The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Epochs #270 ｜ The Life of Henry VIII： Part VI

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome back to Epochs where I shall be continuing my story of the reign of Henry

00:00:25.160 the eighth as you may have noticed we're in the first year studio today because of uh just because

00:00:30.420 of technical and scheduling reasons but we've done a number of epochs from the first studio

00:00:35.120 haven't we we've got the bespoke video wall behind us for just such a purpose so let's continue the

00:00:39.620 story we got up to the point where Anne Boleyn had had her head lopped off hadn't we we just got to

00:00:44.420 that point so Henry also just gets married to Jane Seymour basically straight away doesn't he

00:00:49.420 straight after that so let's pick up the story here as always for this episode for this series

00:00:54.340 at least I'm reading from Professor Sir Charles Oman and Sir Winston Churchill so let's just pick

00:01:00.680 up the story in Oman who wrote this but he had small time Henry had small leisure to spend on

00:01:07.020 his wedding the wedding to Jane Seymour for the year 1536 was one of great peril to him

00:01:13.600 a rebellion in Ireland led by the Fitzgeralds the greatest of the Anglo-Irish nobles was already in

00:01:20.400 progress a still more dangerous phenomenon was the stir which was rising in the north of england

00:01:25.840 the northern counties were always a generation behind the rest of england in their politics

00:01:30.880 there the monks were more powerful and less disliked than any than in any other part of the

00:01:36.620 land and the nobles still retained much of their old feudal power over their vassals

00:01:41.680 and some of their old turbulence the north had beheld the breach with rome with dismay and

00:01:48.040 dislike and remained strongly papist in its sympathies the dissolution of the monasteries

00:01:53.620 moved it to an active protest against the king's religious action rioting suddenly broke out in

00:01:59.680 lincolnshire and then in yorkshire the insurgents gathered in great bands and at last no less than

00:02:05.900 30 000 men mustered at doncaster under robert ask a lawyer and lord darcy they called themselves

00:02:13.740 the army of the church raised a banner displaying the five wounds of christ as their standard

00:02:19.120 and demanded a reconciliation with the pope again be careful demanding anything from henry

00:02:25.540 especially at the point of assault he's not the tough man to take that sort of thing laying down

00:02:30.440 or is likely to capitulate in any way even on tiny points let alone on something as big as this

00:02:36.540 but okay they demanded a reconciliation with the pope the restoration of the religious houses

00:02:42.520 that's the monasteries and the dismissal of the king's impious minister cromwell and the quote

00:02:48.760 heretic bishops quote who had favored the breach with rome the gentry of the north and the priors

00:02:55.660 and abbots of the great abbeys of yorkshire joined the rising which men called the pilgrimage of

00:03:01.540 grace that's what it's largely been known as throughout history the pilgrimage of grace

00:03:05.920 i mean is it a pilgrimage an armed pilgrimage some people say that the crusades you know like

00:03:11.660 the 11th 12th 13th century crusades are an armed pilgrimage a pilgrimage doesn't necessarily mean

00:03:18.560 peaceful okay history is largely known this as the pilgrimage of grace because the rebels wished to

00:03:24.940 go to meet the king and to submit their demands to his personal judgment again there's that old

00:03:30.340 thing that only if only the king knew surely the king himself can't be for this in favor of all

00:03:35.460 this surely it's just his evil ministers that's a story as old as time isn't it even up to the 20th

00:03:41.060 even the 21st century surely the ruler himself that like the father figure surely he wouldn't

00:03:46.840 be doing this to us it must just be his evil his evil ministers the worm tongues in his ear

00:03:52.240 if only we could tell the big man himself what's going on surely he would protect us and do the

00:03:57.360 right thing well very very very often that's just not the case and in this instance absolutely isn't

00:04:04.160 the case this is what henry wanted robert ask and the others thought if they could just see the king

00:04:09.280 if they could just tell him what was going on then everything could get fixed

00:04:13.160 oman continued saying henry was caught unprepared but he managed to extricate himself from the peril

00:04:19.980 by unscrupulous double dealing he sent the duke of norfolk again it's his sort of go-to military

00:04:25.780 man isn't it the duke of norfolk whose dislike of protestantism was well known to treat with the

00:04:31.120 rebels norfolk pledged his word that the king would pardon the insurgents and take all their

