Lives, loves and scandals - History series that takes an intimate look behind the closed doors of one of the most celebrated royal dynasties in British constitutional history - The Tudors.
Henry VIII - The Tyrant King:
Intricate details about the man, Henry VIII are revealed. Everything from his interests and his clothing to the food that he ate and the accidents he endured.
Watch Complete Series: https://dailymotion.com/playlist/x8r9n4
Henry VIII - The Tyrant King:
Intricate details about the man, Henry VIII are revealed. Everything from his interests and his clothing to the food that he ate and the accidents he endured.
Watch Complete Series: https://dailymotion.com/playlist/x8r9n4
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TVTranscript
00:00The Tudors are one of the best-known dynasties in world history. They took England from raging
00:14civil wars and the brink of ruin and transformed it into a powerhouse on the world stage.
00:22From their romances to their health, the fate of the country was closely linked to their
00:27personal lives. We've seen how Henry VII loved and lost, and how the untimely death of a young
00:35prince created one of the most notorious kings in history. But what really went on behind the
00:42closed doors of their palaces? In this episode, we look at the life of King Henry VIII, his
00:49gargantuan appetite for food, sport and women, his endless quest for an heir, and of course,
00:57the horrific leg injury that plagued most of his adult life. Welcome to the private lives
01:05of the Tudors.
01:35King Henry VIII had been on the throne for 27 years, but on the 24th of January 1536, his reign very nearly came to an end at a tournament in Greenwich, when he suffered an almost fatal accident while jousting. Henry, in full armour, fell from his horse, which in turn fell on him. One report said he was unconscious for two hours, and there seemed to be no hope for him.
02:03But true to form, Henry did regain consciousness. The Henry that emerged, though, was very different from the Henry before the accident. Contemporary accounts recorded a marked change in his personality. No longer the happy, generous and athletic king, he was now depressed, paranoid, and in a state of panic.
02:33This was the beginning of Henry the Tyrant.
02:49A lot of people thought that he was going to die, and it does seem to have possibly changed his personality.
02:57He's capable of being quite brutal the whole way along. Personally, my own view is that Henry was always capricious. He was always capable of making a very hard and basic calculation about people, and he was completely unsentimental. When you were eaten up and you were useless to him, he spat you out and threw you away.
03:27Henry had always been a fit and handsome man, renowned for his fine calf muscles and his pretty, rounded face. But after the jousting accident, his health had begun to deteriorate. He was no longer able to take part in the sports that he had loved, and his leg had become painfully ulcerated.
03:55It was a problem that would stay with him for the rest of his life.
03:59There's no question that the accident of 1536 opens up an old wound, and it causes a second injury on the other leg. And the injuries on his legs, undoubtedly, that's eventually what's going to kill him, because there are no antibiotics, so these are re-infecting wounds, and they must have been very painful.
04:30As he becomes more sick, physically sick, I'm sure his temper becomes shorter. Well, who's wouldn't? And I'm sure he can be more unpredictable.
04:43His explosive temper and volatile mood swings were a constant source of fear to his ministers at court. On several occasions, it was reported that he became violent, lashing out at even his most trusted confidants.
04:58As he becomes more house-bound, chair-bound, bed-bound, he loves to frighten people, and he enjoys that whole business of tementing people. And he likes the fact that they find him unreadable.
05:10The ulcer on his leg would have been very painful, because they believed in keeping it open to allow the pus to keep coming out, because they thought that would stop the ill humours building up in his body.
05:24The other problem was, of course, it was very ugly, and this is a man who has prided himself on his appearance.
05:32This is a time, too, when the health of the king is considered very important, because the king is, after all, the leader.
05:40So it was very difficult for Henry to be less than the fantastic specimen of manhood that he had once been.
05:46Ill-tempered and racked with constant pain, Henry had to be regularly attended by his personal medical team.
05:54These Tudor physicians were something only the very wealthy could afford, charging around ten shillings for their services, which was out of reach for the vast majority.
06:04But despite their large fees, they were still limited in terms of their medical expertise.
06:10Most of what they knew had been based on ancient writings from the likes of Aristotle and Hippocrates, or old wives' tales that had been handed down through generations.
