Lover - Ep: 3 | Henry - Mind Of A Tyrant | BBC Documentary

[Music] on the 19th of May 1536 at the Tower of London and Berlin Queen of England mounted the scaffold [Music] her last words were about King Henry the eighth's the husband who had had her condemned to death on trumped-up charges of adultery and incest under such circumstances what she said was extraordinary I cry mercy to God and to the king and I beg the people to pray for the king for he is a good gentle gracious and amiable prince once indeed Henry had been gracious and gentle but his steely determination to divorce his first wife and to Mary Ann which Anne herself had encouraged and inspired at coarsened and brutalized him Ann had helped to create a new Henry who would change England forever now she was to be one of his first victims [Music] the story of Henry the eighth's and Anne Boleyn is one of the great tragic love stories of all time but it's also rather strange it's a story of a king who would risk everything his throne his kingdom his immortal soul to marry the woman that he loved only to send her to the scaffold a mere three years later everyone involved from Henry's counsellors to foreign ambassadors was surprised appalled and above all puzzled by events but this was an affair which turned Henry from an affable but forgettable King who'd actually achieved very little into the tyrannical figure who reshaped a mission and imprinted himself indelibly of the pages of history but behind this extraordinary transformation is the all-too-human story the man changed and warped by a passionate love affair and a bitter divorce I promise to take you as my sole mistress I shall find a thousand to declare the marriage good and indissoluble this Anne has so perverted him that he does not seem the same here in the bottle in library and Oxford is an insider account by someone who was witnessed to the beginning of the whole affair his name was George Cavendish and he was a personal attendant on Henry's leading minister Cardinal Wolsey in his life of Wolsey Cavendish describes Henry secret infatuation with one of his wife Catherine's ladies-in-waiting Anne Boleyn her excellent gesture and behavior did excel all other in so much as the King began to Kindle the brand of a Moors which was not known to any person no scantly to her own person but Henry didn't keep his secret to himself for long the person that he told however wasn't an what Wolsey his trusted minister friend and confidant Henry had discovered that he got a rival the ambulance affections young Lord Percy the heir to the great Oldham of Northumberland and Henry wanted him out of the way Lord Percy would resort for his pastime into the Queen's Chamber and they would fall in dalliance among the Queen's maidens being most conversant with mistress and Berlin so that they grew such a secret love between them that at length they were insured together intending to marry the witch thing came to the Kings knowledge who was then much offended wherefore he revealed his secret affection unto my lord Cardinal and consulted with him and to infringe the pre contract between them [Music] for Wolsey it was all in a day's work Cardinal priest though he was he had a long-term mistress of his own and an acknowledged son by her Henry had had mistresses - including Anne's own sister none of them had mattered much and they'd been married off to convenient quarters as soon as Henry tired of them why Wolsey must have thought should Anne be any more significant but for once the Cardinal miscalculated and was different [Music] compared to most women of the court Anne was unusually well educated this is Hever Castle in Kent her family seat today it houses a fine collection of Tudor portraits [Music] including this one of an herself but I wasn't brought up here in England instead her father sent her abroad to a succession of continental royal households to learn the poise polish an easy command of French that ensured she stood out on her return to the English Court at the age of 20 and was also highly intelligent and pious this is her book of ours and during her time abroad she been introduced to the movement for religious reform which sought to renew Christianity by return to its sources in Scripture Henry liked the company of intelligent people one of his closest friends was England's leading intellectual Thomas More the King would have me into his private room and there sometime in matters of astronomy geometry divinity and other such faculties and sometime in his worldly affairs to sit and confer with him some time we would climb up onto the roof there to consider with him the diversities courses motions and operations of the stars and the planets but if Henry and more were receptive to new trends in the arts and sciences they took a very different attitude to the new religious ideas being advanced by Martin Luther and his followers on the continent Luther pointed out that the Bible contained no mention of the Pope and he questioned the legitimacy of the papacy Henry was appalled with Moore's help people this the first book by an English King since Alfred the Great in the assertive September Cremant Oram Henry marshaled his considerable theological expertise to mount a powerful counter-attack on Martin Luther for the assertive Henry was entitled defender of the faith by a grateful Pope so Henry and Anne were well maxed both