00:04:36.740 demands into favorable consideration the simple northerners dispersed trusting to henry's good

00:04:42.860 faith but the king employed the time he had gained in raising an army and getting together a great

00:04:48.620 train of artillery he then marched into yorkshire as an invader and made no further pretense of

00:04:54.380 listening to the claims of the insurgents classic henry viii there cannot be trusted once he's

00:05:00.380 decided he's made his mind up about something that's what he's going to do that's what's going

00:05:04.380 happen don't try even to change his mind certainly don't try to blackmail him or bully him or coerce

00:05:11.240 him or anything or even argue with him in consequence the more vehement of the partisans

00:05:17.180 of the old faith again took arms this was as henry desired says oman for he wanted an excuse to

00:05:24.660 terrorize the north he easily put down the second rising and hung all the leaders of the pilgrimage 0.83

00:05:30.320 of grace ask lord darcy lord hussey and the abbots of all the greatest monastic establishments of

00:05:37.080 the north wally fountains gervaux barlings and sorely and this was between march and may 1537

00:05:45.360 this fearful blow cowed most of the partisans of the papacy and no more open revolts followed

00:05:51.260 but a little later the last representatives of the house of york were detected in paths which

00:05:57.540 the king suspected to be treasonable. They thought, it seems, that the indignation of

00:06:02.680 the Catholics against the king's doing might be turned into a dynastic revolution in favour

00:06:07.620 of the old royal line. Edward Courtney, Marquess of Exeter, a grandson of Edward IV, and Henry

00:06:14.880 Pohl, Lord Montague, a grandson of George of Clarence, were the persons implicated in

00:06:20.380 this intrigue, which never got beyond the stage of treasonable talk. Nevertheless, the

00:06:25.560 king beheaded them both though the evidence against them was most imperfect but henry never

00:06:30.680 stayed his hand for want of legal proof and slew all whom he suspected once again he has been thought

00:06:38.000 of as a time i mean starkey thinks of him as a tyrant many at the time and since of as thought

00:06:44.100 of henry viii as something of a tyrant yeah he doesn't again right there doesn't necessarily

00:06:49.380 need any legal proof he's just going to have you executed even in the 16th century that's uh

00:06:56.740 beginning to be a bit much but nonetheless he could get away with it his his sort of his position

00:07:03.540 the safety of his throne was never in doubt so he can get away with it effectively i mean we're

00:07:09.940 just not in the wars of the roses anymore where other noblemen and houses will rise up and raise

00:07:16.020 armies and march on london multiple times you know like they did to edward edward the fourth

00:07:21.580 henry doesn't really need to worry about all of that he's just in a much much stronger position

00:07:25.940 than say edward the fourth so he can just have people killed in a sort of what basically an

00:07:31.840 extra judicial manner and he does oman continues saying he even imprisoned and some years afterwards

00:07:39.400 executed the aged mother of lord montague margaret of clarence countess of salisbury

00:07:45.280 sister of the unfortunate Edward of Clarence whom his father had slain 41 years back so yeah 0.85

00:07:51.980 Margaret of Clarence a little old lady that even he couldn't Henry VIII couldn't abide even her

00:07:58.260 still sort of living so even she's got to go I've seen more than one historian sort of point to that

00:08:04.700 and say there's no way to sort of properly properly justify that if Henry had any sort of

00:08:11.760 magnanimity in his bones he probably wouldn't have done that many of the others he had had executed

00:08:18.080 you could at least make the argument that it was just the prudent thing to do even if it was

00:08:22.740 extrajudicial it might it might be prudent whereas you know lopping off margaret of clarence's head

00:08:28.440 when she's an old lady it's not like there was some giant rebellion about to spring up around

00:08:33.920 the person of margaret of clarence and yet henry couldn't abide her still breathing so okay it's

00:08:41.560 the measure of the man isn't it it's the measure of the man again don't cross him don't get on the

00:08:45.620 wrong side of him he will mess up your program okay oman continues saying the insurrection in

00:08:53.460 ireland which had been raging at the same time as the pilgrimage of grace ended in a way no less

00:09:00.120 profitable to the king not only did he capture and hang well nigh the whole family of the

00:09:05.780 Fitzgeralds of Kildare, the heads of the rising, but his armies under Lord Deputy Grey pushed out

00:09:12.560 from the English pale and compelled most of the chiefs of Munster and Connacht to do homage to

00:09:18.320 the crown, though the king's writ had not run in those provinces for two centuries. This was the

00:09:23.820 first step towards the conquest of Ireland afterwards carried out by Queen Elizabeth.

