Tudor History Lovers discussion
Which Tudor do you like / dislike and why ?
Suzanne, I told my boyfriend about the hot water boiler the other day and he didn't believe me :( But then again he tunes me out when I start talking about the Tudors, so maybe he was just ignoring me LOLI know Henry was definitely cleaner than most. The obsessive cleanliness of Edward's rooms I feel shows how much cleaner Henry was than most members of society at the time. Could you imagine Edward's household?? Always in an uproar because it's constantly being cleaned....
Yes, Aly -- and wasn't Edward always getting colds & stuff? Remember what someone mentioned previously about exposure to germs conveying a degree of immunity? I wonder if Henry's obsessive emphasis on Edward's clean rooms and protecting him from anything that could be harmful (which was remarkable in an era when they didn't know what a germ was...) actually did more harm than good? Not that it could have prevented TB, of course, but...
Jonathan wrote: "Hi ColleenIn reply to your query about the cover pic of Lacey Baldwin Smith's book, Amazon has a draft of the cover, the actual book uses a different picture. There is no true likeness of Catherin..."
Thanks for the reply Jonathan, I appreciate it. :)
Jayme wrote: "In regards to Henry 8's bathing habits, that is what perfume was for to hide the stench."Jayme, unfortunately an "Irish shower" doesn't cover up funky body odors like people hope LOL
I have two teenage sons, and I can attest to that. They wear the smelliest body spray (AXE) and still, after they work out, P U !! Sometimes they take three showers a day. LOL!!
three showers, the tudors would have thought that crazy. So how often did they bathe? One a week? Once a month?
Henry VIII seems to have been rather fussy about cleanliness (and had running water at at least one of his palaces, Hampton Court) - for the period.
The Cromwell book for this month has a picture of a "probable" Catherine Howard (clearly not known for sure from the caption). I wonder at the difference in taste, as one could almost say by comparing the pictures that AofC was actually better looking, but it seems the historical textual descriptions would say I'm a ninny for thinking AofC was more attractive than little Katherine Howard. :)
Susanna, I did not know about the running water, how interesting! Henry was also very particular about the cleanliness of his women too I have read.
Argh, now I really can't wait for the book Paula! I have ordered it from another library and am waiting still :(
Susanna - that is cool about the running water.
Medieval monarchs even enjoyed running water at a few places, I think - Richard II at Sheen Palace, I believe, for example.Think this was mentioned in Alison Weir's Henry VIII: The King and His Court, which is dry but has some interesting stuff in it.
Susanna - sorry about the wrong name above. I have updated my post appropriately.
Paula, I have often thought that AoC's portrait is waaay prettier than KH's possible portrait!!!! But then again, is it really KH's portrait?? And, how much did the painter possibly change in AoC's portrait? She looks like such a beautiful person! And the way she treated Henry's kids even after he divorced her.... She just seems like she was a great person.
Lyn M wrote: "Susanna - sorry about the wrong name above. I have updated my post appropriately. "No problem.
Toni wrote: "Does that make Monica KH and Hillary KA and Bill HVIII? Maybe someday, hundreds of years from now, people will be writing historical fiction about American presidencies. There is some juicy materia..."Of course somebody will... actually, to be fair whatever political/diplomatic differences may or may not be between the 'special relationship' between the UK/USA, overtly the Tudors were more bloody! That being said I am sure sooner or later there is more than enough material for the odd book or two about events in the last 20/30 years. From a British, conservative perspective, Clinton and Reagan seem to have done better than they were given credit for at the time. Something interesting about history!
Suzanne wrote: "Henry was, for his time, a very clean monarch. The excavations in Whitehall in the 1930s rediscovered the baths that he had had constructed, and the ones in Hampton Court featured a boiler for hot ..."Clean? He washed? What about his soul?
Apart from disease that may quite rightly been his fault; most of his family were pretty nasty. Some of the bad, like Cromwell died, but so did the likes of Sir Thomas More, soul spirits to the likes of Erasmus. If he had been more humane I could not care if he stank his clothes!
Lyn M wrote... As for the smells, seriously, I think they were just used to different levels of smell than we are. My..."Organic my dear!
Colleen wrote: "Susanna, I did not know about the running water, how interesting! Henry was also very particular about the cleanliness of his women too I have read."Unlike Napoleon Bonaparte who famously liked Josephine a little 'high'. Takes all sorts. Has to be said Henry seems to have sampled more than a few clean women in his time!
