“Never ask me,” said John Hunter, “what I have said or written,
but ask me what my present opinions are and I will tell you.”
“Know syphilis in all its manifestations and relations, and all
other things clinical shall be added unto you.”—OSLER.
It is extraordinary what a popular aversion there seems to be to the
idea that this man had syphilis, and that many of his actions were due
to his syphilis. To judge by the number of letters that I have received
from both England and America one would be inclined to think that he
was suffering from measles. This I interpret in two ways: firstly, that
people still cling to the idea that syphilis is a “loathsome disease”;
secondly, that they do not wish to have their pet ideal of a monster
rationally explained in medical terms. As a matter of fact, syphilis is
far more than a loathsome disease of skin and bone; it would be quite as
reasonable to call it often a very grim disease of brain, mind, soul and
body. Since the general use of mercury its skin and bone manifestations
have sunk into comparative harmlessness, and since the general use of
the arseno-benzol compounds the disease seems to have become still less
dangerous to the body; but there is always before us the fact that it may
be a very terrible affliction for mind and nervous tissues. But people
love to hug their little delusions, and so long as they cling to the idea
that it is only a “loathsome disease,” so long will syphilis continue
to destroy the flower of the human race—hard-working intellectual
middle-aged men who once upon a time were very human youths.
And there seems to be a misconception about its hereditary nature. The
child of a syphilitic may be apparently healthy in appearance, though
its resistance to other diseases may be low; it would need a blood
examination by Wassermann’s test to make sure that its troubles were
really syphilitic. It need not necessarily show the classical symptoms of
“snuffles,” wasting, and rash. All that may happen is that its whole body
resisting power is damaged, and it falls a prey to one or other of the
innumerable disease germs that are always ready to attack us.
Furthermore, so virulent is sectarian prejudice that almost every single
point about Henry’s life seems still to be in dispute. If anybody could
tell me a safe track through the maze of conflicting accounts of the
reign of Henry Tudor, between the modern feminists who still cling to the
idea that he was an unspeakable monster, the Roman Catholic Church which
still paints him as the very devil, Froude who hailed him as the great
Protestant hero of the Reformation, and the accounts of the ordinary man
who looks upon him as a bloodthirsty spot of grease—I believe Charles
Dickens used that elegant description—I should welcome it; but as I have
no criterion of truth but what medical experience has shown me to be true
of men, women and disease, I can only follow the account of him given
by Professor Pollard, who, treating him with studied moderation, was
prepared to consider him as the “great Erastrian,” the protagonist of
State against Church. No doubt that is substantially true. It is not for
a doctor to say.
Even the number of premature births endured by his wives is in dispute;
and all sorts of cock-and-bull stories are made up to show that his
children, if born alive, or his wives if they took ill were singularly
subject to the effects of cold and overlong christenings. Once would be
all very well; but when it happens more than once it becomes suspicious.
It is wonderful what people can invent when they wish to explain a thing
by religious and political conspiracies—of which they can really _know_
nothing in an age so utterly different from ours, in which the actors
have long gone beyond our intimate knowledge—when the obvious medical
truth is staring them in the face. Human beliefs have changed, but
syphilis is still the same.
I follow Pollard because he impresses me as a man of common sense. I
have not met him; but the sheer virulent abuse of the ordinary man is no
argument and is a better description of the critic’s own mind than of his
subject.
The facts which can only reasonably be explained by the idea that he was
suffering from constitutional syphilis are as follows—I put them in the
order in which they impress myself:
(_a_) The extraordinary number of premature births and dead
children from two of his wives, one of whom was young and
healthy. The early death of Catherine’s first-born son is
attributed to the strain of a long christening on a bitter
midwinter day.
(_b_) The poor health of at least three of his children, Mary
Tudor, Edward VI, and the illegitimate Duke of Richmond;
whether Elizabeth escaped the infection is at least doubtful
since Professor Chamberlain has carefully investigated the
details of her health.
(_c_) The terrible degeneration, mental, moral, and physical,
which set in in his early middle age.
(_d_) The facts contained in the extract from the _British
Medical Journal_ of 1910: “From being an able and athletic man
he had become a mass of loathsome infirmities. He was bloated
in face and so unwieldy that he could hardly pass through an
ordinary door. His legs were swollen and covered with festering
sores, causing an unbearable stench. Towards the end those
about him saw that death was at hand, though, according to
Foxe, he would never allow it to be mentioned in his hearing.