00:09:28.900 Meanwhile Henry's determination to strike at all the roots of papal power in England had been

00:09:34.200 carrying him further than he himself realized on the road towards protestantism the quote

00:09:39.720 articles of 1536 quote drawn up by his own hand declared that all doctrines and ceremonies for

00:09:46.420 which authority could not be found in the bible were superstitious and erroneous so right there

00:09:51.680 that's it's going quite far down the road of protestantism isn't it it's a full-blown break

00:09:57.460 with with rome and catholicism there's no two ways about that i mean full-blown how henry didn't

00:10:03.000 realize that or perhaps he did perhaps he did i mean i would have thought he did remember he was

00:10:08.640 raised to be in the church wasn't it all his formative years and childhood his older brother

00:10:14.740 arthur was supposed to be king and he was groomed to be in the church so henry 8th does it happens

00:10:20.880 to actually know a lot about theology and such things and the actual logistics the reality of

00:10:27.580 how ecclesiastical matters work so i would think there's no real way he didn't know that something

00:10:34.380 like that you know declaring that any doctrines and ceremonies which are not found in the bible

00:10:40.380 were superstitious and erroneous yeah that's that's sort of full-blown lutherism really

00:10:46.480 it's protestantism certainly there is no way that rome could ever accept that and still allow you to

00:10:54.440 be orthodox and one continues saying this quote the translation used was that made by a zealous

00:11:00.980 protestant william tyndale who had printed it in antwerp some years before the unfortunate

00:11:07.360 translator had been caught and burnt by the emperor charles v for being a heretic catholic

00:11:12.080 heretic only a short time before his book became the rule of life for englishmen when the bible

00:11:18.060 had once been placed in the hands of the people protestantism in england began to advance by leaps

00:11:24.240 and bounds it was secretly favored both by archbishop cramner and by the king's great

00:11:29.580 minister cromwell the latter thomas cromwell more logical than his master wished to see all traces

00:11:36.120 of roman catholicism removed from england and tried to guide the king towards a frank recognition

00:11:41.780 of protestantism and an alliance with the lutheran princes of germany but it was dangerous work to

00:11:47.680 endeavor to govern or persuade henry as cromwell was defined to his cost yeah again henry not

00:11:54.160 only sort of won't be argued with but even even this even if he feels like you're trying to

00:12:00.460 manipulate him then you're you're already in danger just there right so full-blown uh going

00:12:06.380 against his wishes or his will of course that's off the table but yeah even if he thinks you're

00:12:12.300 trying to uh manipulate him coerce him manage him even if he gets the first inkling that you're

00:12:19.160 trying to manage him you're attempting to try and put words in his mouth no matter how subtle

00:12:24.140 even that is a massive massive problem and well that's where cromwell thomas cromwell finds

00:12:30.360 himself among saying one more step at least he did induce his master to take the final destruction

00:12:36.780 of all the remaining monasteries the plunder of the lesser houses had been so profitable

00:12:42.140 that henry was easily induced to doom the greater of to the same fate in the course of 1538 to 39

00:12:50.120 and into 1540 all were swept away in many cases the abbots and monks were induced to surrender

00:12:56.320 their estates peaceably into the king's hands in return for pensions or promotion but where

00:13:02.260 persuasion failed force was used an act of parliament was passed by henry's submissive

00:13:07.800 commons bestowing on him the lands of all the monastic foundations then they were suppressed

00:13:13.820 i.e closing them down taking all their wealth and money and closing them down entirely taking on

00:13:19.620 the estates so any levies or taxes that they used to bring in that just now goes to the crown

00:13:26.200 then they were suppressed the harmless and well-ordered ones no less than the worst and

00:13:31.440 most corrupt when the monks offered obstinate resistance the king dealt very cruelly with them

00:13:37.180 the wealthy abbots of glastonbury reading and colchester were all hung really for reluctance

00:13:42.800 to surrender their houses nominally for treason in refusing to acknowledge the king's complete