06:22Tudor medicine was based on the idea of the healing of the sick.
06:29Tudor medicine was based on the idea of the four humours, so basically hot, cold, wet and dry.
06:35The idea was that those four elements should be in perfect balance in your body, and when they got out of balance, you got ill.
06:45If your doctor considered that the reason for your illness was that you were too hot and dry,
06:53he would prescribe things that would make you colder and wetter.
06:59He might well prescribe you all sorts of changes to your diet.
07:03So, for example, young animals were considered to be hotter than older ones,
07:09so you might be told to eat meat from young animals rather than older ones, which would sound rather strange to us today.
07:15But from the way they thought, it was perfectly sensible.
07:23Astrology and horoscopes also played a big part in determining Henry's health and how he should be treated.
07:35It may seem strange, but from birth, Henry's star sign was closely monitored.
07:41Doctors maintained that the king, who was born under the astrological sign of Cancer,
07:47was governed by the maternal cycles of the moon.
07:51Henry's horoscopes suggested that he'd be vulnerable to such diseases as smallpox, rheumatism and even kidney stones.
08:03To this day, Henry's astrological clock remains here at Hampton Court.
08:09Designed by the king's clockmaker, Nicholas Kratzer,
08:13it shows all 12 signs of the zodiac, the cycles of the moon and the position of the sun.
08:21His birth chart had cast him as a cheerful and happy child
08:25who would grow up to become a man of action.
08:29He would be ill-tempered, eat and drink to excess,
08:33sensitive to criticism and have a healthy libido.
08:37Maybe there was something in it after all.
08:41But there was one thing above all others
08:45that continued to worsen Henry's ailments.
08:49His love of excessive eating.
08:53I've come to the kitchens at Hampton Court Palace
08:57to see food historian Mark Meltonville.
09:01So, I understand this is one of your favourite parts of the palace?
09:05I love the Tudor kitchen.
09:09I think you get more of a sense of how the court operates here
09:13than in any other part of the palace.
09:17But you're the food expert. You talk me through it.
09:21I like to think of this as the beating heart of the palace.
09:25Yes, you've got the courtiers upstairs swishing around in their post dresses
09:29but this is where over 200 people are sweating away,
09:33producing meals twice a day for 400, 500, 600 people.
09:37And the pies, is that all they ate?
09:41No, shame it's not. This entire room is dedicated to the roasting of meat,
09:45so roasted beef and mutton. The pies are secondary, really.
09:49They're through the hatch there waiting to go up to the Great Hall.
09:53Well, lead on through. What do we have in the next chamber?
09:57This is our favourite. This is our veritable cathedral to food.
10:01Amazing.
10:06The palace was constantly increasing in size,
10:10which meant that there were a lot of mouths to feed.
10:14So in 1529, he had the palace kitchens extended
10:18to meet the demands of his hungry courtiers.
10:22At its height, the Great Kitchen comprised 55 rooms
10:26spanning over 3,000 square feet,
10:30where its 200 strong staff were tasked with serving 600 meals twice a day.
10:36We're here in what probably was the biggest and busiest kitchen
10:40in the world, and this is the heart of it.
10:44What would have gone on here? Whose food would have been cooked in this part of the kitchen?
10:48Well, obviously everyone thinks this is the kitchen for the king,
10:52because why wouldn't you? But the king had his own private or privy kitchen.
10:56His meals were served to him and his inner circle and cooked in a much smaller space.
11:00What we're sat in is basically the works canteen, but it's so much more than that.
11:04They must have got through a gargantuan quantity of food every single day.
11:08Yep, on time, no excuses. This is like a modern hotel.
11:12Everything works like clockwork.
11:16One of the myths about Henry VIII is that he was very uncouth when dining.
11:20There was the throwing of the chicken legs, and it was all a bit raucous.
11:24But it wasn't really like that at all, was it?
11:28No, we don't think so, because we have a couple of cookbooks,
11:32and we know how you were supposed to dine politely.
11:36Someone like Henry VIII is going to be trained from birth to behave properly,
11:40to behave like a king.
