440who marries a younger woman. It's like just to sort of like take care of him.
00:57:00.540have a companion yeah but at that time like i mean par wanted to marry someone else like she was
00:57:07.260in the early stages of getting betrothed to someone else and henry swoops in and is like0.96
00:57:11.360nope mine and so she just she i mean definitely knows after seeing five women go she knows like1.00
00:57:16.920yep okay gonna say yes um and i mean all these women of course have their flaws and complications1.00
00:57:23.840but what she did was she brought mary and elizabeth back into the line of succession1.00
00:57:28.880which was critical. Like if she had not been the person that facilitated that
00:57:33.280after Edward dies, you know, Henry dies. And then, you know, it would have just been another
00:57:37.580war of the roses. Like it would have been another, yeah. England would have maybe torn itself to
00:57:41.380shreds. Yeah. So she really, I think the legacy that she leaves is not only of those two women,
00:57:47.160but of basically keeping England from falling into chaos again. So this is a woman that, you
00:57:52.560know, did a lot of good in a short time with a husband who at certain points in their marriage
00:57:58.700wasn't even really there anymore. You know, he, he couldn't rule very well. He was getting sicker
00:58:03.320and sicker during the time that they were married. And so she did a lot and she was smart. She was
00:58:08.000calm. She just kind of got things done. She, to me, feels a lot more like a Catherine of Aragon
00:58:13.340type of person than some of the other women that have come through his life. And so, yeah,
00:58:18.280way to go par. I mean, again, making lemonade out of lemons. So, so can we talk about the part
00:58:24.540where she was almost arrested, but then talked her way out of it.
00:58:28.640Yes. Oh, gosh, this is I mean, because this is Henry, right? He's just like, what's are my girls
00:58:34.600talking to other boys is just like and of course, he's I think, at this point, he knows who he is,
00:58:41.480he knows his own flaws, what he looks like what's going on. And I think he he's worried about he's
00:58:48.680worried about his wife's cheating on him. He's worried about losing the political and religious
00:58:52.880power that he's amassed. And anytime he sees anything happening that might align with one of
00:58:57.120those, he goes running for the tower and with, you know, like, come on. And so, yeah, Parra goes
00:59:04.340through a version of that as well. And, but she's so smart. She, she really does. She talks her way
00:59:10.020out of it. It's wonderful. Like it's some, it's a sequence of events of something like, as I recall,
00:59:14.900he, like the people kind of came to arrest her and she's like, Oh wait, no, no, no. I was just
00:59:18.900kidding. I was just trying to distract him from his leg pain by saying some silly things, but I0.61
00:59:25.180didn't mean those things. So don't worry about it. And then Henry's like, Oh, that's so nice of
00:59:29.180you to distract me from my leg pain. Nevermind. So like she literally talked her way out of
00:59:33.100potentially being executed. Yeah. She was very, very smart. And I mean, even the husband that0.60
00:59:38.820she was married to before Henry, I can't remember exactly how it all shook out, but that he was
00:59:43.500really wrapped up in a lot of these like revolutions against Henry and that had to do with the changes
00:59:47.900of guard in the religion piece and she was uh like basically kidnapped and ransomed with like
00:59:52.620her stepchildren for like months and like kept like locked up and she like they kept trying to
00:59:57.740like you know come and kill her or do bad things to her and she would talk her way out of it every
01:00:01.300time and so she i mean this is a woman who dealt with a lot of trauma that had nothing to do with
01:00:06.040her like nothing that she brought upon herself but she like really rose to the occasion and i think
01:00:10.660also protected the children there's a whole other thing with elizabeth later but we won't get into0.85
01:00:14.960that right now where i don't think she does a good job of protecting children but i think she0.84
01:00:18.880she was a clever woman and did a lot of good and a lot of uh not i wouldn't say it's underhanded0.94
01:00:27.540but she worked around the king you know and did things that he might not have let her do if he
01:00:32.580were fully there and paying attention and for the better so when i think about yeah we're talking0.91
01:00:37.240about like the wives and how each of them fares like and of cleaves like i think for sure gets
01:00:41.800off the easiest katherine parr survived um as the rhyme goes but also i think so much happened in