Kings never seem to have liked it to be recognised that they
are mortal, in which reluctance to face facts they are much
like other people.”
(_e_) The sinus in his leg which caused him unbearable agony
whenever it was closed. This seems to have been syphilitic
periostitis occurring in an essentially neurotic man.
(_f_) Death in stupor at the comparatively early age of
fifty-five.
Not any single one of these symptoms is indubitable evidence of
syphilis, but taken altogether there is no other reasonable explanation.
In syphilis and self-indulgence we have the secret of the whole tragic
development of this king’s character. Syphilis alone would doubtfully
have accounted for it, even less perhaps gluttonous and bibulous
self-indulgence. It is quite true that after his first marriage he
seems to have abandoned all moral restraint, or at least guidance by
ecclesiastics and the Church; but his dreadful degeneration was not a
result of doing so; he did so because he was influenced by the spirochæte
and gluttony combined. To-day, when a man gets into gaol for any
particularly shameless offence—especially sexual—the very first thing
that the police surgeon does is to perform a Wassermann test upon his
cerebro-spinal fluid; and I am perfectly certain that if it were possible
to do so upon Henry Tudor, the report would come back marked “Wassermann
plus,” and probably towards the end of his life “plus plus plus!”
But when did he catch it? He does not seem to have _obviously_ infected
any of his wives, so far as we can tell, so the inference is that he must
have caught it several years before he married Catherine of Aragon. Well,
he married her when he was little more than eighteen, so he must have
caught it when he was thirteen or fourteen, at about the very earliest
that a gay and showy boy of the Renaissance could manage to catch it.
Then probably the primary lesion, so apparently innocent and harmless,
healed up under the influence of some simple ointment,[3] just as it does
to-day in thousands of men, who bitterly rue later the one little slip
that was to cause them all their woes—and Henry went his life through,
probably having quite forgotten the trifling incident. To this day we
find that those cases of syphilis which are trifling at first, are just
the very cases which, under the influence of worry, lack of treatment, or
overstrain, go so tragically wrong at the end. The somewhat wicked pun is
common among medical men: “Five minutes with Venus may mean a lifetime
with Mercury,” a specimen of sardonic jesting with death that so appeals
to many doctors, however kindly and serious they may really be.
In no way can we better trace his degeneration than in his treatment
of his wives; so I propose to describe it alone of all his innumerable
misdeeds.
Firstly, it is a great mistake to suppose that the only nervous
result of syphilis is general paralysis. Among neurotic people it may
cause serious mental troubles although it may not affect the actual
brain-tissue so far as we can see with a microscope. As this is perhaps
not generally known, I quote a sentence from the _Oxford Textbook of
the Practice of Medicine_, by various authors, published in 1922. “Such
patients are generally psychasthenic, ill-balanced and degenerate.” The
writer is speaking of the effects of syphilis upon mental diseases, and
its propensity to cause “phobias” and “obsessions.”
His first wife was Catherine of Aragon, who was some six years older than
himself. After a fierce struggle with the pope the obliging Archbishop
Cranmer pronounced a divorce between them. Martin Hume considers that
this was entirely for personal reasons, because she had lost her personal
charms, and because Henry had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn. Probably
there was a great deal of the personal element in it, and it is quite
possible that if Catherine had been willing to go into a convent and
leave her husband to another woman—he actually proposed that the pope
should allow him two wives—there might not have been the divorce that has
been fruitful of such stupendous results for England. Catherine seems to
have been a woman much under the influence of Spanish religiosity, and
undoubtedly put up a strenuous fight to keep her husband; as was only
right and proper. Probably the real degeneration in the king was yet to
come; the spirochæte was still biding its time.
Since there seems to be a good deal of doubt about the exact dates of the
famous premature births of Catherine, I give from Professor Pollard her
actual record. On January 31st, 1510, seven months after marriage, she
gave birth to a daughter still-born. Eleven months later, on January 1st,
1511, there was a son, who died in three days, as is still said because
of the inordinate length of his christening. In September, 1513, there
was another son, who was either still-born, or died immediately after
it was born. In June, 1514, there was yet another son, but he, too, was
no sooner christened than dead. Then, on February 18th, 1516, came the
little Princess who, being born to misery, became “Bloody Mary.” Then, in
1517 “it is probable that there were several miscarriages.” On November
18th, 1518, came the last of the unhappy woman’s efforts. It was a boy
and still-born. And Catherine was by now forty years of age and obviously
could have no more children. She had done her best, poor lady, but found
her husband’s spirochætes too much for her.