11:44The one thing they didn't like was the idea of you eating like an animal.
11:48We are not animals. We are man, and you don't chew on bones.
11:52What would have been a typical meal? Would it have been three courses?
11:56Did he choose from different dishes?
12:00If I say three courses for you for dinner, you're thinking of three separate things.
12:04A course in Tudor times, in fact through most of British history,
12:08is a buffet, a small buffet for you, me, and two others,
12:12referred to as a mess.
12:16So we'd sit here, and a selection of food is brought before us,
12:20and that's showing the wealth of your host.
12:24It was tailor-made for us eaters, wasn't it?
12:28We were very satisfied.
12:32Roasted meats were available at almost every meal at court.
12:36Most people of the time, if they were lucky enough, would have eaten preserved meat,
12:40but fresh meat year-round was a sign of wealth and opulence.
12:44Roasting was hugely expensive,
12:48not just for the cost of the fuel, but because you had to pay someone
12:52called a spit-boy to constantly attend it.
12:56There is no meal without the roasted meat,
13:00and within the roasting kitchens there are six fires like this.
13:04Four spits on each, we reckon at least 100 pounds of meat needed on every fireplace
13:08just to get the whole court fed.
13:12We've only got two pieces on here, because this is just choice for you.
13:16What do we have here? What's the meat?
13:20I've got the two most common meats roasted here, because everyone expects a deer or a boar.
13:24I've got the most common roast of England, and fine roast mutton.
13:28There is quite a lot of skill involved, isn't there, Robert?
13:32It looks like a fairly monotonous job, certainly a very hot job.
13:36But how skilled were these spit-turners?
13:40You do have to keep your wits about you. You have to examine the meat, make sure it's not overdone.
13:44It is not the most job-winner's variety, but it's an important job,
13:48because this is a really extravagant way of cooking, probably the most extravagant way of cooking ever invented.
13:52You can't make a tonne of seasoned oak per fire, per day, at wages.
13:56So all of this is making me pretty hungry.
14:00Do I get to try some of this meat?
14:04You do, and in true Tudor fashion, we can't tell you what to have.
14:08You get to choose between a fine piece of English beef or a slightly more rare mutton.
14:12I think I'm going for the rare mutton. That sounds delicious. Thank you.
14:16Good choice. I'll just let Robert come to a halt. Thank you very much.
14:20Cut some of this off.
14:28Well, I'm going to be like Henry VIII, take a fairly delicate piece to begin with.
14:32That is absolutely delicious. I think that's the best mutton I've ever tasted.
14:36People always think it's going to be really dry, because they see it go round the fire and going quite dark,
14:40but that's actually all the juice cooking on the outside. It's really, really moist.
14:50With all that food, the courtiers needed something to wash it down with.
14:54Henry had three large cellars in his palace, and with good reason.
14:58An incredible 600,000 gallons of ale were consumed at court every year,
15:02and wine imported from Gascony was held here in over 300 oak casks.
15:06At any one time of the year, the courtiers would gather here
15:10and have a drink of the wine.
15:14The wine imported from Gascony was held here in over 300 oak casks.
15:18At any one time, there would have been 15,000 gallons of it available.
15:22The king himself certainly had a taste for wine,
15:26which in Tudor times was incredibly expensive,
15:30and that made it all the more impressive
15:34when Henry marked festivals and special occasions
15:38by ordering the construction of lavish wine fountains,
15:42like the one on display here at Hampton Court.
15:46Revelers would have been greeted by these remarkable Tudor drinks dispensers
15:50and allowed to help themselves to the seemingly endless supply of wine
15:54that flowed from their spouts.
15:58He certainly knew how to throw a party.
16:12All that food and drink meant Henry was growing in size,
16:16which certainly kept his tailors and craftsmen busy.
16:20As king, Henry didn't have to lose weight
16:24to fit into his clothes and armour.
16:28He simply had new ones made.
16:32Three suits of armour kept here at the Tower of London
16:36revealed just how much he grew in size over the years.
16:40The most skilled armour makers of the time were German,
16:44so Henry had some of these craftsmen brought over
16:48and established at a workshop in Greenwich,
16:52where they spent their whole time making the king's armour.