01:00:48.340her life like being married to henry the eights was like the sixth most interesting thing to0.56
01:00:51.800happen to her like it wasn't her one defining no life experience and yeah she she goes on to marry
01:00:58.780again and does i think die after a failed childbirth situation but um in my version of events
01:01:07.000she does not so exactly your version of events so much better so henry himself like he has these
01:01:13.220various health concerns and also it's old in time well he has this open wound that never heals
01:01:18.020literally like yeah it's gross yeah and it's just kind of time before antibiotics and whatever yeah
01:01:23.840so he i do want to mention um in terms of his like um his size and his various health problems
01:01:31.100like he did innovate the people around him like innovated some sort of like rope pulley systems
01:01:35.320like some early like accessibility yeah um things which is really interesting yeah yeah and like
01:01:40.940because he i mean he struggled to even get out of bed between the pain and the weight and so yeah
01:01:44.640they had systems to get him out of bed they had systems to get him around the palace um and so
01:01:49.640yeah it was it was a very different type of uh i think ruler at that point because the people had
01:01:57.020not seen somebody that was maybe so mobility challenged um be their ruler and so that was
01:02:03.160interesting that he stuck with it and built all these things that got him around to where he
01:02:08.200needed to go until he did eventually sort of succumb and die but he i mean he lived a lot
01:02:13.480how old was he when he died 55 55 so for the time period and for how sick he was i mean honestly
01:02:21.540impressive like he he could have died uh you know 10 times over from the various things that he did
01:02:27.620and the illnesses and ailments that he had so he hung in there a pretty long time i don't know
01:02:32.500exactly i remember once i did look up what the average age uh you know in like the 1500s was for
01:02:37.600life expectancy and obviously he's a king so he has access to everything but uh he outlived that
01:02:42.940even despite everything else yeah living with these various issues um yeah and so he you know
01:02:48.560good riddance frankly yeah and then i'm gonna get into this all in like later episodes of this
01:02:54.380tutor series but like he's his he has a son so i think he would have died being like feeling
01:02:58.460secure in the fact that like the succession to him is secure like it's going to his son and he
01:03:03.600presumes like okay the tutors like this is happening like the dynasty is okay would have
01:03:08.280liked to have had a second son didn't yeah yeah but he would have died probably thinking like okay
01:03:12.620i left this in good hands yes yeah and it does i mean he's got edward and then now that we've got
01:03:18.020then it goes to mary and then it goes to elizabeth and so there is there is a whole plan obviously
01:03:22.820that plan gets disrupted as time goes on but uh yeah i think i think the what he what he put his
01:03:30.320whole life into was that son and he got that son um and he also he's he you know the the english the
01:03:38.280church of england you know he that has started to take hold a little bit more obviously once mary
01:03:43.500takes the throne there's some push and pull there but it really does then i mean from his reign on
01:03:47.840you know that's where everybody is today albeit you know 500 years later and many different things
01:03:53.840but yeah so he does he has some very lasting legacies um and he's obviously the person you
01:03:58.700know when we think about the tutors you usually henry the eighth is the first person you think
01:04:02.240about kind of with a grimace but uh yeah yeah he did he he survived the test of time in for better
01:04:09.280for worse he's sort of like he's a figure who to me because like the war of the roses and stuff
01:04:14.360feels like medieval-y to me he's the one who kind of like yanks England into sort of the
01:04:20.380renaissance period and part of that is because he was sort of this like renaissance prince like he
01:04:24.380had this education he tried to be well-rounded so he sort of like moves from this older way of being
01:04:29.640to this newer way I'm not giving him any credit I'm just saying to me personally like his lifetime
01:04:36.12055 years like it goes from this kind of like really medieval even just the quality of art
01:04:40.840Yeah. And then it starts getting more realistic looking. So somehow during his life, it's like
01:04:45.040there's something about that Tudor period that feels like the first sort of modern era somehow.