General experience is that the tendency in constitutional syphilis is
to cause a string of prematurely born children or miscarriages; then a
child born at full time, but showing evidences of disease; then, the
tendency having worn itself out, one or more backward but seemingly
healthy children. But, after Mary was born, apparently the tendency still
remained. Probably local internal trouble still persisted in Catherine,
and she had not entirely worn out the infection. Undoubtedly a good
modern surgeon would have cured her and altered the history of England.
That the stout-hearted daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella actually died
of the syphilis which she had probably gained from her husband would
appear to be shown by the account of the post-mortem examination which
was secretly held by a man who was trying to prove that Henry VIII had
poisoned her. He reported after getting the body ready for embalming,
that she was all sound but the heart, which was “black and hideous, with
a black excrescence which clung closely to the outside.” Doubtless this
represented an aortic aneurysm, which is known to be a common result
of untreated syphilis. I know that the findings have been attributed
to cancer of the heart; but cancer of the heart is so rare, if it ever
occurs, while aneurysm is so common, that I prefer the interpretation
here given.
I regret that my little essay on Henry’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, has
been much misunderstood by readers of _Post Mortem_. The view I there
took was that if the stories about her were true they could only be
explained by the supposition that she was suffering from nymphomania.
Nymphomania does not necessarily imply that a girl is of abandoned
character; it is a pathological condition of the nervous system. To this
day it sometimes comes on after childbirth, especially if accompanied by
terror and anxiety. It is in these women part of the Curse of Eve.[4]
It may happen to any woman, and sometimes causes scandal before it is
discovered. What circumstances could be imagined more terrible than those
in which the tragic second queen found herself.
Henry had married her in hopes of gaining a son and heir in spite of the
curse which people believed lay upon him for the multifarious premature
births of her predecessor, or rather for the mortal sin of marrying
his deceased brother’s wife. Still further to complicate the matter,
Catherine of Aragon had sworn that she had never had connection with the
dead Prince Arthur at all. Truly the whole thing becomes more and more
complex as we gaze. A canon law which looked upon a carnal act as a deed
which must be sanctified by God whenever it was performed, either before
or after marriage; a girl who desired to be queen; another older woman
who fought fiercely for her rights as both wife and religious fanatic;
a multitude of fierce partisans; racial, political, and religious
animosities; over all a man enraged by “love,” fear, and brutality.
Who could get at the truth about poor little Anne’s marriage? It is
impossible; one can only sympathise with everybody, and try to understand.
As I said, if the stories are true they can only be explained on
pathological grounds. What girl in her senses would go rushing about the
Court soliciting promiscuously in the manner of which Anne is accused?
Mr. Philip W. Sergeant has written a book to prove that all the stories
are really based upon slanders set agoing by Chapuys, ambassador of
Charles V; and it was to fierce religious and political animosity that
Anne owed her bad reputation. According to him she was really a rather
vindictive, free-spoken woman, a great worker with her hands, fond of
dress, musical, and passionately fond of dancing. This is a new outlook
on the Anne of Froude and most historians, but is confirmed by several
known facts. For instance, some of her laborious needlework is said to be
still preserved in Hampton Court Palace. I have not seen it, for it is
many years since I was at that palace; but it must be very sad to gaze
upon it and think how tragic was the fate of Mr. Sergeant’s dancing,
singing, industrious little queen.
Another thing upon further reflection rather casts doubt even on the
pathological explanation. Froude accused her of soliciting Sir Henry
Norreys after the birth of Elizabeth—if I remember rightly, it was less
than three weeks afterwards. Is it conceivable that Sir Henry Norreys
would be allowed alone into Her Majesty’s sick-room only three weeks
after the greatest event of any woman’s life—the birth of her first-born?
A lady who claims to be an Irish descendant of that George Boleyn
who was accused of adultery and incest with Anne has written a long
and interesting letter concerning her family and Anne in particular.