were intelligent well-educated polished and fascinated by theological argument though here Henry's case was conservative as hands were too proved to be reformist but at this point Henry was more interested in Anne's body than her mind and to get that Percy had to be got out of the way which was wolves his job Wolsey as Cavendish reports subjected the young man to a brutal semi-public dressing-down I wonder not a little at thy peevish folly that thou would tangle and ensure amble in that foolish girl of the court thus thou not consider the state that God has called you unto in this world for after the death of thy noble father they are most like to inherit and possess one of them were these albums of this realm but now behold what you have done through your willfulness you have not only offended your natural father but also your most gracious sovereign Lord the king poor Percy burst into tears and his resistance broken was quickly married off to another heiress but what a man and it seems certain had been really in love with Percy and as Cavendish reports she vowed her revenge on Wolsey for his meddling if it ever lay in her power she would work the Cardinal as much displeasure as he had her Wolsey had made an enemy just how dangerous he could not have imagined [Music] of the 18th of May 15:27 the new Spanish ambassador in London made a sensation coded report to the Emperor Charles v a nephew of Henry's Queen Catherine of Aragon the King has secretly assembled certain bishops and lawyers that they may sign a declaration to the effect that his marriage to the Queen is null and void on account of her having been his brother's wife the ambassador was well informed the day before Henri's Minister Cardinal Wolsey had indeed convened a secret trial at his London Palace its aim was to dissolve Henry's 18 year old marriage to Catherine of Aragon quickly Watley and with minimum fuss the spanish ambassador believed the secret trial to be wolves his work but I doubt if that's right in all of Wars is voluminous papers there's no trace of any preparation for the case instead it was Henry himself who picked and briefed the leading lawyer to the tribunal the case he presented to Wolsey was based on a single verse from the Bible taken from the Book of Leviticus and if a man shall take his brother's wife it is an unclean thing he hath uncovered his brother's nakedness they shall be childless Henry of course had taken his brother's wife catherine had originally been married to henry's elder brother Arthur who was then heir to the throne but Arthur died soon after the marriage and Catherine was quickly betrothed to Henry instead their Union and the blessing of the Pope would issued special dispensation which stated but in this case Leviticus did not apply but in it 20 years later Catherine and Henry had failed to produce a son this Henry's hand-picked lawyer argued was proof that the Kings marriage was offensive to God the Pope had been wrong to allow it the only remedy was to end it immediately then Wolsey dropped a bombshell instead of deciding for the King as Henry expected and Catherine feared Wolsey pronounced the case too difficult for summary judgment and adjourned the court to enable him to consult expert opinion the delay was fatal there was now no question of keeping the divorce under wraps or a settling it in England instead and in the full glare of European publicity would have to be referred to Rome what Woolsey did not know was that room was under attack by the mutinous army of the emperor charles v charles was fighting the French and their papal ally for control of Italy and he was winning but he had omitted to pay his mercenary troops and so they decided to pay themselves by looting Rome the sack of Rome was a violent brutal affair and Pope Clement was forced to flee for his very life along the heavily fortified elevated walkway that still connects the Vatican to the almost impregnable papal fortress of Castel Sant'Angelo here [Music] Pope Clement now found himself a virtual prisoner of Charles the fifth who was not above taking advantage of his Army's bad behavior by referring the case to Rome Woolsey had unwittingly made Henry's divorce a pawn of European power politics and it will be decided not so much by the Pope as by whoever had the upper hand in Italy for the moment that was the Emperor Charles the fifth and he was Catherine's nephew [Music] and there was another difficulty when Woolsey wrote this letter to Pope Clement he presented the case as a matter of the Kings conscientious scruples they have already told you how the King partly by assiduous learning and study and partly by conference with theologians has found his conscience somewhat burdened by his present marriage he considers it will be offensive to God and man were he to persist in it [Music] but at some point the Vatican got hold of documents which told a very different story private letters written by Henry - and Berlin these the so called Vatican letters are the most explosive royal correspondence in English history for they prove that the origins of the divorce lay not in Henry's conscience but in his desire for Anne Boleyn but Anne wasn't going to yield easily in this letter Henry pleads with her to have him and become his official knowledge mistress what the French who have a word for this kind of thing call make less on teeth I [Music] beseech you