16:56He had been greatly impressed by the eye-catching
17:00and beautifully intricate armour worn by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I,
17:04and Henry didn't want to be outdone.
17:08When Henry came to the throne,
17:12he wasn't that impressed with the armouries of England.
17:16There were very few of them. There was definitely one in London,
17:20but it wasn't making armour of the quality he wanted,
17:24so he imported armourers from where we would now call Germany and the Low Countries,
17:28and he formed what still is the Royal Armouries,
17:32and they were there specifically to make high-quality armour for the king.
17:36The Greenwich armour produced by the Royal Armouries
17:40was of the highest quality and distinctly decorative in fashion,
17:44but most of the armour that Henry had made
17:48was not intended for the battlefield. It was for the tournament.
17:52Henry loved to compete in the joust,
17:56and that meant he needed the proper protection,
18:00because the fact he was king didn't mean he was the king.
18:04But the fact he was king didn't mean his opponents would let him win.
18:12You can't cheat with jousting.
18:15Nobody going up against Henry was letting him win.
18:18They were giving as good as they got. It's like a big game of chicken.
18:22There's no defensive moves in jousting.
18:25You simply sit there and say,
18:27Hit me, because I'm going to hit you.
18:29How does that feel, Your Majesty? Are you able to move properly?
18:33It would have been a real thing to go and see the king jousting.
18:37Don't forget, this is not a sport for the faint-hearted.
18:40This is dangerous, this is brutal.
18:43The king could and was injured on several occasions when he was jousting.
18:49From a young and healthy prince
18:51to a dangerously overweight middle-aged king,
18:54Henry's armour gives us an almost completely accurate account
18:58of his growing size.
19:01We're quite lucky in the fact that we've got quite a lot of Henry's armour left,
19:05almost from when he was a teenager right up until his later years,
19:08the last armours he wore when he invaded France.
19:11What you could do, in fact, is you could put plaster into that armour,
19:15pour plaster in, and you'd have a very good record
19:18of how his body changes over the years.
19:21He's young and fit, and then obviously he becomes older and fatter
19:25as he exercises less and eats more.
19:28So you'd actually be able to see from those casts you could take
19:31of the inside of the armours how his girth grows.
19:36As Henry's size and weight started to increase,
19:40so too did his number of illnesses.
19:43But despite best efforts, Henry continued to suffer.
19:47He regularly underwent a wide variety of treatments,
19:50both conventional and experimental.
19:59It was probably during a bout of illness,
20:02when he was surrounded by the physicians who were trying to cure him,
20:06that Henry himself became interested in the world of medicine.
20:11He granted a royal charter to establish
20:14the Worshipful Company of Barber Surgeons,
20:17shown in this painting by Hans Holbein,
20:20which still hangs here in the Great Hall today.
20:24One of the men depicted in the painting was Thomas Allsopp,
20:28who was among Henry's most trusted physicians.
20:33Allsopp was a skilled herbalist
20:35with extensive knowledge of pharmaceuticals.
20:38As such, the king granted him permission to gather what he needed
20:42to make his medicines from the royal herb gardens,
20:45like the one here at the Worshipful Company of Barbers.
20:49Dr Tim Cutler is honorary curator of their Tudor Physic Herb Garden.
20:54There's been a garden on this site since about 1450.
20:57Is that old?
20:59The original hall had a garden
21:01and we have records of the beadle buying plants for it.
21:05With the same sorts of plants?
21:07Yes, probably a few more added,
21:09but we particularly commemorate John Gerrard,
21:12who was master of our company in 1607.
21:15John Gerrard was one of the first people in England
21:18to record and publish how plants and herbs could be used
21:21to cure various ailments.
21:23His book, Gerrard's Herbal,
21:25brought together the theories and remedies
21:27that had been used by the likes of Thomas Allsopp
21:30when developing treatments for Henry.
21:34A great botanist, surgeon, plantsman, gardener.
21:38We have produced a number of herbal medicines
21:42We have produced this garden in his memory,
21:44really through his writings of Gerrard's Herbal,
21:47which came out in 1597
21:49and listed all the known medicinal plants of the time
21:53and plants that were useful in many respects,
21:56both for medicine, both for scenting the air, for dyeing clothes.