Narrating the family traditions—and, as she says, family traditions must
always be accorded great value—she tells me that the descendants of
George Boleyn hold strongly that Anne may have been a gay little flirt,
but that there was never anything really morally wrong with her; and that
the whole accusation was in her own words—she is an American—a “frame-up”
on the part of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. Quite possibly, therefore,
Anne may really have given nothing more than nods and becks and wreathed
smiles to the men who were accused of adultery with her; possibly even
the musician, Mark Smeaton, may have had his confession wrung out of him
entirely by torture and by Cromwell’s terrible personality.
The truth about her burial seems to be that she was not bundled into a
cask as I heard from one of the caretakers at the Tower, but that she
was hurriedly put into a partly filled box of arrows. According to Mr.
Sergeant they dug up the box in 1876 and found her delicate skeleton,
with slender bones and severed neck. It is all very tragic and very sad.
The difficulty is that Cromwell seems to have taken care that all the
evidence in her favour perished. We do not hear from her friends.
It was apparently during Queen Anne Boleyn’s reign that the first
appearance began of that frightful physical degeneration in the King
which so impressed all his contemporaries; and it was probably from
that circumstance that Anne gained the discredit of being the great
prime mover in his degeneration; it was not fair of Mr. P. C. Yorke,
in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, to say that she appealed only to his
lower nature. Some woman when he was about fourteen had done so most
effectually, and years later Anne had to suffer for it. He probably
appealed to Anne through his music, for he was a skilled musician,
and one of the anthems which he wrote is still performed in English
cathedrals.
There are still one or two things to remark when dealing with Anne
Boleyn. First of all there was the birth of Elizabeth when she expected
and fervently prayed for a son; secondly, the next was a miscarriage,
said to have been brought on by seeing Jane Seymour sitting on her
husband’s knee; another account is that it was a son prematurely born
through anxiety because of a fall that he had when riding. Again these
premature births! One would have thought that the constitutional syphilis
in Henry VIII must have long worn itself out by that time!
Last of all we must glance at the conduct of the very obliging Archbishop
Cranmer. He pronounced the decree of divorce—which, by the way, neither
Catherine nor Henry himself ever seems to have recognised. Then he was
present when Anne and Henry were married secretly. Then, when Anne,
looking upon him as a friend, appealed to him in her desperate trouble
at the end, he sent her a non-committal answer. As Mr. Sergeant dryly
comments, it has only recently been proposed that this obliging man be
made a saint of the Anglican Church.
There can be little doubt of the reason why Henry married Jane Seymour.
Before he got Anne put out of harm’s way he had fallen in love, as he
called it, with Jane; and the Seymours, being very powerful people who,
observing that the king’s passions were already all-powerful with him
(owing to his illness), took advantage of them to see that he married
the new star, simply for the sake of their own particular sect, which
happened to be Catholic. Here we see at once the fact that Henry, who
thought himself so strong, was in reality already at the mercy of party
politics.
Jane Seymour seems to have been a nondescript sort of woman, gentle and
harmless. At the end of about a year she was delivered of the little son
who, because his father’s syphilis had seemingly worn itself out, passed
through the perils of his infancy only to die ultimately of what looks
very much like pulmonary tuberculosis, the other curse of the Tudors.
Childbirth killed the colourless Jane Seymour, undoubtedly through
puerperal septicæmia, though once again the cock-and-bull story of an
overlong christening has been revived.
Next came Anne of Cleves, the famous “great Flanders mare” of legendary
reputation, of whom we have all learned at school. Again, according to
Major Hume, Henry was so worked upon by his political advisers that he
for once made an utter fool of himself, and married a picture by Holbein
procured by Thomas Cromwell. In recommending this marriage Cromwell took
a great risk, for, as is well known, no man can select either wife, pipe
or hat for another. It is said that Henry had proposed to the French
ambassador that he should hold a sort of Babylonian marriage-market among
the damsels of France, whence he should select the prettiest; but it is
also said, by Professor Pollard this time, that the Frenchman made such
an answer that for the only recorded time in his life, Henry was seen to
blush. It is difficult to imagine such a jape—even if French—as would
make Henry Tudor blush.
The important thing to tell about Anne of Cleves is that Henry, having
passed several nights in her room, proclaimed that he had discovered that
she was not _virgo intacta_. There are also several indecent stories that
he was said to have related of her, but as they are not entirely germane
to my present object, and as I do not wish this to be a mere _chronique
scandaleuse_ I omit them.