now with all my heart definitely to let me know your whole - to the love between us the necessity compels me to play you for a reply having been for more than a year now struck by the dart of love and being uncertain either of failure or finding a place in your heart and affection but if it pleases you to do the duty of a true loyal mistress and friend and to give yourself body and heart to me I promise to take you as my soul mistress casting off all others out of mind and affection to serve you only those girls would have left at the offer but not am she was playing for higher stakes Henry unused to the word no only found that her resistance inflamed his passion all the more finally he made the ultimate offer his unchangeable intention he vowed was out elique out a newly B if not this then nothing the this I am convinced can only be marriage and to make sure that the issue of their union was legitimate Henry further pledged himself to abstain from sex with and until the lot was tied henceforward my heart shall be dedicated to you alone where the strong desire that my body could be also thus dedicated which God can do if he pleases written by the hand of he who in heart body and well is your loyal and most assured servant age seeks a be no other [Music] Henry's promise was was his problem free knew his political life depended on getting the Kings the divorce he needed to marry her he now struggled desperately to get control of the divorce proceedings back into his own hands in England Cavendish witnessed the frantic effort his master put into one crucial Lecter he rose early in the morning about four of the clock sitting down to write letters into England under the king and to the floor of the clock at afternoon all which season my lord never rose once to piss nay yet to eat any meat but continually wrote his letters with his own hand having all that time his nightcap and kerchief on his head was his scheme was to persuade Clement issue a so-called decree ttle commission by which the Pope granted Wolsey irrevocably power to try the divorce in England Clement resisted doggedly was his agents pressed him furiously but then circumstances here in Italy began to change in England's favor in December 15:27 pope clement escaped for the Castel Sant'Angelo disguised as a gardener and fled to the papal stronghold of Orvieto and soon the French began advancing to victory after victory in Italy emboldened by the swing of the balance of power against Catherine's nephew Charles v Clement at last issued the decree ttle commissioned but there was a catch it wasn't granted to Wolsey alone but jointly to another special papal legate or envoi Cardinal campeggio campeggio wrecked by gout began a slow journey across Europe to England followed impatiently by Henry and Anne in their correspondence the reasonable request of your last letter causes me to send you now these news the leggett which we most desired arrived at Paris on Sunday so that I trust by next Monday to hear of his arrival at Calais and then I trust within a while after to enjoy that which I have so long longed for to God's pleasure in our both comfort late in 1528 after nearly six months travel campeggio finally arrived in London on the 22nd of October campeggio accompanied by Wolsey was formally received at court and Henry broke with protocol by coming to the foot of the staircase to greet them first there was a grand public ceremony in which Charles v was denounced as a tyrant of a common enemy of the Pope and christened then the king accompanied by the two Cardinals upstairs to the Privy chamber where they remain closeted for several hours the pre-trial negotiations had begun [Music] they dragged on for months campeggio kept postponing meetings complaining bitterly of the gout meanwhile an exiled the decency's sake to the country was beginning to smell a rat were compared you and the decreto Commission really the solution or just another device by which the Pope was buying time there were also worrying developments in Italy itself where the armies of the emperor charles v once more had the upper hand would campeggio turn out to be imperial - that is in the pocket of charles v would the Pope Henry on the other hand trusted in wools assurances and campeggio s good will just to make sure he'd already dangled the valuable bishopric of durum in front of the leg 8 as an enormous bribe he wrote to calm and spheres about campeggio I assure you the unfeigned sickness of this well willing legged us somewhat his access to your presence but I trust verily when God shall send him out he will with diligence recommends his demure for I know well where he had said lamenting the saying and brute that he should be Imperial that be well-known in this matter that he is not Imperial and thus for lack of time sweetheart farewell written by the hand which fain would be yours and so is the heart but was Henry's confidence misplaced who would prove to have the better grasp of papal politics the king of the Kings mistress Henry's attempt to divorce Catherine of Aragon was by now these candle of Europe and nowhere were events being followed more closely than at the imperial court the emperor charles v was as Catherine's nephew and her closest living male relationship himself a leading party to the affair [Music] Charles's information came in the form of regular cluded dispatches from his ambassadors