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Post by beth on May 24, 2010 16:11:20 GMT -5
cold cold eyes love the hat, though.
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Post by mouse on May 25, 2010 2:02:04 GMT -5
Henry is one of my fav monarchs..outstanding mind..quite the intellectual his correspondence with Erasmus as a boy gives a small incling of his mental abilities his first wife catherine of aragon was possibly the most intelligent of them all..and one he trusted and relied on..so much so he left her in sole control while he went off to the field of gold in france..during his absence she quelled the scots.. henry was faithful to catherine for around 8 yrs which was quite remarkable in those days he had a fetish about cleanliness and reorganised the palace kitchens ...and had bathrooms installed in his palaces especially the palace of greenwich a very handsome little boy and young man as portraits confirm became the corpulent figure we are more familiar with via holbien after he no longer could excersise play tennis and joust the need for a son and political wranglings alongside other cimbing for power probably robbed henry of a happy marriage
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Post by mouse on May 25, 2010 2:55:29 GMT -5
So, what did his contemporaries think of Henry?His Majesty is the handsomest potentate I ever set eyes on; above the usual height, with an extremely fine calf to his leg, his complexion very fair and bright, auburn hair combed straight and short, in the French fashion, and a round face so very beautiful that it would become a pretty woman, his throat being rather long and thick.... He will enter his twenty-fifth year the month after next. He speaks French, English and Latin, and a little Italian, plays well on the lute and harpsichord, sings from book at sight, draws the bow with greater strength than any man in England and jousts marvelously.... a most accomplished Prince. the Venetian diplomat Pasqualigo in a dispatch, 1515 and one could hardly acuse the venitian diplomat of being biased..
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Post by mouse on May 25, 2010 7:19:09 GMT -5
i think your sumation is not quite acurate...his wives didnt stand in his way..it was the age old problem of an heir.....we cannot judge by todays standards vindictive..paranoid..merciless....exchange those words and all it is is a man with absolute power....whose knowledge of what it took to survive far surpasses our own yes he was vindictive to those who aposed him paranoid ? about what ??the fact is it wasnt so much paranoia as reality awarness.. merciless...of course as rulers are toward their enemies and threats... all in all he could have been a thousand times worse..... think of his enemoies...and think of who his advisers were....
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Post by fretslider on May 25, 2010 7:21:32 GMT -5
One fact that is often overlooked is that Harry was an intellectual, he was the first well educated English king.
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Post by mouse on May 25, 2010 9:34:22 GMT -5
he was a considerable intellectual...as were both his daughters and his son...although only elizaabeth was in his league....and what a queen she became his wives catherine of aragon,,anne of cleeves and catherine parr being the brightest were no slouches either....
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Post by gabriel on May 27, 2010 1:32:37 GMT -5
Let's try again, shall we?
A great TV show, low on historical fact but it looks wonderful.
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Post by gabriel on May 27, 2010 1:44:45 GMT -5
mouse, I think my summation of Henry is right on the money. Vindictive, unstable, certainly not fit to rule as an absolute monarch. If any such creature should exist but that's another topic. At the start he had Katherine, Wolsey, More to temper him somewhat. And I will agree with you to a certain extent that his 1st 3 wives was a quest driven for a son. But then he had one and that comes nowhere explaining the last 3. They became expendable as he proved his actions.
After 22 years of marriage Katherine was expendable. He couldn't get his head around a woman being ruler. He should have looked more closely at Katherine's mother, Isabella of Aragon. Anne was expendable. She was a nothing, a no-one, someone he raised up and disposed of just as quickly. Jane died. He would have honoured her for the sake of Edward.
An enormous man with those cold, piggy eyes who did not like it one bit when someone said no or told him some hard facts.
Actually, I think living in Henry's England after Anne became queen is somewhat similar to Stalinist USSR.
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Post by gabriel on May 27, 2010 1:50:48 GMT -5
Young Henry. Very much in Richard III style. Unknown artist. This is the earliest surviving portrait of Henry as king of England. c)1409
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Post by gabriel on May 27, 2010 1:52:33 GMT -5
Unknown artist. Henry in 1520 before he met Anne Boleyn.
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Post by gabriel on May 27, 2010 1:54:29 GMT -5
Henry 1536 by Hans Holbein. Anne Boleyn is about to lose her life. And the piggy, cold eyes. Tells the story to me.
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Post by mouse on May 27, 2010 3:05:19 GMT -5
we will not agree on henry... there was a prog on tv last night time team were looking at henrys palaces...a great builder of palaces he built 5...only hampton court is left...but what a palace.. in regard to sons,,,more than one son is required known as the heir and spare...in regard to his wives..ALL wives were expendable..they were for getting sons and making alliences..adding to land nothing more and we cannot judge by todays standards plus your leaving out the political machinations the jostling for power..the factions that existed henry was used by his advisors as much as he used his wives the bolyns..the howards the seymours all had their agendas all wanted power and used the women of the family to those ends mary bolyn was used as much as anne was by the families and then tossed aside when anne was deemed more usable..more sellable ..more up to the mark anne of cleeves was nothing more than a political pawn....
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Post by mouse on May 27, 2010 3:07:42 GMT -5
and lets not leave out the religious wheeler dealings....the spanish..the french...the germans isabella of spain...another fantastic figure of history...rah rah for the women
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Post by gabriel on May 27, 2010 5:53:08 GMT -5
we will not agree on henry... there was a prog on tv last night time team were looking at henrys palaces...a great builder of palaces he built 5...only hampton court is left...but what a palace.. in regard to sons,,,more than one son is required known as the heir and spare...in regard to his wives..ALL wives were expendable..they were for getting sons and making alliences..adding to land nothing more and we cannot judge by todays standards plus your leaving out the political machinations the jostling for power..the factions that existed henry was used by his advisors as much as he used his wives the bolyns..the howards the seymours all had their agendas all wanted power and used the women of the family to those ends mary bolyn was used as much as anne was by the families and then tossed aside when anne was deemed more usable..more sellable ..more up to the mark anne of cleeves was nothing more than a political pawn.... OK Where to start. Hampton Court was Wolsey's palace until he fell from grace. Let's give him his due. Yes, Henry went on a major build-a-thon but besides Hampton Court and Whitehall (and what's left there?) there's nothing left of what Henry built. I think you and I are coming at this from totally opposite points of view. You see, I am interested in the wives, especially Katherine and Anne. Katherine Parr I really don't have a lot of time for but she married him, she escaped with her life, for a while. I'm not prepared to wipe Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn off as baby making machines. They had much more to offer than that. Both of them influenced policy and religion. They were both extremely well educated and dedicated to religion as they saw it. I'm not saying Henry didn't have intelligence, grace, style. He did have. But he needed good advisors to bring these attributes out of him. When he decided to ditch Katherine for the younger Anne, he started to show his true colours.
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Post by mouse on May 27, 2010 8:57:23 GMT -5
fairynuff..yes we ARE possibly comming from differing view points.....i also am interested in his wives.ALL remarkable women in their own right..even the much overlooked kathering howard though jane seymour comes over as rather pallid and wishy washy used by her brothers i read a fantastic book on henry..i will see if i can get the title and author from my friend who owns it..if your interested,,,,,,, its very very interesting and gives many snippets on all areas of his life and times..his fetish for cleanliness etc etc he treated his cooks very well ..well i guess as a man who loved his stomache he would
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