While he was thus uncertain, being almost in the position of Hajji Baba
when he discovered that he had married a veiled woman who turned out
to be excessively plain, Henry again strove for freedom. He secured it
by simply repudiating his bride on the Euripidean method of “it was my
tongue that swore,” not my soul. Anne seems to have been a good-natured
sort of German frau who accepted the inevitable with a good grace, and
doubtless she was not sorry to be left alone with her knitting. Henry
gave her £4,000 a year and two country houses, and called her his sister.
She was not above cracking a risky joke with her temporary husband when
he became still more prodigious as to his size and gluttony. It was while
he was worried about Anne that Luther announced that Squire Harry thought
himself to be God.
Lady Catherine Howard was the most pitiful of all, as Anne Boleyn was the
most tragic. Once again there was the inevitable see-saw of politics;
Henry had got rid of Thomas Cromwell the Protestant by the simple method
of cutting off his head in circumstances of unusual brutality even for
the sixteenth century; and once more the Roman Catholics came on top.
The result was the sacrifice of pretty Catherine Howard. That she was by
far the best looking of all Henry’s wives can hardly be denied. Nobody
looking at her gentle and thoughtful little face in the portrait that
hangs in the National Portrait Gallery would ever dream that she was
so immoral as people tried to prove. Her eyes were hazel, her hair was
auburn; and she looks as virginal as though she had never been near the
Court. Yet she was said to have had entanglements with at least three
men. She had had a very unhappy childhood, and received due thrashings
from her aunt the Duchess of Norfolk when that lady took a fancy to
bestow them; but little education. She had no maternal supervision to
keep her on the straight and narrow path in that sinful Court. Her music
master, Mannock, boasted that she had promised to be his mistress; a
kinsman named Dereham said that she was his wife; and she was reported to
be engaged to her cousin, Culpepper. And now she was bestowed upon this
new and dreadful suitor, His Gracious Majesty[5] himself. No wonder that
Martin Hume became almost dithyrambic about it. Indeed, Catherine Howard
had a hard fate.
I quote directly from Professor Pollard, who mercifully glosses over
the piteous details. “Rumours of Catherine Howard’s past indiscretions
had at length reached the ears of the privy council.... Twenty-four
hours later Cranmer put in his hands the evidence of the queen’s
misconduct. Henry refused to believe it in the rude awakening from his
dreams; he ordered a strict investigation to be made. Its results left
no room for doubt. Dereham confessed his intercourse; Mannock admitted
having taken liberties; and finally the queen herself confessed her
guilt. The king was overwhelmed with grief and vexation, and shed
bitter tears. He offered his wife a pardon and she might have escaped
with nothing worse than a divorce had not proofs come to hand of her
misconduct with Culpepper during Henry’s recent absence in the north.
This offence was high treason and could not be covered by Henry’s pardon
for her prenuptial immorality.” Henry feared lest the blood royal be
contaminated. In January, 1542, Parliament considerately relieved this
blubbering and neurotic man of his responsibility by “passing an Act of
Attainder directed against his new wife, which, to save him pain, was
signed by a Commission in his stead. Catherine declined his permission
to go down to the house of Parliament and defend herself in person.” In
due course she was beheaded in the Tower. The story is that she said, “I
had rather die a Culpepper than live a Queen.” Doubtless in confessing at
the back of her mind was the thought that it were better to be dead than
to be married to King Henry VIII at the moment that his mental syphilis
was approximating to its greatest terrors with all its obsessions and
phobias. Seemingly the Parliament of England was not always so brave
as we now think it to be. But if he knew so much about women as he had
professed in the case of his repudiation of Anne of Cleves, why had he
not applied his knowledge to the case of Catherine Howard before?
It seems a reasonable thing to glance at the other symptoms of syphilis
that occurred at the time during the reign of Catherine Howard when his
greatest degeneracy was coming on.
The ulcer on his leg sometimes closed, and the pain was so intense that
he sometimes became speechless with agony and went black in the face.[6]
He grew more and more corpulent every day. When he went on progress to
the north he cleared the Tower by issuing orders that every prisoner
in it was to be beheaded. If these in an absolute monarch are not
symptoms of syphilitic psychasthenia, of a frightful moral and physical
degeneration, what are they? Symptoms of whooping-cough, perhaps!
