It all started when Henry VII, King of England, and his missus Elizabeth of York spawned a boy-child in 1491 who went on to become one of the most inhumane monarchs in history.
Henry Senior eventually kicked the bucket in 1509 leaving space for the next young Henry, then aged 18, to plonk his expansive despotic royal arse onto the vacant Tudor Throne and call himself Henry VIII.
(There were many significant facets of the Henry VIII reign including wars against Scotland, France and the Roman Catholic Church, but today we will examine that which history has judged to be of greatest interest; his personal life.)
Henry VIII conducted himself with the sort of compassion that you might expect from Hulk Hogan after you had stomped on his leg, then rammed his head into the turnbuckle seven times before throwing him out of the ring headfirst onto the concrete floor during a wrestling match.
One Venetian diplomat at the time assessed him differently.
He wrote; "His Majesty is the handsomest potentiate I ever set eyes on....he has an extremely fine calf to his leg..........and a long and thick neck" etc etc.
Maybe Henry should have taken up with the diplomat, because he had an awful lot of unfortunate misunderstandings with the six women he married during his lifetime.
1. Catherine of Aragon had been married to Henry's older brother Arthur who inconveniently died in 1502, just five months after the wedding, leaving Catherine a widow at age 17.
At this time Henry was twelve years old with just a trace of bum-fluff beginning to show on his chin and upper lip, so his Dad (Henry VII) came up with the sweetest words any twelve year old boy could ever hear.
"Son, would you like to play around with perky young Catherine and keep her occupied until I can organise a dispensation from the Pope for you to marry a widow. "
The marital union eventually took place in 1509, but the relationship subsequently went to the dogs because Catherine failed to produce a boy child.
She attempted to divert a percentage of blame for this deficiency with; "Henry, you have been firing fusillades containing reticent and reluctant Y chromosomes so it's not my fault."
Henry was not amused, or indeed even remotely interested in genetic technicalities. His interests had been diverted in the direction of a nubile chick called Anne who he had surreptitiously appointed to the newly-created position of Auxiliary Royal Loin Comforter.
Catherine's services were terminated and Anne was promoted to the position of wife.
2. Anne Boleyn. She also fell victim to another Henry Y-deficient chromosomal offering and produced baby Elisabeth (eventually Queen Elisabeth I)
Some time after the lust had worn off, Henry found Anne to be an irritating and noisy wife who sometimes overcooked the quail eggs so he trumped up a few treason charges so that he could have her beheaded along with her brother and three other Anne-sympathisers who also irritated him occasionally. He mumbled with great relief to his dog after it was all over; "Rover, there's nothing like a few executions to freshen up the domestic air."
3. Jane Seymour was next in line to keep Henry warm at night.
He was now desperate to produce a son and heir to the throne.
One rainy afternoon as they were enjoying a royal cuddle Jane related to him the contents of an article she'd read in the January 1536 issue of Renaissance Cleopatra Magazine that provided step by step instructions for an acrobatic sexual maneuvre that was guaranteed to result in male babies.
Precisely 40 weeks later Henry managed to celebrate the birth of Edward (later Edward VI) despite having been in pain and traction for 9 months recovering from that single night of strenuous entanglement.
Jane sadly died of complications from the childbirth which may or may not have had anything to do with all the inverted swinging from chandeliers.
4. Anne of Cleves was a sight unseen 19 year old political appointee to 46 year-old Henry's conjugal bed in an attempt to forge diplomatic and protestant links with Germany. It turned out that she wasn't interested in forging anything on either a political, religious or personal level so he divorced her after just a few months of marriage.
At the media conference which followed he issued a short prepared statement; "I like her not."
Out of range of microphones he later ranted to Thomas Cromwell his Chief Advisor; "Holy shit Tom, why did you recommend that I marry that ugly little scrubber? For God's sake see if you can find me some 19 year old with some bedroom experience who looks presentable enough to take out in public."
Anne was sent back from whence she came and Cromwell was beheaded later in 1540 for his errors of judgement.
5. By some uncanny coincidence just one day after The Clevester Annie had departed, Henry stumbled across the following advertisement in the personal columns of the Tudor Times.
"Catherine Howard, nineteen years of age, vastly experienced since the age of 15 with Mannox the music teacher, Dercham the Gentleman Usher to the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, and a few other dudes, seeks good times and marriage to any fat hairy unsanitary and tyrannical old King."
Henry was up for the challenge but two years later Catherine died from a decapitation incident soon after Henry discovered a cache of her love letters to and from one randy little relative named Thomas Culpepper.
6. Catherine Parr must have approached her marital union to Henry with at least a small amount of trepidation knowing that 60% of his previous partners had died in conjugal office.
She stroked his ego, but not much more, for 4 years just passing the time until finally the old tyrant did something useful for the world by dropping dead.
Henry's Rolling Heads count;
1. Sir Thomas More
2. Cardinal John Fisher
3. Anne Boleyn, her brother, plus three gentlemen of the privy chamber.
4.Catherine Howard.
5. Thomas Cromwell.
6. Assorted opponents of his supreme edicts and the teachings of the Church of England.
Estimated number of executions during his 38-year reign;
120 per month = 50,000+
Henry died in 1547 leaving the throne to 9 year-old Edward VI who reputedly put down his toys for a moment and said; "What the hell am I supposed to do with this bloody throne? I'm just a little orphan who wants to keep playing in my sandpile."
As usual, some opportunistic royal relative (in this case his paternal uncle Edward Seymour) moved in temporarily and continued the trend of warfare, corruption, cruelty, power and greed which was a trademark of the English Monarchy during the Renaissance Period.