22:01Many of the herbs used in Tudor medicine
22:04can be commonly found in most kitchens today,
22:07Sage, marjoram and parsley
22:09were widely used in cures for common ailments, known as simples.
22:14But the more complex the illness, the more outlandish the remedies.
22:18For example, if you had jaundice,
22:21you would likely be prescribed a revolting mixture
22:24of lice and ale to be drunk every morning.
22:30How important were herbs to Tudor medicine?
22:34Herbs were the basis of most medicines used at that time.
22:38They had been described 1,500 years earlier
22:41by Dioscorides and Galen, and nothing had changed much.
22:45And it was not until Gerrard's Herbal came along
22:48that the subject was expanded to include more plants.
22:52But they were using the same herbs as had been used for generations.
22:57Of course, Henry VIII's maidservants
23:01Of course, Henry VIII's major health problem was his ulcerated leg.
23:05What sort of herbs would his doctors have used to try and cure that?
23:09There were quite a lot of plants used for wound care at the time,
23:13and Gerrard writes enthusiastically about them.
23:17He writes about hypericum perforatum,
23:20the St John's wort,
23:22which we know about for being used in mild depressive illness now.
23:27But Gerrard rated it as very important for wound healing.
23:31He writes about alchemilla mollis, ladies' mantle,
23:35the plant that's still here.
23:37Look, the dew is still on it.
23:39Dew was regarded as having very magical properties,
23:42and dew gathers on alchemilla leaves,
23:45and so this was thought to be very special.
23:48And the mandrake.
23:50Ah, very well known still.
23:52It's unchanged for 2,000 years.
23:54I mean, the history of the mandrake goes back to the time of Christ,
23:58and this contains the active ingredient hyacinth that we now know about,
24:02but it was known as a very effective source of pain relief in those days.
24:06So his wound would have needed these dressings to encourage it to heal.
24:12Henry's other preoccupation was, of course, the need to beget an heir.
24:17Now, were there any herbal remedies that could have helped his libido?
24:22Well, he might have tried the candid roots of sea holly, eryngium.
24:28That was marketed as an aphrodisiac,
24:30and that was certainly available in Tudor times,
24:33so I suspect he tried that from time to time.
24:36Given that he was king, of course,
24:38with all of these great remedies at his disposal,
24:41did he have any made specially for him?
24:43The King's Grace's ointment was his own prescription.
24:47It was an ointment made from a plant we know well
24:50called the yellow sweet clover.
24:53If you pound it up, you get a nice, soft, mushy mix
24:58that produces a very soothing ointment,
25:01and it is written up in Henry's papers
25:03that it was used to cool the inflamed parts of his anatomy.
25:08We can leave it to your imagination as to which bits he needed to put it on,
25:12but there it was. It was his own ointment.
25:15That's a fascinating insight into Henry's personal life.
25:21MUSIC
25:26The fact that Henry's health was in decline
25:29didn't stop him from moving on to his third wife, Jane Seymour.
25:35In 1538, within seven months of the marriage, Jane was pregnant.
25:41When word got out that the king's new wife was with child,
25:44there were celebrations across the land.
25:47Church bells were rung and prayers were said in hope of a safe delivery.
25:53However, it would be anything but.
25:56Jane was forced to endure a 36-hour labour,
26:00which in Tudor times would have been extraordinarily painful and tortuous.
26:09Jane had a very long and arduous labour,
26:12and there weren't that many comforts available to her.
26:15Pain relief, as we understand it, just didn't exist.
26:18And also the church believed that women should experience
26:21this full manifestation of original sin,
26:24and so they frowned upon midwives administering things like opium.
26:29Prayers would be said, and the recitation of prayers and focusing on that
26:33could act as some kind of relaxant.
26:36But other than that, there was obviously no ether.
26:40There was no epidural.
26:43Herbs were used, and some of them might actually have had some sort of effect,
26:48such as willow bark, which we know today that aspirin is made from.
26:52So there may have been something like that.
