Henry VIII, King of England

Abstract

Henry VIII bestrode his era with the kind of imposing confidence that he projected in his famous wide-legged posture immortalized in the portrait by Hans Holbein, and he has never left center stage since. Yet, as G. R. Elton once wrote, “because [Henry] so much succeeded in identifying his personality with his age, the problems of that age leave the king himself still the subject of debate” (Elton 1974–1992, cited under Politics and Government, p. 100). Elton himself denuded Henry of any particular originality of vision, leaving all agency, at least in governmental matters, to his secretary, Thomas Cromwell. More-recent historians have brought Henry back to significance as a political operator—especially of Parliament—in his own right, while others have variously designated him as a hero or villain of the Protestant cause; a frivolous, if wily, incompetent; a flawed hero; a formidable if despotic agent of state; and the founder of the English imperium. Running through these estimations are the pivotal developments that marked his reign: for one, Henry was the ruler who instigated the momentous break with Roman Catholicism by establishing the new Church of England and officially introducing Protestantism into the country, even if he himself held to many important facets of the old faith. Equally important, he oversaw the consolidation of Tudor rule by strengthening the Crown, asserting control (for the most part) over the nobility and instigating legislative and administrative changes that led to a greater bureaucratization of government. Historians have benefited from a wealth of documentation covering these developments, even if they remain divided among themselves over interpretations yielded by the sources. Primary sources are abundant, even if the printed collections are somewhat aged at this point, and the historiography continues on, abundantly, not only with regards to the man, his wives, his government, and his reformation policies, but in popular culture, on television, and in film, which continue to drive audience hunger for knowing the man. The 500th anniversary of Henry’s accession to the throne in 2009 brought about a reassessment of his legacy, but as this article demonstrates, the need to tell the story of this complex and difficult figure displays no signs of abating.