00:13:47.680 spiritual supremacy as head of the church the enormous plunder of the monasteries bought the

00:13:53.080 king little permanent good he had promised to use it for ecclesiastical purposes and had broached a

00:13:58.780 scheme for founding many new churches and schools and creating 20 fresh bishoprics but in the end

00:14:05.200 he lavished most of the lands of the religious houses upon those of the nobles and gentry whom

00:14:10.540 he thought worth bribing the church only benefited by the endowing of the six new bishoprics oxford

00:14:17.580 chester peterborough bristol gloucester and the short-lived sea of westminster but henry was

00:14:22.780 resolved to show the protestants that they must not expect his countenance in spite of the blows

00:14:28.420 which he was dealing to the roman catholics again he liked to keep everyone guessing he's broken

00:14:33.980 with rome in no uncertain terms and yet he's still insisting he's not a lutheran that he's not a

00:14:38.940 full-blown protestant so so what is he yeah it's one of those policies where you know the policy

00:14:46.060 itself is unclear deliberately so to keep everyone guessing it's a bit of a crazy crazy thing to do

00:14:54.680 really i mean henry met he only works really if you can manage it perfectly if you've got an

00:14:59.740 absolute dictator an absolute king and you can something like that even begin to work usually

00:15:05.780 usually but that is what henry is isn't he he's not he's not an absolute monarch the way you know

00:15:12.400 richard the first might have been or the way william the first might have been but he's not

00:15:17.280 far off of it if you've got someone that is really truly at the head of the state and the head of

00:15:22.500 government and sets all policy okay maybe something like this will work well henry does make it work

00:15:27.520 for him okay so although he's suppressing all the monasteries and breaking with rome he doesn't

00:15:32.320 want the protestants to get to get to uppity and think that he's he will do everything they want

00:15:37.960 in the very year in which the majority of the greater monasteries fell he forced his parliament

00:15:43.160 to pass the cruel bill of the six articles this odious measure condemned to forfeiture on the

00:15:49.960 first offence and to death on the second all who should write or speak against certain of the

00:15:55.220 ancient doctrines of the medieval church of which transubstantiation in the sacrament the celibacy

00:16:01.320 of the clergy and auricular confession were the chief and this was in 1539 so again you can have

00:16:08.460 everything stolen from you by the state by the king by the crown and then put to death if you

00:16:14.120 don't do these very very very catholic things if you don't accept the idea of these very very

00:16:19.960 catholic things and yet he's destroying all the monasteries he's he's the spiritual head of the

00:16:26.640 church now not the pope but you must still do these very very catholic things and in another

00:16:31.700 way adhere to these very very protestant things right it's a mess bit of a mess but again that's

00:16:39.700 exactly what henry wanted meanwhile the king had at last obtained the male heir for whom he had so

00:16:46.120 much longed his third wife jane seymour bore him a son prince edward in 1537 though she died at the

00:16:53.960 child's birth it was a few a couple of days later on this boy all of henry's fondness was lavished

00:16:59.200 he was to be the sole heir to the throne and his sisters mary and elizabeth were both stigmatized

00:17:06.440 as illegitimate end quote okay so a fair bit has happened there obviously the continuing story of

00:17:13.240 the break with rome and sort of that odd balancing act between between the pope and luther henry's

00:17:20.960 own going his own third way if you like and then also that he's got he's got rid of amberley in

00:17:27.220 has he and now he's got marriage to jane seymour got her pregnant quite quickly and she did give

00:17:32.680 him a boy a living boy which was exactly what henry had always always wanted he'd feared hadn't

00:17:40.140 he that for years and years god and the heavens had decided against him that he should never have

00:17:46.040 boy well he's finally got one he calls him edward edward the sixth later to become but jane seymour

00:17:52.240 henry's favorite out of his six wives his absolute favorite she died there was complications she

00:17:59.060 lived for a while after the birth but did just die and she was very young i think she was only

00:18:04.920 in her early 20s still so obviously very sad we hope you enjoyed that video and if you did

00:18:10.180 please head over to lotusseaters.com for the full unabridged video

00:18:16.040 Thank you.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - July 05, 2026

PREVIEW： Epochs #270 ｜ The Life of Henry VIII： Part VI

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