26:56It was common practice of the time that the expectant mother
27:00would have taken to her chamber to give birth, known as lying in.
27:04She would have been shut off from public gaze
27:07and surrounded only by her female attendants,
27:10usually close friends known as godsips or gossips.
27:14The labour would almost always have been supervised by a midwife,
27:19and men were strictly forbidden from entering the room.
27:25Jane Seymour's confinement and delivery was different
27:28because, for the first time, Henry invited men into the chamber.
27:32They were present during the time of delivery and afterwards,
27:36and we know this from a letter that survives that they all put their name to,
27:40including Henry's own physician, Sir William Butts.
27:43This is quite interesting in terms of a departure from tradition
27:48because it indicates Henry was very concerned about Jane's delivery
27:53and also about the survival of this child.
27:56It's as if he knew that this child was his last chance
27:59and he didn't want to take any risks with it,
28:01and so he threw all his available resources at it.
28:06Henry may have had good intentions,
28:08but it was a decision that would have fatal consequences.
28:14Men, though, did have a more detached knowledge.
28:18They didn't have hands-on experience. That was a very female thing.
28:22And also there's a status problem with men actually touching the queen's body.
28:27So men were probably standing back and observing
28:30while the women actually did the business of delivering the child
28:33and then bringing some of their academic knowledge to bear after the event.
28:51Jane eventually gave birth, giving Henry what he desired above all else, a son.
28:58Henry was overjoyed, but his happiness was short-lived.
29:04Just 12 days after giving birth to Henry's heir, Prince Edward,
29:09Jane tragically died.
29:11She contracted what was known at the time as childbed fever,
29:14which may have been caused by a retained placenta
29:17or by the unsanitary conditions in the birthing chamber.
29:24It's quite likely that the inclusion of men in the birthing room
29:28in Jane Seymour's case led to a conflict of interest
29:32as the senior figures at court, their opinions would have trumped those of the women.
29:37And so they probably had the final say when it came to Jane's care.
29:42I think that Jane Seymour was deeply unfortunate
29:46in having royal physicians rather than midwives looking after her.
29:50The royal physicians just were not as experienced
29:53and knew much less in relation to childbirth than did midwives.
29:58So it would have been exhausting as well as full of pain.
30:02And then, of course, she died afterwards
30:07because almost certainly the placenta did not come fully away.
30:11In the days after giving birth, we know that there were some criticisms made.
30:16This comes from a letter from Thomas Cromwell
30:19who commented that she was allowed to catch cold
30:22and that she was allowed to indulge her fantasies in eating unsuitable foods.
30:26Possibly the academic knowledge triumphed over the experience.
30:30And Jane's death may have been the result of an infection
30:34or possibly the fact that the men didn't know that part of her placenta
30:39may have remained in her womb and needed to be removed,
30:42which would have simply been whipped out by a midwife by hand.
30:46So the gender battle in the birth room
30:49might have resulted in Jane's premature death, which was possibly unnecessary.
30:56MUSIC PLAYS
31:15Henry was devastated at the loss of his wife.
31:18Writing of her death, he stated,
31:21Henry's absence has mingled my joy
31:24with the bitterness of the death of her who brought me happiness.
31:28Henry would not remarry for more than two years.
31:31It would be the longest period that he'd be without a wife
31:35throughout the whole course of his reign.
31:41Henry was delighted to have a son at long last,
31:44probably anxious about whether or not the son would live.
31:48His feelings must have been distraught by the death of Jane Seymour.
31:52She had delivered the child he had so much wanted.
31:56He hadn't been married to her very long,
31:58so she hadn't alienated him, as Anne Boleyn had done.
32:02And he withdrew, rather as his father had at the time of the death
32:06of Elizabeth of York, from public view and mourned in private.
32:14Henry was clearly grieved by Jane's death.
32:17His wife, Anne Boleyn, on that day,
32:19said that she had both given him this ultimate joy and ultimate grief
32:24in the fact that she had passed away at the time.
32:27However, Henry was fairly pragmatic,
32:30and although he went through the period of mourning
32:33and he didn't marry again for a couple of years,
32:36he didn't stop looking at other women,
32:38and marriage negotiations were already taking place
32:41within months of Jane's death.