to Henry's Court and these dispatches still exist in the archives here in Vienna the former capital of the Habsburg Empire that Charles founded [Music] in August 15:29 and new Imperial ambassador arrived in London mr. shepley was a lawyer from Savoie urbane which in dint elegent he quickly established remarkably close relationships with booth King Henry and Queen Catherine ship we had arrived in England at a critical moment a month before the trial of Henry's divorce which the king of thought was in the bag and collapsed Catherine had been a far more compelling witness than Henry whilst compared you proving himself to be imperialist at last had anything adjourned the trial back to Rome after two years and a vast expenditure of money effort and political capital henry was back to square one and was still married though deeply reluctantly to Catherine the Lord failed him it was time to try a fresh tack theology and ship we was the first to get wind of the new approach ship we was witness to a painful quarrel one day at dinner when Catherine accused the king neglect the King said that it was impossible to visit the Queen's apartment because he was not her husband he had consulted learn 'add opinion and there was agreement that the marriage was invalid he will he said collect the evidence and send it to Clement if the Pope does not in conformity with these opinions declare our marriage null and void then I will denounce the Pope as a heretic and marry whom I please but Catherine would fight theology with theology for each doctor and lawyer who might decide in your favor against me I shall find a thousand to declare the marriage good and indiscernible but if Henry were to try a new approach to the divorce where would that leave the man who was so closely identified with the old Wolsey was his job as minister was to do what Henry wanted for the first time he'd failed there was also a ship we was quick to discover and Berlin's grudge against Wolsey and a new power to give it effect the King's affection for labor Lynn increases daily if the said Lady Anne his concubine chooses the Cardinal will soon be dismissed and his affair settled so she happens to be the person in all his kingdom who hates him most and has spoken and acted most against him [Music] for nearly two decades Wolsey had managed all Henry's affairs the king called him friend a much stronger word then than now despite the failure of walls his divorce strategy the Cardinal still had influence over Henry if he could get to see him but four long weeks after the collapse of the divorce trial Wolsey was banished from the court whilst Henry and Anne enjoyed the pleasures of the chase during an extended hunting progress finally in September 1529 musii received his invitation to court this were placed amongst the courtiers that the king who refused to speak to him instead was his old magic seemed to work and Henry was in a forgiving mood then came the King into the chamber and standing there under the cloth of a state my lord kneeled down before him then the King took my lord up by both arms and caused him to stand up and received him with his amiable a cheer as ever he did then to behold the countenance of those that have made their way jure to the contrary it would have made you to smile but then the king went to dinner with an the King dying that same day with mistress and Berlin in her chamber who kept their estate more like a queen than a simple maid and as I heard it reported by them that waited upon the king mistress Anne Boleyn was much offended with the King that he had so gently entertained my lord saying what things have he wrote to your great slander and dishonor there is never a nobleman within this realm that if he had done but half of what he had done he were well worthy to lose his head why then I perceive quoth the king ye are not the Cardinals friend and so ended their communication now he may perceive the old malice beginneth to break out who would prevail the minister or the mistress the next day Henry and Wolsey met again but their conversation was never concluded instead Henry was summoned to go hunting with an the King had made his choice Lucy never saw Henry again within days he was stripped of office and little more than a year later the Cardinal was dying on his deathbed the Kings a minister reflected on the character of the man he'd served so long Henry is sure a royal prince and hatha princely heart and rather than miss or want any part of his will and appetite he will put the loss upon half of his realm in danger for I assure you I have often kneeled before him in his privy chamber on my knees a space of an hour or two to persuade him from his will and appetite but I have never brought to pass to dissuade him there from there for mr. Kingston in fit chance hereafter you to be one of his Privy Council I warn you to be well advised what matter you put in his head for you shall never pull it out again with woozy Gong could woozi's other master the Pope be far behind chap we like many other intelligent observers on both sides of the question a quid has seen that the logic of Henry's dilemma could easily force him to renounce the authority of the Pope after all immediately after campeggio discerned the divorce trial the Duke of Suffolk Henry's brother-in-law and boon companion had struck the table and exclaimed that there was never yet Leggett