Harvey, love the posts!I read that Napolean wrote to Josephine as he was on his way back from a military campain his expected arrival date and this (not an exact quote, but close):
"I'll be home in a week -don't bathe till I get there"
okay....so they had a romantic bath together? That's one way to spend quality time together. :)
Must admit hitting tub ain't bad.... good company, candles... mead or wine... Can handle that!!! LOL :))
especially if you had two in the tub.
Ohhhh Yessss!!!! Two is company......
and they could get clean together :)
Yeah but knowing lusty little Napolean he would partake in her extra natural scent first. Then they could get clean... only to get dirty again!
exactly, well I mean you have to get clean to see where it goes, I mean what you are doing :)
Science says that a person's "organic" scent will draw you in if it is meant to be and repel you if it not. He sure did love Josephine, his "rose" he called her, until she could not give him a son.Two parallels between him and Henry; calling his wife his rose and discarding her when she cannot bear a son. Of course with Henry it was two different wives (KH and AB respectively) not just one.
Haha havent been to this thread in a while and its a wonder to see what turn it has taken... from who is your favorite to cleanliness...
Just to ad my piece here... Henry could say what about cleanliness, but still he was the one who had the "rotten leg" in the end, and his last poor wife was more of a nurse who had to clean this leg that was stinking so badly that there where rumors that you could smell it from the room next door. To ad my piece about Edward, maybe being to clean was just to bad for him, it has been proven that being a bit dirty makes you imune system stronger, being to clean gives you no imunities so your body has nothing to fight againts...
Just to ad my piece here... Henry could say what about cleanliness, but still he was the one who had the "rotten leg" in the end, and his last poor wife was more of a nurse who had to clean this leg that was stinking so badly that there where rumors that you could smell it from the room next door. To ad my piece about Edward, maybe being to clean was just to bad for him, it has been proven that being a bit dirty makes you imune system stronger, being to clean gives you no imunities so your body has nothing to fight againts...
Wasn't Edward's castle liked cleaned everyday?
His rooms were to be scrubbed three times a day. Henry seemed a little bit obsessive with this as Edward was his only male heir. Niecole, ug.. could you imagine the stench of that wound?? YUCK!
Are we not getting a bit carried away... a few hundred years earlier probably the Arabs were cleaner than the Tudors. The 'early modern period' made Britain what it became, and in the words of Seller and Yateman, top nation for some time. Actually I think that both Henrys were pretty awful people as human beings... In the long run we got what happened and the age of Elizabeth. This was also a 'good thing'. The Tudor century transformed to a modern society(Britain) but with humanistic casualties along the way i.e. viz.. Thomas Moore.
Cel wrote: "Except that he did have boys with Anne, it is just that one died very young, and the others were stillborn. So although he could sire boys, he didn't sire living boys.Possibly some of the miscarri..."
Katherine. The one boy with Anne was miscarried.
Marylou wrote: "Connie wrote: "Frances Brandon Grey. What a piece of work she was!" Frances B. Grey was a monster. And she was Mary 'Tudor's daughter. "
Mary Tudor, Henry's daughter, had no childre, just hysterical pregnancies.
Jayme wrote: "I am not discounting your research Aly. What I express is only my opinion based on what I read and researched. I think your statement is based off of a big if. IF Henry was pleased with whichever o..."He was about to kill Katherine Parr, but he died first.
I don't think anyone could of made Henry VIII happy.
Aly I know!!!! That had to be horrible! Poor Katherine Parr should be made a nursing hero... It is said that that was why he married her, she was good at nursing, and she looked after him well, apparently they did not have a relationship like a husband and wive (like sexual) but she took care of him, remember, by then he was so fat he couldnt move proparly, his leg was rotten, and Barbara even if he did want to kill her, I dont think he really would, I dont think anyone else would have come near him to touch that leg! Do you know what that leg would have looked like????
Jayme I think you are right, the only person who could make Henry happy was Henry... he was inlove with himself dont you think?
Jayme I think you are right, the only person who could make Henry happy was Henry... he was inlove with himself dont you think?
Katherine was supposed to have been arrested, but according to "legend" someone dropped the paper saying that she was to be arrested and a lady in waiting picked it up and brought it to her. So Katherine Parr knew in advance what was happening and managed to make Henry drop the alleged charges. She was a Protestant and was also supposedly reading illegal material. They were perfectly friendly again when he met his end. I actually think Henry was happy in the first 15 years of his reign. He had a beautiful queen who made him happy (until she basically reached menopause and couldn't give him the heir he wanted), and he had had success on the battlefield as well as the Field of Cloth of Gold. I think Henry's problem was that he was in love with love. He wanted so much to be the "Gallant Knight" and rescue the damsel in distress and live happily ever after.