32:43So although he did mourn her on a personal level,
32:46he didn't want her as a king to take on another queen
32:49and possibly try and father even more children.
32:59By the time Henry had reached the age of 50,
33:02the once slender and athletic king had become monstrously fat,
33:07with a waist measuring 52 inches,
33:10a full 20 inches bigger than when he first came to the throne.
33:17It was said that three of the biggest men at court
33:28could fit inside the king's doublet.
33:31He was so fat that he had to be winched onto his horse,
33:35and a special device had to be built to get him up and down stairs.
33:39Partly it was due to his lack of exercise,
33:43and partly it was the rich and plentiful food
33:47that was constantly on offer here at the palace.
33:52HE BLOWS A RASPBERRY
34:07You would think that with his huge size and festering leg sores
34:12that Henry would have been a little less choosy about potential matches,
34:17but nothing could be further from the truth.
34:22HE BLOWS A RASPBERRY
34:26Arrangements are made for him to remarry,
34:29and it is suggested he chooses the daughter
34:32of an influential German duke, Anne of Cleves.
34:36The artist, Hans Holbein, is dispatched to paint her portrait.
34:40He is told to capture her true likeness and not to flatter her.
34:45Upon seeing the painting, Henry immediately agrees to the marriage.
34:52But when he meets Anne in the flesh, he is utterly revolted.
34:57Not only is she ugly, with very little resemblance to her portrait,
35:01but she is also said to have evil airs about her.
35:05But the contract has been signed.
35:08Henry has no choice but to go ahead and marry her.
35:14Henry made no secret of the fact
35:16that he did not find Anne pleasing to the eye.
35:19So what was it that he was looking for?
35:21What did Tudor men consider attractive?
35:25The Renaissance ideal of beauty
35:27was that a woman should be well-proportioned and graceful
35:32and be not too much of one thing and too much of another.
35:37So she shouldn't be too tall, she shouldn't be too short.
35:40Everything was in moderation.
35:42It showed harmony, which was the ideal.
35:46Your figure needed to be certainly not skinny
35:49because in Tudor times that suggested you were poor or possibly ill
35:53and the big thing you wanted was for your future wife to be healthy.
35:57Certainly you wanted lots of babies if you were an aristocrat
36:02and lower down the social scale, your wife had to be healthy
36:05because she was going to have to work really hard,
36:07carrying around pails of water and all that.
36:10No good being a weakling.
36:13So they were looking for someone with clear skin, with good teeth.
36:17They were talking about particularly the smell of a woman.
36:20They didn't want a woman who smelled of spices,
36:23but a woman who smelled sweet
36:25and that might give an indication that she wasn't suffering
36:28from any rotten teeth or sores or anything unpleasant like that.
36:33They were also looking for a woman who was well-made
36:36and who was clearly built for giving birth to children.
36:40So they wanted a fairly round hourglass figure,
36:43someone who would be able to bear a child healthily
36:46and go through the rigours of childbirth.
36:49One of the Tudor ideals, though, was that of a very fair complexion
36:53and there were steps that women did take to try and lighten their complexions
36:57using things like lemon juice and other mixtures.
37:00And also the Tudor red gold hair was very famous, very popular at the time
37:05and quite rare, which increased its value.
37:09There was no particular one type.
37:12The idea was much more based on this notion
37:15of being well-proportioned and being graceful.
37:22Henry divorced Anne shortly afterwards,
37:25but although her lack of physical attractions has traditionally been blamed
37:29for the failure of her marriage to Henry,
37:31did the fault really lie with her husband?
37:34This is evidence that Henry was impotent by the time he married her.
37:39This is corroborated by the story of his next marriage.
37:43His fifth wife, Catherine Howard, was just a teenager when she married Henry,
37:47who was more than 30 years her senior.
37:50Although he couldn't keep his hands off her in public,
37:53in private, Henry failed to fulfil his husbandly duty.
37:59By 1541, and within just a few months of their marriage,
38:03Henry's health took another turn.
38:06His leg ulcer had become infected
38:08and there was serious concern that the king might not pull through.