or Cardinal that did good in England [Music] I need scarcely observed that if these sentiments of the Juke gain ground with the king and the people of this country there will be a door wide open for the Lutheran heresy to creep into England I firmly believe that if they had nothing to fear with the Pope's excommunication and malediction there would be innumerable people in this country who would follow the Dukes advice and make the king an ordinary prelate so many Pope's and shipoopi reported Henry himself seemed increasingly unworried by the threat of excommunication even if his holiness should do his worst by excommunicating me and so forth I shall not mind it if I care not a fig for all his excommunications let him follow his own at Rome I will do here what I think best once Henreid assembled the team of scholars like Thomas More to help him defend papal power in his book the assert now a similar effort was mounted once again this time to question the Pope's Authority and the evidence for that effort can still be found here in the British Library we can see Henry's method in this book the collect a Nia satis copy OSA which can be loosely translated as the collection that says it all it's a compendium assembled for Henry in 1530 and drawn for a wide range of sources English history anglo-saxon law and the Old Testament but they all add up to make the case however tendentious Lee that the Pope's rule over the English church was a usurpation of what had once been an independent self-governing National Church [Music] Henry went through the colic tinea with enormous care it has over 40 marginal notes in his own hand by the time he'd finished he'd convinced himself that the Pope in Rome had no legitimate authority in England instead it was Henry as king who was rightful head of the English church now as touching schism we are informed by virtuous and learned men that considering what the Church of Rome is there is no schism to separate from it and adhere to the words of God the lives of Christ and the Pope are very opposite therefore to follow the Pope is to forsake Christ Henry the theologian an amateur scholar had convinced himself now Henry the politician had to persuade others this book the glass of truth published by the King's printer in 1531 was part of a sustained propaganda campaign by which Henry sought to persuade the English people that they should reject any foreign jurisdiction whether of emperor or in particular of the Pope it was the birth of English euros skepticism the Kings takeover of the church framed as an assertion of national sovereignty and by and large it worked [Music] the next year Henry's new minister Thomas Cromwell a former protege of Wolsey was stepped into his dead master shoes steered legislation through Parliament that forbade all appeals to the Pope making the King in effect the final religious authority in England now confident that Roe could no longer run do anything decided in an English Court Henry instructed his hand-picked Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer to make a third trial of his marriage the result was truly a foregone conclusion since by the time the Cranmer got round to declaring Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon invalid Henry had already married Anne Boleyn in secret and probably twice over just to make sure [Music] this was the final open breech with Rome and it marks the watershed in Henry's ray and England's history for a thousand years whilst Kings that ruled their subjects bodies Pope's had ruled their souls now Henry claimed authority over both with new legislation which explicitly made the King supreme head of the church in England Henry Ruth to a pinnacle of power unprecedented in Christendom a power which none of his subjects would be permitted to question or even doubt all are now to swear an oath to uphold the Royal supremacy and it was treason to refuse to do so well sir ever any such cankered malice shall I the chance to break out or any to be accused thereof His Highness would have the same tried and thoroughly pursued with his great dexterity and as little favor as their demerits should require no mercy will show not even to Henry's old friend Thomas More the act of parliament is like a sword with two edges for if a man answer one way it will confound his soul and if he answered the other way it will confound his body more refuse to accept the supremacy he kept his soul but it cost him his head there the king is by nature kind and generously inclined this and has so perverted him that he does not seem the same man Henry had come a long way from the assert EO and his old friends he had embarked on the journey out of love for Ann and the determination to marry her but first he thought it would be relatively easy to get what he wanted Catherines resistance and Rome's reluctance steadily raised the stakes until the most fundamental questions of church and state were involved few of Henry's family and friends were prepared to follow him like more the parting of the ways was a matter of conscience and profound regret but for Henry it was treason and equally outraged was on hand to fanned the flames of his resentment and turn him like a kneeled steal into something harder colder and more brutal than before at last king henry was married to Anne Boleyn the woman he'd fallen in love with six long frustrating years before and