Next and last came Catherine Parr, who was said to have been degraded
to the royal bed by the Protestants to gain their own ends. She must
have been a brave woman to tackle the task of nursing this man, whose
temper by that time was like that of a wild beast owing to his obsessions
and phobias. She was no beauty; she was short in stature, but gifted
with amazing tact. She had already been twice a widow, so evidently she
thought she understood the art of nursing and managing men, even such a
man as her new husband. She is said to have been at the time in love with
Sir Thomas Seymour, whom she married after Henry’s death, only to die in
a short time of puerperal fever. She reconciled Henry to his daughter,
Elizabeth, and is said to have kept the peace between her and the
Princess Mary. We are told that she once had a theological dispute with
the king; a risky thing to do. “A good hearing it is,” said Henry, “when
women become such clerks; and a fine thing it is to be taught in mine old
days by my wife.” Catherine explained that what she had said was merely
intended to “minister talk”; so Henry answered, “Is it so, sweetheart;
then we are friends again,” and when Lord Chancellor Wriothesley came to
arrest her Henry called him beast, knave and fool. She must indeed have
been a remarkably clever woman, whatever her religious opinions.
As to his death it is quite impossible to get at the real truth. He had
sent the Duke of Norfolk to the Tower and had ordered his execution to be
fixed for February 28th, 1546. But, alas, on the 27th Henry lay dying.
The exact details are so squabbled over for purposes of sectarianism,
that it is impossible to distinguish between truth and falsehood. It is
said on the one side that he died in an agony of conscience; on the other
that Archbishop Cranmer came to ask him to give some token of his belief
in Jesus Christ. The king is said to have roused himself from his stupor
and pressed Cranmer’s hand. While there are not sufficient details to
offer an opinion it is possible that his stupor was uræmic, due to the
slow degeneration of his kidneys during the many years that his body and
mind had been degenerating. But one would prefer to have some independent
authority for the statement that the dying man understood sufficient of
what Cranmer was saying to him to press his hand at the mention of the
blessed name of Christ.
To the best of my ability and in accordance with the best modern
historical knowledge, I have drawn as honestly as I can the true
character of Henry VIII, Defender of the Faith, as seen by a doctor.
There are many stories told about him that I purposely have omitted from
fear of being accused of exaggeration. But the general atmosphere of
lust, obscenity, grandiose ideas, such as were noticed by Luther, and
violence combined with cowardice, especially about disease, is all very
typical of syphilis; one might almost call it diagnostic. He never became
an indecent honest lunatic such as Ivan the Terrible, for ingenious
historians who know the exact circumstances so far as anybody can know
them at this time of day, are still able to find logical reasons for even
the most dreadful of his actions. He did not become terrible; he became
loathsome. To use the words of a witty journalist friend of mine he was
not Henry the Terrible; he was Henry the Horrible. He is the one man who
ever disproved Shakespeare’s vaunt:
“This England never did nor never shall
Lie at the proud feet of a conqueror.”
For if England did not lie at the proud and probably dropsical feet of
this obsessional syphilitic with doubtless a gigantic blood-pressure to
add to his bad temper, words have no meaning.
The whole conduct of the English people throughout the Reformation is a
beautiful example of the working of Dr. Wilfrid Trotter’s herd instinct.
Like a swarm of bees England swept this way and that, uncertain how to
fly, looking for a resting-place where it might start the new era just as
the swarm searches for a place to start a new hive; and then, suddenly,
with no obvious reason, darts upon its way, upon the usual English way of
a compromise which doubtfully satisfies the strongest party.
It adds to the remark of R. L. Stevenson’s cynical old Frenchman: “The
English are a stupid people who have sometimes blundered into good.”
How many men lost their lives owing to Henry’s syphilitic obsessions
and phobias it is quite impossible to say. The comparatively slight
derangement of judgment in those tyrannical times may have meant the
block for scores. Perhaps when Sir Thomas More said, “Her Majesty Queen
Anne Boleyn may dance and sing but her turn may still shortly come,” the
acutest mind in England perceived that his king was not entirely normal
in mind.
Henry VIII was never a despot. If the law did not allow him to do as he
wished, he simply got Parliament to alter it for him.