01:04:49.360And maybe it's just the artwork. No. But I do think, I mean, I think he was a competitive man,
01:04:53.780right? And so he's looking over at Francois in France. He's looking at these other princes and
01:04:58.640kings. And these are men of great enlightenment, basically. They are smart. They're doing new and
01:05:04.660interesting things in their countries. They also have lots of problems. But he's looking at all of
01:05:08.920these young men about his age when he becomes king and he's like probably like okay I need to
01:05:14.100I want England to be said in the same sentence as Spain or France or the Holy Roman Empire and so
01:05:20.640he's like I need to kind of push us forward and he does and I do think the art the music a lot of
01:05:26.620that changes education even changes you know and but I credit that far more to the girls
01:05:32.820our girl Catherine of Aragon wrote a whole pamphlet that was or had it commissioned that
01:05:37.520It was, you know, the it was something like the case for the education of Christian women, something like that.
01:05:44.700And so saying that women deserve education just as much as men do.0.56
01:05:48.580And so it really was this big turning point across the world at that time.
01:05:52.980But and especially in Europe, but he did not do only bad things.
01:06:03.260But yeah, because he was king for 38 years. And so I think part of just like the fact that he gave that consistency after a period of time of just like kings being deposed and dying young and like just to have that period of time of just one person being there, like just any person being there for 38 years would have provided a sort of sense of stability.
01:06:21.680Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, especially coming off of, you know, his dad, Henry VII, is the first of his name. Seventh of his name, but, you know, first of the Tudors. And then Henry's around for a long time. And then between his three children slash Jane Grey. But then you get, I mean, gosh, probably another 60, 70 years of rule that comes after that.
01:06:44.880So the Tudor dynasty goes from being this itsy bitsy thing to lasting more than a hundred years, which in that time period was indeed quite impressive.
01:12:14.040And this is, I mean, for anybody that likes this era, I feel like this year is the year, this year and next, there are so many great Tudor books coming out.
01:12:21.580And they are all, at least the ones that I've read, coming from this great feminist, revisionist lens.
01:12:27.480So, yeah, you've got The Beheading Games.
01:12:31.320I just, oh, what was the name of the book I just saw that sold?
01:12:34.020I think it's coming out next year.1.00
01:12:35.960But at the Holly Race books that I mentioned earlier, there's just a lot happening around these women.
01:12:40.680And it's this almost 500 years, I mean, 500 years for Catherine of Aragon, but about 490 since Anne died. And so it's, I don't know, I don't know if it's some sort of, you know, cyclical time thing that's coming that they are back in our minds and back in the conversation, but it's really exciting to see it.
01:12:58.540But I'm glad you're part of it. And thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.
01:13:02.100so Jillian's book is called Henry Tudor must die and I feel like this is one of those books that0.95
01:13:13.280if you're a fan of this podcast if you're a fan of Tudor history fucking hate Henry VIII like this
01:13:18.500is required reading and it's available and you should go and get it the book is out there there's
01:13:24.340also a really good audiobook of it enjoy this book love this book it's such a good book and
01:13:30.640I want to let you know also if you're thinking about ways to engage with me in this podcast.
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01:14:38.680episodes and when i'm talking about bonus episodes um that means sometimes i have like i go and talk
01:14:44.740to some of our guests you know off the main feed we want to get into some some more salacious0.61
01:14:49.500discussions that's all there but also i do a bonus series called so this asshole like we just did0.93
01:14:54.620henry the eighth today there's some other episodes about some other shitty men who i hate from0.70
01:14:58.960history and there's also vulgar peace theater which is where i talk about costume dramas
01:15:04.660movies set in the past with my friends