the marriage free in Henry's eyes at least from the taint of incest which had damned his first Union would he fervently believed quickly produce a son and heir so when ambassador shap we was bold enough to tell him to his face that he couldn't even be sure of children let alone a son Henry reacted with passion am I not a man like any other am I not a man a man like any other here indeed was the man behind the king the King longed for a son the man was even more desperate to prove his continued virility now it rested on an don Ann alone to satisfy both King and a man but ship we was proved right and soon gave birth but to a girl Elizabeth a second pregnancy ended in miscarriage henry's order stoked by long years of denial quickly cool some Cortinas tell me that for the three last months this King has not spoken 10 times mister his concubine and when the news of her miscarriage was brought in he only observed I said God will not give me male children [Music] it wasn't very long since Catherine's failure to produce a male heir and been cited by Henry and Anne has proved positive that Henry's first marriage was displeasing to God now Anne's own failure was leading Henry to draw the same conclusion about his second marriage [Music] I have been told that the king in great confidence and as it were in confession stated that he had made this latest marriage seduced by witchcraft and for this reason he considered it now this was evident because God did not permit him to have any male issue and that he believed he might take another wife the ground was shifting beneath Anna's feet in march 1536 ship we first picked up rumors of a quarrel between an and the king's leading advisor Thomas Cromwell shabooey who hated Anne as a and a heretic was eager to widen the breach strike first or be struck he warned the minister reminding him that it was Anne who destroyed his old master Cardinal Wolsey I begged him to guard against her attacks more effectually than the Cardinal done Cromwell seemed to take my words in good part he began to excuse himself having promoted the Kings marriage to Anne true was he said that seeing the king was so set upon it he had paved the way towards it although the King his master was still inclined to pay court to ladies yet it was generally believed that in future he would lead a more moral life than hitherto a chaste marital one with his present Queen this Cromwell said to me in such a cold an indifferent manner that I had a strong suspicion that he meant just the contrary indeed I observe what he said it not may walk me in to put on he leant against the window close to where we were both standing and put his hand to his mouth to prevent a smile on his lip [Music] crumble it seen how rules his failure to end the Kings first marriage had led to his downfall now if Henry wanted an end to his second krama would make sure that he got what he wanted and this time there will be no long drawn-out legal struggle blood had been spilled to make Anne's Mary blood will be spilled to undo it at the beginning of May Cromwell pounced mark Smeaton the court musician who been rash enough to flirt publicly with Anne was arrested and brutally questioned under torture sweeten confessed no doubt falsely to adultery with the Queen a wave of arrests Fong and her brother and three gentlemen of her circle the charges of multiple adultery incest sexual perversion and plotting the King's death strained credulity but in an atmosphere of moral panic and hysteria all were found guilty among those sitting judgment on ham was her old flame Henry Percy now Earl of Northumberland Percy pronounced a guilty along with the rest of her peers but the effort of doing so caused him to be physically sick [Music] and what of Henry and it was claimed it repeatedly chuckled at him with all and sundry and his sexual prowess have been mocked in open court most men would have been shamed not Henry the King has been heard to say that he believes that I would have a hundred gentlemen have had criminal connection with her you never saw a prince or husband wear his horns more patiently and lightly than this one does I leave you to give the cause of it here at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool is the best portrait of the man who so perplexed shap we and us the original was painted by hands Holbein in 1537 some 12 months after Anne's execution the year before Henry had fallen heavily from his horse in a tournament he never joust it again but since the King continued to eat and drink as heartily as before he quickly put on weight in this picture Hall Bynes genius turns the King's newly found bulk into an image of crushing Authority and with the Reformation Henry's power had become crushing indeed [Music] for if his marriage to Anne had failed to provide the love and the son that he craved it had given him something that he craved even more a place in history now unchallenged master of church and state he'd surpassed all this predecessors to become the most powerful monarch ever to rule him England this is Henry we all remember Henry he wanted the world to see is also unrecognizable as a slim charming brilliant young man of promise that he'd once peed [Music]

Channel: BBC Documentary

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Id: uqdOXTCjFpE

Length: 48min 3sec (2883 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 13 2019