It was the passionate nature of their relationship, so unusual in royal liaisons, that made Henry capable over the next few years of pursuing courses of action which a lesser man would have found too embarrassing or foolish to contemplate, against both common decency and the opposition of some of the most powerful people in the realm. Henry deeply resented such opposition, and was inclined to put the most sinister construction on it. Though he never admitted it for one moment, his father’s claim to rule had been laughably feeble in hereditary terms, and throughout his reign he pursued to the
...more
