A clear narrative emerges from Sharpe’s account. Henry VIII put a good deal of effort into persuading, manipulating or bullying his people into accepting policies which most of them did not like: the annulment of a marriage to a popular and conscientious royal spouse; marriage to another who was dismayingly clever and a bit flash; a breach with a reassuringly distant Holy Father in Rome and the rebranding of him as the Antichrist; the closure of the monasteries; and monetary debasement. Henry’s success against very considerable apparent odds was a tribute to his personal magnetism, still
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Alexander de Pfeffel Johnson and our Independence Day.