38:12Andrew Board, a physician who examined Henry at the time,
38:16described him as hugely obese
38:19and having enlarged arteries with pale and sweaty skin.
38:23Aware that he was not looking his best,
38:26Henry would refuse to see his wife for weeks on end.
38:31It wasn't long before Catherine started to seek sexual gratification elsewhere
38:36and she soon found it in the shape of Thomas Culpepper,
38:40one of the king's closest servants.
38:43But nothing remained a secret at court for long
38:46and when the affair was discovered, Catherine went straight to the block.
38:52A year later, Henry moved on to wife number six.
38:57On paper, his marriage to Catherine Parr
39:00seemed to be one of reason and practicality rather than passion.
39:05She was a wealthy 31-year-old widow
39:08with wit, intelligence and an unblemished reputation.
39:12But she also understood Henry as a person
39:15and was attentive to the family's needs.
39:18She understood Henry as a person and was attentive to the fact
39:22that his disastrous marriage to Catherine Howard
39:25had left him deeply lonely and unhappy.
39:28She provided him with all the care and comfort of a loving wife.
39:33Their marriage seemed to be set for success.
39:38But by the summer of 1546, Henry VIII was dangerously ill.
39:43His enormous girth and poor health
39:46meant that his mobility was so restricted that he could barely walk.
39:50Only his closest body servants knew the full extent of the king's illness.
39:55They saw the separating ulcer on his leg,
39:58the stench from which was enough to turn the strongest of stomachs.
40:02The king was dying.
40:06From the middle of 1546, the king becomes less and less inclined to go out
40:10and spends more and more time in the Privy Chamber.
40:13He also is beginning to think about his plans for the succession
40:18and the fact that he's thinking in these terms, he's writing a will,
40:21he's talking about a council of regency, which is a very unusual idea.
40:26Henry started to make provisions for his death.
40:29He had officially declared his son Edward as heir to the throne.
40:34However, he was still just a boy, so the king appointed a regency council
40:39with 16 trusted men from his court to help him rule
40:43until Edward reached the age of 18.
40:47But Henry, knowing that he would not be there to protect Edward,
40:51and along with his ever-growing paranoia,
40:53set about ridding his son of any potential threats.
40:58He became convinced that members of his privy council
41:02would try to seize control after his death.
41:05Some men, such as Bishop Gardiner, Henry Howard and his father Thomas,
41:10were either excluded, imprisoned or executed.
41:17By taking out those big men,
41:19he thinks a group of smaller men will work better together.
41:23Of course, he doesn't really calculate on how ambitious the Seymours are.
41:29Little did Henry know that his wife Catherine
41:32was going to rekindle her romance with Thomas Seymour.
41:35Together, they will attempt to influence the court of Edward
41:39when he becomes king.
41:42The Seymours also have made a very practical alliance
41:46with Catherine Parr, the last queen,
41:49and between them they control the privy chamber at this stage.
42:03At the beginning of 1547, Henry moved to Whitehall Palace
42:07and retired to his private apartments,
42:10away from the prying eyes of the court.
42:13There, on 28th January,
42:16on what would have been his father's 90th birthday,
42:19he breathed his last.
42:23He had spent his last days bed-bound,
42:26his doctors unable to tell him he was dying,
42:29and predicting the king's death was an act of treason.
42:33But with his room filled with the stench from his rotten ulcerations,
42:37they probably didn't have to.
42:40Henry summoned the archbishop to hear his last confession
42:44and absolve him of his sins in preparation for the afterlife.
42:48But by the time he reached the king, it was too late.
42:53Henry was 55 when he died and had reigned for 37 years.
42:59Now it was time for his children, Edward, Mary and Elizabeth,
43:05to take their turns as England's monarch.
43:10In the next episode,
43:12we'll see how a phantom pregnancy
43:15left Queen Mary a laughingstock at court,
43:19examine the unusual methods of contraception
43:22practised by the Tudor women,
43:25and look at how Elizabeth I's love of sugar and cosmetics
43:29left her a bald and toothless shadow of her former glory.
43:33Next time, on The Private Lives of the Tudors.
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