I will say though, that I don't think anyone made Henry truly happy after Katherine of Aragon. He might have had his moments when he thought he was content.
I agree with you Aly
I think that he really did love Katherine of Aragon you know, she was the perfect Queen really, she was of royal and noble descent, just like him, she was Fiesty and put up with him, beautifull and willing...
I think that he really did love Katherine of Aragon you know, she was the perfect Queen really, she was of royal and noble descent, just like him, she was Fiesty and put up with him, beautifull and willing...
I agree Henry was in love with love. I totally think he was in love with himself. I think Henry VIII really dropped the ball.
He was really just such an egotistical pompous man I think… I think he loved love, loved to be loved, but never really loved anything… He wanted to be adored, to be this wonderful loving King, who’s people where devoted to him, who’s people looked up to him, but I think with divorcing Katherine of Aragon he lost that status. Some say she was still known amongst the people as the queen even after she had died.
I was touched to read that her grave is still tended to by, I believe, the Spanish embassy.
The best of the six wives graves I believe Susanna.Niecole, It's as Thomas More is to have said (couldn't find a direct quote) That "Katherine of Aragon is not only a great queen but the daughter of great kings. She is immensely popular throughout the whole of the country. God forbid that the king should abandon her just to ease his own conscience. I don't think the English people would ever forgive him!"
I think if it weren't for the recent (1970's era) romantisizing of AB that the English people would have never forgiven him.
From the pictures I have seen of it, Katherine of Aragon's grave is beautiful.Apparently the banners of England and Spain that hang over it were put there by Queen Mary, the grandmother of the present queen.
People still leave her flowers and pomegranites.
I too have seen pictures and it is befitting a true princess of Spain and queen of England. It may be cliche but I too will leave a pomegranate and flowers at her grave as well; I respect her so greatly.
Yes it is beautiful, and in tact, some of the other graves cannot even be found anymore (well not the original ones anyway), even some of Katherine’s insignia can still be found in chapels as Henry had inscribed for her before they were married, some of her pomegranate signs also. Its beautiful to know that in some way he actually did still care a little…
She truly loved the people of the country she had to adopt as her own, and I think it is because she made such an effort to prove to them that she cared that they loved her so deeply.
Also, another great thing and yet small thing about Katherine of Aragon is how she made all the Kings shirts by hand herself, and embroidered it herself, and she would no one else do it, even when he was courting Anne and she knew it, she still stayed true to him in every way, obeyed him, mended his shirts like a true wife, had dinner with him and cared for him. I believe she knew from the very beginning what was going on in her marriage, but she was so noble, she didn’t really make a scene about it. I truly admire her, she was a great person if not only a great Queen.
She truly loved the people of the country she had to adopt as her own, and I think it is because she made such an effort to prove to them that she cared that they loved her so deeply.
Also, another great thing and yet small thing about Katherine of Aragon is how she made all the Kings shirts by hand herself, and embroidered it herself, and she would no one else do it, even when he was courting Anne and she knew it, she still stayed true to him in every way, obeyed him, mended his shirts like a true wife, had dinner with him and cared for him. I believe she knew from the very beginning what was going on in her marriage, but she was so noble, she didn’t really make a scene about it. I truly admire her, she was a great person if not only a great Queen.
Sorry to sortof dive into this conversation in the middle, but I like the topic. :)I don't know if "like" is the word, but I'm fascinated by Cromwell. There's a long history of manipulative men in the shadows of power - Chinese eunuchs, Rasputin, John Dee, etc. Cromwell's one of the most famous of them.
As far as least favorite, Henry himself was...well, he was a psychopath, wasn't he? I mean that literally; check the first couple of paragraphs of the Wikipedia article on psychopathy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopath
"'Intraspecies predators' who use charisma, manipulation, intimidation, sexual intercourse and violence to control others and to satisfy their own needs."
edit: as I'm late to this party and also just learning about the Tudors, I should apologize in advance in case the psychopath theory is either overly controversial, boring and obvious, or hopelessly uninformed. It's certainly not my intent to ruffle any feathers!
Tudor History Lovers
Books mentioned in this topic
The Origins of the Second World War (other topics)Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII (other topics)
A Tudor Tragedy: The Life and Times of Catherine Howard (other topics)
The Fifth Queen (other topics)
Lady Jane Grey (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
A.J.P. Taylor (other topics)A.L. Rowse (other topics)
A.L. Rowse (other topics)
Kenneth Clark (other topics)
A.L. Rowse (other topics)
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As for the smells, seriously, I think they were just used to different levels of smell than we are. My father, who spent his summers on his uncle's farm, still thinks the smell of horse manure is a "good" smell. I' however, do not!